Ooh I’m in the “open the emergency door” seat on the flight

I missed this yesterday but will be observing forevermore

On hols. We haven’t even left Manchester yet and we’re talking about how much we miss the cats.

Looking forward to picking up the car from the garage that had “Matt is GAY” scrawled on the notice board behind reception and pointedly mentioning it was my wife who dropped it off. 🙄

I am halfway through How High We Go In The Dark and I am not ok.

Chuffed to see this get a massive boost yesterday. If you haven’t already, please read, sign and share (fellas, the read and share bit applies to you too)

Is anyone else getting an influx of bot followers with women’s legs as the profile picture, who only post pictures of vegetables and gardens, and support Gavin Newsom? I do not want to imagine the marketing meeting that came up with that profile

Bundling the AI additions with the security patch update are we.

This is a wonder. alignmentalignment.ai The doomsday clock counting down days “UNTIL OUR NEXT PREDICTION OF WHEN AGI IS COMING” gives you a flavour. (Ht @hilaryonline.bsky.social, though can’t think what I’ve ever said, repeatedly and vehemently, to make you think I’d like this…)

“I just want people to know that AI is being sold as this tech magic – that’s why there’s a little sparkle symbol next to an AI response. But it’s not. It’s built on the backs of overworked, underpaid human beings.” (From Varsha Bansal in @theguardian.com) www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

If you're reading this and thinking "nuh-uh, I'm totally a real trans ally", that's great! What was the last bit of active allyship you did? If it's been a while, I made this little doc of options for easy allyship to help you get started: docs.google.com/document/u/0...

Just saw a course aimed at academics about GenAI where you were encouraged to attend whether you’re “new to AI, or an advanced practitioner”.

An Instagram post by @tressiemcphd.bsky.social used the phrase “the war to own what we are allowed to remember” about the orders to ‘celebrate’ confederate history and I feel like that sums up so many current fights. Lack of political accountability, covid denialism, what were ‘the good old days’..

Come take my job! I'm moving on to something new in a few weeks so there's n opening for a consultant in public health in Bury. It's a fantastic team who I will miss greatly and has been a great place to work. Very happy to talk to interested applicants. apply.greater.jobs/bury/Job/Job...

Keep thinking about blogging again, keep remembering Michelle Woolf’s “A blog is a conversation no-one wanted to have with you.” In ye olde birdsite days blogs were a pretty good way to start conversations online, but I’m not sure we’ve recovered that anywhere?

Which reminds me, it's that time of year again for National Trust members to vote. The easiest way is to use the 'quick vote' to keep out the traditionalist 'Restore Trust' candidates. secure.cesvotes.com/V3-3-0/nt25/... 1/2

From The Last: “Maybe what's been fucking us up, more than anything, hasn't been finding a way to cope with the world ending but finding a way to cope with the fact that it didn't. An ending is easy. This terminal waking up, morning after morning, isn't easy. Repairing and rebuilding isn't…”

E.g. think “example given”, I.e. think “in essence.” Who needs Latin.

As she’s in the news currently for her acting chops, a reminder Jessie Buckley is also an amazing singer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHZ...

Said in a meeting last week “I’m a recovering academic, I think people think that means I’ll be a bit of purist, but if anything my attitude is that I’ve seen the pure methods and they’re usually a bit shit” and anyway from expressions this was perhaps a bit blunt.

Watching the Matrix, which somehow Kate has never seen, and she is angrily saying “so they make you sit though a whole fake life pushing your buttons and going to meetings? I’d rather just know I was lying in the gloop.”

Discworld QOTD, from Guards! Guards!

Incredible clip of tech CEOs fawning over Donald Trump. Someone store this clip in the underground archive vault

Journal publishers *are* bundling your papers up in "data licensing agreements" for big tech companies to use for AI model training. Our publisher, T&F, got £75m from Microsoft for that last year alone.

Comedy show last night had three comics making jokes about menopause (the last one going “third time tonight, bloody hell comedy’s changed”). Favourite I think was Bridget Christie saying “Only 1 in 1 women will be affected by menopause, so most doctors know nothing about it.”

Walked into the kitchen this morning to find my wife very seriously saying “Should we discuss how handsome you are?” to the cat. #Caturday

At Castlefield Bowl for a show rather than a gig, and I suspect there’s a correlation between the unusually civilised queues at the bar and toilets and the fact that every other person is also stretching their back out in the interval.

Who wore it better

Recognising that some people aren’t angry that hierarchies exist, they’re angry because they think they’re lower in the hierarchy than they should be, is not a purity test. It’s avoiding people who superficially align with you but are not your ally.

When I was doing health stuff that included digital, I’d often be saying “the last thing you need here is a digital solution.” It’s either brilliant or alarming that now I work in digital, most digital folks say the same. “A new website. No. Don’t do it. A platform? DON’T DO IT. An app? Oh Christ.”

“the outcomes of aspects of care for transgender patients remain uncertain. The appropriate response to such uncertainty is shared decision-making that fully respects the autonomy of the individuals.” This is what I mean when I say ‘no trials = ban the treatment’ is political not evidence based

It's my birthday week! 🎂 You should check out my books (if you haven't yet) and then check out my queer sff lists! 😙🌈

“Why does it smell like someone’s speaking over me in a meeting in here?” “Oh that’ll be my candle”

There are no five words as full of deceit as “Cancelling your membership is easy!”

I am ‘every song on the store radio in B&Q is a proper banger’ years old

Alex and I wanted to craft our research philosophy, and, according to Alex, Mila was the best person to lead the project. The final philosophy was more like a manifesto with 7 principles. You can read it at www.dair-institute.org/research-phi....

To cap a day of etymology, I leave you with this final truth

It’s not a purity test to say you shouldn’t throw vulnerable groups under the bus.

This is really good. After seeing so many organisations try to placate prejudice or just defer to pressure rather than actually think through what is both principled and practical, this is such a relief to see. Organisations can hold their ground, entirely within the law, if they bother to.

Back doing work in justice system lately. Musing on how “People go to prison as punishment, not for punishment” remains an important thing to remember.

I’ve yet to meet someone “just playing devil’s advocate” who wasn’t actually saying the thing they wanted to say but from behind the absurd defence of “oh no I’m not saying that, I’m just saying someone might say that”. Get in the bin.

Sci-fi: *uses AI as a metaphor for understanding how people’s agency, experience, and even sentience can be ignored or dismissed by those in power* Tech bros: Ethics is my GenAI model having more rights than my employees 😌

Chatting earlier about two things that you get as a researcher that are technically compliments that mean the work landed well, but don’t feel like it: 1. when everyone agrees with your findings, but so no-one wants to talk about your methods (disagreement = suddenly everybody is a methods expert…)

Everyone making services needs to watch out for ‘fauxtomation’ - where the automation just means passing labour on to the user or customer. logicmag.io/failure/the-...

Proper banger is my jam youtu.be/Leg3uiu0g1c?... nice drums make brain nice feel

Is there a good take anywhere about why UK gov is so eager to buy American commercial AI rather then invest in-house? I’m assuming it’s the “because we want it for efficiency savings and we need those yesterday” but would be interested to know what the other angles might be.

Kate brought me back some American chocolate bars from her recent trip and I very much admire their commitment to putting peanut butter into everything.

I think we miss this part when we suggest “it still needs human input to be right” as the reason jobs would be safe. Plenty of us have jobs where others would assess something as ‘good enough’ that we think is low quality. If they decide that’s sufficient for what they want to pay for then…

A key thing worth knowing about the AI super intelligence claims is that scientists who study cognition are clear we don’t even have a model of human intelligence, so how can you look at an AI and say it’s the same or better? We confuse lots of metaphors for cognition with knowing how it happens.

A truly terrible joke Respect