maybe the “so what” is in thinking about how improvement of functioning in robots happens Humans making things better with conjecture, experiment, & criticism. As Iago says wit + time not witchcraft. Robots are a kind of witchcraft that hide the wit over time of human contribution.
'AI boosters...think that when people write they are directly transferring...ideas that exist pristinely in their heads directly into language. They see the effort of writing as something that gets in the way of this pure process. They see writing as a transparent process of transference'. 1/2
Dougal says I wouldn’t touch them with a barge pole in The Magic Roundabout “Brian's Voice”Series 2 Episode 41 (30 November 1970)
fabulous - and thank you for your brilliant podcast!
Why we need to invest in Philosophy, History, Literature, Political Science, Psychology and the rest of SHAPE alongside STEM. Technological innovation (of which this is an extraordinary example, very well reported) without ethics and understanding is dangerous for everyone.
sent
When every university follows the same bad advice from the same consultants with agendas separate from their institutional mission ... they lose their identity as well as their independence.
They lose the ability to play to their own strengths when the consultants' agenda causes systemic failure.
Report highlights major economic impact of Shakespeare North Playhouse
buff.ly/xhkfitx
Shakespeare North Playhouse is delivering millions of pounds of economic benefit, including jobs and business support, according to the findings of an independent evaluation.
I’m saying “we,” but I really mean you. You are the ones who will be there for what comes next, and that’s why, for the “AI” overlords, you are the biggest liability. If you start thinking about the world you want to create to serve your own good, the good of your community, and the good of your children and grandchildren, instead of thinking about how you can secure safety, comfort, and status in the world the tech companies have built to serve their greed, they will lose all their power. That’s why they are doing everything they can to convince you that you actually do not have the ability to think those thoughts, and that none of the ideas you might have about your own future are ideas that can actually be realized. It’s a big win for them, in their quest to persuade you of your powerlessness, that they have gotten your university to adapt their marketing language for its official statements, to shape its academic programming around the presumption of their indefinite economic primacy, and to pay for you to have free access to technologies that will make it harder — the more you use them — to know yourself to be a free intellectual, creative and moral agent.
"the survival of the AI industry depends upon you, the generation coming of age right now, agreeing with them that you have essentially no say in your own future."
On refusing powerlessness and seeing through the rhetoric of the 'inevitability' of the AI take-over:
medium.com/center-on-pr...
thanks for posting - very useful and thought provoking
Better Outputs, Weaker Minds The central paradox is this: AI reliably improves immediate task performance while degrading the underlying human capabilities that produce that performance. You get better results today, but become less capable tomorrow. In one trial, students who used ChatGPT to study scored significantly lower on surprise retention tests 45 days later than those who learned without it. They performed well in the moment but retained less of what they’d covered. A six-month longitudinal study found something even more concerning. As participants used AI more frequently, their actual performance steadily declined, even as their confidence in their own abilities grew. By the end of the study, the gap between how well people thought they were doing and how well they were actually doing had widened to nearly 35 percentage points. They were getting worse and feeling better about it. The mechanism is simple. AI removes the productive struggle, the ‘desirable difficulties’ that drive durable learning and skill consolidation. It feels like help. It functions like a shortcut past the work that builds competence.
Rather unfortunate that our managers had already moved far in reorientating our entire education system towards the immediate performance of 'results' and away from gradual deep development.
www.scottishmortgage.com/en/uk/indivi...
is that the right link?
A graphic with a green background and a yellow box in the centre on which is written 'Monday 20 April - Online, 1-2pm, Open Access Books: Rights, Ownership and Control'. At the bottom of the image are 13 logos of various libraries, institutions and university presses in London. At the top, it says 'London Open Science & Scholarship Festival, 20-24 April 2026'
London Open Science & Scholarship Festival spotlight✨
'Open Access Books: Rights, Ownership and Control'📚
Hear @eve.gd, @alittleroad.bsky.social and @aileenfyfe.bsky.social discuss how authors can maintain control of their work.
🗓️20.04, 1-2pm
📍Online
🔗https://buff.ly/UYsG1Z6
#LDNOpenFest26
'The systems now being woven into education are shaped by a remarkably small group of people. Not “the internet” as the source of training material. Not “society” influencing the way we use these tools.'
Fascinating that this comes from within Jisc. 1/3
Come to the annual conference of the Polish Shakespeare Association in Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre, Poland: hybrid mode, sessions in Polish and English (and the conference fee is not a typo.)
towarzystwoszekspirowskie.org.pl/konferencje/...
@bsashakespeare.bsky.social @saaupdates.bsky.social
Hahahahaha also the court during Pyramus Thisbe
try NordVPN
Join us this Monday to explore #Shakespeare's 'Richard II' with Emma Smith @oldfortunatus.bsky.social and special guest Hailey Bachrach.
The event will take place online via Zoom at 6pm on Monday, 2 February.
All welcome! The event is free but registration is required.
#RichardII
every epstein file drop underscores how elite power operates through shared socio-economic networks, regardless of people's ideological differences, populist posturing, or public feuds
Just a reminder that our January 'Bring A Problem' session will take place at 4pm tonight! Hope to see you there :)
Book cover with a row of old books about Shakespeare at the bottom Black background and white text: Cambridge Elements Shakespeare and Text Collaboration, Technologies, and the History of Shakespearean Bibliography Heidi Craig, Laura Estill, Kris L. May, and Dorothy Todd
Coming soon!
"Collaboration, Technologies, and the History of Shakespearean Bibliography" a minigraph from the Cambridge Elements Shakespeare and Text series (ed @roaringgirle.bsky.social and @loughnrv.bsky.social ) by me, Heidi Craig, Kris L. May, and Dorothy Todd
ANNNNND it will be open access!
Happy New Year and a pretty stupendous start to 2026 from my perspective as Predramatic Theatre -my co-authored book with @gregmw4.bsky.social - was published by Palgrave on Friday!
link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
Very kindly, our reader said of the book :-
@oldfortunatus.bsky.social have you just added Robert Armin to the list of Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare candidates?
I have been warning about this for a couple years (the post below is from February 2023), but you really cannot trust any image or video you see online. It isn’t just Sora 2, it is a host of tools (many open source) that make cloning voice & images easy. www.oneusefulthing.org/p/a-quick-an...
Front cover: National 5 Classical Studies. Images taken from frescoes in the villa of mysteries.
I finished writing this tonight. It’s a textbook for National 5 Classical Studies, the first of its kind.
I’m not sure but I think the last Scotland-specific Classics textbook for schools came out in 1983.
Anyway, it’s 220 pages long and will be available for free/donation from tomorrow.
Devoted & Disgruntled Satellite: How Do We Lead Well Together?
Silos won’t save us. Execs, ADs, Trustees & leaders — let’s come together.
📅 Thu 2 Oct | 📍The 503Studio
🎟️ Pay What You Choose → buff.ly/OEh4ieb
#DDSatellite #ArtsLeadership #Improbable #Theatre503
