Sean Wallis
@seanawallis.bsky.social
Socialist, corpus linguistics researcher at UCL, UCL UCU secretary, NEC member. Personal capacity. Repost ≠ endorsement Blogs about CL/statistics at https://corplingstats.wordpress.com Stood for election for UCU VP in 2026, see https://seanwallis.uk
For all @ucu.org.uk members! Posts providing specialist expertise in Arabic, Chinese and Italian are threatened with redundancy at Birmingham University. Please sign and share this petition! Send solidarity to @birminghamucu.bsky.social @ucu-solidarity.bsky.social www.change.org/p/stop-redun...
Firma la petizione
Stop redundancies at the University of Birmingham
change.org
‘Tidal wave’ of Pfas being launched to satisfy AI industry, campaigners warn
‘Tidal wave’ of Pfas being launched to satisfy AI industry, campaigners warn
Big manufacturers planning to produce more of the forever chemicals to meet demand from datacentres Pfas companies are launching a “tidal wave” of forever chemicals production to meet demand from the AI industry, a campaign organisation has warned. Despite alarm over the chemicals, which have been linked to cancer, a survey of the 10 biggest manufacturers found most had plans to increase production. Continue reading...
theguardian.com
'Enslaved African people were seared with hot metal brands bearing the royal crown, according to research by historians who have documented the monarchy’s centuries-long involvement in Britain’s slave trade.' #Skystorians
The royal crown branded on enslaved Africans: Britain’s monarchy and the slave trade
From Elizabeth I’s backing of early voyages to royal investment in trafficking companies, generations of monarchs were central to Britain’s slave trade
theguardian.com
I think the part just before that is super telling, too. (Also confirmed on LinkedIn that Manning is still affiliated with AIX Partners.) Independent, huh?
Timnit Gebru@timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 20h agoTo ppl suggesting Stanford as an "independent Anthropic & OpenAI auditor" “The membrane between academia and industry...is practically nonexistent at Stanford, a school so entangled with tech that it can be hard to tell where the university ends and the businesses begin” nymag.com/intelligence...
Alright. Time to read the new Amodei essay.
Alonzo Mourning Reacts to Miami Heat Loss
ALT: Alonzo Mourning Reacts to Miami Heat Loss
static.klipy.com
The only person in public service who has consistently made 100% sense on issues of "AI," which is why they hate her so much.
![As the Supreme Court has noted: “A method of competition which casts upon one's competitors the burden of the loss of business unless they will descend to a practice which they are under a powerful moral compulsion not to adopt, even though it is not criminal, was thought to involve the kind of unfairness at which the [unfair methods of competition] statute was aimed."
3. The highly concentrated and interconnected structure of these markets could be creating major risks and conflicts of interest. We had started investigating these partnerships and cross-investments across the stack (and released a preliminarily overview of some findings: https://ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-issues-staff-report-ai-partnerships-investments-study).
Both federal and state enforcers should be scrutinizing these opaque relationships and inter-dependencies. We are already seeing how these relationships could undermine accountability. For example, OpenAI could face liability given the Hugging Face incident, but Hugging Face being bought up by Nvidia means that we’re unlikely to see it file a lawsuit over this — given Nvidia’s strong incentive to see OpenAI continue full speed ahead.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:azpq3hfq3llpowyqpjkqwgxs/bafkreibpynfdssvr5aehvgzmcuerbo3romumydje4qsdhog7a3tnazrh2u)
Dario Amodei thinks we should trust, support, and incentivize the frontier labs to regulate themselves. We should not do that. It will go poorly in a half-dozen predictable ways and another half-dozen unpredictable ways. We should instead slow the pace down and place/enforce restrictions on them.
The US secretly flew an American diplomat out of the UK after he was found with child abuse images during a dawn raid, reportedly without notifying British police beforehand. mol.im/a/16127415
US flew diplomat out of UK after he was found with child abuse images
The ex US serviceman, who was working at the American Embassy in Nine Elms, south London, was allegedly taken from his flat in Putney on August 25.
mol.im
it’s so in our faces: these camps are not places people are meant to survive
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg 🇵🇸@elizabethweill.bsky.social · 13h agoOne woman I met outside Delaney Hall told me men inside the jail -- including her husband -- are denied medical care and have resorted to drinking their own urine to try to address infections. truthout.org/articles/thi...
This is a tax guy. His advice could be the difference between someone having their assets seized & maybe going to jail, or not. Now imagine having to worry about racist shit in every interaction you have with any person in authority. Every doctor & nurse, every cop, every lawyer & judge, every boss
Media Diversified@writersofcolour.bsky.social · 2d agoA HMRC official was sacked because he was caught on camera saying he gives wrong information to black and brown people when they call for advice in a bid to sabotage them. He was a member of the far right group Patriotic Alternative. How many more?
With AGI overwhelming the news again, I repeat: There is no path to intelligence via LLM. But an LLM botnet choking the internet, or someone using a local model to attack aging infrastructure, are both real risks and too late to prevent. Pay no attention to the bogeymen, the harm is here today.
Luke Ontario@coolhand.bsky.social · 4mo agoIn 2012 I took a comp ling course that went deep into language models as AI. The professor dropped a quote that I think about probably once a week now: “building a computer model of language and expecting intelligence is like building a computer model of the ocean and expecting to get wet”
We greet the news that AI could extinguish us with a glazed indifference. What is the way out of this nihilism? | Brigid Delaney
We greet the news that AI could extinguish us with a glazed indifference. What is the way out of this nihilism? | Brigid Delaney
There are several answers, and none of them will be provided by tech. One thing we must do is identify the ingredients for human flourishing
theguardian.com
Almost every child on Earth is now exposed to at least one major climate hazard — heatwaves, floods, droughts, storms, or wildfires. The people who contributed least to the crisis are suffering first and worst. Climate justice isn’t optional. It’s the only path forward.
Ah, type 1 and type 2 errors. Is ruling out the very occasional fraudulent vote (if any) more important than stopping many people entitled to vote from voting. Only if, as Trump assumes, they will be voting against you, but that’s a hard legal argument to make.
Kyle Cheney@kyledcheney.bsky.social · 9h agoMORE: Nichols notes that the Trump administration did not provide any evidence that the mail-in ballot rule will prevent fraud and says on the flipside, there's lots of evidene that the new USPS rule would disenfranchise voters. ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show...
UCU delegates are at #TUC26 and ready to fight for our movement’s priorities. For education. For jobs. For real security. For working people. We’re ready.
What could the owners of bank laundering Ponzi schemes want from 'Reform' apart from knighthoods and honours? If you think the only thing that politicians can give donors is gongs, you really haven't being paying attention to capitalism. Clue: they want more money back than they invested.
Saul Staniforth@saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 8h ago"Reform UK received £72 million from two billionaires in two days" Reform exists to represent the interests of billionaires, not the working class.
"it is worth remembering that in the face of a shredded social fabric, movements are made by people who have hope, sustain themselves on solidarity, and mobilize in the service not only of building political power, but of delivering material change to those who need it."
n+1@nplusonemag.com · 3d ago“David Morales’s team pulled off something I’ve never seen here before: They built a citywide electoral operation that expanded the movement left’s capacity rather than hijacking it.” New: Dennis Hogan on the mayoral primary in Providence. www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/...
*blinks* “More than 150 employees at the cloud services giant Digital Ocean protested last year after its CEO explained in an all-hands meeting that his former mentor was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, which he said shows how employees can work together despite holding different beliefs.”
Jacky Alciné@jacky.wtf · 3d agoHUH?! WHAT?!
Carney decided, on his own, that there should be two Conservative parties at the federal level. While Liberals were never all that progressive, former Liberals are calling him fully right-wing, including a Chretien-era minister. It's arguably an attack on democratic choice.
West Coast Lad in the Maritimes@dbhardy.bsky.social · 3d agoOMG Rachel. This is not the time to pick flyshit out of pepper. Seriously, there's a time to picky and time to look at the bog picture. I'm so sick of this 'yeah but...' approach. You make it sound like Carney is the fucking antichrist. FFS.
a typical 'blue' Labour's mistake. Labelling moderate people as insufferable, top knotted, sourdough starter making, lactose intolerant fruitarians, when in fact their stated views on international policy, welfare, education and transport are very aligned with core Labour values
Dara O'Reilly@daraor.bsky.social · 3d ago
‘Can I just shock you? I’m actually very right-wing.’
You can never appease the far right. Whatever you give, they want more. No border is ever secure enough. No opposition is ever silenced enough. We need to say: enough is enough.
Simon Usherwood@simonusherwood.bsky.social · 3d agoCuts, redundancies and closures are pushing post-16 education into crisis. At #TUC2026, join us to discuss how we fight for something better and how we fund a brighter future. Tuesday 15 September 5.45–7.15pm West Bar, Brighton With Jo Grady, Apsana Begum MP, John Jackson and David Edwards.
It's just weird isn't it when the British Museum is running a sold-out exhibition, when The Odyssey reports $1billion at the box office, when the V&A has just opened the most innovative and accessible museum model in Europe....and this is what our minister for research comes out with.
Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 3d agoA 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).
YOU MUST READ THIS by journalist and author Sarah Kendzior‼️🤬😱👇
