Dr Gillian Jack

What about the women and children who need protected FROM these "protests"?!

Every time someone posts about the structural and inherent limitations of LLMs there are loads of people in the replies confidently asserting AI will overcome all its current limitations, and they remind me of the people in the 1960s who were confident we would have colonised the galaxy by 1999.

“Global AI demand is projected to account for 4.2 – 6.6 billion cubic meters of water withdrawal in 2027, which is more than the total annual water withdrawal of Denmark or half of the United Kingdom.”

arxiv.org/pdf/2304.03271

AI thrives where education has been devalued | The Observer A culture that views knowledge as a means to an end invites the misuse of new technology

'It is less that AI is the cause of degradation in reading and thinking, and more that the creation of a culture that views knowledge primarily in an instrumental manner has made it easier to misuse AI.'

Even aside from all the tuition fee money thrown away at transactional external consultancies, this is the huge governance issue: it's used to further obfuscate. Nobody in the university is allowed access to the 'information' on which huge decisions are made because it's 'commercially sensitive'.

"We have to sign on to this technology or else we'll be left behind" is something I keep hearing, but where are we being left??? Where is everyone else going?? Is it the place where all the 3D TVs and wifi-enabled toasters went? Is it literal dystopia? This argument is meaningless

Edinburgh-based trans rights activist Tristan Grayford said that [[Scottish Labour]] politicians appeared to believe that “being transphobic is more important than standing up to racism”. “I think what we're seeing from Scottish Labour politicians is atrocious behaviour,” he said. “They're basically attacking our NHS for daring to have any kind of limits on whether or not someone can be unpleasant to a colleague based on transphobia.” Grayford said the issues extended beyond politicians, telling The National: “Yes, the racism is horrific, but the fact that we as a society, and especially a lot of our media, treat that kind of language to trans people as just normal, as something that should be defended and even promoted, is a horrifying indictment of how normalised transphobia has become in our media in a way that they seem capable of seeing that racism shouldn't be.”

I said what I said.

Our media is directly responsible for creating the lie that transphobic bigotry is somehow a special case where people can be awful without sanction.

It isn't. There's good reason transphobes tend to hold all kinds of other bigotries.

www.thenational.scot/news/2535084...

There are always more pens. I've just ordered lots that I very much do not need.

THIS.

So 3 times as many people marched in Trans Pride London as in the main London Pride, 200 times as many people as at the Essex racist protest but it didn't even get a mention on the BBC or right wing media

What are we to learn? That they only care if there's a riot?

4. Histories of Protestantism are still tied up in teleological ideas of progress despite increasingly strong scholarship that it encouraged regressive changes for key groups (especially women and Jews) in some (maybe many) areas.

Universal basic income works; giving homeless people a place to live works; treating the sick works; paying decent wages works; welcoming refugees works; decriminalisation of drugs and sex-work works.

All these things work in the real world. Just not in conservative imaginations.

Wait, what? "Chancellor could overrule Supreme Court"? That's a thing now, is it?

Funny, when the Supreme Court was dishing out bullshit rulings on what sex people were, the govt was all "Nothing we can do, guv..."

www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Tomorrow's front page 📰

Convicted US felon to arrive in Scotland

#Latin #Medieval

3 emails over the last week at work inviting me to different events to 'learn more' about Gen AI and how to use it 'ethically.'

You can't use Gen AI ethically.

The desperation to 'embrace' this extremely damaging and expensive technology while jobs are under threat is gross.

Rayner: We must tackle profound impact of migration Deputy PM says ministers must accept ‘real concerns people have’ amid fears of another summer of riots

Or, just spitballing here, the government could address the genuine issues, such as housing issues, cost of living crisis, and confront disinformation spread about immigration to help better inform people, rather than pandering to xenophobia and exacerbating hostile rhetoric and scapegoating.

Computer vision doesn't hallucinate because of an inscrutable deus inside the machina. It "hallucinates" — such a groovy word for being wrong with confidence-because that is the ideology with which it was encoded.

“AI” doesn’t lie. It’s not deceitful, it doesn’t have feelings: it is broken. Those who are selling AI products encourage people to anthropomorphize it because doing so avoids language that indicates what a garbage product it is they’re selling. Or, as I wrote here: www.artforum.com/features/gen...

Remember all that fulminating in the billionaire press about "free speech" (ie their freedom to abuse Muslims, trans people etc with impunity)? Now that people are being arrested for speaking about an issue of the utmost gravity, the self-appointed guardians of liberty have fallen strangely silent.

John Swinney calls on Sir Keir Starmer to help Scotland evacuate Gazan kids The First Minister wrote to the Prime Minister.

✍️ @johnswinney.bsky.social: "It is deeply saddening that so far the UK Government has refused to even enter into a dialogue about medical evacuations for children in Gaza who, without proper medical attention, will be left to die.” www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottis...

In case you haven't seen it, here's our call for the upcoming Forum in Early Modern Women. Consider submitting a short piece on the theme of migrancy! #EarlyModern

WHAT YOU MEAN THROW HIM A DONUT?? DON'T YOU SEE HOW POLITE HE IS??!

Bridget Phillipson to overrule MPs with gender-critical EHRC chair Mary-Ann Stephenson has been named as the preferred candidate to lead the Equality and Human Rights Commission, despite opposition from transgender groups

As if on cue.

Great work @lgbtfdn.bsky.social. Fantastic job being in the room. Really listened to. Excellent visibility.

Note they slip this out at the end of the day on Friday. Labour know another GC leading the EHRC is bad. They're just too cowardly to stop it.

web.archive.org/web/20250718...

Off to York this weekend. Does anyone have any tips for interesting things to do beyond the obvious highlights?

List of the original subscribers to the Royal African Company, that would go on to be the largest trafficker of enslaved people from Africa - the entire royal family balls deep.

Actual average History professor: Hello, young adults, can I indoctrinate you into the cult of the Chicago Manual of Style? Do you like footnotes? Wanna see a real archive?? Have you ever tried doing a reverse outline??

Universities in England at risk of long-term decline, says British Academy Outgoing president Dame Julia Black calls on ministers to overhaul their ‘confused’ approach to higher education

“You’ve got more languages students setting up successful start-ups than you do maths graduates, and the same number of history students setting up start-ups as engineers, so there’s a bit of myth busting that needs to go on.”

www.ft.com/content/3162...

Universities in England at risk of long-term decline, says British Academy Outgoing president Dame Julia Black calls on ministers to overhaul their ‘confused’ approach to higher education

"Is it easier for ministers to just watch universities go to the wall on a slow burn basis? Probably."

Thank you to British Academy president Dame Julia Black for calling out the crisis in higher education.

Our universities are at risk. Ministers need to act.

www.ft.com/content/3162...

Wes Streeting took £224,575 in donations from people and companies linked to the private health sector between Jan 2023-2025. 🚨🚨🚨

I find that unconscionable. Share if you agree!

www.itv.com/news/2025-07...

Please apply, especially early career and independant scholars! Come visit #Antwerp and use our magnificent collections!