Want to be the first to hear this year's Clarke Award shortlist AND see a brilliant keynote address from award-winning journalist, writer and broadcaster Samira Ahmed? We have good news! Also tickets are free 🙌

"Now you could, if you were particularly dense, dismiss Wyflings’ taste for the works of dead antisemites as just a distasteful commitment to maintaining access to historical bigotry, were it not for the fact that the imprint is heavily involved in promulgating the works of today’s far right." Ooof.

Often quoted differently on this stuff, but @drkatedevlin.bsky.social and I agree. I just love how she cuts straight to it with no hedging. Just: yes, of course people want this, here's why. www.techbuzz.ai/articles/ope...

I'm off to Berlin for a conference — or am I? Who can tell. Still on the tarmac with the plane doors open an hour after we were meant to take off. We are presumably waiting for our small, lemon-soaked paper napkins.

"gender shouldn't matter, it should be the best candidate" replies will get you blocked. When gender stops being a reason people are excluded we can stop talking about gender being a reason people should be included.

The (very-definitely-in-June-not-July) Festival of Storytelling from King's Digital Futures Institute invites you to... everything! Hear from experts and award-winning storytellers, join a workshop, get creative, or experience a performance. All free, just sign up! www.kcl.ac.uk/events/serie...

I've hit 100 responses to my survey on personal tutoring - half way there! If you're an academic in UK HE who's had pastoral responsibility for students in the last five years, whatever that's called, I'd love to hear your thoughts - it shouldn't take more than ten minutes. Do share if you can.

As someone who regularly and inevitably sits on internal review panels for proposed external bids in my institution, can we not? (I don't have a solution and I almost entirely blame generative AI. So I guess I *do* have a solution but it involves the dismantling of late stage capitalism.)

The (very-definitely-in-June-not-July) Festival of Storytelling from King's Digital Futures Institute invites you to... everything! Hear from experts and award-winning storytellers, join a workshop, get creative, or experience a performance. All free, just sign up! www.kcl.ac.uk/events/serie...

Buckle up, buttercup! A thread with all the cool stuff going on in our King's Digital Futures Institute *free* Festival of Storytelling, taking place in central London on 2-4 JUNE and open to everyone. #BookSky @kings-dfi.bsky.social @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social @kingsartshums.bsky.social

Flippin hell, I wrote July, but it isn't in July, it's in JUNE.

AND finally, once you've exhausted all the sessions, we round off our @kings-dfi.bsky.social Festival of Storytelling at 5pm on 4th June with a keynote from the incredible Samira Ahmed @samiraahmeduk.bsky.social on the new "slow" media revolution: www.tickettailor.com/events/dfist...

Right, Bluesky really needs to do long threads better. On now to the King's @kings-dfi.bsky.social Festival of Storytelling programme for 4th June! All free, open to all, central London (@kingscollegelondon.bsky.social Strand campus).

Buckle up, buttercup! I'm going to do a thread with all the cool stuff going on in our King's Digital Futures Institute free Festival of Storytelling, taking place in central London on 2-4 July and open to EVERYONE. @kings-dfi.bsky.social @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social @kingsartshums.bsky.social

I mean, it's entirely my fault: I curated my Bluesky experience to bring me the freshest news on things that feature heavily in my working life, like AI and politics, so now I just basically watch the feed and weep.

Well, at least he hasn't mentioned AI.

author of famed sci-fi novel Don't Create the Torment Nexus blamed for creation of Torment Nexus

I mean you might build it, but you won't understand it, control it, or integrate it into your culture including economy without the humanities. AI demands huge investment in the humanities.

Our free @kings-dfi.bsky.social Festival of Storytelling opens 2nd June with a reception and a book swap and closes 4th June with a keynote from @samiraahmeduk.bsky.social and the announcement of the 40th Arthur C Clarke Award @clarkeaward.bsky.social shortlist! www.tickettailor.com/events/dfist...

Remember I convinced myself that we could run a free storytelling festival at King's in early June? Well, we are definitely doing that and the tickets are now available so please explore and sign up: it's open to all and you don't pay a penny! www.tickettailor.com/events/dfist...

Bród says: "Vote for the least worst!" #dogsatpollingstations

Not only does telling a chatbot ‘do not hallucinate’ misunderstand how LLMs works, the idea that they are capable of following instructions is an illusion. At best, this just adds text to the context that may cause them to go down one path rather than another. But they don’t literally obey commands.

I've had one of those days which started with a meeting with my Dean where I said "actually, things are going okay" and then by home time the rug was pulled from under me SO FAST that I have whiplash. Never did trust a Wednesday.

Wearily but dutifully re-engaging with AI discourse after a beautifully dull long weekend off work where I did not even acknowledge the existence of it.

Babe, wake up, new anti surveillance tech just dropped…

In totally unsurprising news, Richard Dawkins is developing AI psychosis. Paywall bypass: archive.is/6RdK9

A few months back I thought I might run an afternoon workshop on storytelling and somehow it snowballed and so we're now running this entire free festival... Tickets out soon, with all sorts of events for King's staff, students, and the wider public. Some great sessions coming your way!

What a terrible day to be called Kate.

You can tell we're in a bad place because seemingly every new academic paper I've read recently - even in journals like the 'International Journal of Utopian Happiness and Blind Optimism' - starts with a sentence like "in a time of intersecting, overlapping, multiple, and violent crises...."

"I'm in sympathy with 99 percent of everything [Lerchner] says,” Mark Bishop, a professor of cognitive computing at Goldsmiths. “My only point of contention is that all these arguments have been presented years and years ago.” Bish nails it. And promises of AGI depend on AGI being undefined.

I'm on a work trip to Singapore and I have a profound new respect for my colleagues due to their strong commitment to karaoke bangers. Jet-lag makes it ten times better.

If, like me, the Monty Hall problem leaves you thinking "but I'd quite like a goat", this (below) puzzled me. I think my confusion stems from: but if everyone doubled their chances, they'd still have the same chance as each other, wouldn't they? Anyway, I've applied for 12 years and never got in :(

@kityates.bsky.social I've a question for you about the London marathon ballot. Entry numbers aren't fixed — you can apply up until the deadline. But they say "pay for an extra entry and double your chances!" but how can that be, if there's not a finite limit on who can enter the ballot? Confused.🫤

'Norfolk Woodland' linocut by contemporary UK printmaker Niki Bowers #womensart

My mother has just uttered the line: "A lovely girl; she's English, but sure she can't help that," thus affirming that Derry Girls is pretty much a documentary.

Currently singing "traffic on the Strait of Hormuz" to the tune of "panic on the streets of London."

Don't be shy to take on a little two-week side project. These five months will be the most precious three years of your academic journey.

I do find this quite interesting given that Christianity centres on devotion to an invisible, non-human other.

I’ll never forget watching The Wicker Man with my outer Hebridean mum. “I just don’t know where there got all that wicker from”

This is why I stopped writing for The Conversation, including that they also benefit from syndicating the results of academics' unpaid labour.

"Let me know if you want a version focused on themes like religion or morality." —Book of LLMs

Am doing a big long run in Sept. Loads of time to train plus I love running. Only problem is that I'm up to 12K but have developed hip pain. Going to rest for a week or two but if anyone has recommendations for physios that deal specifically with (non-elite) enthusiastic runners, please let me know.

All I'm saying is that I'm really glad I moved out of London in 2020 before I could spend all my worldly goods on Farmer J meals.

In the car, listening to the radio. "I don't know who these people are," I say, as the presenters talk. "One's a pop singer; one's a reality TV star. Jesus, it's like being married to a high court judge," sighs my husband. (I would like it on record that my wise judgements are mostly ignored.)

I had to use Word because shared work doc online, and I thought "well, at least it's WYSIWYG" and went to make a pdf of a tight page limit report and... no. All different in print preview. Margins everywhere. Breaks where no breaks should be. In the distance, sirens, etc. Word, you had ONE JOB. ☹️

#OTD 10 April 1998, the Good Friday Agreement was signed, marking a step towards ending decades of violence in Northern Ireland. #SpéirGhorm #speirgorm #IrishHistory

#ICYMI: Last month, I chatted to Prof. Alan Winfield (@alan-winfield.bsky.social) from @uwebristolofficial.bsky.social about #robot ethics. Catch up here 🎧 - www.robottalk.org/2026/03/13/e... or wherever you get your podcasts! #Robots #Robotics #Ethics

This is my final day of annual leave but then I'm only back at work for a day before it's the weekend, so good timing, Past Me. Good timing.

Palantir's UK head Louis Mosley wants us to believe that tech like theirs is neutral until their clients decide how to use it. People who study science, technology and society have long exposed such arguments as fallacious. My latest column for TNW. www.thenewworld.co.uk/philip-ball-...