Christ, you can't even escape email in space

Went looking for my library card in the drawer of doom and found my "what were you like in the 90s" ISIC card, so imagine that meme music except I wouldn't have been listening to Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls mostly because I was into grunge and industrial and also because it wasn't released until 1998.

Its impossible to tell from this whether they think extra doctors are some sort of treat for the other doctors rather than something that the rest of the population might be a bit keen on or if this is just a resounding fuck you to an ungrateful populace. But it's definitely at least one of them.

I'm on annual leave for the next week except I'm not because I've not finished the one piece of work I need to do before going on annual leave.

Time is running out to apply to be our next Art Director! Send your CV and portfolio to [email protected] by midnight on Monday. If you're a talented freelance designer with a passion for magazines, we're keen to hear from you

The thing about science is we set up hypotheses and then work to break, or disprove hypotheses. In so much LLM refinement, we are working backwards and building systems that predict *what we want to believe*. This is how nations go to war. This is how we corrupt science. There are better ways.

"I cannot understand why I'm so tired today," I say, then realise that from 9:30am yesterday morning to 9:30pm last night there was only a single 20min period where I wasn't in a meeting or in conversation with one or more people. And that was fine, but yeah, today I'm tired.

I had a wonderful time on a @britishacademy.bsky.social panel this evening on Love in the Time of Tech: superb conversations both during the event and after. www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/the-a...

This Thursday!

the human body was not designed to know what the worst person in the world is doing every fifteen minutes

Can confirm; it is a fine city. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Don't Worry, Be Happy — a song equally enraging for both its music and its message.

This is crazy… but at least @drkatedevlin.bsky.social puts it right. www.wired.com/story/chatgp...

I'm begging people to stop trying to appease the far right. Does history teach you nothing?

Very niche Irish content, but in a departure from my usual crisis dreams, last night I dreamt I was dancing the Ballyvourney Jig Set (my favourite set) but the eighth person kept disappearing. But I woke up wanting to dance a set and maybe that's a sign to find a class.

One thing that AI evangelists seem to assume, particularly legal AI evangelists assume, is that the thinking and analysis is quick, and the writing is just tedious busywork that slows us down. But the writing IS the thinking and analysis. You work out the thinking and analysis by writing it down.

We’ve launched a brand new animation explaining what #secularism is and why it matters in an increasingly diverse society. Our short film, What is secularism?, is now available to watch on the @humanismedu.bsky.social website. 🧵 understandinghumanism.org.uk/secularism/

Fantastic news in the UK today - the government has apparently ditched its plan to force creatives to 'opt out' if they don't want AI companies training on their life's work. www.thetimes.com/uk/technolog... 🧵 1/4

Bluesky friends: do you have favourite examples of techbro-esque tweets you can share with me that demonstrate through their audacity just how much we need the arts & humanities in tech/AI? I have a few but welcome more (it's for slides for a talk).

Work is off-the-chart busy these days (have reached the stage where I administer & manage research rather than get to do it; thanks, I hate it). Trying to have at least one weekend day off. An hour of sauna and ice baths this morning has left me feeling temporarily restored. Also: blossom.

🤖NEW EPISODE🤖 As artificial intelligence systems become more powerful, what crimes should we prepare for it to commit? Can the law keep up with code? And when A.I. is misused, who’s actually responsible? @drkatedevlin.bsky.social is joined by Dr Federica Fedorczyk to discuss ➡️ linktr.ee/bunker_pod

WHAT IF YOU JUST READ A FUCKING BOOK

Tomorrow we will hear @drkatedevlin.bsky.social on "The Agreeable Machine", in Birkbeck's wonderful new event space "The Conservatory". It looks like we are almost fully booked, but if you are quick you might be able to squeeze in! www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event...

The House of Lords Digital & Communications Committee just published their report on AI, copyright & the creative industries, and their conclusions could not be clearer. 🧵 1/5

I'm commenting here as an expert: "JESUS LOL FUCK NO".

Thankfully not a boomer/doomer piece but something that still captures why genAI is part of a bigger problem:

I was blacklisted by the previous UK government for retweeting Parody Liz Truss.

Anthropic's defiance of the Pentagon's A.I. orders was undeniably brave, a welcome contrast with Big Tech's general approach to the Trump admin. but the resistance folks shooting Claude to the top of the app charts need to understand that Anthropic is not very principled, and is not your friend:

The answer to problems in sociotechnical systems is not always "more software", "better software" or "open source software". A lot of the time the best solution is _less software_ and sometimes even _no software_.

new Mary Oliver poem just dropped

Very very tired by work and work-related things. Now in bed in a hotel and the pillow is about 6ft high, I'm not even joking, my neck is at an angle so sharp that a protractor can't cope. I just want to sleep. Am I at the life stage where I need to bring my own pillow? Please, no. I cannot.

Sam Altman would feed his own grandmother to the paperclip maximizer.

Every time I see either of these men:

As computing weaves itself into the interstitial spaces of civilization, increasingly every line of code represent an ethical and moral decision.

lol jfc PLEASE all they did was not agree to have their software directly enable fucking WAR CRIMES! No cookie for Dario!

TOOOOOO RELEVANT

Clive Lewis is my MP and I'm pleased he is. He's rightly had lots of support in my area. But he might want to do himself a favour and think about running as an independent next time.

🏊‍♀️ How can we use digital tools and data to better support female athletes? Join us on 12 March for a discussion on the Digital Futures of Women's Sport, with Dr Fiona Lavelle, Victoria Ogunseitan @kingslsm.bsky.social, Lottie Birdsall-Strong, Wendy Martinson OBE & Prof @drkatedevlin.bsky.social ⬇️

March 10, Kate Devlin (@drkatedevlin.bsky.social): "The Agreeable Machine" www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event...

Actual lede: OpenAI, Grok, & Google already comply!! ' #Anthropic – alongside #OpenAI, #Google and #Grok – was commissioned by the Pentagon … [War] Sec. Hegseth gave Anthropic an ultimatum: Open its AI for use in a "classified setting", >>as the other companies have<< ' www.dw.com/en/ai-firm-a...

📣 Announcing our 'Getting public voices heard' panel at our 'Power and participation in public tech' conference. Hear from Keeley Crockett, @darcyprior.bsky.social, Emily Rempel and @timdavies.org.uk. 📆 Friday 6 Mar 🕰️ 10:00 - 17:00 🏢 Manchester Register now! 🔗 connectedbydata.org/events/2026...

Ahahaha what do they think happened to all those horses that used to pull carriages? Did they all go to live on a farm upstate? 😂

Today, we at @kings-dfi.bsky.social and the RAi UK project ran a roundtable on AI friction, rejection & resistance. I am knackered from the notetaking and thinking, but what a tonic to hear from researchers, activists & policymakers about alt questions & narratives. Report to follow in March/April.

Why do I have to pretend that I'm going to print something in order to save it as a PDF. Why do I have to engage in a little ruse.

"Make good choices," I tell myself, eyeing up the Nutella jar but mournfully reaching for the avocado. The struggle is real.

At a gig, watching a big crowd of people swaying and singing along, muttering to myself "ahhh, but people wouldn't come out of the house for 3hrs on a cold Tuesday for AI music, would they?", directly followed by me thinking "Kate, that's the wankiest thing you've said all week, even if it is true."

NEW | ‘Inspired’ by that editor castigating a journalism graduate for not wanting a job just feeding the AI… AI;DR: Journalism's quislings for AI and why I'll never use AI to write this newsletter brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/aidr-journ...

Tomorrow evening, online! Do sign up and hear all about technology and intimacy.