James Garforth

If not butt, why butt shaped?

Me too…

"Be kind to yourself and hard on the system."

Who is that even smaller robot next to it?

I did this before in German but I guess today is a good day to compile English resources on why AI isn‘t actually intelligent and also a real danger: 🧵

Just seen this, glad you're OK Shannon!

Who in government is thinking about long-term digital infra and resilience, about equity beyond the 101 of inclusion, about supporting workers and workers to shift to a model of lifelong learning, or considering which non-digital skills should be deemed critical and a protected class?

Look, I'm not a politician running the world's sixth largest economy, but if *I* was giving a speech about a contentious issue like immigration in the current environment, I would probably try to have at least a passing familiarity with the history of that debate.

tweet that reads "the student that does not cheat has internalized the moral code of the oppressor."

Dress it up in progressive language but you're cheating yourself by not doing the work. This is the worst thing about AI: millions of students refusing to learn, taking zero interest in the world around them, empty in mind and heart. Your punishment is the person you will become.

No war with Iran. No weapons or funds for Israel. No war with Iran. No weapons or funds for Israel. No war with Iran. No weapons or funds for Israel. No war with Iran. No weapons or funds for Israel. No war with Iran. No weapons or funds for Israel.

Today I had a wonderful chain of chance run-ins, connections and coincidences that made it feel like fate's flow might be turning positive

To Improve Literacy, Improve Equality in Education, Not Large Language Models Huettig and Christiansen in an earlier issue argue that large language models (LLMs) are beneficial to address declining cognitive skills, such as literacy, through combating imbalances in educationa...

Out this week @cogscisociety.bsky.social! @samhforbes.bsky.social & I ”urge extreme caution in the use of LLMs in classrooms lest we further normalize: pupils losing their privacy, reducing contact between learner and educator, deskilling teachers & polluting the environment”
doi.org/10.1111/cogs...

"Kill" what industry too? Meta's? That would be amazing!

Edinburgh University UCU members back strike action over £140m cuts.

The university has refused to rule out compulsory job cuts.

This is the largest cuts programme in Scottish HE history.

We must resist.

#StopTheCuts #SaveHE www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Maybe not sys; Altman is probably one of those people who thinks it's a slur

You're an actual saint

Folks call your Senators now!! A ban on any state laws on GenAi for 10 YEARS is gonna do unthinkable harm!

For those of you wondering what to say here are two posts you can use to build your own script (use alt script to cut and paste)

Need to find your representatives? Here you go:
5calls.org

My hero

Questions: How do students feel about using a tool or 'creative collaborator' that: - has been trained on other people's creative output, without permission? - depends on exploitative and potentially abusive labour practices? - is a massively carbon-emitting and environmentally damaging technology? - is based on a belief in the power of scaling, when this creates so many basic problems? - is used to put people out of a job or to deskill them, even though it can't actually do the job tasks properly? - is touted as supporting people at work but is so unreliable it actually creates more work to check it? - is claimed to improve efficiency but undermines people's skills and capacities? - that will be pushed into schools and universities while degrading education and learning? - is really a way to privatise public services like health and education? - is claimed to be ethical while helping to fill the internet with slop? - is supposedly on the way to becoming a genius but carries on making really dumb mistakes? - is ranked as 'intelligent' using measures that are ultimately derived from eugenics? - is being made 'safe' in ways that actually make it a more powerful tool for potential dictators? - has as a central goal, according to its founder, American global dominance? - is increasingly turning towards the military for both funding and purpose?

'Questions for Anthropic (or any other LLM-pusher)'. Sharing the questions I prepared for a panel about Claude in education, in case they're useful to anyone else resisting the narrative of AI inevitability danmcquillan.org/questions_fo...

A year or two ago, I was always heavily caveating my genAI cynicism by saying stuff like, "Of course, once the models get good enough that we can't distinguish their output from a human's, we'll have a whole different problem..." But here we are: they're still shit and will probably stay that way.

And are we sure that politics don’t belong in computer science classes? Not at all?

Observing tech industry leaders get very involved in politics—taking over parts of the state, breaking laws, and having tech operatives mess with govt systems—is the problem they were taught about politics too much?

"Humans are essential, but AI investments continue to rise" is a great summary

Yesterday, I joined my brilliant colleagues at #AERA2025 for a panel, "AI and Educational Justice: A Critical Conversation." An audience member asked for more concrete ways to resist the imposition of AI on teachers/students - ahem, Trump's EO on AI - and I wanted to expand on my answer. 🧵

What is happening is honestly shocking. And.. still no sense of what kind of institution will remain if all these cuts go through.

There is no clear sense of the provision of education after the cuts, except to say we know there will be fewer courses and larger courses. Who will pay ££ for that?

I'm looking forward to it!

A quick reminder that next week Flo from Scottish Trans will be giving our monthly Queer Minds Scotland seminar about the findings of Scottish Trans' research on the experiences of trans and non-binary people in Scotland

30th April, 4pm (UK time)
Join us: events.bookitbee.com/university-o...

Survey: Society for Hopeful Technologists — Careful Industries Are you a UK-based technologist interested in joining a body that acts in solidarity against the excesses of extractive platform capitalism? Complete this survey to help shape the Society for Hopef...

Are you a UK-based technologist interested in joining a body that acts in solidarity against the excesses of extractive platform capitalism? Fill out this survey, and help design the Society for Hopeful Technologists www.careful.industries/blog/2025-4-...

So glad the tech industry got over leveraged on the worst product they've produced this century and decided they had to capture the state in order to force that product onto everyone to save themselves.

Draft executive order outlines plan to integrate AI into K-12 schools A policy under consideration by the White House and seen by The Post instructs federal agencies on how to incorporate artificial intelligence into classrooms.

Every single person preaching that AI will "revolutionize" education needs to contemplate who they are aligning with right now. The Trump Administration is gunning to destroy public education by using AI to hollow it out from within.

Which side are you on?

wapo.st/4lG1eyr

Here's Palantir's Louis Mosley, grandson of Britain's most famous fascist leader, talking about the importance of AI, if you aren't convinced yet that this is one big co-ordinated push towards the destruction of everything good in life.

www.politicshome.com/news/article...