"This promise of an AI future, is really just a collective anxiety that wealthy people have about how well they're gonna be able to control us in the future." - @tressiemcphd.bsky.social with an absolute mic drop moment about AI bullshit. Incredible words. Listen to all of it!

Behold: the first-ever list of news outlets that have banned generative AI in their reporting. As of today, this is literally information that you cannot find on Google. My goal is to fill the starter pack, so please send over suggestions with supporting evidence! go.bsky.app/8cn1XfT

The display from @dundeeunitedfc.bsky.social Ultras the other night: "Choose Life, Ditch the Knife" This is the kind of messages we are seeing across a lot of the Ultras groups, and it shows how conscious young working-class boys and girls are of their conditions. 🧵

Bow yer head, a great one be passing... Sorry to hear of the death of Adam McNaughtan - The Jeely Piece Song, Where is the Glasgow that I used to know - and this. www.youtube.com/watch?v=55Bm...

I need everyone, esp anyone working in education or tech (but really everyone) to WATCH THIS CLIP of @drtanksley.bsky.social discussing the technologies infiltrating our schools & psyches and how she is addressing it with our young people. youtu.be/5mtcSL4S3HQ

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Quick thread on the BBC and the political and societal significance of recent developments: One of the main reasons the UK has historically been so much less polarised than the US, is that Britain has a shared source of information, consumed and trusted by most people regardless of their politics.

This is one of the best analyses of the total grift and scammery of AI in education I’ve seen, and it is a MUST Read: “Higher Ed’s Rush To Adopt AI Is About So Much More Than AI - defector.com/higher-eds-r...

Meet me on the corner, When the lights are coming on, And I'll be there. I promise I'll be there. Down the empty streets, We'll disappear into the dawn, If you have dreams enough to share... Pinkston Power Station, and its cooling pond, 1950s. Pic: Andy McDonald, Dennistoun Camera Club

The Magnum Photo Archive has recently published 5 unseen photos from Raymond Depardon's now iconic Glasgow 1980 series, discovered during a digitisation project. 📷 Magnum/Raymond Depardon #Glasgow

Hallesches Tor Tammam Azzam, paper collage on canvas, 2022 www.tammamazzam.com/city #art #painting

“Gehen wir diesen Samstag in Berlin auf die Straße. Es ist wahrscheinlich unsere letzte Chance, mit dem langen Schweigen zu brechen.” Ich habe gemeinsam mit Jacobin’s Loren Balhorn einen Aufruf veröffentlicht jacobin.de/artikel/all-...

I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win (h/t @miriamposner.com) www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Once more for the people in the back

Nothing prepared me for the child poverty I see in Britain. November’s budget can and must halt its inexorable rise | Gordon Brown

Had a few conversations recently that make me think, for the first time in ages, there are some exciting things happening in media. This is one of the highlights: Equator, a new magazine set up by Nesrine Malik, Pankaj Mishra, Jonathan Shainin and others. Sign up for info here: www.equator.org

This is a great interview: Historian Mar Hicks on why nothing about AI is inevitable www.fastcompany.com/91384078/not...

Ah! @monisharajesh.bsky.social ‘s night train book is out next week. Preview in The Guardian here www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/... I’ve seen an early draft, and the chapter about Finland alone is so spot on that just that justifies buying it 😀

the enshittification of education is underway restofworld.org/2025/colombi...

Small is beautiful, in tech too: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

“Unless the Israeli government agrees to an immediate end to the war and a surge of aid into Gaza, western countries should be sanctioning Netanyahu and his government. They should halt all arms sales to Israel,” the FT editorial board writes

Sneaky academics include invisible (e.g., white text) AI prompts to give them a good review for sneaky reviewers who might use AI. 🙄 #AIEthics asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tec...

🤖 openletter.earth/an-open-lett... "There is insufficient evidence for student use of GenAI to support genuine learning gains" -- while there is evidence it can harm learning and increase loneliness, making it particularly harmful for children whose brains are still very much developing.

In some ways, what's sold to us as «generative AI» feels like a distorted mirror universe version of the promises of the internet. Instead of free and unrestricted access to all the world's knowledge, we got tech-oligarchs monopolizing it and turning it into an exploitable resource 1/

Big tech is here to derail and destroy education GenAI is a problem and not a solution to anything

this is excellent

"Silicon Valley's scale-at-all-costs approach to AI development … is causing a lot of social, labor and environmental harms," says technology reporter @karenhao.bsky.social, whose new book is "Empire of AI."

Last night, the House of Lords defeated the Government for a fourth time by passing an amendment establishing meaningful transparency measures for the use of rightsholders’ works in AI systems, many of which are being used without recognition, permission or remuneration. (1/3)

Word of the Day is one I keep posting at the end of the year, hoping its time will come. ‘Respair’, from the 16th century, is fresh hope, and a recovery from despair. Here’s to a few drops of respair in 2025.

Long shadows and fairy lights at Glasgow Central, Christmas 1964. A stunning capture 60 years ago by the one and only Oscar Marzaroli, who described his process as "waiting for the magic". I'd say he found it that day. #Glasgow #Christmas

I still think Europe should use the proceeds of these kinds of mega fines (which currently flow into the main EU budget) to bankroll an independent sovereign tech fund - especially to support open source development and public infrastructure. on.ft.com/44flcdb

"The United Nations has warned that the situation in Gaza has deteriorated to its worst point since the start of the war." www.socialeurope.eu/gazas-descen...

@pontifexes.bsky.social led for the greater good. Despite the work of journalists in exposing the wrongdoings of the Church, he chose this journalist to be the first speaker for this year of Jubilee, normally celebrated every 25 years. This was how I kicked it off: rappler.com/world/global...

Obviously things have got dramatically worse in the US recently, and I don't want to diminish that, but I've been at *so many* conferences in the UK on topics like empire, humanitarianism and development where multiple speakers from the Global South have been denied visas or held at the border

Seems that, especially for younger voters, Westminster's infamous Powergrab of Scotland's devolved powers is either forgotten or unknown. Perhaps this brief summary of the history may prove useful, though since this was designed the overruling of Holyrood by Westminster has got MUCH worse.

If part of what it means to have a good life is to have control over your life, self-governance, or what philosophers call autonomy, then giving up control to AI by definition is worsening our lives, lessening our chances of having a good life. #AIEthics www.technologyreview.com/2025/03/24/1...

When I work with institutions on AI, the first question I get them to ask is WHY. Why do you want this system? Why this system and not a non-AI one? Why are we seeking to develop even more autonomous AI? Surprisingly, many times it's the fundamental questions that are bypassed all together.

It is from this intimate and expansive portrait of OpenAI and the AI industry that the book gets its name, EMPIRE OF AI. I argue that the only way to fully understand the far-reaching implications of the AI race is to recognize companies like OpenAI as new forms of empire. 7/

Empires of old seized and extracted resources, and exploited the labor of the places they conquered to drive their own expansion and advancement. All the while, they justified their conquest by calling it a civilizing mission and promising to bring the world boundless progress. 8/

Some news many years in the making: My book EMPIRE OF AI, out May 20, is ready for pre-order at empireofai.com. It tells the inside story of OpenAI as a lens for understanding the moment we’re in: the tech elite's extraordinary seizure of power and its threat to democracy. 1/

they tested genAI for summarization + gave 10 staff same task w/ similar prompts. then, a group of reviewers blindly assessed both summaries & found the human summaries beat their AI competitors on every criteria, every submission, scoring 81% compared to AI’s 47% www.crikey.com.au/2024/09/03/a...

at this stage, there's a robust body of work exposing the unreliability and limitations of llms but what will it take for governments, businesses, and other large institutions to rid critical social infrastructure off llms

This story is major. Here's why it matters: 1) It creates an interesting precedent. Interactions with chatbots are FOIable. 2) It shows how our public officials are relying on these technologies, and that's a public debate that is healthy to engage in. But even more importantly 1/

Got a spare moment on your lunch break? What better way to spend it than by telling the Government to respect the rights of creators. Submit a response to their AI and copyright consultation. It doesn't need to take long. Guidance below 👇 www.alcs.co.uk/news/your-ri...

I keep seeing empirically informed (ie written by researchers) “how to fight authoritarianism” and a few too many times I’ve seen encouragement to not be scared. I think that’s nonsense, fear doesn’t preclude decisive action: their residence together is where whatever we’d call humanity lies.

Zoe Venditozzi and l, the Witches of Scotland - commissioned this memorial tartan to remember those people, mostly women, killed as witches in Scotland. There is meaning to the colours and pattern :

Stand by this: www.politico.com/newsletters/...

Three men, pints perfectly synchronised, photographed in the Seaforth bar on the corner of Gorbals St and Rutherglen Rd in 1966 by actor Steven Berkoff. 📷 Steven Berkoff #glasgow

Government’s wins are often invisible: Systems that avoid plane crashes; alliances that avert war; surveillance that prevent pandemics. Government wins are often *the avoidance of loss.* So how do we tell the story of the destruction of government? The story of future losses *not* averted?