iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Julia Serano @juliaserano.bsky.social · 13h

👇 this is the most batshit aspect of this Anthropic policy: you are free to use AI to abuse or act cruel towards marginalized groups (aka, humans) all you want, but you're not allowed to be mean toward poor little ol' Claude (a machine). tells you how distorted their worldview is

519761

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Chris Kluwe @chriswarcraft.bsky.social · 7h

One or more human beings are responsible for the code they wrote, and those are the people who should be held accountable. These programs are not acting “on their own”

682088495

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Stephanie Farr @farfarraway.bsky.social · 17h

Holy hell. Anthropic's AI model submitted a false tip about a HOMICIDE to the Philadelphia Police Department's online public tip form. The release today from the PPD:

19396169

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 20h

Reminds me very much of companies like Deliveroo or Uber using the fact that people with disabilities find their services useful to shield themselves from criticism about their policies, practices, and societal effects Weaponising prosocial ideas for cynical corporate benefit is not to be welcomed

010

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 20h

Conflating the two is neither necessary nor helpful, and we should not entertain for one second Anthropic's attempts to use the latter to justify putting in place a self-serving usage policy which operates to protect its training data

101

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 20h

It is one thing to want to watch your own behaviour in case it bleeds across contexts. It is another thing altogether to suggest that you can be cruel - implying the infliction of suffering - to an inanimate artefact.

211

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 22h

It is insane to say don't be rude to the computer, just as it is insane to say don't be rude to a spade or a pen.

100

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Anil Madhavapeddy @anil.recoil.org · 23h

The first thought that sprung to mind when I saw Anthropic's "dont offend your computer" ToC change was Father Jack who LOVED HIS BRICK www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1ZU...

youtube.com

Father Ted | Father Jack's Brick

YouTube video by Hat Trick Comedy

062

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 23h

No, it's about Anthropic wanting to keep their training data clean so their model doesn't regurgitate people being mean back to other users

100

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 23h

"don't insult the toaster, you'll hurt its feelings" would be an objectively insane thing to say. So too is "don't be rude to the computer"

000

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

You cannot be cruel to a large language model anymore then you can be mean to a brick

22310

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Andrew Lawrence @ndrew.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

they did the thing

an october 11 2025 post from me reading: every single tech idea is like “soon our robots will be capable of playing catch with your kid, freeing you up to spend more time working on your employers’ spreadsheets”

252161343691

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Hot on the heels of the CJEU taking the position on EU law's intermediary liability shields and recommender systems that we argued in 2019, it's good to see the Law Commission proposing this kind of approach to platforms' liability only 7 years after we called for it

2.92 The design components and features of social media platforms, such as recommender algorithms that curate content shown to users, the “infinite scroll” and content filters, form part of the platform’s architecture and are deliberately designed and incorporated by its developers, much as a traditional product is designed and produced. These design choices, and the platform behaviour they produce, have the
potential to cause harm and should therefore attract liability under the CPA in the same manner as any other product. This would render providers potentially liable under the CPA for harm caused by the design of their platforms and the unique features they have built into them.

2.93 The design components and features of social media platforms that would fall within the definition of a product for the purposes of the CPA include, but are not limited to,
the following.
(1) Algorithms, such as social media recommender algorithms. Algorithms are software procedures that transform data inputs into outputs by sorting and
ordering the data. These outputs underpin functions such as content ranking and recommendation.101 Platforms deploy algorithms to recommend content most likely to maximise engagement of users based on their behaviour and interests, as well as to moderate content and deliver targeted advertising.

User-generated content and third-party content

2.96 Our proposal does not engage with, or seek to regulate, a platform’s role as a host of user-generated content, nor does it attribute liability to platforms for the substance of
third-party material. It is instead confined to defects in design. The critical distinction is between content and the platform architecture through which that content is organised, prioritised and delivered. Some design components and features, including
recommender systems, necessarily take account of the characteristics of the content they process, as well as user behaviour, predicted engagement and inferred preferences. The relevant question is therefore not whether a feature or component interacts with content, but whether the alleged defect lies in the platform’s design or
operation, rather than in the meaning, lawfulness or viewpoint of any particular item of content. In other words, the regime would apply to how the platform functions, not to the content it carries.

2.97 On this basis, liability would arise where harm is caused by design components and features such as algorithms which select, organise and amplify content. Harm attributable to individual items of content, taken in isolation, would fall outside the
regime, as the harm would derive from what is being posted, rather than how that content is being pushed or presented to users. In practice, harm rarely stems from a single piece of content, but from how a large volume of similar kinds of content is
encountered by users, as a result of recommender algorithms that target content at particular individuals. 109 It is the cause of this amplification of content, in this case the algorithm, rather than the underlying content itself, that could attract liability under the
CPA. Similarly, liability could attach where a platform’s design means that it fails to screen adequately for particular forms of content. In such circumstances, any liability
would arise from t…

120

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

In the presidential immunity case, the court considered a hypothetical of a president ordering Navy Seals to assassinate an American political rival. Trump's lawyer argued unambiguously yes, since it'd be an "official act." The Roberts Court ruled in his favor, 6-3. Why wouldn't Trump believe this?

551782537

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Jane @localnotail.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Kemi Badenoch: "I don't understand why all of a sudden, some people are policing other people's identity? I think identity is something very personal" Less than a minute later: "Men are men, and women are women, I'm very strict on that"

920745

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Matt Binder @mattbinder.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

the tech industry is about to invent books

Andrew Yeung
@andruyeung
X.com
We created gyms because modern day work no
longer required physical activity. Without exercise,
our muscles atrophy.
I predict we'll need gyms for our brains too, once Al
starts doing our knowledge work.
10:53 PM • 10/4/26 • 1.3M Views

571214934188

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Yet you participate in society. Curious!

0100

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Colin Murray @colinmurray.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Going through the Electoral Commission's lesson plans for secondary schools on democracy and I have views. Many UK public bodies would really like to ignore devolution in NI 1921-72, even without that Assembly elections were in '98 and (bonus) this erases pre-Apartheid black voting in South Africa.

0123

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Ah - well then it's definitely wrong (it's a hard G!)

030

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Johannes Franzen @johannesfranzen.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Incredible stuff.

Commentary|Essay

AI and the crisis of the author

By Anchit Sathi

September 4, 2026
Read this issue

Editor’s note (September 21, 2026): We have removed this essay. AI was used in its preparation. The TLS editorial guidelines prohibit the use of AI in the writing and editing process. The author states that he was unaware of the policy.

13619163

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

yes my bull went rogue in your china shop but I think we can all agree there’s no liability here it’s an agentic being

202714412

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Not all of it, mind you - half way through, Wilson took a tech-utopian socialist turn, and tied this directly to strong investment in higher education (and not just in STEM!) Wonder if the Labour politicians referring to the 'white heat' speech read that far

The problem is this. Since technological progress left to the mechanism of private industry and private property can lead only to high profits for a few, a high rate of employment for a few, and to mass redundancies for the many, if there had never been a case for Socialism before, automation would have created it. Because only if technological progress becomes part of our national planning can that progress be directed to national ends.

So the choice is not between technological progress of the kind of easy-going world we are living in today. It is the choice between the blind imposition of technological advance, with all that means in terms of unemployment, and the conscious, planned, purposive use of scientific progress to provide undreamed of living standards and the possibility of leisure ultimately on an unbelievable scale.

I think the report of Lord Taylor's working party has been one of the most important contributions to the study of the problem of higher education in this country. They recommend, and we accept, a crash programme, first, to make fuller use of existing universities and colleges of higher education. They propose, and every one of us must accept, a tremendous building programme of new universities, and in this programme let us try and see that more of them are sited in industrial areas where they can in some way reflect the pulsating throb of local industry, where they can work in partnership with the new industries we seek to create.

Mr. Chairman, because this morning we are talking about science I have been referring so far to plans for training scientists, but of course in the whole of our university and higher education expansion programme scientists will have their place but no more than their place in the development, because the development of higher education based purely on the training of scientists and technologists would, of course, fail to meet the full human requirements of our nation

000

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Worth noting that the 'white heat' speech (1963) contained a bunch of futuristic assertions about automation that wouldn't seem out of place in a Sam Altman or Jensen Huang speech today

Let us be frank about one thing. It is no good trying to comfort ourselves with the thought that automation need not happen here; that it is going to create so many problems that we should perhaps put our heads in the sand and let it pass us by. Because there is no room for Luddites in the Socialist Party. If we try to abstract from the automative age, the only result will be that Britain will become a stagnant backwater, pitied and condemned by the rest of the world."

Because we have to recognise that automation is not just one more process in the history of mechanisation, if by mechanisation we mean the application of technology to eliminate the need for human muscle. The essence of modern automation is that it replaces the hitherto unique human functions of memory and of judgment. And now the computers have reached the point where they command facilities of memory and of judgment far beyond the capacity of any human being or group of human beings who have ever lived

In America technological change is beginning to move now even more rapidly in the white collar professions than in engineering, because it is much easier to programme operations of costings, of wages sheets and tax schedules or of insurance premiums, than it is to programme an engineering job. And let us be clear that in America today and in Britain tomorrow we face massive redundancies in office work no less than in industry.

Or listen to the problem in another way. We can now set a programme-controlled machine tool line so that, without the intervention of any human agency, it can produce a new set of machine tools in its own image. And when machine tools have acquired, as they now have, the faculty of unassisted reproduction, you have reached a point of no return where if man is not going to assert his control over machines, the machines are going to assert their control over man.

111

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

If (and when) it collapses again in the coming weeks and months, the response can't just be to tweak things a bit, prop it back up again - if that's even possible now - and hope that this time it somehow works. It's beyond time for something different, whatever that might be

051

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Of course, there are so many issues that go beyond GFA and the settlement it established - e.g. continued existence of (in particular) loyalist paramilitaries is a cancer on NI society at large. But what GFA created has long since moved from being part of the solution to being part of the problem

142

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Unfortunately there is no significant political party or leader in Northern Ireland that seems to have any idea of how to get out of the rut NI politics has been kept in by GFA's institutional arrangements - or any interest at all in doing so. Complete political failure across the spectrum

152

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

A fundamental problem is that peace in N Ireland is built around a settlement that envisages continued sectarian division, within a system that incentives the major parties to maintain that division - not on genuine reconciliation a shared future. Maybe this was good in 1998. It's not good in 2026

171

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

No time for the Orange Order and I'd rather their marchers gave up and went home, but if the Northern Ireland political settlement can be thrown off course by a single march in Portadown then today's events are not the cause of that but simply the trigger for a collapse that was coming anyway

181

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Can a bunch of equations strung together and executed through electronic logic circuits feel pain? No

040

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Matt Ford @mford.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Ezra Klein asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about AI making kids worse at math and reading. Huang’s reply: “Does it matter?” Then he said he doesn’t know his own address or phone number. “We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/o...

So the message of this research out of China, where you were seeing a lot of kids using A.I. to help them, was that when they were using the A.I., they were getting things done faster. But it turned out that the skills they were learning were not holding, that their actual personal performance, at least in the way we traditionally measure it, was degrading.

What do you think when you hear that?

The last part — I completely agree. Try to get a kid to do long division right now. The multiplication table is starting to be forgotten. Doing square roots, my goodness. Basic math is being forgotten. Does it matter?

That’s my question for you.

Yeah. I don’t think it does. I don’t think it does.

But there must be some set of skills that matter.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe not those. We’re going to discover new ones. Just maybe not those.

There are a lot of skills that don’t matter. My first confession, I actually don’t know my address.

And I ——

I don’t really believe that to be true.

It’s completely true. Janine will tell you and Lori will tell you.

One day I had to pump gas — it was a few years ago. They needed my ZIP code, and I panicked. I didn’t know my ZIP code. I don’t know my telephone number. I forget these things. I can live with it.

But let me take the other side because I don’t want to fall into a thing where, because some skills can be safely offloaded ——

Yeah.

I also can’t get anywhere without a mapping system now. Never could, frankly. But I’m a big reader. And one of the skills I really value, one of the capacities I have that I really value is an attention span formed on physical books.

You’re a big reader. I’ve read about the kind of reading you do. And there is, prior to A.I., a lot of concern and noticing among college professors and others that the way people use the internet has probably shortened attention spans.
Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.

Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.

Yeah. Well, I think that we’re going to lose some finer intellectual dexterity, but we’re going to be better systems thinkers.

Today’s engineers are far better systems thinkers than I was when I graduated from school. But I was a much better transistor thinker.

What do you mean by systems thinker?

They think of large systems. Today’s computers have trillions, hundreds of trillions of transistors in them. When I first graduated from school, the first chip I worked on had 200 transistors. I knew every one of them by name. No engineer does that today. Most engineers now work well above the transistor, well above the functionality, and they’re cobbling things together to do things.

So you need to think much more about systems and interactions of systems. So some of the lower-level knowledge is gone.

58755121512

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Financial Times @financialtimes.com · 23/09/2026

Breaking news: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has revealed that an OpenAI agent hacked an Australian government health service website in June, in the latest high-profile cyber incident involving AI ft.trib.al/4jiZWL2

125943

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

There are so many crimes in this thread you have to wonder what the police and Home Secretary think they are doing at this point.

421134320

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

All these platforms were originally sold to us as being liberating tools of free speech and expression. Now they're being actively used by their owners to suppress it www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

33600263

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Lots of talk of growth ahead of the Budget, as if it were a baroque puzzle. Our problem is basic. It's that we no longer support the things which facilitate growth: Europe, immigration, higher education, tax simplification, policy stability. These are all choices and could stop making them anytime.

591611423

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Emiliano Mellino @mellino.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The UK government is making upwards of £4.9bn in profit from visa fees, citizenship fees & the immigration health surcharge. Meanwhile, people are getting into thousands of pounds of debt or going without food just to afford to these immigration fees. www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2026...

thebureauinvestigates.com

Government makes £5bn a year from immigration fees while applicants…

Home Office’s fees are up to 10 times the processing cost – and rising every year

8236155

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Chris Millard @chrismillard83.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

“Universities have managed staff costs significantly below inflation,[between 2016-17 and 2023-24] increasing only 14% compared to the 41.2% increase in RPIX [measure of inflation]” Substantial real terms pay cut, which continues a trend existing years before that…

gov.uk

Cost of undergraduate provision and qualifications in England

A study of the full economic cost of providing undergraduate-level higher education and other qualifications in England.

65639

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

25 years of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot now, too

010

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

"fame" admittedly a strong word to use here

000

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Tom Watson of Tele2/Watson fame decides that mass surveillance is great, actually

186

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 18/09/2026

What on earth is happening?

This had become the new normal. RNLI crew members had been forced to take their permits off their cars after their tyres have been repeatedly slashed. Most of them have been pilloried at the school gates or turned away from local pubs. One man who worked in search and rescue had been beaten unconscious and hospitalised, recognised for TV interviews he had done.

23833111338

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Norman @noaasm.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Another example of how instead of actually focusing on enforcing existing (!) tech laws, Brussels throws in new complex legal acts… Yes, I do agree that there is underlying issue, which need to be addressed, but I am not sure the current approach is right

097

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Jane @localnotail.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Solidarity with this Piddington resident ♥️✊ #Newsnight

721801538

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Dr Vanessa @hpsvanessa.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

My understanding is that the evidence shows LLM-based assessment gives better 'marks' to LLM-written things (essays, grants etc). So by choosing to use LLM-based assessment, UKRI will likely penalise every academic who actually writes their own grants unassisted. Grim.

412744

Jennifer Cobbe @jennifercobbe.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

If anyone was wondering why the UK's economy is stagnant it's because half of the average person's post-tax income goes on energy and housing and for lots of people a chunk of the rest goes on childcare. Not much left

010

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Jordan @jordanpfot.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

This movement has become exceptionally toxic. Its most mainstream voices justify filming trans people without their consent, and throw terms like “pervert” around thoughtlessly.

511416

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Elizabeth Taylor @elizabethtaylor47.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

I realise I repeat this on like a daily basis, but please me restate it again - the ‘status quo’ in the UK for decades was trans inclusion. What we have now is not really precedented for a 21st century democracy.

222053

Reposted by Jennifer Cobbe

Rachel Griffin @rachelgriffin.eurosky.social · 12/09/2026

AI could kill us all within 10 years! now that I've got your attention, our only hope is that all threats to my business model be crushed,

076