"Humanities are being extinguished by university bosses across the country. We desperately need an emergency rescue package to stop the death-rattle of Britain's great universities." @drjogrady.bsky.social in the Guardian 👇 www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Humanities among degrees being ‘extinguished’ by hard-up universities

Exclusive: Experts fear rise in education ‘cold spots’ and social immobility as 4,000 academic posts lost in one year

theguardian.com

#philsky #booksky Depraved book event Daisy Dixon in conversation with Jess Davies Book Space Cardiff 23 July, 6.30pm Details and tickets:

Depraved Event ticket

Join us for an evening in conversation with Daisy Dixon to talk about her new book Depraved : The Story of Dangerous Art.  When: 23/7/26 18:30 start (doors 18:15) Where: 26a Crwys Road, CF24 4NL ~~~~~...

bookspacecardiff.co.uk

Something deeply troubling & shocking is happening at Exeter University*, where a mass cull of staff is planned, even though it's in surplus. No good justifications given. @jamesgdyke.info provides the details: www.technosphere.earth/the-bonfire-... *Disclosure: I have a Visiting Fellowship here. +🧵

The bonfire of the humanities

150 academic posts at the University of Exeter are to be cut, most in the humanities but also in social sciences, engineering and environmental sciences

technosphere.earth

We're on Bluesky now! 🦋 Follow us here for updates, we're just getting started. @ucu.org.uk @exetergreens.bsky.social @exeterlabour.bsky.social Here are our six key messages:

That’s a wrap! An enormous thank you to our incredible community of scholars across all career stages for making our annual conference collegial, fun & intellectually stimulating—bringing all their energy to the talks and saving some more for art, bbq & dancing in the middle of the heatwave 🖥️🎻⛪️🌭🪩

If you asked me, off the top of my head, to name a non-Oxbridge university in England synonymous with excellence in the Humanities - I would probably think of Exeter first. This feels like a very deliberate, targeted and ideological Bonfire of the Humanities

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · last mo.

'About 150 academic roles are set to go at the south-west institution, which said it was targeting areas that are “no longer sustainable” or have seen changes in student demand.' History and English are name-checked. 1/3

Next up is the panel on "Good girls, bad times" w Marie Wuth, @hkohpeiss.bsky.social and @lucyosler.bsky.social on historical and contemporary fascist imaginaries of the "good girl', heteropessism and the "good girl love" (Beauvoir) we see in the trad wife movement & AI #philsky @epsse.bsky.social

Ditte Marie Munch-Jurisic@dittemunch.bsky.social · last mo.

Here it is a Michaila Peters, Boston College, presenting parts of her dissertation work: "Affective policing of extractive thinking" drawing on Alcoff, hooks, Ahmed and her own upbringing in the Appalachian countryside. #philsky @epsse.bsky.social

The Philosophy department at Exeter is exceptional. It has both a concentration of world leading researchers in the philosophy of the biological and cognitive sciences, and a unique departmental profile in the UK. It would be a catastrophic loss to the UK philosophy scene.

Ben Phillips@benphillips1989.bsky.social · last mo.

A statement from Exeter UCU branch @ucu.org.uk - please share far and wide.

Getting ready for the EPSSE annual meeting at the very picturesque town of Eichstätt, where our president Imke von Maur has put together a fantastic pre-conference workshop on philosophy of place — don’t worry if you have missed it, it will turn into a special issue of Passion!

@epsse.bsky.social here we come! Looking so much forward to our panel with @eabyrne.bsky.social and Paula Muhr!

@cultmind.bsky.social · last mo.

@dittemunch.bsky.social and Astrid Fly Oredsson were invited to the annual conference of the European Philosophical Society for the Study of Emotion (EPPSE), where they will present their research project in a panel entitled 'Critiquing Emotion Norms in Medicine'. www.epsse.org/_files/ugd/4...

Will AI do more harm than good to the UK's mental health? It was a huge honour to be invited to take part in the Maudsley Christmas Debate at KCL in Decemeber 2025. You can now see the write up of the main points of debate in the BMJ: www.bmj.com/content/393/...

Will AI do more harm than good to the UK's mental health?

The benefits and harms of AI to mental health are constantly in the headlines. Iain McGilchrist and Lucy Osler say that this is warranted given widespread public access to chatbots. But Charlotte Blea...

bmj.com

Our volume For, Against, Together is officially available online with Cambridge University Press! Together our incredible contributors rethink antagonistic political emotions in our current climate. www.cambridge.org/core/books/f... Here’s a taste of what’s inside 🧵

For, Against, Together

Cambridge Core - Social Psychology - For, Against, Together

cambridge.org

Had a great conversation with Jackie Snow about chatbots’ memory function and the way their personalised callbacks to information and stories you have shared about yourself can calcify your own self-narratives and self-understanding (which I’ve elsewhere described as narrative railroading) 🤖✒️🛤️

University of Exeter News@uniofexeternews.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Featuring analysis by @lucyosler.bsky.social www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ai-m...

Many congratulations to Dr Anneli Jefferson who has been awarded a ✨ Leverhulme Fellowship ✨ to work on her book 📕 Responsibility Through the Lifespan Llongyfarchiadau mawr, Anneli! #philsky @annelijefferson.bsky.social

Exeter’s got a two-year teaching stint for someone into philosophy of data and related - the job’s pretty plush as far as non-permanent ones go - and Exeter is an amazing place to do this kind of philosophy - please pass around! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQZ094/l... #philsci

Lecturer in Philosophy or Sociology of Data and Artificial Intelligence at University of Exeter

Apply for the Lecturer in Philosophy or Sociology of Data and Artificial Intelligence role on jobs.ac.uk, the top job board for academic positions in higher education. View details and apply now.

eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com

At the AI psychosis, Hearing Voices, & Suicidality workshop, Lucy Osler talks about the interaction between users & chatbots, the narration process that shapes our experiences, the emotional import of the evaluative lens that AI imposes on distressing situations #BPF2026 #philosophymatters #philsky

Celebrating the sunshine finally emerging in Exeter with Another Sad Philosophy Workshop today!

New paper in @autisminadulthood.bsky.social exploring autistic adults embodied experiences of offline and online sociality. The paper is co-authored with @joelkrueger.com, and funded by @carlsbergfondet.dk. #Autism #Neurodiversity #Phenomenology #Embodiment journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

journals.sagepub.com

Dr @lucyosler.bsky.social from @exeterspspa.bsky.social spoke to BBC Radio Devon about why people turn to AI to find love and build relationships❤️ www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

BBC Radio Devon - Caroline Densley, 04/03/2026

Caroline gets Devon talking and celebrates the best of what's going on in the county.

bbc.co.uk

#philsky Call for papers :: Speech and Society: Contemporary Philosophy of Language Keynote Speakers: Professor Emma Borg Professor Jennifer Mather Saul Conference dates: 24-25 June Abstract deadline: 2 April Full details:

Speech and Society: Contemporary Philosophy of Language

The Cardiff University Philosophy Department will hold a conference on “Speech and Society: Contemporary Philosophy of Language” taking place 24th – 25th of June. In recent years, t...

philevents.org

Dr Daisy Dixon's new book –– DEPRAVED: The Story of Dangerous Art –– an analysis of the varieties of immoral art and the ways that we should respond to it –– is now available to preorder! Waterstones are offering a 25% discount until 20 February – used code FEB26: bit.ly/Dixon-DSDA #philsky

Now out in Philosophy & Technology! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Hallucinating with AI: Distributed Delusions and “AI Psychosis” - Philosophy & Technology

Philosophy & Technology - There is much discussion of the false outputs that generative AI systems such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, DeepSeek, and Grok create. In popular terminology, these have...

link.springer.com

Lucy Osler@lucyosler.bsky.social · 11mo ago

I explore these ideas and more in my preprint, “Hallucinating with AI: AI psychosis and distributed delusions”, where I argue that we need to move beyond thinking about AI “hallucinating at us” to understanding how we “hallucinate with AI” #philsky arxiv.org/abs/2508.19588

Currently on a bus in Bristol, heading to this awesome event -- great poster, for starters!

Lucy Osler@lucyosler.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Just one week til our “Social AI: A Philosophy Workshop” 🌟We will be joined by Pii Telakivi, Rob Clowes, Kris Goffin, Shahd Omar, Kesavan Thenagopal, Mike Barnes, Mercedes Corredor, Ben White, Leda Bario, Allister Lee, Àger Pérez Casanovas, Shane Glackin, Tom Roberts, & Joel Krueger 🌟

Just one week til our “Social AI: A Philosophy Workshop” 🌟We will be joined by Pii Telakivi, Rob Clowes, Kris Goffin, Shahd Omar, Kesavan Thenagopal, Mike Barnes, Mercedes Corredor, Ben White, Leda Bario, Allister Lee, Àger Pérez Casanovas, Shane Glackin, Tom Roberts, & Joel Krueger 🌟

✨ Many congratulations to Thom Hamer, whose PhD viva was this afternoon and was passed with flying colours! Thom’s thesis title is: Rethinking the Absurdity of Life: A Metaexistential Inquiry Llongyfarchiadau mawr, Dr Hamer! Gefeliciteerd! 🎓

The CFP for the one-day pre-conference workshop “The Power of (Dis-)Placing: Affect, Practice and the Political” is open until the 15th of feb. Send your abstracts (500w) to imke.von.maur[at]ku.de with the subject ‘EPSSE 2026 Pre-conference’

Coming soon: my new book *The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence: A Philosophical Introduction*. More info - including three very generous blurbs from @davidgunkel.bsky.social, @briandavidearp.bsky.social, & Crystal L'Hote, PhD - here: hackettpublishing.com/new-forthcom... #aiethics #philosophy

“feral gossip” is such an excellent coinage from @lucyosler.bsky.social and @joelkrueger.com to describe the way LLMs amplify gossip about real people as they pass slop back and forth between training sets. www.vice.com/en/article/a...

AI Chatbots Are Quietly Trading Gossip About People With Zero Fact-Checking

AI chatbots already say questionable things to humans. Now, they may be swapping those same questionable takes with each other.

vice.com

The AI gossip paper @joelkrueger.com and I wrote got picked up by Vice! We argue that chatbots generate gossip about people and consider how this gossip becomes ‘feral’ without the social constraints that usually moderate human rumor-spreading 🗣️🤖💬🫢 www.vice.com/en/article/a...

AI Chatbots Are Quietly Trading Gossip About People With Zero Fact-Checking

AI chatbots already say questionable things to humans. Now, they may be swapping those same questionable takes with each other.

vice.com

Daisy Dixon and I have a friendly-critical review of Dominic Lopes’s *Aesthetic Injustice* out in the new issue of Ethics. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Lopes, Dominic McIver. Aesthetic Injustice. Oxford University Press, 2024. Pp. 208. $100.00 (cloth). | Ethics: Vol 136, No 2

journals.uchicago.edu