Reposted by Will TattersdillBecca Harrison @beccaeharrison.bsky.social · 25/09/2026If I were running a university where staff spent weeks and weeks of time putting grant proposals together only for UKRI to feed them into LLMs without informed consent—effectively theft of the time and work—I’d be taking serious action to defend those staff. But I’m not running a university, so 822688
Reposted by Will Tattersdillnick @unionnick.bsky.social · 27/09/2026On the *same day* the Cornell Seven drugged and raped Jane Doe, Cornell banned four students (including the President of Cornell JVP) from campus for three years for nonviolent, pro-Palestine protests. The same Cornell officials let the rapists off with apology essays. 4650922028
Reposted by Will TattersdillGuy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole.bsky.social · 27/09/2026The size of *one* of the AI data centre buildings proposed for Great Torrington in north Devon, versus Exeter cathedral 🤯 From this useful piece profiling the local campaigns against it: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026... 510969
Will Tattersdill @tattersdill.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Alison is too kind and it's so exciting to see one's work being used so deftly (after a decade of it all just being in my head)! 042
Reposted by Will TattersdillJames Butler @piercepenniless.bsky.social · 25/09/2026When was the last time our Secretary of State for Culture displayed anything approaching this degree of public enthusiasm for our world-class arts industry? Has she been seen anywhere? Given impending charter renewal... did she even bother to visit a single prom? 311328271
Reposted by Will TattersdillCllr Dr Alex Powell @apowelllaw.bsky.social · 23/09/2026So, just to be clear, Daniel Thomas was: 1- Carrying a knife contrary to section 139 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 2- Used that knife to commit criminal damage (Criminal Damage act 1971) 3- likely engaged in the criminal offense of endangering Life at Sea (Merchant Shipping Act 1995) 7245101
Will Tattersdill @tattersdill.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Obviously it's complicated, but the "point of no return" for a country is probably roughly when the idea of a lifeboat becomes controversial 040
Reposted by Will TattersdillProf. Dimitra Fimi @dimitrafimi.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Wonderful #Tolkien news! Westminster Abbey has announced that J.R.R. Tolkien will be honoured with a memorial in Poets' Corner. I've known about this project for some years + was privileged to be consulted during its development. Great to see it made public! www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-news/a... 010941
Reposted by Will TattersdillREwadent Evil @ewacat.bsky.social · 22/09/2026if you ever struggle with names when worldbuilding just remember there's a whole massive mountain range called The Rockies 732169335
Reposted by Will TattersdillPaul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Thousands of university jobs lost too, and barely a peep either. 381082332
Will Tattersdill @tattersdill.bsky.social · 22/09/2026This is still something I wish "normal" British people knew more about. Migrating here is unbelievably and unjustly expensive 184
Reposted by Will TattersdillClarkesworld @clarkesworldmagazine.com · 21/09/2026And... By far, the greatest danger with short stories is that people conclude too early that they understand them. 2999
Reposted by Will TattersdillClarkesworld @clarkesworldmagazine.com · 21/09/2026No company is going to survive in the future without understanding short stories. Short stories are about amplifying human potential, not replacing it. If you don’t have an short story strategy, you’re going to die in the world that’s coming. 110814
Reposted by Will TattersdillClarkesworld @clarkesworldmagazine.com · 21/09/2026Updating the "AI" community's own words for short fiction marketing: Short stories won’t replace humans, but humans who read short stories will replace those who don’t. The true power of short stories lies not in replacing humans, but in working alongside us to achieve what neither can do alone. 114531
Reposted by Will TattersdillXero now with 100% more 🎃 @artificer-ind.bsky.social · 09/09/2026Still patiently waiting to be "left behind" by AI rather than it chasing me across every damn space like a slasher in a low budget flick. 2116773290
Reposted by Will TattersdillCarl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 19/09/2026When we talk about the costs that LLMs impose on society we should not forget the fact that nothing works anymore because everyone is so scared of getting their shit scraped. I can't even use google scholar from my university or starlink because they send too much traffic. 984457966
Reposted by Will TattersdillIan Carrillo @iansociologo.bsky.social · 19/09/2026In this class we're in the middle of reading about ways that AI has already harmed real people in its actual applications. There are so many examples (and that list is growing everyday) that it's not possible to cover them all. arstechnica.com/health/2023/...arstechnica.comUnitedHealth uses AI model with 90% error rate to deny care, lawsuit allegesFor the largest health insurer in the US, AI's error rate is like a feature, not a bug. 49559
Reposted by Will Tattersdillheadfallsoff @headfallsoff.com · 19/09/2026also. the thing people hate is not ‘the technology’ it is the tech industry. they hate move fast and break things. they hate having everything they say tracked and processed while companies do whatever they want. they hate every single ideological value that animates silicon valley 153647732
Reposted by Will Tattersdillheadfallsoff @headfallsoff.com · 19/09/2026on some level, you have to accept that yes, people are reacting emotionally without doing detailed research but really you can’t blame them or stop them. this was some bullshit not a single one of us had to think about three years ago and now it’s making shit worse in like most daily interactions 103378542
Reposted by Will Tattersdillheadfallsoff @headfallsoff.com · 19/09/2026people are always saying anti-AI arguments don’t understand the full nuances of the technology. which is correct. but only because it stole everyone’s work, exists solely to get you fired, has made the entire internet unusable and has been forced on everyone without consent 7359101664
Reposted by Will TattersdillDavid Veevers @davidveevers.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Think of the combined CENTURIES of expertise lost here, the creativity, the knowledge, the depth and breadth of cultural learning and understanding, the generations of minds enriched and enlightened, the sheer weight of history that led to the establishment of these programmes. Purged. Destroyed. 813991
Reposted by Will TattersdillFelicity Callard @felicitycallard.bsky.social · 18/09/2026The brutal reality of universities' suppression of wages (in KPMG's report for DfE on cost of undergraduate provision in England) assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6aabfa... 24441
Will Tattersdill @tattersdill.bsky.social · 16/09/2026This is the kind of headline opportunity which only comes along once or twice in a subeditor's career 16218
Reposted by Will TattersdillJoseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · 16/09/2026BREAKING: Boston University's English department (my dept) recently voted to approve new learning outcomes for the English major, including an anti-AI provision that requires students to “craft and revise writing that is sustained, original, and generated without the assistance of AI."bu.eduNew Learning Outcomes Announced | English 402366472
Will Tattersdill @tattersdill.bsky.social · 13/09/2026Stunningly good points from soup to nuts here, everyone teaching in higher ed needs to read this www.insidehighered.com/opinion/care...insidehighered.comStudents as Conscientious Objectors to Gen AI (opinion)We should listen to them—and treat their objections with respect. 093
Will Tattersdill @tattersdill.bsky.social · 13/09/2026I'm reminded of @bengoldacre.bsky.social's line about what to do if you're worried you might be a bad person: look in the mirror and ask yourself, "am I currently suing Médecins Sans Frontières?" 031
Reposted by Will TattersdillAsheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 06/09/2026We keep discussing ”strategies” for teaching in the age of AI to avoid talking about resources. It’s so boring!! The strategy is invest $ to hire people, lower class size, support research-engaged learning & stop measuring the worth of disciplines in relation to # of enrollments and majors. 3516104
Reposted by Will TattersdillAsheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 06/09/2026We know how to teach books in the age of AI: small classes, close reading, research-engaged learning (which is how you ’let students see you struggle’). The issue is nobody will hire and pay the requisite # of faculty to offer this. 11915243
Will Tattersdill @tattersdill.bsky.social · 10/09/2026The Two Working Days A Week Of The Mind wonkhe.com/blogs/studen... 110
Reposted by Will TattersdillAda Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · 09/09/2026Chinook salmon have recolonised 88% of their historic range on the Klamath River, with more than 13,000 fish passing the old Iron Gate Dam site in 2025, up from 7,700 the year before. Two years after the dams’ removal, it’s going better than anyone predicted. buff.ly/pToC9gB #ShareGoodNewsToonature.comRewilding the upper Klamath River Basin: rapid recolonization of Chinook salmon following the world’s largest dam removal - Scientific ReportsScientific Reports - Rewilding the upper Klamath River Basin: rapid recolonization of Chinook salmon following the world’s largest dam removal 182507843
Reposted by Will Tattersdill🇬🇾🗽Sydette The Dreaded Gorgon🗽🇬🇾 @blackamazon.bsky.social · 10/09/2026This this THIS RIGHT HERE 141381393
Will Tattersdill @tattersdill.bsky.social · 09/09/2026"I believe that most people are continually harmed by their daily lives, as most people’s daily lives are on the computer or their smartphones, and those lives have been stripped of dignity." www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgiv... 021
Reposted by Will TattersdillCatherynne M. Valente @catvalente.bsky.social · 09/09/2026I think about this essay a lot. About the low-level stress & aggravation literally everything is now designed to incite & maintain. What this constant emotional histamine response to our digital-logistical environment does to us, how it degrades our days. www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgiv...wheresyoured.atNever Forgive ThemIn the last year, I’ve spent about 200,000 words on a kind of personal journey where I’ve tried again and again to work out why everything digital feels so broken, and why it seems to keep getting wor... 215334
Reposted by Will TattersdillJames Hell Brooks @kleinman.bsky.social · 09/09/2026For the past two years I've been tracking every bill proposed in state legislatures across the country to figure out what Republican plans for the future are. The answer, based on these 1,182 bills, is that they want to repeal the 20th Century heartlandsignal.com/2026/09/09/b...heartlandsignal.comProof from the states: the right wing attempt to repeal the 20th century – Heartland SignalRepublicans are in Dallas this week making the case that the other side is the extreme one. We read the legislation they introduced in all 50 states and built a searchable record of what we found: 1,1... 451924751
Reposted by Will TattersdillMarijke Valk @marijkevalk.bsky.social · 09/09/2026I'm excited to share the CFP for this year's BSLS Winter Symposium, which I'm absolutely thrilled to be organising with @thebsls.bsky.social! Occult Science: Disenchantment, Re-Enchantment, and the Persistence of Wonder Abstract deadline: 31 October 2026 Full CFP: www.bsls.ac.uk/2026/09/bsls...bsls.ac.ukBSLS 2026/27 Winter Symposium Call for Papers – The British Society for Literature and Science 076
Reposted by Will TattersdillJulia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 08/09/2026Anyone working in the sector already knows, but still good to see it in black & white. Professional services *people*--not just interchangeable hubs of administration--are essential to a good university. Their institutional knowledge has been consistently undervalued & their loss is catastrophic. 39443
Reposted by Will TattersdillDave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 04/09/2026Increasingly convinced this is the most important post 4481931994
Reposted by Will TattersdillJeremy Noel-Tod @jntod.bsky.social · 02/09/2026Nobody: Universities: what if we kept trying to expand while having fewer and fewer staff 827065
Reposted by Will TattersdillJim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 30/08/2026we are keeping tabs of what Andy Burnham says vs what Andy Burnham actually does www.ft.com/content/4371...ft.comAndy Burnham’s summer of quietly backing away from radical pledgesFrom Thames Water to electoral reform, the prime minister seems to be diverging from his campaign rhetoric 64517160
Reposted by Will TattersdillAn Unofficial Hugo Book Club Blog @hugobookclub.bsky.social · 31/08/2026There are only two stories that won a Hugo whose screen adaptation also won a Hugo. “All Systems Red” is the second one. The other is “Dune” Congratulations @marthawells.com. 51230217
Reposted by Will TattersdillDenny Carter @dennycarter.bsky.social · 30/08/2026amazing stuff 1659461518
Reposted by Will TattersdillM. Belanger @sethanikeem.bsky.social · 26/08/2026“How will we ever replace them?” FUND. THE. ARTS. 2394813251
Reposted by Will TattersdillMicroplastics Sommelier @leastactionhero.bsky.social · 25/08/2026RIP to a legend 9104621948
Reposted by Will TattersdillGlen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 25/08/2026British universities are now gripped by the ultimate madness. Some unis are bankrupting everyone else accepting students they can't even take and have to leave in limbo... While putting everyone on redundancy notice! It's crazed. Still no-one will intervene. thetab.com/2026/08/24/u...thetab.comUniversity of Exeter offers deferred places following shortage of student accommodationThe university said it has not been able to offer accommodation to all students 8187100
Reposted by Will Tattersdill#StupidSuez @diplomatofnight.com · 24/08/2026New York Magazine says in response to criticism of its latest issue that “genocide” is “an accurate description of the atrocities in Gaza [...] and that accusations of antisemitic intent were in fact obfuscating an overwhelming scholarly consensus, and that its use would be allowed in our pages” 111609402
Reposted by Will TattersdillWill Tattersdill @tattersdill.bsky.social · 14/08/2026So here we go then: the result of many years thinking about how dinosaurs make science and the imagination work together. It's written for both literary critics and scientists and my dearest hope is that it will help foster an academy where we talk to each other more 1525158