OpenAI and Microsoft admitted LLMs are predatory tech built on “an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions,” and the “largest theft of labor in human history.” An internal Microsoft document said AI has created a “doom loop” that is killing “the entire web.” www.404media.co/doom-loop-op...

‘Doom Loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft Admits LLMs Are Destroying the Web and Built on Theft

"Millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions."

404media.co

𖦹 The Best Of Men 𖦹 I am still so proud of my Folk horror audio drama 🖤 The Best of Men is based on Shropshire’s Satanic folklore. Enter a landscape defined by its stories, where the Devil walks unfettered amongst us. www.buzzsprout.com/411730/episo... #Folkhorror #audiodrama #folklore

This year's SFF conference, in partnership with the Clarke Award and the University of Liverpool, is now live - online, 12-13 December. Confirmed speakers: Andrew M. Butler, Anne Charnock, E.J. Swift, Tade Thompson. buytickets.at/thesciencefi...

Buy tickets – The State of SF and of Things to Come: Reading SF through the Clarke Award – MS Teams

The State of SF and of Things to Come: Reading SF through the Clarke Award – MS Teams, Sat 12 Dec 2026 - Sun 13 Dec 2026 - Keynote speaker: Dr Andrew M. Butler, Chair of the Judges of the Arthur C. Cl...

buytickets.at

It seems to me that "AI may be misaligned with human values and do things we can't predict or understand" and "AI is a shitty, unpredictable tool that provides wrong answers all the time" is fundamentally a difference about whether you think LLMs are conscious beings. They are not.

A cheery message from the new minister responsible for research funding for the Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences (and the subjects that the majority of UK taught undergraduate and Masters students study).

Science and maths degrees offer most value to the nation, says minister

Chris McDonald told a room full of vice-chancellors that science, engineering and mathematics ‘offer the greatest personal, social and economic value’

thetimes.com

What does #speculative fiction #SF tell us about #spirituality and #faith? How important are philosophy & #theology when building #alternativeworlds & possible #futures? Come and discuss with us York in November! @eclasproject.bsky.social @uoy-sociology.bsky.social www.york.ac.uk/sociology/ab...

'Science - Fictions, Faiths and Futures' Conference: Call For Submissions

Colleagues are invited to submit their proposals for the 'Science - Fictions, Faiths and Futures' Conference which will be held at the University of York, 4-6 November 2026.

york.ac.uk

In a historic move, the SF Collections at the University of Liverpool have been awarded Designated Status by Arts Council England. The award recognises them as a site of national & international significance. Many congratulations to our Curator, Tom Dillon, for successfully piloting the application.

It seems like there's a new round of "stochastic parrots has been proven wrong" discourse going on, so I'm going to re-up this: medium.com/@emilymenonb... >>

Stochastic Parrots 🦜: Frequently Unasked Questions

It’s been a bit over five years since the Stochastic Parrots paper (Bender, Gebru et al 2021) was published (and somewhat longer since…

medium.com

OMFG #Furious Emmy Rossum, Lola Petticrew and Quincy Tyler Bernstine, all the writers and directors, deserve all the awards going…

This week, @bridgettodd.bsky.social sits down with @samleecole.bsky.social to talk about why AI can never replace human relationships and how tech companies are implicated in the mockery of people using AI for companionship. Watch now: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCk-...

Incredible stuff

Ok 👍 www.businessinsider.com/ai-boom-enro...

I love this. So British media in the silly season. And we’ve only just got over the annual ‘blonde girl(s) screaming over A Level results’ story headlining in all media outlets, as it has been for the last five decades.

Four in 10 men believe they could qualify for the 2028 Olympics

Athletes who compete in the Olympics have usually spent most of their lives preparing for the event. But four in 10 British men believe they could qualify for the next Games if they started training n...

mol.im

📡 Signal Boost When There Are Wolves Again by E.J. Swift 👉 uk.bookshop.org/a/14057/9781... An “ambitious study in the power of long-term hope in the face of climate breakdown” 🌍🔥 This is the book you urgently need to read! 🐺🌳

We’re delighted to share that WHEN THERE ARE WOLVES AGAIN by E.J. Swift, and published by Arcadia, is the 40th winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award science fiction book of the year.

Murphy’s Law is the only Irish bar open in Milan in August. 😏

Milan Central Station having a power outage. Metro still running.

AI did not and cannot do such a thing! it is literally in the next line (Scientists trained AI on libraries of DNA and then asked the model to create recipes for viral genomes) but hype and clickbait over accurate reporting i guess www.nytimes.com/2026/08/06/s...

This A.I. Just Created Viruses Not Found in Nature

Scientists trained artificial intelligence on libraries of DNA and then asked the model to create recipes for viral genomes. Sixteen of them were viable, yielding new viruses.

nytimes.com

Worried you missed the deadline for our Clarke Award conference in December? Fear not - our partners at the University of Liverpool have extended the deadline to 17 August. call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2026/04/...

I adored Mrs Davis! Super sharp script and the whole filmed-in-the-backlots vibe crossed with the 60s Batman art direction. It would be great to see the entire production team reunited on a new thing…

How can they? How can they do it?

This is a book you need: broadviewpress.com/product/the-...

The Broadview Anthology of Science Fiction - Broadview Press

The Broadview Anthology of Science Fiction -

broadviewpress.com

Unusually for bsky, this has attracted a lot of folks who want to argue (via QTs here and downthread) that the anthropomorphizing language is just fine, actually. Helps people understand clearly. Doesn't obfuscate responsibility. And/or is a more accurate portrayal of what the models are doing. >>

Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · 2mo ago

This is laughable --- "reporting says", well yes, these reporters did a bang-up job anthropomorphizing the system they are talking about, and obfuscating the responsibility that OpenAI holds here. bsky.app/profile/mims... Some examples:

This is laughable --- "reporting says", well yes, these reporters did a bang-up job anthropomorphizing the system they are talking about, and obfuscating the responsibility that OpenAI holds here. bsky.app/profile/mims... Some examples:

Christopher Mims@mims.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I've seen some folks try to frame OpenAI's unreleased model hacking a company that tests its abilities as a cynical marketing ploy but reporting says that absolutely was not the case: This was a real-deal escape of an AI agent that could have done vastly more damage. www.wsj.com/tech/ai/how-...

I cant help but see this as openai trying to do the same doom slop stunt as anthropic. But they're going further with the trust us this is super serious and more important than when anthropic said all that about mythos

“our agents escaped containment” sounds a lot more impressive than “our SDET forgot to disable the internet gateway and our agent was able to connect to a live system by mistake”

Observe the rank anthropomorphization here. Models don't "conclude" anything, nor do they "hack", "wriggle", or "cheat". You simply can't write clear informative articles about this stuff if you displace agency away from the people (organized into corporations) responsible. /fin for now.

So excited to be taking part in crsfliverpool.bsky.social. I’m on one of the last panels of the conference, so if you see me around, say G’Day!