iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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maura quint @mauraquint.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

I would like to share something. A year ago, Trump won and I was furious and scared so I sent a text to a few of local women I knew and asked them to join me at a meeting and invite like-minded women they knew. A few showed up, then a few more. We became a group called The Salon and we meet monthly

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Is there a place which lists lots of small businesses in London (like restaurants, bars, sandwich shops, greengrocers, clothing stores, nurseries) which are independent and aren't backed by private equity? I would use that frequently.

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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 06/09/2025

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or
even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in
the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or
apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we
are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not
considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This
is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse
and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece,
we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology
industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to
relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI
(black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are
in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are
both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and
Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf.
Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al.
2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms
are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

Something I didn't get to say yesterday: We heard over and over during the event about "human-centered" approaches to "AI". But if refusal is not on the table (at every level: individual students and teachers right up through UNESCO) then we have in fact centered the technology, not the people.

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 02/08/2025

I'm in a small coastal town in Sicily.

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

Microsoft propaganda... Text reads "a new generation of AI technologies can help people save energy and costs" and "AI is playing a critical role in the race towards a sustainable future" I don't choose to have this ideology appear on my work computer.

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

Pre COVID, pretty much everyone was in agreement that AI should never be used in drone warfare. But now the technology is SO common. There's so much creep of tech that no one asked for, and no one wants, and it's very overwhelming and very upsetting.

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John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 21/03/2025

I helped build a government AI system. DOGE fired me, rolled the AI out to the whole agency, and implied the AI can do my job and the jobs of the others they've fired. It can't. But, what DOGE accidentally revealed about themselves in the process is fascinating. 🧵

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Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · 14/05/2025

This is why they can't fix it: it's not broken It's *structurally indifferent to truth*

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

Get yourself outside - something is in the air! Bumped into 2 neighbours in South East London for a nice chat and 3 strangers randomly said hi. Beautiful.

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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

🔴 Remember the £330million contract given to Trump donor Peter Thiel's firm Palantir to build an NHS data platform? Well we've found out that most English hospitals aren't using it - because it's not very good Scoop on Democracy for Sale democracyforsale.substack.com/p/palantirs-...

democracyforsale.substack.com

Palantir's NHS data platform rejected by most hospitals

US spy tech firm's £330million software isn't much cop, experts say

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

I've recently been removing the logos from clothing, sewing "Luddite" into them, and embroidering a motto. This one is on how you should behave when you're out.

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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

I get at least three heartbreaking, incoherent emails a day now from random strangers who believe they’ve awakened an LLM god or LLM consciousness of a new dimension. The most salient quote from the screenshots below: “(An LLM) will never just say, ‘Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about??’”

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Sarah Gilbert @sarahagilbert.bsky.social · 26/04/2025

The mods of r/ChangeMyView shared the sub was the subject of a study to test the persuasiveness of LLMs & that they didn't consent. There’s a lot that went wrong, so here’s a 🧵 unpacking it, along with some ideas for how to do research with online communities ethically. tinyurl.com/59tpt988

tinyurl.com

From the changemyview community on Reddit

Explore this post and more from the changemyview community

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

This is such a legitimate and succinct criticism of ethics in corporations from Dan Mcquillan.

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

👋🏼 I have a heat pump and solar panels and can confirm that they do work and are pretty efficient in a 1910 Edwardian home (though the installation was laborious and expensive). So weird that it's seen as contentious and not as a viable option.

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

Day 6 of a cold/seasonal flu. Peak melodrama: I believe my muscles are wasting away because I haven't exercised, I will never achieve my dreams because of brain fog, and there's a chance I will never get better again because of long viral symptoms. Approach with caution.

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

The number of interesting, London based in person events in 2025 is off the scale compared to 2024.

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Cori Crider @coricrider.com · 17/04/2025

BREAKING: Google loses the adtech case, has unlawful monopoly over advertising tech. HUGE deal - it is the source of their monopoly profits - and now puts pressure on the EU to step up and finish the job. www.theverge.com/news/650665/...

theverge.com

Google loses adtech monopoly case

A loss for Google.

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Jonty Wareing @jonty.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

SXSW is coming to London from 2-7th June, and its exactly as you might expect: Expensive, AI, NFTs. I propose FKFJ: The exact opposite of SXSW, on the same dates. An distributed affordable community thing across London, about technology, music, and art. No central org. Just put on an event. Yes?

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

Ancient philosophers are so dramatic.

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

I have just bought a ticket for Re:publica though and the programme there looks very inspirational.

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Realising that this quote from Careless People encapsulates the culture of SXSW London. The programme/speakers are very 2014 and times have... ermmm... totally changed.

Quote reads "Lots of Facebook employees will make millions. Many have already announced that they're leaving. (I'm oversimplifying only a little to say they divide into two camps: those who want to create their own start-ups and those who want to become DJs.)

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 12/04/2025

I'm so bored of the umbrella "AI" terminology being used for so many different technologies and applications.

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

I've had 3 incidents in the past 24 hours where I thought I saw someone I knew from university and then realised they would look much much older now and I was squinting at someone born in a different millennium.

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Really enjoying this memoir by Vivian Gornick on conversations with strangers and enduring friendship.

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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

Having my book stolen by Meta to train their large language models doesn't feel great. But it does present me with another opportunity to declare how much, and how vehemently, I hate everything that Big AI's snake-oil peddling hypemen stand for. www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle-co...

irishexaminer.com

Séamas O'Reilly: I discovered my own memoir had been used to train Meta AI

I hate that writers and artists must suffer the indignity of being pickpocketed by the richest men who’ve ever lived.

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Rob Vaughan @coffee-cat.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

This neatly sums up the state of LLMs IMO. I asked Meta AI how to turn itself off and it hallucinated a non-existent app setting 🤪

Android screenshot of WhatsApp conversation with Meta AI asking it how to turn itself off, where it gives an incorrect reply

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Taylor Lorenz @taylorlorenz.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

SCOOP: YouTube removes 'gender identity' from hate speech policy. "YouTube quietly removing ‘gender identity and expression’ from its list of protected groups is a major radical shift away from best practices in the field of trust and safety."

usermag.co

YouTube removes 'gender identity' from hate speech policy

TariffTokers, Gen Z’s ‘it couple’, Easter potatoes, anti-MAGA hats, Zuck's D.C. mansion, Amazon's TikTok bid, Silicon Valley's cupid, and the fastest growing political channels on YouTube

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Evan Greer @evangreer.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

"Age verification" laws are actually "upload your ID or get your face scanned to access every website, ending anonymity and associating your identity with everything you do online" laws and if more people understood that they would not be down for this authoritarian nonsense

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southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

Sam Altman: “I’m going to cure cancer or whatever. I just need $17,900,000,000 cash and the right to steal everyone’s IP.” World: *gives Altman $17,900,000,000 cash and the right to steal everyone’s IP* Altman: I have successfully achieved “or whatever.”

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Billy Perrigo @billyperrigo.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

This is some deeply unethical shit. Google removes news for 1% of users in some EU countries. Do they measure what impact that has on users' ability to do their jobs? To find accurate info? To their political beliefs? No. They only measure its impact on Google's profits. blog.google/around-the-g...

blog.google

Our experiment on the value of European news content

We launched an experiment measuring the value of European news results for Google which showed that European news content in Search has no measurable impact on ad revenu…

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Alex Parsons @alexparsons.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

Coming to the view that it would probably have been *a little* useful to force a vote on the net zero target back in 2019. 🧵

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Viktorija Ign @viktorija-ign.bsky.social · 17/03/2025

2025 kicked off with a bang.. 🫣 but there's actually some exciting news to share too! Bellingcat has opened up multiple opportunities across various skill sets, backgrounds, and regions! If you know someone who might be interested, help us spread the word by sharing or tagging them below. 👇

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

There's a lot of janky mental health after the beautiful weather at the weekend gave us false hope... immediately followed by this grey / cold shit show we're experiencing now

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Roxanne Shirazi @roxanneshirazi.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Every single example in this piece is aimed at avoiding reading or thinking too much. They just love to execute, apparently

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Nelson Flores @nelsonlflores.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

Technofascism: when AI tools can fabricate stories about people with views opposed to the official party position that cannot be fact checked since there is nobody to ask for the evidence they have to support such claims. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/12/u...

nytimes.com

Yale Scholar Banned After A.I. News Site Accuses Her of Terrorist Link

The deputy director of a liberal project at Yale Law School was put on leave over allegations that she is linked to Samidoun, a group the U.S. government has said funds terrorists.

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Whyyy is it when you ramp up your exercise regime you feel hangover symptoms ALL the time

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

Reading @ruha9.bsky.social's "Imagination: A Manifesto" before @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social 's book club next week... a) it's glorious to be lying down in the sun; b) I'm struck by how often I have to situate new ideas in the status quo of old ideas...

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

I used to want time travel so I could find out what would happen in the future. Now I want time travel so I can ask 2018 Alice the title of that interactive tool I loved but 2025 Alice can't remember the URL/name of.

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Jeni Tennison @jenitennison.com · 25/02/2025

UK creative industry flexing today!

Newspaper rack at a supermarket. Every paper has the same image covering the whole front page, which says "MAKE IT FAIR". The AI in FAIR is highlighted. Under it, the text says:

The government is looking to change the law to favour big tech platforms so they can use British creative content to power their AI models without our permission or payment. Let's protect the creative industries – it's only fair.

Creative rights in AI coalition - an initiative from the News Media Association

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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

This is pretty cool, especially that for each party, you can see which parties they lost votes from and received them from, but also age and gender outcomes. The youth voted progressive left not centre left. Under educated males more far right. Pretty healthy democracy. www.dw.com/en/german-el...

dw.com

German election results explained in graphics – DW – 02/24/2025

Mainstream conservatives led by Friedrich Merz have won Germany's 2025 election. Here's a look in charts at the wins and losses, seats in parliament, possible coalition outcomes and voter demographics...

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Alice Thwaite @alicelthwaite.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

In the UK and this is what I see on Google maps.

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Techpriest @techpriest.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Genuinely couldn't believe this figure until I saw the Financial Times confirm it using Meta's own financial reporting data For THIS $100 billion is genuinely the kind of money you could "do the impossible" with. Crack nuclear fusion. HIV vaccine. Universal flu vaccine And they spent it on this

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Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Stand by this: www.politico.com/newsletters/...

What’s a technology that you think is overhyped?

I’m going to give a sideways answer to this, which is that the venture capital business model needs to be understood as requiring hype. You can go back to the Netscape IPO, and that was the proof point that made venture capital the financial lifeblood of the tech industry.

Venture capital looks at valuations and growth, not necessarily at profit or revenue. So you don’t actually have to invest in technology that works, or that even makes a profit, you simply have to have a narrative that is compelling enough to float those valuations. So you see this repetitive and exhausting hype cycle as a feature in this industry. A couple of years ago, you would have been asking me about the metaverse, then last year, you would have asked me about Web3 and crypto, and for each of these inflection points there’s an Andreessen Horowitz manifesto.

It’s not simply that one piece of technology is overhyped, it’s that hype is a necessary ingredient of the current business ecosystem of the tech industry. We should examine how often the financial incentive for hype is rewarded without any real social returns, without any meaningful progress in technology, without these tools and services and worlds ever actually manifesting. That’s key to understanding the growing chasm between the narrative of techno-optimists and the reality of our tech-encumbered world.

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