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George Buchanan

@georgerbuchanan

DIrector, University of Melbourne iSchool

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17.11.2023
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Latest posts by George Buchanan @georgerbuchanan

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Librarian finds ‘preposterous number’ of fake references in paper from Springer Nature journal Gunnar Ridderström/Pexels As a hospital librarian, Jessica Waite is typically successful at tracking down elusive articles for clinicians at Royal Hallamshire Hospital in England. So when a colleag…

Well, the misuse of AI in scientific research appears to be continuing. This article from retraction watch is particularly egregious.... retractionwatch.com/2026/03/06/l...

13.03.2026 08:37 👍 4 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 1

the stink of gender resentment coming off Silicon Valley has been obvious for a while. these men hate women because they hate being told no.

12.03.2026 22:14 👍 5216 🔁 1598 💬 119 📌 25

The A/Dean of ITI Dana McKay, Prof. George Buchanan and their PhD student Bingyi Han of Uni. of Melbourne won a best paper on the ethical issues of AI in education. @acm-sigchi.bsky.social

13.03.2026 00:29 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

We're delighted that researchers from our Interaction, Technology and Information Discipline have won best paper and honourable mention recognition at ACM SIGCHI. Zhidian Lin, a first-year PhD student gained a mention for her work on affective XR systems.

13.03.2026 00:28 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
Preview
Gender pay gap narrows, yet men out-earn women in almost every occupation Earlier this week the Finance Minister and Minister for Women, Senator Katy Gallagher released the latest data of the gender pay gap by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency.

My post on the gender pay gap across occupations: Men have a higher average salary in 98% of all occupations where one gender earns at least $100,000 average salary
thepoint.com.au/news/260307-...

09.03.2026 22:37 👍 30 🔁 11 💬 2 📌 0

He is also deputy editor of the RANZCP journal "Australian Psychiatry", which strangely enough seems to host his opinions in their pages with unusual frequency.

08.03.2026 02:55 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Preview
London: Quaker Meeting House raided by Metropolitan Police again | ICN This evening, for the second time in a year, the Metropolitan Police raided a Quaker Meeting House and arrested a number of young non...

Police raid Westminster Quaker Meeting House again. #PeacefulProtest
#Nonviolence
www.indcatholicnews.com/news/54502

06.03.2026 07:22 👍 19 🔁 22 💬 0 📌 5
Photo of ucd protest

Photo of ucd protest

Probably the largest protest I’ve seen in UCD - in solidarity with the UCD medical student who suffered horrific #GBV I’m proud to see so many of my students here.

04.03.2026 12:56 👍 110 🔁 26 💬 3 📌 2
Preview
Adelaide University cancels literary festival event with UN Gaza investigator Francesca Albanese Festival organisers criticise the university for last-minute booking cancellation of event headlined by special rapporteur for Palestinian territories

By any fair understanding of what is reported, Adelaide University is trying to duck out of a presentation by a UN rapporteur on what is going on in Gaza. Apparently facts and expert opinion are an unwelcome aspect of free speech. www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

04.03.2026 08:01 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I might just manage to avoid falling for this, but I wouldn’t bet on my chances! Looks very nice indeed!

28.02.2026 08:18 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

It’s just for the performance; Phillipson will decline interviews afterwards on the basis they’ve already happened.

22.02.2026 23:11 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I’d generally support this, but I had two healthy teeth removed by a school dentist. I’d just had mine seen days before and there were no problems. That dentist should have been struck off, but nothing was done. There were reasons that it was discontinued

22.02.2026 22:19 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

That third hand is disturbing?!

20.02.2026 01:18 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Read what #CILIPScotland colleague Kirsten MacQuarrie has to say on feminist librarianship and the lack of male peers: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a job well-valued, in every sense, will not be in want of male colleagues."⤵️

16.02.2026 11:46 👍 5 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0

Sandie Peggie was explicit that she would not work with Dr. Upton. Why are you two-siding this?

16.02.2026 07:28 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

The thing is it’s terribly easy to say things should be cut; there’s seldom a national interest test done and most cuts end up costing the government more in the long term. Efficiency should always be sought, but that isn’t the same thing.

15.02.2026 22:35 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0

This isn’t even vaguely surprising ; he’s jumped the shark on a range of issues similarly before.

15.02.2026 03:51 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

That’s not a bug; it’s the core intentional features of the policy

12.02.2026 22:04 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

The whole thing is performative: in Tyrone everyone used to simply call it Derry. My Dad did and he was a staunch unionist (who had worked ‘in Derry’ and always referred to it thus at home)

05.02.2026 22:33 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Darn I feel the urge to order another salt van!

01.02.2026 23:05 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Just a week to go to get those abstracts in. We are really looking forward to putting the programme together for our conference in Limerick - happening 29 & 30 May 2026.

26.01.2026 07:38 👍 10 🔁 11 💬 0 📌 1

You don’t understand that a case never stands as a general rule; and the wording is entirely drawn on the women’s inability to perceive trans women as anything other than men. Everything specifically flow from that.

19.01.2026 22:39 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

What the judgement does say is that gc women have the right not to expect to share space with trans women due to their own protected characteristics as GC and their expectations of legislation flow from that. The ruling does not require any organisation to adopt that framing as the norm.

19.01.2026 22:38 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

You’re just blowing smoke at this stage; frankly you’re suffering from the bias the nurses themselves from: the idea that sharing with women and trans women is entirely forbidden is not at all argued in the judgment.

19.01.2026 22:36 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Reads: What is trans-exclusionary data activism? And the logo for the Gender + Sexuality Data Lab.

Reads: What is trans-exclusionary data activism? And the logo for the Gender + Sexuality Data Lab.

New research maps the campaign to erase trans people from UK data 🔢

This peer-reviewed article offers the first detailed account of how UK campaign groups have sought to define sex as strictly biological across the census, policing, healthcare and digital ID.

doi.org/10.1080/0958...

19.01.2026 13:42 👍 504 🔁 288 💬 14 📌 22

The judgment in no place says that trans women should be excluded. What it did say was that for the claimants, forcing them to share the space was incompatible with the innate characteristics of their beliefs. Gender critical women and women in general are not interchangeable. You lie.

19.01.2026 09:06 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Post image

We recently received some wonderful colour production samples of the OO Gauge GNR 8-Ton Van.

Delivery of these vans is expected at some point in Q1 of this year. Keep an eye on the newsletter for more info!

17.01.2026 10:11 👍 23 🔁 4 💬 1 📌 1

That person is fwiw on my block list as they troll like this regularly; I suspect it’s totally a them problem. I wouldn’t try to reason with them; they’re consistently acting in bad faith.

18.01.2026 11:27 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

The judgement itself says the gender critical women should have been offered an alternative space; not that trans women should be excluded!

18.01.2026 09:58 👍 18 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
About the PhD: 
Audits and evaluation of AI systems — and the broader context that AI systems operate in — have become central to conceptualising, quantifying, measuring and understanding the operations, failures, limitations, underlying assumptions, and downstream societal implications of AI systems. Existing AI audit and evaluation efforts are fractured, done in a siloed and ad-hoc manner, and with little deliberation and reflection around conceptual rigour and methodological validity.

This PhD is for a candidate that is passionate about exploring what a conceptually cogent, methodologically sound, and well-founded AI evaluation and safety research might look like. This requires grappling with questions such as:

    What does it mean to represent “ground truth” in proxies, synthetic data, or computational simulation?
    How do we reliably measure abstract and complex phenomena?
    What are the epistemological or methodological implications of quantification and measurement approaches we choose to employ? Particularly, what underlying presuppositions, values, or perspectives do they entail?
    How do we ensure the lived experiences of impacted communities play a critical role in the development and justification of measurement metrics and proxies?
    Through exploration of these questions, the candidate is expected to engage with core concepts in the philosophy of science, history of science, Black feminist epistemologies, and similar schools of thought to develop an in-depth understanding of existing practices with the aim of applying it to advance shared standards and best practice in AI evaluation.

The candidate is expected to integrate empirical (for example, through analysis or evaluation of existing benchmarks) or practical (for example, by executing evaluation of AI systems) components into the overall work.

About the PhD: Audits and evaluation of AI systems — and the broader context that AI systems operate in — have become central to conceptualising, quantifying, measuring and understanding the operations, failures, limitations, underlying assumptions, and downstream societal implications of AI systems. Existing AI audit and evaluation efforts are fractured, done in a siloed and ad-hoc manner, and with little deliberation and reflection around conceptual rigour and methodological validity. This PhD is for a candidate that is passionate about exploring what a conceptually cogent, methodologically sound, and well-founded AI evaluation and safety research might look like. This requires grappling with questions such as: What does it mean to represent “ground truth” in proxies, synthetic data, or computational simulation? How do we reliably measure abstract and complex phenomena? What are the epistemological or methodological implications of quantification and measurement approaches we choose to employ? Particularly, what underlying presuppositions, values, or perspectives do they entail? How do we ensure the lived experiences of impacted communities play a critical role in the development and justification of measurement metrics and proxies? Through exploration of these questions, the candidate is expected to engage with core concepts in the philosophy of science, history of science, Black feminist epistemologies, and similar schools of thought to develop an in-depth understanding of existing practices with the aim of applying it to advance shared standards and best practice in AI evaluation. The candidate is expected to integrate empirical (for example, through analysis or evaluation of existing benchmarks) or practical (for example, by executing evaluation of AI systems) components into the overall work.

are you displeased with today’s AI safety evaluation landscape and curious about what greater conceptual clarity, methodological soundness, and rigour in AI evaluation could look like? if so, consider coming to Dublin to pursue a PhD with me

apply here: aial.ie/hiring/phd-a...

pls repost

15.01.2026 11:55 👍 190 🔁 140 💬 6 📌 12