Joe Slater

Yes, definitely! I'm on a reading party in the highlands now, but will have some flexibility from Friday. Give me a shout!

Glad to be back on dry land. That's enough of the sea life for me, for a while at least.

Had a wonderful time at a Philosophy of AI conference in Amsterdam with @hikemix.bsky.social. We're on the ferry back to the UK now, but because of a storm, it's going to be 21 hours(!). Plenty of time to do a bit of work (drinking).

I applaud your activity and your excellent gif choice.

LLMs can be harmful, even when not making stuff up This is a guest post by Joe Slater (University of Glasgow). Provided by author It is well known that chatbots powered by LLMs – ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, etc. – sometimes make things up. People have s…

A short piece of mine has just been published in the @justiceeverywhere.bsky.social blog. If you're interested, check it out!
I think I get more nerd points for (only slightly gratuitous) Star Trek references.
justice-everywhere.org/education/ll...
#PhilTech #NerdPoints #PhilSky #StarTrek

Two fixed-term teaching posts at Glasgow: both over 3 years, with open AOS. As I'm someone on a fixed-term teaching post at Glasgow, if you've got any questions, feel free to get in touch!
www.jobs.gla.ac.uk/job/lecturer...
#PhilJobs #Philosophy

This semester has been relentless, and I'm knackered.
One point that did give me a chuckle, however, was adding Chappell Roan's The Giver to my global poverty playlist (the *further*, further reading).
#Pedagogy

Bank of England warns of growing risk that AI bubble could burst Possibility of ‘sharp market correction has increased’, says Bank’s financial policy committee

Been saying this for a while. Nice to see the BoE catching on.
I've you've got investments in or related to AI (which is a lot of things right now...), you should probably get it out. #AIBubble
www.theguardian.com/business/202...

It has been a draining and mostly miserable week. But was just informed that a blog post about LLM problems (sculpted from leftovers from another research project) will soon be published by @justiceeverywhere.bsky.social
Huzzah!

As someone trained in epistemology, my professional take is: we’re so fucking cooked as a society

In response to student wellbeing concerns, my uni has overhauled its procedures re extenuating circumstances affecting assessment. But it's butchered the process, causing endless stress to staff and students. Ugh.
#Irony #AcademicProblems

The Case Against Generative AI Soundtrack: Queens of the Stone Age - First It Giveth Before we go any further: This is, for the third time this year, the longest newsletter I've ever written, weighing in somewhere around 18,500 wo...

Newsletter: This is The Case Against Generative AI, a comprehensive analysis of a financial collapse built on myths I’ll dispel, the markets’ unhealthy obsession with NVIDIA's growth, and the fact that there is not enough money in the world to fund OpenAI.
www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-aga...

To be slightly more specific: this is in seminars, after setting a group discussion task. I (probably?) wouldn't recommend this in a lecture! :p

“Get yourself into my navel”, the journals effectively say, “and then I will gaze at you” www.contralytic.co.uk/conversation...

The aesthetics here are so spot on that I almost didn't read it --- not wanting to deal with any doomerish crap so early in the morning. But this is hilarious and it keeps on going.

My friend Courtney hanging out on a picket line with @richardleonardmsp.bsky.social !
#Solidarity!

Is there something in the water? I've had three prospective PhD students enquire about working under me in the last week. If this continues, I'll have to create a template "No, sorry, I'm fixed term and can't supervise you" email.
#PrecariousProblems

On Sunday, I broke my wrist. This was a bummer.
Today, to cheer up, I'm bunking off work to see Chappell Roan in Edinburgh. If you're also going, look out for a muppet in a cast!
#ChappellRoan #PinkPonyClub

Donald Trump being an absolute arsehole (normal picture of Trump).

Just turned on the TV. Why is this loser talking about the Apprentice? What a tool.

Marx with a fashionable haircut, shaved at the sides, but still with a huge beard.

Preparing slides for a talk on Marxism in the 21st century I asked an AI programme to give Marx a contemporary hairstyle.

I’m sure he served me once at a craft beer place in Shoreditch.

Build-up for the Euros final on a big screen.

Finally putting the big screen in the Philosophy Department to good use! Come on England!
#Euro2025 #Lionesses

Like philosophy of linguistics and free stuff? Then boy do I have an opportunity for you!
This book - by my friend @ryannefdt.bsky.social - is available for download for free for the next two weeks. Get on it!
#PhilSky #Linguistics

Oops. My bad. You're publishing too much. I'll delete and repost, when I'm back my computer. Sorry!

Memento + philosophy discussion Leonard Shelby is tracking down the man who raped and murdered his wife. The difficulty of locating his wife's killer, however, is compounded by the fact that he suffers from a rare, untreatable form ...

People in Glasgow who like film and philosophy: this is tomorrow. The film will be introduced by one of my department's lovely PhD students (Michael Quinn), who will host a Q&A after, and the GFT is always great.
www.glasgowfilm.org/movie/mement...
#Philosophy #PhilFilm #Memento #ChristopherNolan

If anyone wants to hire me, I am soon to be unemployed and desperately want to run a series of studies exploring how teaching people about the architecture of LLMs changes the way they think and talk about LLMs

England 2-1 Italy, on the TV screen

Get in!! #Euro2025 #Lionesses

God, this is tense again...