no, it simply isnt. People are talking about capital using gAI as an excuse to conduct mass lay-offs, about students losing learning because theyre being lied to about gAI in education, about the mass theft of the work of artists and authors to train LLMs, about CSAM and nonconsensual sexual images.

You can't... repeal... a scientific finding. At that point it's just called lying about it.

My doomer-worry about AI is not that the LLMs become omnipotent and take over the world but that the wealthy and powerful use it as a means to consolidate power and marginalize or lay off skilled workers and also everything about our technological and political and social life gets worse

The Higher Education sector has to get out there and defend itself, on the front foot, fighting fire with fire. Its enemies are coming at it. But it's just asleep at the wheel.

Dear university administrators, politicians of good will, and the general public, we need the field of religious studies more now than we have ever.

this is an amazing sentence

Striking paper from researchers at Anthropic using a randomised control trial to look at the effects of AI use on skills acquisition. TL:DR ‘We found that using AI assistance led to a statistically significant decrease in mastery.’ www.anthropic.com/research/AI-...

Revelation 28:7: "There was a great trumpet blast, and I saw the Lamb of God tackled to the ground by Babylonian border patrol and thrown in jail for illegal crossing."

I feel obliged to remind everyone that there are plenty of countries where higher education is either completely free or cost a token amount of tuition money and that many of these countries offer top notch teaching and research. It’s a political choice.

In the UK academic recession, you will be at one of these stages since many unis buy the same cuts model from the same consultancies. It is always the same process: *Talk of belt-tightening *Incidental savings (e.g. printing, refreshments) *Travel budgets cut *Promotion freeze (1/4)

Vosso

Next week’s course on Greek palaeography is sold out, but we still have some places on beginner and intermediate Latin 👇 #medievalsky @ies-sas.bsky.social ies.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

The old test in moral philosophy ‘what if everyone did that?’ is coming back to haunt us. LLMs only work because the information they are sucking up was not generated by LLMs. But as they drive more and more real researchers out of business they are building layers and layers on their own quicksand.

Why is it ok for mathematicians to spend whole careers working on proofs when we’re expected to turn them around within a week?

I was praying for Minneapolis and the US earlier, for those living in fear of abduction and detention, and for those resisting, and I found I had the line “I have heard Him in the whistles of the ones of watch for ICE,” so I share that in case it encourages anyone.

Eg har alltid hatt enorm sans for Vetlesen som filosof, og denne nydelege praktiske anvendinga av dei grunnleggande standpunkta hans minner meg på kvifor.

I always wondered, when I read Suetonius, how everyone could put up with Caligula for so long. I think I understand better now. The institutional and social inertia is so strong, especially among elites with “something to lose”. No one wants to stick their heads up first, so they go into denial.

I have seen a lot of people say “what’s the point?” of doing their academic work in particular, and I get that. It’s like grief: the inbox, the day to day, doesn’t reflect any of the feelings. But, gosh, a part of me stubbornly thinks: they want us to never think, they want it so badly.

1. Headlines everywhere today read "Grok apologizes." This is bullshit. A chatbot is not something that can apologize. Pretending otherwise is simple laundering these companies' bullshit about what AI is, while diffusing blame away from the human beings that developed and released this system.

Serenity, #Vestland style, be like:

Earlier this year, I took over as the editor-in-chief of the Norwegian scholarly journal Collegium Medievale, which publishes articles in both English & Scandinavian languages. This year's ordinary issue has just been published, & is open access: ojs.novus.no/index.php/CM....

someone should invent a thing that's like a university but it's goal is to facilitate learning

Employer: please embed sustainability into your teaching Employer: here’s a list of cool ways to use AI

Chasing consumer preference in education only makes sense if “customers” know what they desire. But the fundamental premise of all education is that students don’t know the thing they desire. If they did, they wouldn’t need instruction.

Please enlighten me: how reliable is the 'market research' in subservience to which we (UKHE) are increasingly made to hollow out or ‘streamline’ our study programmes? Is market prognostication still relying on the methodology that, say, spectacularly failed to predict the 2008 recession, 1/3

The first school to market itself as AI free is going to corner the market on people interested in actually learning. And I would not be surprised if rich families and the children of people creating this tech were the first movers.

When's the last time you heard a VC whose university has financial woes speak openly & eloquently about why what his/her/their institution does really matters & merits investment? Why can't/won't university leaders work to change the conversation? With this profile, this VC should be able to. 2/2

'At the high risk of becoming one of those bores at a conference whose “question” is a speech about that very issue, I do think there is a choice to be made. We ought at least to ask if universities exist to sort and qualify, or to form and transform. AI forces the question.'

We loved hearing all about our own Steve De Hailes' Medieval Mountain project! 🏔️ #medievalsky #skystorians

There are many reasons to question the term 'AI' and its inflationary use. Here's a particularly good one from @katecrawford.bsky.social's 'Atlas of AI':

@uobartsmatter.bsky.social, @uobrishistory.bsky.social, @bristolcms.bsky.social, @bristolunienglish.bsky.social, @bristoluni.bsky.social

Partly an effect of the business speak (and approach) applied to universities. “Providers” “exit markets” all the time. It’s how The market works! Collective institutions of public good…now those are different things.

I keep coming back to this

Oh for goodness sakes. What do they think science is? Just getting as many bogus publications as possible?

Delighted to announce that more than 80 MS fragments from Gubbio, dating to s. XI-XII, have just been published online, thanks to the hard work of my PhD student, Laura Rogari. You can access them on @fragmentarium.bsky.social: fragmentarium.ms/search?sQuer...

Please do pass this on to anyone who may be interested! ☺️ #medievalsky #skystorians

Want to start the new year by learning new things? In January 2026 Anna Somfai will teach an online course on medieval philosophical and scientific manuscripts. More information here 👇 @warburginstitute.bsky.social @ies-sas.bsky.social #MedievalSky please reskeet! ies.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

It’s the universities encouraging students to use AI that really gets me. All this “we need to accept it’s here and teach them to use it” does not help students learn to think. Writing is for thinking and communicating, not just producing words.

Ah yes Leicester, a tip-top History UoA in REF2021 currently eviscerating it’s History provision (among other subjects). Have they also won the THE irony of the year award?

Please sign this petition against the further diminishment of Nottingham University, which seems not to appreciate what makes for a university.

📢Fully Funded PhD Opportunities @thetimes University of the Year @durham_uni's Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 🎓 durham.ac.uk/research/ins...

Back by popular demand, Introduction to Latin Palaeography will run online in February 2026 #MedievalSky 👇 ies.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

We are SO excited to announce that applications are now open for this year's Medieval Studies Summer School! 🎉 Please do pass this information on to anyone you think might be interested! We'll be sharing some highlights of last year's programme over the next few weeks! #medievalsky #skystorians

anyone in the area needs to attend this- the original was next-level and this one is not to be missed!!

Our brilliant PGRs are at it again! After last year's inaugural and highly-successful brat symposium (organised by CMS PGRs Shauna Roach, Sarah Collinson, Harry Lewis, and Isla Dawson), this year's committee is once again inviting Bristol PGRs to consider how 'brat' connects with their own research.

Our online Winter School is now open for booking! We’re offering online courses on a range of topics for those interested in pre-modern books. Courses begin on 26 January. Check it out 👇 ies.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

University leaders: [terminate programs, close campuses, cave in to political pressure from demagogues] Faculty, students, staff: you’re killing the university Management consultants: looks like you got a real comms challenge here