iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Laura Cleaver @laurajcleaver.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I wish human intelligence was getting even a fraction of the attention and investment being spent on AI.

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

PwC (like, among others, KPMG before it) found to be producing 'thought leadership' advice promoting agentic AI use that is larded with AI hallucinations. Worth bearing in mind if they are, for example, one of your university's consultants.

ft.com

PwC published ‘thought leadership’ reports marred by AI hallucinations

Big Four consultant is latest firm found to have produced slapdash work while marketing expertise on the technology

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

'Strip away the grandiose language and a pattern emerges – some combination of fewer, larger modules, almost always wedges of 30 credits, an all-core or heavily prescribed first year, reduced optionality in later years, curated pathways instead of individual module choice... [cont.] 1/4

wonkhe.com

Curriculum reform is a wedge issue

With curriculum reform converging on fewer, larger modules across the sector, Jim Dickinson argues that consolidation solves institutional problems while reallocating regret onto students least able t...

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Sig Sønnesyn @sigsonnesyn.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Meanwhile, back where it's at:

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Dr Ellie Mackin Roberts @elliemackinroberts.net · 23/06/2026

I am once again begging universities to realise that staff - academic, professional services, estates, all of them - are the product they are trying to sell. Without staff there is nothing to sell. No amount of flashy buildings will replace staff in universities. UKHE is in freefall.

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Sig Sønnesyn @sigsonnesyn.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Some well-deserved recognition for the excellent Dr Weikert (who also would deserve to have her name spelled correctly).

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Liesbeth Corens @onslies.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Jesus Christ. Anyone, at any point, raised what *universities actually do*?? Why do we have this lot in charge, who can't even think about what it is the institutions they're 'leading' are for in the first place. In fact, why are they meeting with Starmer's *economic* advisor?

A first for me today at No.10 Downing Street, but what mattered was the discussion.

With Universities UK colleagues, in a conversation led by Baroness Minouche Shafik, we focused on some of the most pressing questions facing higher education:

🎯 How universities can do more to drive growth
🎯 Our role in supporting regional economies
🎯 The long-term financial sustainability of the sector
🎯 Keeping quality at the heart of what we do
🎯 Continuing to attract the brightest and best from across the world
🎯 Supporting young people into education and work

None of these questions are simple but together they go to the heart of the contribution universities make, both economically and socially.

What struck me most is the extent to which there is real appetite for universities to be part of the solution. The challenge for all of us now is to turn that into something tangible.

This is exactly the focus of UUK’s current policy work and it matters enormously for the future of our sector.

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Plashing Vole @plashingvole.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

This is exactly like the banking crisis of 2008. CEO’s was asked why they’d crashed the global economy, and they explained that their only responsibility was to enrich for their own institution regardless of consequences. Nobody was in charge of or responsible for the system as a whole.

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Leonie V. Hicks @lvhicks.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Today is Mother Julian's feast. She is my favourite mystic with much wisdom. She does not shy away from difficulty or the violence of the cross, but looks them squarely in the face and comprehends the abundant love of God and all that is needful for life. 1/

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Sig Sønnesyn @sigsonnesyn.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

It struck me late last night that a good replacement for that most glaring of misnomers 'Artificial Intelligence' would be 'Fake nous', but then I immediately thought it is too obvious not to have been proposed before. Is this in fact old νοῦς?

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Augustine is like: oh man if only religion made a person good. But it doesn't. So.

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Shaily Patel @vox-magica.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

religious literacy — not to be confused with “religion” as such — is a civic good.

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

What's the next sentence, Adrian. WHAT IS THE NEXT SENTENCE.

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Sig Sønnesyn @sigsonnesyn.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Drop your crime fighting Catholics:

The front cover of James Lee Burke's novel Robicheaux

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Arts Matter Bristol @uobartsmatter.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

'While the war has been criticised as being in breach of international law, the reckless use of religion to support this war has not.' Dr Toby Matthiesen (Religion & Theology) on how leaders have used religion to justify their actions in the Middle East Read 👇 theconversation.com/god-on-their...

theconversation.com

God on their side: how the US, Israel and Iran are all using religion to garner support

Politicians from all three Abrahamic religions are using scripture to back their positions.

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Simon Hewitt @leedshewitt.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

Two things that can be true simultaneously: Trump is a volatile idiot who does things for no good reason; the Trump administration functions in the interests of a section of US capital.

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John McCafferty @jdmccafferty.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

25 Mar 1235: the canons of #Lincoln unanimously & unexpectedly elect Robert Grossesteste, scientist & theologian as Bishop of #Lincoln #otd ( British Library Harley MS 3860)

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Sig Sønnesyn @sigsonnesyn.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

If LLMs could talk, we would not understand them (Technology as grammar)

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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

Reposting this poem that I wrote last fall because...well... [waves hands at the world]

A poem titled "Humanities" made up of a set of 6 haikus The text of the poem reads:

Who needs history?
Literature? Languages?
Art? Philosophy?

These can only help
you to better understand
our humanity.

Best to let machines
read your books. And write your books.
Do your art for you.

You will never need
to think. Never need to learn.
You’ll learn to like it.

And when the end comes
you’ll have never burdened your
soul with any growth.

Someone selling this
sees profit in destroying
your humanity.

- John Wyatt Greenlee

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Mark Williams @mrfw17thc.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

I have a 'History Department in UKHE' joke but it's been reduced from 250 characters to 50 and is now merged with jokes from across ten other largely-unrelated disciplines while still being expected to be Just As Funny.

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Karen Gregory @karengregory.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

Has anyone written a review of the restructuring going on across UK HE? Trying to understand what is common across institutions: large, team-taught courses, centralised workload models, limited to no research time, promotion directly tied to grant income. How many consultancy firms are pushing this?

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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 19/03/2026

Oh really? Is that because pandering to the far-right and assuming they will act rationally, reciprocally, & in good faith has always worked in the past, & because there's good evidence that Reform can be trusted? I totally trust this former Tory advisor report published by a right-wing think tank.

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Sig Sønnesyn @sigsonnesyn.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

This article is, as they say, bang on the money.

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Simon Hewitt @leedshewitt.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

'The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason'. Starmer asks Trump to end the war swiftly *in order to keep prices down*.

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Rosalind Brown @rosalindbrown.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

"If AI handles the gruntwork, the learning pathway disappears" along with, potentially, the self-esteem pathway, the deep and lasting reward pathway, the ability to create anything worth someone else's attention pathway (&c. &c.)

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

No-one says ‘Fast food isn’t going away, so let’s work out how to incorporate it into your diet’, yet we are often treated to the same non sequitur when it comes to AI

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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

The next History of Liturgy Seminar is in London @ihr.bsky.social on Monday 16 March 17.30. Come hear Melanie Shaffer @bristolcms.bsky.social & @carrielarocco.bsky.social. In-person (chat! drinks! people!) or online. #medievalsky www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

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Sig Sønnesyn @sigsonnesyn.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

The reductionist fiction of the homo economicus is why we can't have nice things.

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Benjamin Dreyer @bcdreyer.social · 10/03/2026

This is the stupidest g.d. thing I have read all day.

"Human writing often includes some clunky phrases, like this passage from Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, caused by the author's aversion to punctuation: 'As well ask men what they think of stone.'"

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Prof Ben Pohl @benpohl.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

This should be mandatory reading for anyone considering investment in, or even engagement with, AI.

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Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Summary of White House Briefings so far: Reporter: Can you tell us what Plan B is? Trump Regime: Plan B? We don't even have Plan A.

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Sam Altman grows a conscience. Well, part of a conscience. Part of a 'conscience', you say, what's that? A 'con' is part of 'conscience'.

ft.com

OpenAI makes changes to ‘opportunistic and sloppy’ Pentagon deal

Sam Altman says company is working with defence department on provisions covering mass surveillance

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John Collins @logicallyjc.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

This one hits hard.

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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

no, it simply isnt. People are talking about capital using gAI as an excuse to conduct mass lay-offs, about students losing learning because theyre being lied to about gAI in education, about the mass theft of the work of artists and authors to train LLMs, about CSAM and nonconsensual sexual images.

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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 12/02/2026

You can't... repeal... a scientific finding. At that point it's just called lying about it.

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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 11/02/2026

My doomer-worry about AI is not that the LLMs become omnipotent and take over the world but that the wealthy and powerful use it as a means to consolidate power and marginalize or lay off skilled workers and also everything about our technological and political and social life gets worse

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Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

The Higher Education sector has to get out there and defend itself, on the front foot, fighting fire with fire. Its enemies are coming at it. But it's just asleep at the wheel.

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Matt Thiessen @mattthiessen.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

Dear university administrators, politicians of good will, and the general public, we need the field of religious studies more now than we have ever.

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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Striking paper from researchers at Anthropic using a randomised control trial to look at the effects of AI use on skills acquisition. TL:DR ‘We found that using AI assistance led to a statistically significant decrease in mastery.’ www.anthropic.com/research/AI-...

anthropic.com

How AI assistance impacts the formation of coding skills

Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.

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Anne M. Carpenter @catholickungfu.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

Revelation 28:7: "There was a great trumpet blast, and I saw the Lamb of God tackled to the ground by Babylonian border patrol and thrown in jail for illegal crossing."

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Mateusz Fafinski @calthalas.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

I feel obliged to remind everyone that there are plenty of countries where higher education is either completely free or cost a token amount of tuition money and that many of these countries offer top notch teaching and research. It’s a political choice.

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