iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 14h

I'm looking for a strong PhD student candidate for applying to EPSRC DLA (Doctoral Landscape Award) studentships (starting Oct 2027) topic: studying software developers' practices with "AI tools" (i.e. LLM-based assistance) and mapping out its implications stuartreeves.mataroa.blog/blog/phd-adv...

stuartreeves.mataroa.blog

PhD advert: Candidate search for EPSRC Doctoral Landscape Award studentship on AI-assisted software development — notes on research

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 20h

HE consultants in the UK act as a parasitic force that rolls out the same template 'plan' for restructuring universities, regardless of the success of that plan at other institutions, and against any and all evidence of their own apparent past failures

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 20h

there needs to be a wide-ranging investigation into the role of highly-paid consultants siphoning off vast quantities of cash from UK universities, and their role as silent partners in the radical reshaping of UK institutions that is taking place right now

facehugger from Alien attached to Kane's face

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

research - particularly in my biased view ethnomethodological / conversation analytic work that explicates tech-in-interaction - has extensively and exhaustively shown time and time again that the mundane 'clerking' that technology requires regardless of claims is a fundamental feature of its use

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

the general logic, I think, is "get it all done in a year, and move on" which is the kind of thing you might say for a major house renovation a better analogy would be "do some life altering amateur foot surgery on yourself without anaesthetic and then run a marathon right afterwards"

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

the path to excellence is paved with redundancies

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Reposted by 🫣 stuart reeves 🫣

Onni Gust @onnigust.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

We gear up for major strike action, with picket lines on Thursday while council deliberates on c.600 job losses, 48 course closures, 1:22 staff-student ratios, all for a 9% surplus. @uonucu.bsky.social put forward a comprehensive alternative financial plan to save jobs, education & research.

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

"what should we call it?" "Jeremy Bentham's ghost?" "no, too on the nose, how about panopto?"

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I have interests in this area, yes email me?

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

one reason I dislike researchers using the concept "human-in-the-loop" is that it is actually impossible (and analytically foolhardy) to disentangle people, their interlocking lifeworlds, and the vast set of technical and other fabrics that compose them (h/t to @wendynorris.bsky.social)

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

this, but also in also I feel it's time to move beyond the "ELIZA effect" and the "CASA paradigm" and pull apart the interactional/pragmatic foundations of action with/around robots apropos of this, the following study is a great example of that programme 👇 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

sciencedirect.com

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

it is always remarkable to me how routinely virtuosic people can be at doing language and then simultaneously act like completely ignorant chumps about it as soon as they start engaging in practices of "science" and "research"

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

might be a good time to, you know, perhaps actually pay attention to the last 100 odd years of philosophy of language, and the praxeological turn in linguistics? h/t @drkatedevlin.bsky.social

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Reposted by 🫣 stuart reeves 🫣

University of Nottingham UCU branch @uonucu.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Our massive strike action for the fall begins on Wednesday, but we will be facing some intense financial hardship to do so. Please consider supporting our members by donating to our solidarity fund. www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding...

justgiving.com

Help raise £10000 to support the Nottingham UCU hardship fund – JustGiving Crowdfunding

Iʼm raising money to support the Nottingham UCU hardship fund. Support this JustGiving Crowdfunding Page.

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

sorry to be evasive but bsky is not an easy place to be discursive...

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

(*technically it is possible to ascribe intentions to anything, but the senses in which these ascriptions are meant, and the work they do, are radically different and have various locally relevant properties)

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

"[Marles] says it is clear there has been 'unintended' access by the OpenAI model, which 'definitely does raise questions about whether the law has been broken'" software doesn't have intentions, but the people running it do clearly the grooming process has been working, congrats OpenAI

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

so-called "AI" company leaders have been busy grooming politicians to treat their technologies as having "agency" as a method of absolving themselves of any responsibility, whether it's to steal data, lack cyber security competence, or accelerate climate destruction www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cv...

bbc.co.uk

Australia launches urgent review after OpenAI program hacks government health portal

Experts believe it's the world's first known AI breach of a government system.

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I sometimes wonder if they see language as just "signals" or something this reminds me to read Livingston's Anthropology of Reading...

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

the linked-to post assumes that the materiality of research - as more than just symbols on a page - is irrelevant this is the lebenswelt problem

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I'm certain that part of this is just about getting off on all the attention

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

the Moore's Law of funding is "AI use is inevitable"

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

this move to structure gov - dividing universities between DfE and BIST (was DSIT) - was incredibly stupid, indicative of muddled thinking and deep cluelessness about how research and teaching intertwine* * at least, that is how UKHE has been set up historically, rightly or wrongly

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I am talking about academics here, not "troublemaker" in general ofc

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I find the affectation of stating that one is a "troublemaker" incredibly annoying I'm guessing some of this comes from the popularisation of (certain flavours of) the concept of "trouble" from various theorists (e.g., Butler) hey, look at me, what a troublemaker I am

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I'm sorry but Dog Internet is simply a ruse to draw attention away from Cat Internet which is actually far more advanced and has already taken over

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

something something imperial core something something periphery something something

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

hardly surprising from the sector body (UUK) that callously stood against university staff during the USS pensions crisis (in which, surprise surprise, staff were *right about the whole time*)

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

I don't think anyone is taking into account just how weird people can be they say they saw something, cling to it - for no obvious gain and to their death (UFO sightings, Bigfoot, etc.) people are just weird and do weird stuff, actually is one of the things that makes them so endlessly interesting

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

she was 10 years too early for the scam economy - candles, brightness, speed of burning etc.

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

better an uplifting, sweet anecdote about teaching your children how to spot AI slop, content mill garbage, and ulterior motivations

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

and bear in mind the rest of the museum (brand new, just opened) was immaculate with huge effort put into crafting various displays and recreations, along with physical interactives, models etc.

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

went to a museum today and they had used genAI to vomit out some narrative videos and my reaction was one of abjection - I could not look at the screen, I felt embarrassed and queasy JUST HIRE AN ACTOR

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

nice I feel like this kind of Design Thinking (tm) template never questions the potentially business-undermining questions of e.g. "why do you think design is the solution?" (which one could argue is actually a designerly question) it reformats design for business rather than the other way around

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

probably this is in part due to the broad dispersion of Design Thinking (tm) methods, which are themselves (I think) largely cribbed from specific types of design activity, with no clear justification (beyond 'vibes') that they have relevance for anything beyond this

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

there are no original ideas when it comes to university management, because to have them would mean the end of university management as a 'thing'

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

I disagree HitL suggests that it is possible to somehow separate "automated" technology from the way people go on in the(ir) world(s) - I think this is a mistake and one ends up misadvertising/misconstruing what is really going on

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

maybe it is time to retire(?) the term "human-in-the-loop" it is often used as an apology, or an excuse, or a fix for technology - now hijacked by bad actors too it is underpinned by a conceptual poverty that imports, unannounced, some kind of cybernetics-lite way of thinking

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

unfortunately this is happening all over the sector because of university management culture that thrives on copying the de rigueur rather than listening to staff, HE consultants are siphoning off huge amounts of cash from university budgets to construct plans to sack staff

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

the problem is that to truly and genuinely engage in this requires accepting a full frontal stress-test of top-down strategy, which is unlikely to happen if you employ people at a top level who - in spite of all lip service suggesting otherwise - fundamentally believe they know what is what

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

at least half of this I would put down to the poor deployment of software systems / infrastructures that never followed a stakeholder-centred design process from the beginning

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I posted some waffle on "The discomforts of embodiment in research on human-machine interaction" on my Mataroa blog #EMCA stuartreeves.mataroa.blog/blog/embodim...

stuartreeves.mataroa.blog

The discomforts of embodiment in research on human-machine interaction — notes on research

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🫣 stuart reeves 🫣 @5tuartreeves.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

(I've also mirrored older blog postings on the new shiny Mataroa blog) stuartreeves.mataroa.blog

stuartreeves.mataroa.blog

notes on research

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