A senior HE director today: ‘in future HE will be technology and process-led, not academic-led’. So what, exactly, is the point of universities beyond them being a cash machine for senior managers?

It seems to me that the foundational 'wrong turn' in education was the increasing rhetoric from universities themselves and their supporters that the primary value of a university education was increased earning power. That leads pretty directly to this place we're in now.

I'm very publicly against the use of ai detectors, but I might suggest that most of the stress here is because students are using AI to complete assessments, en masse, let's be real. It's the same stress with exams- "I've done nothing and I'm all put of ideas." Save me the Helen Lovejoy schtick

Seriously, fuck substack.

"large language models such as ChatGPT were consistently advising women to ask for lower salaries than men in recruitment processes,... AI tools already in use by more than half of England’s councils were downplaying women’s medical conditions, potentially resulting in unequal care"

This is a new phenomenon and business model exploiting gaps in publishing. The cartel uses fake names to produce AI-written or plagiarised papers. Reference lists contain 100s of paid entries.If papers are retracted, no real authors are punished, and citations still count, even from retracted papers

Adorable 🤗 Donkeys in coats

Happy Birthday, Andy.

She destroyed Adelaide Writers’ Week by, let’s see, oh yes, being invited

History teaches us that the greatest harms often begin with the quiet acceptance of the unacceptable. I have seen where that road leads, and I will not walk it again without resistance.

At least in Australia the main reason teaching is up a certain creek is because it has been used as a cash cow for research. No amount of "research" (*cough learning styles cough*) is going to change that.

Advertise your account with a gif

Here it is, your moment of zen.

Risk of fraud in HE admissions ‘not evenly distributed’, with those pushing fake certificates and embellished grades finding new ways to mask wrongdoing. Tom Williams reports https://ow.ly/5aje50Yf3X0

Another story where you realise that absolutely no one has any idea how to deal with all the AI papers being cranked out. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

In academia this often (but not always) looks like assessment and learning outcome word soup where somehow discussion and analysis can be connected via some set of buzzwords to career readiness.

30+ Chrome extensions disguised as AI chatbots steal users' API keys, emails, other sensitive data

Next up, Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University, who talks about the evolution of science, moving at warp speed. But the general population is moving at geological speed and does not understand science anymore. We need to communicate in new ways. #AAASmtg @aaas.org

Australian Census on University Staff Wellbeing results are out. Every uni recorded scores indicating high/very high psych risk. And in news surprising no one, "only senior execs and deans rated their workplaces as medium or low risk while all other staff groups reported high-risk conditions."

The fact that 82% (of almost 11,500 respondents) ranked high or very high on emotional exhaustion is just awful. And that even after all the focus on wage payment issues in the sector: 71% still report working more than their contracted hours is deeply worrying

Can confirm this is the reality of working at a uni.

When I got the contract to write a history of concentration camps in 2014, I hoped to keep the US from ending up here. That didn't work out! But now it's critical to understand how much is already in process and the enormity of what's coming. The sooner we act to stop it, the more people we'll save.

What would happen here is that company would offer a product specifically because students will pay for the unwatermarked version. I'm not sure if the Chronicle is naive, stupid, or actively aiding the worst actors in higher ed.

One suspects he doesn’t know what a metaphor is

Stop Meeting Students Where They Are What I learned when I finally started assigning the hard reading again. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0... | @theatlantic.com

A harrowing read, and would be even if only 10% of what students interviewed are saying in this article about AI and Australian universities is true. But this quote is the crux: if we replace the human brain with AI, what will we be doing? www.theaustralian.com.au/weekend-aust...

Should universities be about known knowns or unknown unknowns? open.substack.com/pub/hollisro...

Murderous pigs sent to the gallows, sparrows prosecuted for chattering in church, a gang of thieving rats let off on a wholly technical acquittal — Nicholas Humphrey explores the strange world of medieval animal trials: publicdomainreview.org/essay/b...

Clearly it’s time to appoint a permanent officer in the government to look over all the festival programs. Some fellow in a centralised office where all the art can be submitted beforehand, to make sure it’s socially cohesive. Some kind of Chief Approver, if you like www.abc.net.au/news/2026-02...

A deeply personal post: "Fleeting joys" www.guerillawarfare.net/post/fleetin...

This is slow motion suicide for unis.

New post: "Unpolished" www.guerillawarfare.net/post/unpolis...

"In the end, generative AI might be a blip in tech history, over-promising and under-delivering until finally the cash runs out. But it seems it’s arrived just in time to shove universities over a cliff edge they’d already walked themselves up to."

𝙃𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙨 𝙬𝙚 𝙬𝙞𝙣, 𝙩𝙖𝙞𝙡𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙚: 𝘼𝙄 𝙙𝙚𝙩𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙨 𝙞𝙣 𝙚𝙙𝙪𝙘𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 has over 3,000 views and 544 downloads in less than a week! View the paper here: osf.io/preprints/ed... @ccguerilla.bsky.social @nonwayne.bsky.social #aiineducation #genai #ai #acadmeicintegrity #aidetectors

tagline for Perplexity ads marketed to students that keep popping up on my FB timeline

Freedom of speech is great hey?

#ContraAI 🤖 "The decision to equate human thought with complex machine slotting ... presupposes that human expression is only and without exception the automation of grammar, that words always and without exception determine ... when they will appear." mail.cyberneticforests.com/what-machine...

Going to this place is on the list.

New post: "Broad, sweeping statements." www.guerillawarfare.net/post/broad-s...

Excellent and comprehensive! I’m going to insist all educators read this.

For those who support the use of AI detectors, by all means feel free to attempt a response. But please don't say "I care about my students" or I care about academic integrity" because neither of those things can be true if you believe in the efficacy of detectors. Shocking,I know, but there you are

The situation with Blackboard - now its owner is bankrupt and it's coming under new private equity ownership and control - is serious enough the UK agency for HE tech is advising all affected universities to seek assurances regarding data security inspiringlearning.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2025/10/s...

Hamish has leapt into the long weekend with gusto

If I was a legal academic I would lack the self-restraint to resist my next employment law exam featuring a Freya fired over a bacon-related workplace misdemeanour

ChatGPT Edu is built for conning education executives into subsidising and edu-washing planet-burning slop machines via non-consensual access to young people’s creativity AND DATA while attacking their ability to learn. At a university.