My new article, 'User Perspectives on T&Cs in Virtual Worlds' is published! www.elgaronline.com/view/journal... A sociolegal empirical work examining users’ understanding, motivation, and compliance with T&Cs in a persistent online community. More over at www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

* A chatbot can't do your job, but an AI salesman can *absolutely* convince your boss to fire you and replace you with a chatbot that *can't* do your job: pluralistic.net/2025/03/18/a... 8/

The newest (and effective) rage bait

A big study that was cited as evidence that text generators are good for students has been retracted: www.linkedin.com/posts/ben-wi... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Kicking off Day 2 with the BILETA-EJLT prize presentations. Many more updates on LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/company/bile...

‘Why did the USSR, with its fantastic scientists and engineers and heavy investment in STEM, nevertheless stagnate?’ Excoriating from @geoffmulgan.bsky.social on the undervaluing of social science and humanities research blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

Full-funded (home or international) collaborative PhD studentship (Kew and Royal Holloway, University of London) available. Deadline 8 May. Topic: ‘Just acquisitions? Law and ethics over time in Kew’s overseas plant collecting history’ #Skystorians

This is a comprehensive investigation of patent abuse of a Keytruda & the best I've ever seen patent data visualisation of evergreening practices and the resulting thicket until 2046 - another extra twenty years of patent monopoly right h/t @clancyny.bsky.social

The Supreme Court's Cox v. Sony Music ruling is three weeks old. It's already being cited to defend an AI video generator that produces Darth Vader on demand. Full story, up now on Copyright Lately: copyrightlately.com/cox-v-sony-m...

Māori weaving, or raranga, is a traditional art of identity, heritage and expression of spirituality. The patterns woven into items such as cloaks and baskets all have meaning #womensart

“I'm not sure how we got here. I expect better of the United States Government. I expect better of the Department of Justice.” rip the presumption of regularity for doj, 1870-2025

Interesting thread on charging for museums (via @stephenkb.bsky.social excellent morning newsletter!)

This is an incredibly important piece by @masnick.com about the verdicts against Meta and I really hope you read it, because I think very few people understand the situation. Two things can be true...Meta and Zuckerberg are terrible, but so are these verdicts. www.techdirt.com/2026/03/26/e...

PhD scholarship on copyright and private regulation supervised by @kathybowrey.bsky.social, UNSW and L. Buckingham, Arts Law Centre of Australia www.unsw.edu.au/law-justice/... Deadline: 13 April 2026

Maybe we will get to see this litigated after all…

GDPR was designed for a world in which sensitive data had to be actively collected. But what happens when AI systems infer sensitive characteristics without ever being asked to do so? Paul Bouchaud and Pedro Ramacciotti say the social media platform X provides a stark illustration.

By popular demand, here is the full, glorious message from Aberystwyth University Library, on their blog: wordpress.aber.ac.uk/librarian/?p... Hat tip to @walkyouhome.bsky.social for prompting me to realise it was a blog post, and thus available to you all ❤️

An interesting new IP front in the AI wars. Between this and the recent Grammarly debacle, I wonder whether trademark and rights of publicity will prove more potent bases for infringement claims than copyright

'Once violently defended from extinction, Welsh is still a part of daily life. By learning my family’s language, I hoped to join their conversation.' www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...?

Will be interesting to see how contracting away the rights to your own name goes… www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The sneering arrogance coupled with their lack of knowledge/competence nicely sums up our path to trumpism.

"More expensive oil is bad for Europe, Japan and Korea, all big importers. It is actually a net benefit to the U.S., as an exporter and the world’s biggest producer." Wall Street Journal...just saying it out loud

I am reposting this for info/highlighting for others. I have already been operating at a baseline that is pretty high in fury lately. I *accidentally* watched some of these depositions earlier today and have still not stopped continously imploding with actual rage. Engage at your own risk I suppose.

I'm suing Grammarly over its paid AI feature that presented editing suggestions as if they came from me - and many other writers and journalists - without consent. State law requires consent before someone's name can be used for commercial purposes. www.wired.com/story/gramma...

I used to waste years preparing gourmet meals. It was creative, an expression of my humanity, and fostered zen. Thanks to McDonalds, I don't have to do that! #Satire

I would love to be able to follow litigation on Grammarly’s use of expert names like this, but are they really going to try to defend it? Who signed off on this idea, seriously!

paid internships must be the norm, transparently advertised and properly enforced. Opportunity shouldn’t depend on your parents’ bank balance. www.suttontrust.com/news-opinion...

We have FOUR excellent paper prizes to be awarded at the conference: Paul Maharg Legal Ed; BILETA-EJLT; Taylor & Francis IRLCT; Ken Russell Prize (Best PG)... All with a £250 award, potential publication... & general fame & fortune. Full paper due 17 Mar. Details: www.bileta.org.uk/annual-confe...

I mean, you’re not wrong! Shows my friends worked on for years were canceled and then used as tax write-offs.

Sixty years on, a Star Trek writer is still creating strange new worlds. Diane Duane’s early days writing fan fiction have led to a remarkable career as a novelist, comic writer and screen writer.

This is amazing. www.getyourfuckingmoneyback.com

Pancake expert here. The annual rush to harvest pancakes on a single day has extremely deleterious effects on the local pancake ecosystem. By all means pick a few pancakes for your own use, but please leave some on the bush so that it can recover in its own time.

Cartoon: If anyone in Chicago knows this school or an anti ICE organization affiliated with them I would be happy to donate this art. I only wish I could have fully Sal Buscema-ed that punch :)

Today in non AI art and news… www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/....

Why Some People Think in Words, While Others Think in Pictures & Feelings

"A Seattle federal judge on Monday granted video game maker Valve Corp.'s request to sanction a rival litigant over discovery violations...and threatened to issue more over a legal brief that contained fake quotes and fabricated citations generated by artificial intelligence."

Well, it's finally happened. Unable to create an account because the recaptcha won't recognise I'm not a robot by my clicking a button. I guess this is how we find out now?

Teaching Wagatha Christie today on defamation… Vardys agent way ahead of the times…https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/19/rebekah-vardys-agent-dropped-phone-in-sea-to-hide-evidence-trial-hears

"The US is rapidly burning bridges with its trading parties ... that make it increasingly difficult for US to provide leadership and guidance on global norms for copyright exceptions and limitations for AI. This is not some minor issue."

"In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits."

This is why we fund scientists to study things like oyster slobber even if you don’t think it sounds important

Big Tech and data center developers promise 21st century jobs for de-industrialized Ohio towns. Residents aren't necessarily buying it, citing concerns over energy, the environment, and tax incentives. Tech Policy Press contributing editor Dean Jackson surveys the state of affairs:

Worth a read: This paper argues that and how features of contemporary digital technologies, their governance, and their political context mirror features of fascism. It concludes with a call to resist these new, anti-democratic forms of governance and domination link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Important professional news: I’ve realised there is a nice sized bird nest just outside my office window (now that it isn’t pitch black all the time.) Commence Baby Bird Watch 2026

work with me and @drdaveobrien.bsky.social as part of @creativepec.bsky.social! we're recruiting a postdoc to work on the arts, culture and heritage sectors using quantitative methods. please share, please feel free to email me directly with any Qs! jobsite.sheffield.ac.uk/job/Sheffiel...

European alternatives for digital- HOPING for more ethical and sustainable futures, we shall see. Now is the opportunity. european-alternatives.eu

*looks at volatile mix of general-purpose chatbot, overly persuasive natural language interface, vulnerable user base, weak guardrails, growing headlines of harms to people* *pours heavily targeted advertising into mix* openai.com/index/our-ap...

PLEASE SHARE 📣 Multi-position (PhD and postdoc) call for an interdisciplinary project on "AI in the News Ecosystem: Navigating Trust and Authenticity” Project @ddc-sdu.bsky.social (Digital Democracy Centre (SDU)). Multiple positions with different backgrounds and profiles. Links in🧵 #commsky

It is EXHAUSTING not only being made responsible for coming up with new kinds of assignments for our students; it's also tedious reading op-eds that suggest the core problem is a crisis in teaching. But, as Chris and I lay out here, this isn't a crisis in teaching; it's an attack on learning.

When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.