Rob Farrow

Is Genocide Happening in Gaza? [Melanie O’Brien is Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Western Australia, President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, and Visiting Scholar with the H…

Is Genocide Happening in Gaza?

This was written by the President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.

Horrifyingly, it’s a cut and dry case of genocide. #gaza #genocide #philsky

I am reading a lot about Ed tech and AI this month, to get caught up.

And I want to say one thing — this is every previous wave of ed tech extraction at one time, on steroids. Not even the Apple/microsoft school wars comes close.

Thanks! The coding seems worth a try. Still a palaver though.

Apparently I now have two choices if I want to check Bluesky DMs... share personal data with unverified 3rd parties or go to France. Just don't send me DMs here I suppose... not sure how that is keeping people safe but there you go.

Tell your MP: The Online Safety Act isn’t working What's the problem? The Online Safety Act has been a disaster. Rather than protect children, millions of adults are facing widespread censorship, and teenagers are having their freedom of expression…

Adults treated like kids unless they sacrifice privacy. Young people cut off from support. Public debate neutered.

Ofcom must take stock of these threats to freedom of expression and Parliament must reform the Online Safety Act.

Tell your MP to fix it ⬇️

action.openrightsgroup.org/tell-your-mp...

Cartoon, ten penguins stand next to each other in two rows of five. Each has their own prop and/or costume relating to their title. The first row of penguins (from left to right) are labelled "The pragmatist, The Philospher, The Unknown, The Explorer and The Maverick." The second row "The Famous Scientist, The Absent Minded Professor, The Wizard, The Maestro and The Master."

Make your research come alive with Visual Thinkery - this time using the playful mask of a cartoon character to explore a very serious topic: different types of PhD supervisors!
(created for GO-GN Guide to Doctoral Supervision) with @rfarrow.bsky.social.

buff.ly/s2lm2ee

#AI Authorship Revisited: Assessing the evolving perspectives regarding the copyright aspects of generative artificial intelligence outputs cacm.acm.org/opinion/ai-a...

a couple of hours before my keynote, I went through an intense negotiation with the organisers (for over a hour) where we went through my slides and had to remove anything that mentions 'Palestine' 'Israel' and replace 'genocide' with 'war crimes'

1/

This part of @audreywatters.bsky.social latest really struck me too. I have yet to find any "thought partner" utility in an LLM because my thought partners are the people I read, the unique intelligences of others.

Our's is the age of #AI as machine learning. Do you think Symbolic AI will make a comeback?

Could it be the route to mitigating some of the risks associated with language models?

Is it even compatible with machine learning paradigms?

Or has Symbolic AI simply had it's day?

This is a great guide from @dorassessment.bsky.social on improving research assessment in your organization. I wish it had been around when we started DORA implementation a few years ago! zenodo.org/records/1500...

‘Shocking’ Turing directive creates ‘new world’ in research policy - Research Professional News Experts raise alarm after science secretary instructs Alan Turing Institute to focus on defence

‘Shocking’ Turing directive creates ‘new world’ in research policy.

Experts raise alarm after science secretary instructs Alan Turing Institute to focus on defence.

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...

The Scale of Economic Inequality in the UK - Equality Trust The UK has very high inequality of income compared to other developed countries. The UK's wealth inequality is much more severe than income inequality.

Economic inequality in the UK equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-econom...

Some Thoughts on Techno-Fascism From Socialism 2025 "This is the endgame of our isolation."

"Men who sell machines that mimic people want us to become people who mimic machines. They want techno feudal subjects who will believe and do what they’re told. We, as people, are being strategically simplified. This is a fascist process."

organizingmythoughts.org/some-thought...

Although many computer-vision researchers conceptualize the overall rise and proliferation of computer-vision technologies as field success, this rapid proliferation might alternatively be understood as the perpetual practice of rendering visible what was previously shielded and unseen, a practice that surveillance studies scholars such as Browne view as the core of surveillance. Technologies that enable the monitoring of human data, which may be perceived as differentially malevolent or benevolent by different communities, nonetheless have historically established consequences: these technologies engender fear and self-censorship; it is lucrative and standard practice for enti- ties in positions of relative power to use these technologies to access, monetize, coerce, control or police individuals or communities with lesser power; and these technologies are frequently deputized by state surveillance organizations. Crucially, in addition to individualized consequences, the rapid generation and proliferation of technologies monitoring humans accumulates to what Zuboff calls the condition of ‘no exit’, where there are fewer and fewer spaces left to opt out, ‘disconnect’ and seek respite.

Finally got a chance to read this. Rendering visible what was previously unseen is the “core of surveillance.” 🔥 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

"Visibility is a trap."

Foucault's killer line from Discipline and Punish remains an efficient description of the weaponization of visibility in surveillance no matter the technology deployed.

Unity promises strong AI copyright 'guardrails' after employee conjures Mickey Mouse on stream Unity promises its AI tools will have proper copyright "guardrails" by the time they become widely available, after a Unity employee used Unity AI to generate images of Disney's Mickey Mouse...

Unity promises strong AI copyright 'guardrails' after employee conjures Mickey Mouse on stream

www.gamedeveloper.com/art/unity-pr...

Jason Stanley, philosopher and expert on fascism said “You know you're living in a fascist society when you're constantly going over in your head the reasons why YOU are safe.”

‘Don’t let open science degenerate into a data dump’ An endless stream of publications, data and software accessible to all? Professor of Science Studies Thed van Leeuwen calls for a more human-centred approach and an overhaul of the PhD system.

Today, our colleague Thed van Leeuwen gives his inaugural lecture at Leiden University. Ahead of the event, he shares key insights — calling for a more human-centred approach in #OpenScience.

📰 Read more: www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2025...

@leidensocial.bsky.social

Denmark to tackle deepfakes by giving people copyright to their own features Amendment to law will strengthen protection against digital imitations of people’s identities, government says

Denmark to tackle deepfakes by giving people copyright to their own features www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

🔥 Research needed to shake up the pretensions by computer vision folks that they’re just tracking objects.

Anthropic did not breach copyright when training AI on books without permission, court rules Judge says firm made ‘fair use’ of literature but storage of pirated books in central library constituted infringement

Anthropic did not breach copyright when training AI on books without permission, court rules www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

"Add additional information to your Piazza profile Diversity & Inclusion – select one or more (required) Let's harness the power of human difference to help solve some of the world’s hardest problems with employers on Piazza Network. A list of checkboxes follows, labeled as: Female Male Non-binary American Indian or Indigenous Peoples Asian Black or African American Hispanic or Latino Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander White or Caucasian Veteran or served in the Armed Services First-generation college student Living with a disability Member of the LGBTQ community National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) Each of the 3 sections above are required by the Piazza Network."

"Add additional information to your Piazza profile" Checkboxes from previous screenshot continue: "- Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) - Society of Women Engineers (SWE) - Women in Computer Science (WiCS) - Prefer not to share" Next, a section titled: "Visa requirement to work in the U.S. (required) - I am a US citizen - To work in the US, I do not require sponsorship for an employment authorizing status or visa immediately, nor in the future - To work in the US, I will require sponsorship for an employment authorizing status or visa in the future - To work in the US, I will require sponsorship for an employment authorizing status or visa immediately - Not applicable / Prefer not to share Next is a field labeled: "Personal email (non-school, example: name@email.com) (required)" "Employers may need to use this to communicate with you as part of the Piazza Network." "Each of the 3 sections above are required by the Piazza Network."

Piazza is a course discussion platform used by many colleges and universities. Piazza requires students to provide the following information when signing up.

From 2017-2019, Palantir Technologies paid Piazza $916,000 for access to this data. www.sec.gov/Archives/edg...

crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their consultants

#OpenScience lobbyists, skeptics and everything in between: consider coming to Munich in May 2026 (gorgeous time to visit..) to discuss the future of Open Research!

FOR2026 is open for submissions: opensciencestudies.eu/for-2026-con... pls help spread the word 🙏 #philsci #sts #methods #policy 🧪

Come and work with us in Philosophy at Warwick, part II: warwick-careers.tal.net/vx/lang-en-G...

BBC threatens legal action against AI start-up Perplexity over content scraping British broadcaster makes first move to clamp down on alleged infringement of copyright by tech groups

BBC threatens legal action against AI start-up Perplexity over content scraping https://on.ft.com/45wFAHq

A screenshot of a Wired article by Dell Cameron and Dhruv Mehrotra, published May 14, 2025, with the headline: "CFPB Quietly Kills Rule to Shield Americans From Data Brokers."

A screenshot of a Wired article by Lily Hay Newman, published June 16, 2025, with the headline: "Minnesota Shooting Suspect Allegedly Used Data Broker Sites to Find Targets' Addresses."

One month apart.

You are too kind! Happy reading

New publication: Farrow, R. (2025). Cosmopolitics and The Commons. Education Ouverte Et Libre - Open Education, (3). doi.org/10.52612/jou...

This paper explore the social and political commitments of open education, arguing for a cosmopolitical relignment of the project of open education.