David Higgins

So when I hear of students being encouraged to use GPT in college I don’t hear innovation. I hear cognitive atrophy, the inability to think critically for oneself, and total dependence on vulnerable centralized repositories of data for knowledge without ever understanding how knowledge is generated.

very grateful to @victoriaxiaoxiaoma.bsky.social for getting me into the building!

Thank you!

Really up against it today so arrived at work at 6.20 before realising that I’d forgotten my keycard and therefore can’t access my office…

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems... SIMON: What? SHAPIRO: ...Or saying... SIMON: You imagine that? SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over. SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level. SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this. SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

CFP: 'Poetry's Environments', University of Leeds, June 2026.

About poetry and the natural environment in relation to the environments in which it is written, experienced, performed, preserved, and studied.

Please submit a proposal! Deadline 5 December.

conferences.leeds.ac.uk/poetryenviro...

Conservatives would scrap stamp duty, Kemi Badenoch announces The Tory leader says the move would help millions buy a home, in her annual conference speech.

I just cannot comprehend how a massive bung for older rich homeowners, at the expense of sicker and younger people who have to bear all the cuts, is seen as some sort of 'win'. Britain has become a grotesque and narrow place indeed. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

YouTube video by Polly Atkin Companions of Nature: from sickbed consolations to mimic hootings

It's taken over 24 hours to get this uploaded with passable captions, but here's my talk from last night @cumbriauni.bsky.social with @drpennybradshaw.bsky.social on #TheCompanyOfOwls and #DorothyWordsworth. Including some terrible slights on robins, and blackbird impressions. youtu.be/goiC3hhlsx4

I’m pleased to see them but they terrify my son, which can make going outside a bit of a lottery at this time of year! (

Reposting because I too need the answer.

Being (deliberately?) incompetent at admin has worked for one or two academics of my acquaintance.
More seriously, being ruthless at blocking out research time — easier said than done of course.

A Gen AI argument I hate:

‘We disadvantage our students if we don’t teach them to use it “responsibly”’

For fuck’s sake, no.

1: it can’t be used responsibly
2: it’s antithetical to what makes humanities work worthwhile: critical thinking, deep research, self expression, self reflection, etc.

Students talk about the demoralizing effects of AI. It makes them feel like they don't need to know anything and can't learn how to do anything well enough to compete with the machine.

I suspected that the most annoying part of getting home from Graz today would be the 57 miles between Manchester airport and Leeds railway station and that has turned out to be correct. Going to take nearly 3 hours, with 2 changes. Remember the Northern Powerhouse?

Excellent discussion as always. Sad that this will be our last face to face project meeting… 😢

Really feeling those Brexit benefits as I traverse passport control at Munich airport (hope to make my connection).

First of all, 5mm isn't microscopic and you CAN see them.

Second of all, the fact that our Chancellor thinks she can't see these seems to mean she thinks they're not worthy of our consideration.

A hallmark of this government's terminal lack of imagination.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Robert Jenrick can take his bullshit racist concerns about ‘integration’ and shove them. And so can everyone else pitching in to defend him & pretend it’s a legitimate concern coming from a good place. Is it hell.

Yep — not very easy to get to from Leeds!

Ah thank you: not a species I’m familiar with.

Nice one — looks a good fit.

A painting of a cool looking water bird. Possibly a crake of some kind. Mainly orange.

End of a long day travelling from Leeds to Graz. Highlights were a taxi driver telling me my German is good (it’s awful) and this picture in my hotel room (ID?) Looking forward to discussing cultural climate models tomorrow. As usual, I’ll be banging on about ecological and existential angst.

Snipe are always great to see!

Having a moderately bad and very long working day. But I just received an email from a student, beginning 'really great lecture this morning, you're a compelling speaker', so all is forgiven (even the comma splice).

One has grown to expect terrible public transport across the North of England, but sometimes it is genuinely shocking how bad it is.

Douglas Barrowman and Michelle Mone's company, PPE Medpro, has just been ordered to refund the Government £122m from a PPE contract.

There are two very odd things about PPE Medpro that may affect the odds of the Government ever getting that £122m...

Thread:

Man, I'm sorry, but reading all these AI generated essays from students, it just sucks all the joy out of everything. It's exhausting, makes you into a weird paranoid cop, grinds you down, wastes your time, makes you feel like shit about everything.

Fuck this shit technology and all its enablers.

Rachel wearing very flimsy looking apron, mask and visor in NHS setting

Here I am in 2020 in the flimsiest, most pitful PPE - like so many other NHS staff, some of whom died from the Covid they caught in their hospitals.

Tory peer Michelle Mone - who today lost her legal case & must repay the govt £122m - dares to claim she’s been ‘scapegoated’.

What, Michelle? 🧵

I’m his portrait in the attic

Hope it goes/went well!