Indeed. GenAI can produce history-shaped objects, but it simply cannot and never could do *history*, no more than I could send a robot to the gym and hope to be selected for the All Blacks. As R.G. Collingwood put it, history "is a labour of active and therefore critical thinking"
I find it so revealing how they use the example of a professor sharpening an essay - that the crucial difference between 'Person X has actually read your work, thought about it, and responded' and 'Person X has not been involved AT ALL in this process' is just not significant to them.
Dear everyone,
As per the post from the Bodleian librarian below, AI bots and scrapers are putting just about every website under great pressure, British History Online included.
A lot of excellent tech staff are working hard to keep everything working, but outages and siruptions are inevitable.
we need to address the end of good-paying jobs for melancholics, like lighthouse keeper or fire tower watchers
Absolutely - pensions are deferred pay. I really hope this spurs the unions to do something sector-wide around this, because it's a coming storm and will only get worse.
Portsmouth moved staff wholly to a DC scheme with Aviva (and blasted about it here: www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/06/02/s...) - PS staff at Middlesex are wholly private DC too.
This is horrible but it's actually LESS bad than what some universities have already done - they're moving onto the Local Government Pension Scheme, which is still defined benefit. That doesn't make this OK, but it's worth knowing that some unis have moved staff wholly to private DC schemes too.
A good few universities have already done this with professional services staff, but you haven't heard much about it because in many (all?) post-92s PSS colleagues aren't part of the bargaining unit of UCU.
No doubt Grammarly would say that this is so obviously not the real people that it's not a 'real' lie; but it's still unnecessary and deliberately blurs the distinction between person and model. Why pretend at all, unless you want to profit from the deception?
I realised (later than many!) that what gets me about this is the seemingly irresistible urge of AI companies to just... tell lies. They could have said '*we* can offer insights *based on* experts' work' (still debatable, ofc) - they chose not to.
Remember, kids, your expertise is so worthless that AI companies will not properly compensate you for it while at the same time it is so valuable they can aggregate it under your name and integrate it into their services as a feature.
Without your consent, naturally.
So that’s that, right? We don’t have to put up with endless drivel about how expensive it is to save the planet abd ourselves ever again? Cool.
This 18-year-old Afghan girl had offers from York and Reading – thanks to Shabana Mahmood, she will now never escape the Taliban | The Independent www.independent.co.uk/news/people/...
Wait, what?! Grammarly made an AI persona of me and all these other journalists?!!!!!
Thank you @caseynewton.bsky.social for shaming them into at least offering a paltry optout— although obviously that is not enough.
www.platformer.news/grammarly-ex...
Standing with my foot on some techbro's neck screaming, "No, you have NOT summoned Dickens from the dead to comment on some second-year coursework!" or "It may well be concise but it is NOT an improvement on Dickens"
Honestly one day I'm going to be at some conference and someone will say something like this NYT article (happens a lot at pedagogy conferences), and the first you hear about it will be the report on my arrest for murder
how can it be the best of times *and* the worst of times?
Checkmate, liberal arts majors
This really epitomises the issues with so-called generative AI (LLMs) - the people who promote and code them really think like this. The fear of ambiguity, ambivalence and difficulty is, in and of itself, characteristic of fascism.
Must read: xAI is poisoning Mississippi, captured via thermal imaging.
I'm forced to the conclusion that a certain type of pro-Israeli Western Christian doesn't actually see the place as real, and certainly doesn't see the Christians of the Middle East whose lives have been made much, much harder by the policies they back.
It's just a sort of apocalyptic theme park.
What do you want to bet this little tantrum on the WaPo's opinion page is because someone ahead of Professor Jakub Grygiel in the queue at some coffee shop had an elaborate coffee order and he hasn't been able to let it go ever since
Awful news about Glasgow Central, I'm still hoping the station itself escaped serious damage.
But while we're here, can anyone spot the problem with the news photo below, from thetraveler.org/glasgow-cent...?
We've really got to STOP using AI to fake things.
On the back of being quoted I was contacted by a research administrator at a different Uni. She wants to stay anonymous. She has worked on this call all weekend. She didn't feel able to say no. Nor did the researchers. Unlike them she will not benefit in any material way if her Uni wins this money.
When Saint Tony makes a foreign policy intervention
Text reads: I am humbled and excited to be elected the next UCU Vice-President for Higher Education. Now is a devastatingly difficult and challenging time for our sectors and so many workers in post-16 education, but as a union we cannot succumb to despair. We have the skills, knowledge and capacity to help chart a way out of this mess and restore higher and further education. That you have put your trust in me to help do that is a huge honour and responsibility. I do not take this lightly. Thank you to the many thousands of members who voted for me and also to those who did not – we need to build better engagement in our union and part of that is voting, no matter who you voted for. I promised in my election materials to work hard to bring our union together and that is what I will do.
Text reads: Thank you to the other HE candidates Sean and Steve, both committed trade unionists. I know they will continue to fight for members and the future of Higher Education and I look forward to doing that alongside them. Congratulations to those elected to the National Executive Committee and commiserations to those who missed out this time. Your willingness to put yourself forward for election is hugely valued and I know you all will continue to contribute in other ways. So what next? Until the end of May, I’ll be tying up some loose ends and taking some time off to visit family and friends back in Australia. I will take up my role after UCU’s annual Congress at the end of May, this year in Harrogate.
Text reads: For the following three years, I will be lead negotiator for pay and conditions and for USS pensions across UK Higher Education, working with our team of elected negotiators and officials. I will also chair UCU’s Higher Education Committee and HE sector conferences, serve on other national committees and represent you in various forums. In 2029-30 I will become UCU’s President after the excellent Suzi Toole, who has also been elected as Vice-President for Further Education and will spend two years leading on further education matters before becoming President. She will take over from Dyfrig Jones, who succeeds early to the Presidential role for a two-year term this May, due to the casual vacancy that arose last year, replacing Maria Chondrogianni. Maria stays on as immediate past president, rounding out the presidential team. I want to again acknowledge David Hunter who stepped down as President-Elect last year for health reasons and continue to wish him and his family all the best.
A picture of two smiling people (Suzi Toole and Mark Pendleton) wearing UCU beanies. Text reads: That’s a lot of work, and a lot of moving parts, but at the heart of it will be my commitment to build a better union, alongside members and branches, and through that transform our sectors. I am ready and I know from the responses to this election that many of you are too. I’m looking forward to getting to work, together with you all.
UCU’s elections concluded this week and I am honoured to have been elected as the next Vice-President for Higher Education, to become President in 2029-30.
Thank you for all the support.
A short statement about the election and what’s to come after I take up the role in May.
- the government’s mixed public messaging on AI & copyright is hindering licensing
- the government should make a clear public statement that AI companies operating in the UK need to license their training data (which is the law)
4/5
They say:
- the government must not weaken copyright law, and should instead strengthen licensing, transparency & enforcement
- the government should stop prioritising large multinational tech firms
3/5
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
Big money has bought British politics
75% of Reform’s money has come from three rich white men
democracyforsale.substack.com/p/75-of-refo...
