iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Rebecca Williams

Amazing how the media's still sticking to the 'going rogue' line. This software did not 'go rogue'. Its developers failed to build adequate controls, did not do enough testing, and are entirely responsible for the results.

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The Fossil Files Podcast @thefossilfiles.bsky.social · 15h

Are the next generation of palaeontologsists getting the training that they need to make sure the that field doesn't go extinct? Our new bonus episode is out today! Preview here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJCM...

youtube.com

Are we failing the next generation of palaeontologists? The future of fieldwork [Bonus Preview]

YouTube video by The Fossil Files Podcast

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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 16h

I give up. I’m moving into a cave.

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The Geological Society of Glasgow @geolsocglasgow.bsky.social · 13h

🎥 TRAILER: THE ANCIENT LANDSCAPES OF THE INNER HEBRIDES A short video about our upcoming lecture next Thursday. Hopefully you are keen to come along. Free. No booking required, but on Eventbrite. Link in Bio! #geology #glasgow #lecture

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Robert Sansom @fossilrob.bsky.social · 13h

Calling Fossil Fans - can you think of memorable occasions when palaeontology was reported in the news - when it went well, and perhaps more pertinently, when it didn't go well?

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nick @unionnick.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

On 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.

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Rebecca Brückmann @historleans.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I mean… All I’m saying is that it does not not make sense at this point.

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Social Media Lab @socialmedialab.ca · 29/09/2026

👀 "U.K. funder uses ‘AI triage’ to reject grant proposals—leaving researchers dismayed. The AI-based assessment, which wasn’t explicitly described in the funding call, has raised privacy and fairness concerns." www.science.org/content/arti...

science.org

U.K. funder uses ‘AI triage’ to reject grant proposals—leaving researchers dismayed

The AI-based assessment, which wasn’t explicitly described in the funding call, has raised privacy and fairness concerns

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UNITED24 @u24.gov.ua · 28/09/2026

russia struck the National Academy of Sciences in Kyiv. Employees of the academy attempted to jump from the windows, as flames engulfed the building. russia rejoices in killing people who make this world a better place, while its war criminals turn cities to ruins.

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Bruno Dias @brunodias.dev · 28/09/2026

There are simply no real privacy protections on any of this shit, the companies doing it are all run by an insane cult and have zero scruples. You should assume anything you tell Claude is available as plaintext to people inside Anthropic.

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Bruno Dias @brunodias.dev · 28/09/2026

2. you'd have to be a huge fucking idiot to hand all of your work to some startup who is in the mass data harvesting business but pinky promises they won't steal your data. 3. a lot of people with advanced degrees seem to be huge fucking idiots

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Stuart Swales @taynappe.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Please remember to register for Anjana's talk - as it's on Teams there won't be a direct link for you to simply follow tomorrow evening ;-)

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Michael Lobel @mlobelart.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I've talked to a few journal editors who are concerned about similar problems re: anonymous reviewers. If a peer reviewer wants a little help & feeds your unpublished submission into an AI system, they've just shared your proprietary work & broken confidentiality. A nightmare to think about

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Ada Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It’s happening again. LLMs reporting someone’s in progress research as if it’s own discovery.

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Rebecca Williams @volcanologist.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It's a shame* that it is becoming increasingly apparent that our grant-searching public institutions don't necessarily agree with this concept 👀🫣

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Professor John R. Hutchinson @johnrhutchinson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Yes absolutely, positively do not feed a scientific paper, grant, or whatever you are peer reviewing into LLM or any other software without permission.

static.klipy.com

Seinfeld's Babu Bhatt: No Bad!

ALT: Seinfeld's Babu Bhatt: No Bad!

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Linke in comments @dannybirchall.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

"Historic England was spending six figures to wrap photographs the taxpayer had already paid for. Then the wrapper died, and the public cannot see them at all."

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Rebecca Williams @volcanologist.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Today, I was briefly for a half an hour period, that editor who sent a review request to an author of the paper 🫣 They were perfect for the review! The manuscript constantly cited their work, was built off their methodologies, and they're an established expert in the field 🤣🤣 Brain fog is real.

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Rebecca Williams @volcanologist.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

This is a really interesting post, especially for anyone interested in the real harms that AI is doing to people and society today, and why we should pay that more attention than the claims of existential risk.

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Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes @lemoustier.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The problem isn't rogue #AI models, it's *negligent companies*. If a biomedical firm put their product in public water supply because they wanted to test it 'in the real world', they'd be treated as criminal at corporate & individual level. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

theguardian.com

OpenAI halts training of latest models as reports mount of AI agents going rogue

Decision follows disclosures that OpenAI agents searching government websites had acted in unexpected ways

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Greg Jenner (Historian) @gregjenner.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

This is beautiful writing about what happens when strangers on the internet narrativise you, based on 30 seconds of video 👇

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Kirsty Grainger @kirstygrainger.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Reducing peer review to the production of a score completely misses the point of what makes the process valuable. It is an integral part of the research process. It supports both the development of the research and of the reviewer. It is the wrong framing for addressing high application numbers.

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MadScientist @mads100tist.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This is it. This is what everyone is enabling by humoring genAI: you spend months writing something that took you years to get at, for an opaque algorithm that a few control to spit a number and cut you off right there and then. This is what we're up against 🧪

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British Science Association @britsciassoc.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Are you clever, confident and creative with copy, camera and Canva? We're looking for a Digital Communications Officer to work on our programmes and campaigns, including the British Science Festival, Smashing Stereotypes, and EDIS. Closes 15 Oct: www.britishscienceassociation.org/digital-comm...

britishscienceassociation.org

Digital Communications Officer

The British Science Association is hiring a Digital Communications Officer responsible for delivering communications activity for several British Science Association programmes and campaigns, includin...

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Dr Vanessa @hpsvanessa.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Cannot tell you how much I hate this & how ashamed & angry I am that @ukri.org have taken this step. We KNOW this sort of gAI is socially biased, we KNOW it favours slopAI output over human-written. Our research landscape is falling apart due to underfunding, & they do this? it's *appalling*

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Communications Sustainability @commssustain.nature.com · 24/09/2026

Apply by September 28!

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Robin Hayward 🌳 🏳️‍⚧️ @canopyrobin.com · 25/09/2026

We're publishing new guidance to support trans people who do fieldwork (any work outside the office)! Now we need your help to get them seen so please share! inclusivefieldwork.leeds.ac.uk/trans/

a cartoon of three fieldworkers. One has a small trans flag. The logos of the university of leeds, research england, and canopy robin are shown, as well as the URL: InclusiveFieldwork (dot) Leeds (dot) AC (dot) UK (slash) trans

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Rebecca Williams @volcanologist.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This is really shocking. AI are not experts. They simply cannot review the scholarly merit of a proposal, the robustness of the approach and the potential for knowledge generation and impact. I can't get across how much I hate this.

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John Stott @jpsastro.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Had a UKRI funded grant proposal rejected at the "AI triage stage". "This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review." 🧪 #academicsky

I am writing to let you know that, unfortunately, your application was not successful.

Review process

As part of the initial triage of the 179 proposals submitted to this call, each was assessed using an AI-based review. Every proposal was read independently by several different AI models against the same seven criteria used to shape this call (including cyber security relevance, research quality and novelty, importance of the problem addressed, feasibility of the project plan, likely outputs and impact, value for money, and responsible research practice), with each model asked to give a score and a written justification with supporting quotations from the text. To guard against any one model's idiosyncrasies, we also ran a second, independent process in which different AI models debated the merits and weaknesses of each proposal before reaching a judgement, again against the same criteria. Scores from both processes were combined to produce an overall ranking.

This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review. Projects selected for funding were drawn from those that progressed to the full human review stage. We recognise that AI-assisted assessment is a new and evolving part of the review process, and we are continuing to evaluate how well it aligns with the judgements of human reviewers on this call. We will soon produce a document detailing our method, so that others can build upon it and improve it.

Feedback on your application

Your application was not selected to progress beyond the AI triage stage. To provide transparency on the outcome of this assessment, we are sharing below the scores (out of 5) from each of the two AI review processes described above, together with the mean score across the two processes.

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Suw @suw.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

How does UKRI square this with their own AI use policy for reviewers? To quote: Assessors, including reviewers and panellists, must: • not use generative AI tools as part of their assessment activities except for language refinement purposes www.ukri.org/publications...

ukri.org

Use of generative artificial intelligence in application preparation and assessment

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Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Reminder that in Canada upon becoming an engineer you get an iron ring made of a collapsed bridge, purposely designed to be uncomfortable, to remind you that your ethics demand you give a fuck even about the boring grudgework of such as double-checking your math. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring

en.wikipedia.org

Iron Ring - Wikipedia

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Alastair Harper @alastairharper.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Thomas Edison in 1910. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves on this net zero business, lads

Someday some fellow will invent a way of concentrating and storing sunshine to use instead of this old, absurd Prometheus scheme of fire.
I'll do the trick myself if someone doesn't get at it....
This scheme of combustion in order to get power makes me sick to think of—it is so wasteful.... We should utilize natural forces and thus get all of our power. Sunshine is a form of energy, and the winds and the tides are manifestations of energy. Do we use them? Oh no; we burn up wood and coal, as renters burn up the front fence for fuel.
We live like squatters, not as if we owned the property. There must surely come a time when heat and power will be stored in unlimited quantities in every community, all gathered by natural forces. Electricity ought to be as cheap as oxygen, for it cannot be destroyed.
Now, I am not sure but that my new storage battery is the thing. 167

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Rebecca Williams @volcanologist.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

How about, and here's a wild idea, we do our own research and write our own papers? And stand by the verification of our work because it's ours?

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Bruce Little @brucedlittle.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

The atmosphere just hit a new water-vapour record: 27.35 kg of water vapour per m2 in August 2026, ~20 trillion litres more water than the previous record. Warmer air holds ~7% more moisture per °C. More water vapour means more energy to fuel extreme weather.

theguardian.com

El Niño and global heating pushes water vapour in Earth’s atmosphere to record levels in August

Global heating contributes to record, with a warmer atmosphere able to hold more water, scientists say

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Dr Elisabeth Kosters @elisabethkosters.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Australia to the US: “You run a country where 600k people will sleep on the streets without a home, where 40% of adults cannot cover a $400 emergency expense without borrowing money, where a dose of insulin costs more than a monthly car payment, forcing people to ration their insulin to stay alive

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Natalia (娜塔莉) @wrycritic.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

People asked me about my fat pterosaur furry pins. Turns out she has opened her first online shop (and currently, her main source of income) Link below to support!

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Dr Alex Fitzpatrick @animalarchaeology.com · 17/09/2026

why do pro-AI researchers seemingly hate doing research so much

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Adrift Lab (Marine Science) @adriftlab.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Each year “the record” is broken, despite our team thinking “surely the birds can’t possibly fit anymore plastics in their stomachs!” But then, in 2025, we found 894 plastics inside a single chick that was only 90 days old 💔 📸 caption: worst chicks in 2010, 2015, 2021, 2025

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Rebecca Williams @volcanologist.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The proliferation of apps that should just be websites is unbearable. The downloading, the permissions, my utter lack of storage space...

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🌈 Dr Ross Brooks @rossbrooks.co.uk · 15/09/2026

It’s heartening to see QUEER ORIGINS finding its way into libraries — just in time for the new academic year! 🏳️‍🌈📚🗃️ Academics & students: if your uni library doesn’t have it yet, please ask them to stock it. 🙏 #books #booksky #libraries #lovelibraries #librarians #science #histsci #queerhistory

Screenshot from Library Hub Discover showing UK libraries now holding Darwin and the Queer Origins of Life. there are six listed: University of Birmingham Libraries, The Linnean Society of London, The London Library, National Library of Scotland, National Library of Wales / Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru, and University of Oxford Libraries.

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Daniel C. Blight @danielcblight.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

***URGENT PLEASE SHARE*** University of Brighton management have announced today that they ‘give notice of termination of all collective agreements’. This is a fundamental erasure of workers' rights. Management have announced the termination of all contractual documents, which includes:

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Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

The fallacy that University leaders pushing AI are falling into is thinking that the point of undergraduate research is to find things out. It isn't. What students find out is typically already generally known. The point of undergraduate research is to learn how to find things out.

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

I wrote this quickly at a bus stop and didn't realize it would go viral, or else I would have worded it better. But the point is that the media is too credulous about AI killing everyone in 10 years (how?) when climate change is killing people now and will only get worse (we know exactly how).

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Prof Rachel Oliver @profrachelgan.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

In the face of researcher concerns that the change in policy to prioritise longer larger grants may have undesirable impacts on EDI, UKRI suggest they will "keep an eye" on it. Gee, thanks! I'm not sure that covers their duties under the equality act. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...

researchprofessionalnews.com

Fewer, longer research grants ‘could exacerbate inequalities’ - Research Professional News

Science minister’s call for larger, longer-term investments prompts fears around benefits for “big hitters”

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david zhang @jz-volc.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Folks, im happy to share our work, on new evidence for ash venting alongside rhyolitic lava effusion, from Iceland, which we argue is a general & widespread hazard of silicic systems — newly-(properly)-published, open access, on nat comms: doi.org/10.1038/s414...

doi.org

Sustained ash emission during lava effusion is a hidden volcanic hazard of silicic eruptions - Nature Communications

The study presents field evidence that Iceland eruptions of silicic lava are typically accompanied by long-lasting ash plumes but remain hidden in the tephra record. This potential hazard should be ap...

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Dr Alex Bond @thelabandfield.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

In 2011, one chick held the record for most plastic ever found in the species: 276 pieces, 64g. We thought that was as bad as it could get. We were wrong. The record fell in 2023. Fell again in 2024. Then in 2025: 894 pieces in a single chick. (Photo: worst chicks in 2010, 2015, 2021, 2025)

Photographs of plastic on a black background from the most affected shearwater chick in 2010 (A; maybe 20 cm2), 2015 (B; maybe 20 cm2), 2021 (C; now 15x20 cm) and 2025 (30x20 cm)

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Helen Czerski @helenczerski.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

It bugs me that we're normalising the idea that there's something wrong with long documents, or that they're not "worth" our time. There is huge value in careful thought, in detail and nuance, in exploration, and in the experiential journey that goes alongside that.

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Helen Czerski @helenczerski.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

As both an academic and a writer, I am repelled by the "this looks like a long document. Would you like me to summarize it for you?" that seems to appear at the top of every pdf viewer now. NO. The *entire point* of good writing (either books or journal papers) is that every sentence has a purpose.

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