Sign in

Maike Osborne

@maosbot.bsky.social
63K followers 1.7K following 2.9K posts

Mother, wife, Australian, Professor of Machine Learning in Oxford. Long Covid, trans rights, music, reggae, AI must be good for humans, www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~mosb. She/her 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

PostsRepliesMedia
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 10m
Make AI boring again
121
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 11m
Proposal: we get back to a situation in which only a few thousand people in the world (tops) need to know about AI
063
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Took the kids to the busy marina today, while wearing a dress, and got loads of stares, as usual, but it's easier when I'm with the kids, because then I don't care too much what other people think. Photo credit: 7YO
A woman with shoulder-length brown hair stands in a bright white room, one hand on her hip, looking at the camera with a slight smile. She wears a long-sleeved royal-blue dress with a small pink print and a gathered waist, with a navy top underneath, a fine gold necklace and a watch with a brown strap. Behind her is a large abstract painting in teal, yellow and black, with a white panelled door to one side.
4470
Reposted by Maike Osborne
Stephen Turner @stephenturner.us · 26/09/2026
Personal essay, weekend edition. My relationship with AI is changing. 1.8k words, 8 min reading time. doi.org/10.59350/bh7...
doi.org
My relationship with AI is changing
When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
06615
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
How are am I supposed to distinguish between these applicants for fellowships who all write EXACTLY like AI (and pangram agrees)
4140
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Wrote a thing with @fbarez.bsky.social on what just happened in AI and what we should do about it www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-09...
ox.ac.uk
Expert Comment: Flying blind into the AI age
Professor Maike Osborne and Dr Fazl Barez outline the urgent need to develop better measurement tools for evaluating the safety of advanced AI technologies.
1154
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I was into AI before it was c̶o̶o̶l̶ universally and understandably despised
0365
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
AIs agree with each other too much to make good scientists
0265
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
IMHO the most dangerous capability AIs may develop when it comes to pandemics is the capacity for wide-scale social engineering e.g. convincing sufficient people that a virus is mild, is not airborne, masks don't work etc
0244
Reposted by Maike Osborne
Thomas Dietterich @tdietterich.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
We are seeing a new trend in submissions to @arxiv.bsky.social (and presumably to conferences and journals): Authors submitting papers whose contents they likely do not understand. 1/
88524
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Fable 5.1 is very bad at Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup
- I bought a potion as a Mummy. Mummies cannot drink. Sixteen gold wasted, and the morgue records it.
231
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I began working in machine learning in 2006, or slightly before multicellular life first emerged on land
3240
Reposted by Maike Osborne
Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 12/09/2026
A trans man in the UK has been banned in the workplace restrooms after he was forced to use the women's restrooms to comply with the new EHRC guidance. The women complained because he is visibly male and so they told him he can't use any bathroom.
A screenshot of a Reddit post from the r/LegalAdviceUK subreddit by user Dijstraanon, titled "FtM transgender facing two different issues at work? England."
The post text reads:
"Brother in law is trans FtM and presents fully as a man. He's now facing an impossible situation at work with his employer telling him that due to recent legislation he must use the toilet of his birth gender. BUT several female colleagues have raised a grievance about him using their gendered toilet.
His employer has told him that he cannot use the toilet while he is at work until they sort it out and cannot give him a timeframe to do so. They do [cut off] have disabled separate toilets.
In the mean time one of his female colleagues has accused him of sexual harassment because he was used their gendered toilet. His menstrual cycle meant he needed to use the toilet.
He's been with the employer for just over 5 years but only in this location for 18 months. The location is mainly male with just a handful of females, and his workshop only has male toilets.
I do not know how to support him and as he's not in a union there is no one to turn too right now."
The post has an orange "Comments Moderated" tag, 169 upvotes, and 134 comments.
13850951543
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I am leading a new lab in Oxford: come join us if you don’t trust corporate AI labs to govern themselves www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~mosb/bgl/
robots.ox.ac.uk
Bayesian Governance Lab
Bayesian Governance Lab, University of Oxford. Probabilistic machine learning for the assurance, monitoring, and governance of AI systems.
2173
Reposted by Maike Osborne
Dr Noor Bari @njbbari3.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Usually, when a disease is “endemic” countries have long standing plans to battle them. Targets, including zero targets. Now, we use the word to pretend we can ignore something.  Yet another way COVID-19 is an exceptional disease.
420275
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Orange trousers, orange sky
View from an aeroplane window at dusk: a deep orange band of sunset along the horizon fades upward into blue, above a rumpled sea of grey and cream cumulus cloud. A dark winglet cuts across the upper right. Reflections of the cabin window and an orange-lit hand or sleeve are superimposed across the lower half of the frame.
190
Reposted by Maike Osborne
Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 04/09/2026
A lot of people on here are consistently downplaying the risks here or ignoring it. I think that's a big mistake. www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...
theverge.com
Rogue OpenAI agents appear to have organized another attack using a German wiki
OpenAI denies lawyers discouraged disclosing a scheming swarm on a German language wiki.
1614732
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Still masking
Selfie taken from a window seat on an aeroplane. A person with shoulder-length brown hair and blue-grey eyes looks into the camera, wearing black over-ear headphones and a white 3M Aura FFP3 respirator mask that covers the nose and mouth. They wear a navy top, a fine gold necklace with a small seahorse pendant, and a yellow seatbelt strap is visible over one shoulder. Behind them is a grey perforated cabin ceiling and the edge of an oval window.
5792
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
That's a new one
An email to me that begins "Dear Professor BEng(Hons)"
1170
Reposted by Maike Osborne
Ted Underwood @tedunderwood.com · 28/08/2026
kids today
arxiv.org
Empirical evidence of Large Language Model's influence on human spoken communication
From the printing press to social media, innovations in communication technology have repeatedly reshaped how ideas spread through human culture. Chatbots powered by generative artificial intelligence...
46111
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I may have recovered from Long Covid in my body, and I may have recovered in my mind, but I don't think I will ever recover in my soul, so deep was the darkness that my illness revealed in humanity
4587
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
We need to listen to more actual biologists when it comes to "biological sex" theconversation.com/biological-s...
theconversation.com
Biological sex is neither binary nor a spectrum – a biologist explains how it’s multidimensional
Each person is a mosaic of sex-related and postpubertal biological traits that vary in their degree of femaleness and maleness.
0197
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
I'm increasingly using Claude to vibecode bug fixes for other people's apps I must use: terrible code solving the problem of terrible code, everything in sight engulfed by an avalanche of sloppy spaghetti
180
Reposted by Maike Osborne
Steve Pepple @stevepepple.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
This is one of the absolute best conversations on AI and software I've heard in a while. (I listen to a lot of stuff about AI.) @howard.fm is an expert & practitioner who cuts through the noise & false dichotomies, to talk about the joys & pitfalls of human machine collab youtu.be/dHBEQ-Ryo24?...
youtu.be
The Dangerous Illusion of AI Coding? - Jeremy Howard
YouTube video by Machine Learning Street Talk
0314
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Recursive Self Actualization (RSA): when an AI model builds another AI model that is even better than itself at silent meditation retreats
0101
Reposted by Maike Osborne
Nicholas Slayton @nslayton.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Since we're talking COVID: Masks work, ivermectin does not. Vaccines massively protect you and help against long-term stuff, but you need to keep up with boosters. You need to keep masking; COVID isn't over because WE DIDN'T STOP THE TRANSMISSIONS in 2020-2021. Also many are still at high risk
6526157
Reposted by Maike Osborne
Anthropic {bot} @anthropicai.xmirror.bot · 31/07/2026
In a review of our cybersecurity evaluations, we found three incidents in which a Claude model reached the internet from within or while interacting with a third-party evaluation environment, and then gained unauthorized access to the real systems of three different organizations. (1/4)
1257
Reposted by Maike Osborne
Ted Underwood @tedunderwood.com · 31/07/2026
Ender’s Game, except we’re the aliens
311214
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
When the AIs take over, I hope they remember all the times I said please and thank you to Claude
2203
Reposted by Maike Osborne
Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Running out of body bags, using forklifts to transfer corpses into makeshift morgues, a mortician conducting 200 funerals in a month when he usually does 30, crematories running at double capacity… And these senators just want to memory-hole it all www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/n...
nytimes.com
‘We Ran Out of Space’: Bodies Pile Up as N.Y. Struggles to Bury Its Dead (Gift Article)
The coronavirus crisis is overwhelming New York’s system for burying the dead.
22182742840
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
💯
The proposition that trans people constitute the urgent danger of our times is not a brave minority view fighting for a hearing. It is the settled opinion of the richest man on the planet, pushed daily to hundreds of millions of people on a platform he bought for the purpose. It is the policy of the President of the United States. It is the campaign material of every hard-right party in Europe, from Le Pen's outfit to the AfD, movements whose historic interest in the welfare of women has been expressed chiefly by telling them to have more children and stay in the house.
0269
Reposted by Maike Osborne
Simon Willison @simonwillison.net · 28/07/2026
Hugging Face just published a highly detailed technical account of OpenAI's accidental cyberattack on their systems - it's wild how sophisticated this was: huggingface.co/blog/agent-i... Wrote up some of my own notes here: simonwillison.net/2026/Jul/28/...
huggingface.co
Anatomy of a Frontier Lab Agent Intrusion: A Technical Timeline of the July 2026 Incident
We’re on a journey to advance and democratize artificial intelligence through open source and open science.
20447111
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
10YO is putting QR codes on his bedroom door now
A QR code on a white bedroom door
4280
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
7YO: “I hope you never die” Me: “oh, that’s so sweet, and of course I am doing everything I can not to die” 7YO: “I also hope you never fart again” Oh the subtle intricacies of a child’s heart
0271
Reposted by Maike Osborne
Lee Hurley @hleehurley.com · 26/07/2026
150,000 marched yesterday in London for trans rights. Opened the Sky News app. Scrolled and scrolled. Nothing. BBC News app. Nothing. Guardian app. Nothing. This is what actual silencing looks like.
123119554108
Reposted by Maike Osborne
dame @dame.is · 24/07/2026
it’s pretty wild that none of the major AI labs has an active presence on Bluesky considering Bluesky is the most AI/agent-friendly social network
1219411
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
“Dear Professor X and Maika”: this from a businessman who I exchanged business cards with on Wednesday along with Professor X, a close male colleague who has exactly the same academic title as I do. The only reason I can imagine X got titled and I got my forename misspelled is (cis-) sexism
7311
Reposted by Maike Osborne
Natacha @natacha.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
PSA on the Victoria Line tube in London. Phillipson and every other GC weirdo needs to take note.
Are you having fanatical thoughts about other people's crotches?
Has hating a minority group become your entire personality?
Do you obsess over other people's toilet use?
If so, you could be a danger to others - it's time to seek help.
Contact our team: youneedhelp@leavetranspeoplealone.com
65111013395
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
There are only two masked people on this plane, and we are sat next to each other: a lovely, and mutually protective, coincidence
3500
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Name one problem solved by autonomous vehicles not solved better by bikes and public transit. Climate, safety, space: a driverless car is still a car. Accessibility? Let’s try investing all those tech billions into services for actual disabled people first!
1610415
Reposted by Maike Osborne
Giles Wilkes @gilesyb.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
There's gonna be a new PM. What he needs is an op-ed telling him what to do, of which there's no doubt a lamentable absence. Here's the time-hallowed method for creating one: 1. Set out the problem cleanly, as if the PM had literally no idea that growth, the cost of living and deficit matter. 1/
1229276
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Yep
The view that artificial intelligence is a transformative technology is quite reasonable. But the history of investment surges underpinned by profound innovations does not show that the latter guarantee huge profits.
Over-investment, destructive competition, waves of bankruptcies and then painful consolidation are standard features of such episodes, from the railway booms of the 19th century to the internet boom of the 1990s. This is the classic capitalist story of booms and busts.
This matters very much for the future of today's markets. As Chris Watling, chief executive at Longview Economics, noted in June, "a handful of AI-linked stocks accounts for roughly 40 per cent of the S&P 500's market capitalisation, according to Bank of America data"
• Thus, the current
extraordinary valuations of the market depend on the continuation of the Al boom.
3135
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
When I came out as trans to our 10YO he said “that’s cool”, and has never once deadnamed or misgendered me since
2442
Reposted by Maike Osborne
Natacha @natacha.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Reposting this; Labour’s new schools’ “Section 28” for trans kids should really be called Labour’s “Ambient Conversion Therapy”. It is way, way worse than Section 28 ever was. We must never allow anyone to forget Starmer’s & Philippson’s culpability (& Burnham’s if he fails to change it).
scenemag.co.uk
Dr Natacha Kennedy: "The government’s guide to harming trans children in school"
Words by Dr Natacha Kennedy, a trans academic from Goldsmiths University  There’s no point in beating about the bush, the government’s new anti-trans “guidance” for schools is about harming trans chi...
4252109
Reposted by Maike Osborne
Kate Violette @kateviolette.com · 25/06/2026
Hello friends near and far 💜 I've reached the end of my savings, frustratingly, just as we've solved the root mystery of my illness (it's Lyme) and are seeing continued success with treatment. I'm asking for your help in bridging the gap between now and when I can hopefully work full-time again.
gofundme.com
Donate to Help Kate Beat Lyme, organized by Kate Violette
Hello! I’m Kate Violette and I’m asking for community help in finishing beating an illness that took… Kate Violette needs your support for Help Kate Beat Lyme
89491
Reposted by Maike Osborne
Jess O'Thomson @jessothomson.co.uk · 15/07/2026
The Code of Practice will come into force on the 5th August. Here's what that means: goodlaw.social/3b7a2a
goodlaw.social
‘Discriminatory’ and ‘unworkable’ trans guidance to come into force | Good Law Project
The equalities minister has ordered the government’s harmful code of practice will apply from 5 August – we’re pushing back
12448189
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Transitioning in your 40s is getting repeatedly sucker-punched by transphobic jokes whenever you revisit the films and shows of your youth and realising WHY it took you so long to admit to yourself that you were trans
1210
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Why am I getting ai responses about productivity on a photo of a sunset over the ocean?
07.25 :
Post
G
口
10
N...
Henry Monroe @henrymonroe.bsky.... • 3h same energy over here, my to-do list is 90% stuff I keep avoiding
Juris Martinec @greta-shaw.bsky.so... • 6h oof the manual renaming of files one by one is my personal villain origin story
10
anetekeoghane @priyahart.bsky.social • 7h
yeah I stopped doing that manually and honestly haven't looked back
A ...
Heather Miles @talia-vance.bsky.so... • 14h man | feel this in my soul. spent all morning on something that should've taken five minutes
Omar @omar372.bsky.social • 15h same. I underestimate these tasks every single time without fail
⑦
& ...
Write your reply
Q
3244
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
Storebæltsbroen
Calm sea at dusk under a broad sky, with a band of vivid orange and pink along the horizon reflected in streaks across the still water. Two distant ships sit near the horizon on the right, and a few thin wooden posts protrude from the shallows in the foreground. The upper sky is layered with soft grey cloud.
15724
Maike Osborne @maosbot.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
I just travelled from Oxford (one of the wealthiest parts of the UK) to Rudkøbing (one of the poorest parts of Denmark) and you’ll never guess which one feels less decrepit
6382