With the OpenAI clownshow, there's been renewed media attention on the xrisk/"AI safety"/doomer nonsense. Personally, I've had a fresh wave of reporters asking me naive questions (as well as some contacts from old hands who are on top of how to handle ultra-rich man-children with god complexes). 🧵1/

An unprecedented third blog post from me over the last few days, this one about how working in human computer interaction often feels like sitting at the kids table during thanksgiving https://medium.com/@mcorrell/the-othering-of-hci-ab0a07edc69f

On reflection, big tech companies churning through the entirity of prior human cultural output whilst burning thousands of megawatts of electricity to automate the creation of fluent bullshit that’s optimised for believability but not truthfulness… it couldn’t be more on message for humanity in the 21st century.

The facts of the matter: The latest figures for the Universities pension scheme reveal a £5.6bn SURPLUS. A controversial valuation in 2020 claimed a £14bn deficit - which led to a range of benefit cuts for staff. No wonder university staff are angry, taken for a ride... #UCU #UCURising

Like 70,000 other UK university staff, I'm on strike today. Our pay is declining in real terms, the workloads just increase every year, and so many of us are on precarious contracts. One of the few good things that compensated for all that - a decent pension - has been decimated, based on an evaluation which was obviously flawed at the time and has subsequently been resoundingly disproven. #UCUStrike #UCU #UCURising

A strong picket at one of many lines out at University of Edinburgh
#ucuRISING