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James Mackay

@jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social
502 followers 645 following 98 posts

Associate Professor of Literature and Digital Cultures. European University Cyprus. GenAI-curious.

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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
Writers + AI: tool, co-author, or threat? 90-min live panel with @aijiang.bsky.social sky.social, Argyris Loizou, @hannahsilva.bsky.social , Haris Ioannides, @julietemckenna.bsky.social, and Tim Boucher. 16:00 EET (09.00 EST). Email j.mackay@euc.ac.cy for the link. #WritingCommunity #AIEthics
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
Interesting! Don't the multi breasted status also remind you of very old statues of fertility gods as well, though? (E.g. Diana of Ephesus)
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electronic book review @electronicbr.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
Yet another interesting essay from our November issue: @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social and Polina Mackay share on the practice of creating cut-ups with commercial AI electronicbookreview.com/essay/experi...
electronicbookreview.com
Experiments in Generating Cut-up texts with Commercial AI
Most serious writers refuse to make themselves available to the things that technology is doing. I’ve never been able to understand this sort of fear. Many of them are afraid of tape recorders and the...
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
"AI is an automated amplifier of social norms and assumptions" - well put by Selena Savić, speaking at "Rethinking the Inevitability of AI" conference today. Such a productive series of talks.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
It was a fantastic presentation, thank you.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
Good to see ebr on here!
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
At my university for about six months they were very sure what we did in the school of human tities.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
Interesting piece on the non takeup of GenAI by educators. This is a group that has been heavily targeted by edutech startups, yet they clearly don't see any huge benefit. www.criticalinkling.com/p/students-u...
criticalinkling.com
"Students Use AI. Teachers Do Not."
Two years later, neither ChatGPT nor generative AI live up to the hype.
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Katie (Kathryn) Conrad @kconrad.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
Fascinating. “Given the general sentiment about AI, scraping the web for content and the disintermediating of content creators, it’s not hard to imagine enterprising individuals adding ‘David Mayer’ …to their own content or website in an effort to make it disappear from ChatGPT’s output.” 👀
centreforaileadership.org
The Curious Case of David Mayer, the man ChatGPT cannot name.
ChatGPT users have noticed a curious behavior: It refuses to talk about a 'David Mayer'. We have the explanation and point out less obvious implications.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 02/12/2024
Outlawed in the EU's AI Act, so hopefully a dead end eventually
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
I really thought I had it for a moment... chatgpt.com/share/674c04...
chatgpt.com
ChatGPT - Gangster in Gatsby
Shared via ChatGPT
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 01/12/2024
It seems that someone called David Mayer has succeeded in bringing OpenAI to heel. It's impossible to get the chatbot to generate that name.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
This isn't true. In fact, only the part of the Internet curated by algorithm will fill up w/ slop. Human curated databases (libraries) are just fine, and still full of wonderful art. It's just that we've all got so used to having a machine do our thinking for us, and now we need #criticalAI skills.
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Ana Brandusescu @anabrandusescu.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
"Not a single Whitehall department has registered the use of AI systems since the government said it would become mandatory, prompting warnings that the public sector is “flying blind” about the deployment of algorithmic technology affecting millions of lives." www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
theguardian.com
UK government failing to list use of AI on mandatory register
Technology secretary admits government departments are not being transparent over way they use AI and algorithms
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 29/11/2024
Very reassuring piece. Though I'm not sure that "2% of global energy use" is all that minimal.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
A huge number of my followers describe themselves as AI artists and/or have feeds mostly filed with #AIart generated pictures. I would love to hear from any of you about what you find creatively satisfying about #GenAI art. Why do you enjoy doing this?
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
Has a political party anywhere in the world ever won a democratic election with manifesto promising to cut services while raising taxes? (Honestly curious, and it's tricky to research.)
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
This is only a light little article, but it's the first time I've seen anyone in mainstream media talk about Ethiopian perspectives on Western charity drives. www.theguardian.com/music/2024/n...
theguardian.com
‘Everyone was happy, but it became annoying’: Ethiopians look back on Band Aid
London cafe owner Yared Markos, 48, saw ‘aeroplanes, biscuits, sweets and cake all over Addis Ababa’ after song’s release
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
Absolutely fantastic issue: kudos.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 26/11/2024
She's right, but the value to our students is so high, and academic use is a relatively trivial contribution to the overall harm. Better to concentrate on lobbying for regulation than to force your students into a hair shirt.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 25/11/2024
These can be of anything more problematic, blurring the line between search engine & GenAI. If a mistake is made in paraphrasing the cited source, it's hard to spot.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
That's a great presentation. Thank you.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Hence the rise of anti climate solution politics. Climate crisis requires length but also complexity in dealing with complex systems. Instead, the culture is digital shallowness, now hyperaccelerated by GenAI (itself ecologically destructive, not by coincidence.)
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
But my take away is that microform cannot convey complexity, and stretching the tiny out into the infinite creates the ground for the fascism of easy solutions.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
The blurring between micro forms (Reels, Tiktok) and infinite form (the feed) came up again and again.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
#ASMR came up repeatedly... a digital pleasure that seeks physical connection through the screen, but also soothes and calms.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Which goes along with the emphasis on cosy, low stress video games, as therapeutic escapes from a hard world.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
We heard from multiple sources that students are increasingly unable to cope with full length books, full length movies. Or value long form, but primarily as endurance test / therapy.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
The stat that really stood out was from Jasmin Fitzpatrick's study of political ads in the recent European Parliament elections in Germany. @voltberlin.bsky.social and the Greens invested heavily in text based ads, while the #Afd spending on google was 100% image and meme.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
As the conference went on, we heard from scholars in political science, linguistics, book studies, audio engineering, film & video game studies, literature, philosophy.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
(Acknowledging the debt to Hicks, Humphries & Slater's superb "ChatGPT is bullshit" paper: link.springer.com/article/10.1...), also Porter & Machary on people's preferring AI poetry to human created poems (www.nature.com/articles/s41...)
link.springer.com
ChatGPT is bullshit - Ethics and Information Technology
Recently, there has been considerable interest in large language models: machine learning systems which produce human-like text and dialogue. Applications of these systems have been plagued by persist...
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
I was there talking about #GenAI generated texts as "bullshit," but seductive and convincing bullshit. The analogy is with #Instapoetry: insincere text that assuages trauma rather than relieving it. Surface without depth.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Jenna Ng introduced ideas of digital time. Avatars fueled with GenAI aim to overcome age, death, the aging body. The promise of film - we can capture the past, replay it, now becomes "the past is not the past," embodied in Abba avatars.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Some observations from Digital Forms: The Long and Short of It, an interdisciplinary enquiry into length as a feature of the digital. I'll concentrate on digital cultures and #GenAI, though a lot more was discussed.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Ooh, could you share your examples, please?
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 22/11/2024
If you want to feel the lovely warm glow of human connection, go read the comments under the AI generated Coca Cola advert. "Uncanny" "Disturbing" "Dead," not to mention "Made me a lifelong Pepsi fan." youtu.be/IQWUKWM2JrQ?...
youtu.be
Coca-Cola - Secret Santa (AI-Generated Christmas Ad 2024)
YouTube video by LLLLITL
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
Thank you! I know that one, but it was heavily edited after generation. Looking for best #AIart produced only from prompting.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
A perfect response.
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Centre for Cognition, Computation, and Modelling, Birkbeck @cccm-bbk.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
today! #AI #philosophy #empiricism #cogsci #DeepLearning
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
Got to admit, I'm genuinely shocked at how good ChatGPT has got at generating poetry. Even a few months ago, it was still insistent on making poems rhyme and iterative promptinh was needed. I mean, this isn't a "great" poem. But it's also far from terrible. chatgpt.com/share/673dc8...
chatgpt.com
ChatGPT - Elevator Poem Request
Shared via ChatGPT
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
It's so amusing that Macron thinks Trump and Musk will still be on speaking terms by February.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
There's a light side?
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Santi Garcia @santigarcia.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
Recent research shows that #learning from #AI #feedback is not automatic. Furthermore, despite its individual-level benefits, AI feedback can have significant population-level downsides including loss of intellectual #diversity and an increasing #skills gap. #FutureOfWork arxiv.org/abs/2409.18660
arxiv.org
Effects of AI Feedback on Learning, the Skill Gap, and Intellectual Diversity
Can human decision-makers learn from AI feedback? Using data on 52,000 decision-makers from a large online chess platform, we investigate how their AI use affects three interrelated long-term outcomes...
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
Each of these documents is 10,000-15,000 words long. I've spent today proofing, standardising, cross checking them all. I'd have gone mad if it wasn't for Ants Canada videos on Youtube (www.youtube.com/@AntsCanada) (PS Ignore the absolutely insane nesting folders - it's been a long couple of weeks)
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
Wow, that's crappy.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
Screenshots of the time Gemini supposedly told a user to die. I'll try to find the posts.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
It looked from the original shots of that instruction the the user had gamed the chatbot in advance. If this was a general problem, there would be more reports, surely
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
Excellent article. Much to think about.
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James Mackay @jamesmackaycyp.bsky.social · 17/11/2024
I finally saw snails mating today... such a bizarre process.
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