"The link between broad-based literacy and the rise of democracy is well known:…What happens when the process goes into reverse? When people lack the patience to absorb arguments…[or] the ability to contradict those arguments because they’ve never honed..the most essential skill for clear thinking?"

Opinion | I’m Begging You: Never Write With A.I. (Gift Article)

It’s bad for your brain and worse for democracy.

nytimes.com

Here’s the latest stop motion animation from my Tiny Angry Witch team. (I’m the writer, I can’t take credit for the animating!) It’s one of our longest, and it nearly drove us all mad, but we’re really proud of getting it made! 1 x Tiny Angry Witch 1 x broom No AI

Why is Anthropic destroying books? | Kathryn James

Why is Anthropic destroying books? | Kathryn James

The AI company apparently found destructively scanning ‘all the books in the world’ easier than dealing with copyright in its quest for training data

theguardian.com

New paper out today - sea breeze and air quality in coastal towns (well, Plymouth anyway). acp.copernicus.org/articles/26/...

Diurnal sea breeze worsens coastal air quality and complicates monitoring of remote North Atlantic air

Abstract. In coastal environments, land and sea absorb and release heat at different rates due to their differing thermal properties. The resultant regular fluctuation in winds from onshore during the...

acp.copernicus.org

Having ranted about school curriculum books, I’ve just seen my son’s summer reading list, and all I can say is “I was right”. A more depressing collection would be tricky to assemble. Are we actively trying to convey to kids the idea that reading is dismal and arduous?

Open Letter: Stop the Uncritical Adoption of AI Technologies in Academia It's been a year & people tell me they've changed their mind, feel safer now to sign, etc. So I'm sharing it again for them. We're almost at 2k & anybody from anywhere can add their names. openletter.earth/open-letter-...

Time is going all squiffy. Wondering what to read next, and tempted to a re-read...but, I think, I read that not long ago. Turns out 'maybe 2 or 3 years ago' was actually 2009. Suspect this is one of those 'getting old' things.

The speed of #climate change has accelerated dramatically in the last decade, from 0.2°C per decade from 1970 to 2015 to 0.35°C per decade over the past ten years. And politicians still fiddle while we burn. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

Scientists detect a sharp acceleration in global warming

Global warming appears to have shifted into a faster gear. After removing the effects of El Niño, volcanic eruptions, and solar cycles, researchers found that the planet has warmed at roughly 0.35°C p...

sciencedaily.com

💯💯💯

Anna Kornbluh@annakornbluh.bsky.social · 3d ago

"Artificial intelligence is not just a market product or a scientific achievement. It is a political theory. And it is gobbling up our democracy." connect the dots! Dr. McMillan Cottom has homework! go to the library, host a reading group, organize your neighbors www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/o...

I think "AI" plumpers should be happy I'm focusing mostly on the nonsense it's doing to my field, rather than how it's very clearly designed as a tool for the capture of wealth and capital by a bunch of accelerationist weirdos enthusiastically huffing their own farts from the depth of their K-holes

The Register@theregister.com · 3d ago

Sci-fi authors Scalzi and Stross decry AI's dystopian impact on their craft

We do not now, and never have had a cat, and yet...

Yes, it does, and always has, not least because curriculum texts are often selected for their portrayal of misery and misunderstanding in the demographic being asked to read the curriculum.

Bob Eaglestone @bobeaglestone.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I gave evidence to the House of Commons Education Select Committee: very short account here schoolsweek.co.uk/secondary-en...

Evidence of the great benefits of AI: it used to take a huge amount of time and effort to make yourself look this stupid; now AI allows you to humiliate yourself almost instantly.

PBS News@pbsnews.org · 6d ago

The State Department said ​it takes "full responsibility" for "hastily" altering and then presenting a map of Africa at a global AIDS conference that mislabeled every single country it highlighted. An analysis by Reuters found a watermark in the map image that suggests it was made with OpenAI.

I used to do some work on the ethical use of satellite and drone imagery for aid and disaster response, and it is genuinely hard to express in words what a dangerous, stupid thing Google is doing by making it easy to use GenAI to create faked satellite imagery:

How to plant a nuclear plant in Iran

The question is: what on earth is Google doing?

digitaldigging.org

I’ve just made a donation. Hopefully he gets loads. Fuck Reform. grumpycook.co.uk

HappyToast@happytoast.co.uk · 6d ago

This has really pissed me off, if you're in the area and can afford it go and give the cafe owner some money to help fund the kids meals. And if he refuses buy yourself a nice coffee and tip him as much as you can. Fuck Reform taking food from kids in need. www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...

For decades, Jodrell Bank has helped us understand the universe, but now it's facing pointless funding cuts. Withdrawing funds won't save much money, but it will seriously hurt UK science. I’ve added my name to help stop this—please join me and sign the petition: you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/sa...

Save Jodrell Bank

For decades, Jodrell Bank has helped us understand the universe, but now its funding is being threatened. Add your name to help stop these short-sighted cuts and protect UK science:

you.38degrees.org.uk

At that stage of the peer review process – reviewing the revision of a manuscript, the first version of which I tore apart – where I really wish I could just submit video of me banging my head on my desk. It would be so much less painful.

I'm really pleased to be taking on the role of Co-Chair of the @soosocean.bsky.social Observing System Design capability working group. 😃 🇦🇶 ⭐ We're looking for a new ECR and members of the leadership team, please consider nominating yourself or a colleague and share widely! soos.aq/opportunitie...

Sadly it's not just #JodrellBank losing funding, with deep cuts across the board for UK astronomy. One example is the HiPERCAM project whose funding has been entirely cut to save £50K/yr - peanut-levels of £s. Spectacular fast transient science lost, for what? 🔭😡 www.zmescience.com/science/astr...

One of Astronomy’s Fastest Cameras May Stop Operating Over a $67,000 Funding Gap

The camera that checked JWST’s clock is losing its funding.

zmescience.com

I've been off socials for 2 years, but have to speak up. Utter madness to defund this flagship institution of UK science + education. International research, UNESCO-level heritage, training physicists (inc. me in 2000), inspiring public w/ visitor centre and bluedot festival. We must #SaveJodrell

Chris Lintott @chrislintott.bsky.social · last wk.

Short-sighted, stupid cuts to the UKRI budget include shutting down Jodrell Bank, the icon of British astronomy. (Many other cuts too, including 20% to our brand new @vrubinobs.bsky.social). Interesting politically to shut down a major facility in...um..Manchester 🔭 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

"As an author I'd rather hear Reviewer 2's bad attitudes than LLM platitudes". Exactly.

Kate Devlin@drkatedevlin.bsky.social · last wk.

Shadow use of genAI as a reviewer is shitty because you're putting someone else's work into the machine w/o consent, and as an author I'd rather hear Reviewer 2's bad attitudes than LLM platitudes. But if you sanction reviewers you'll just have no reviewers. It's a lose-lose situation.

"This is more than just a niche issue for astronomers. This is an issue that's going to affect the quality of life for everybody on Earth." https://www.space.com/space-exploration/satellites/private-companies-could-ruin-the-night-sky-for-the-entire-world-and-international-law-cant-stop-them

Private companies could ruin the night sky for the entire world, and international law can't stop them

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) can single-handedly approve space projects that will change the night sky around the world. The international community can do very little against it.

space.com

"Can you look the panel in the eye and persuade them that the ideas in the grant are yours? It’s like a Turing test, except now we poor humans are the subjects." ICYMI over the weekend, my latest blog post on the perils of #LLM #AI in science #AcademicSky tinyurl.com/bdnxn7ca

I'm absolutely devastated for colleagues at Jodrell Bank who found out this morning that funding for the UK's e-MERLIN radio telescope array will be terminated. This is a short-sighted move, to save a tiny fraction of the overall UK science budget. #SaveJodrellBank 🔭🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Jodrell Bank's Lovell telescope faces axe in science cuts, BBC understands

Astronomers warn it would tear the heart out of UK science, and leave a generation untrained.

bbc.co.uk

Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans@astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 3w ago

“What will the Lovell Telescope discover/enable 20 yrs from now? I can’t tell you, and that’s the point. It will either be something extraordinary that none of us can yet predict, or we will defund it and leave Cheshire with a rusting monument to unfulfilled potential and discoveries never made.” 🔭🧪

AI code leads to a 45% increase in the maintenance burden on human coders

𝐀𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐜𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐜𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐭? 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐝: 🎯Across 182 open source projects, we tracked >30K commits from… | Courtney Miller

𝐀𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐜𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨𝐨𝐥𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐩 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐜𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐭? 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐝: 🎯Across 182 open source projects, we tracked >30K commits from agentic coding tools to measure the true cost of adoption. 𝐖...

linkedin.com

Ford switched a ton of jobs to AI last year, then a couple of weeks ago rehired the people they fired because AI cost a LOT more and was a LOT less reliable. And they're far from the only ones. www.cnbc.com/2026/07/01/e...

Employers who laid off workers citing AI are already starting to regret it

Companies are realizing artificial intelligence can't do everything after all, prompting them to rehire employees to grow their businesses

cnbc.com

New paper: acp.copernicus.org/articles/26/... Observations of aerosol entrained from free troposphere being required to explain the properties of Arctic boundary layer clouds.

Contribution of free tropospheric aerosols to Arctic low-level cloud droplets formation and longwave radiative forcing

Abstract. Aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions are a major source of uncertainty in the Arctic climate, particularly for low-level clouds (LLC) that dominate cloud cover. This study presents in situ m...

acp.copernicus.org

new research on a short story written by Alan Turing in the year after his arrest in Manchester for gross indecency reveals a man who loved literature, who was enjoying life, who was “playful, funny, cheeky, literary, and someone who really liked sex” www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

The Diamond Light Source is one of the UK's most productive scientific faclities. Just signed an open letter urging the STFC to ensure decisions about its future are "transparent, evidence-led, and made in meaningful consultation with its […] user communities." openletter.earth/open-letter-...

Trying not to get wound up by this use of GenAI on CILIP's website... (Were I overthinking it, I'd think it says: are librarians principled enough to take a stance against GenAI? No. But are they competent enough to use it well? Also no. Ah, but can they proof-read websites? Still no.)

Huddersfield Exposed@huddersfield.exposed · 2w ago

Just waiting 'til you check out the binding on this book 🤯