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Eight Months into Reality: A Scoping Review of the Application of ChatGPT in Higher Education Teaching and Learning

Abstract

ChatGPT has sparked heated discussion in higher education since its public release and increasing empirical studies have been made available examining its application to higher education teaching and learning. To capture and synthesize the initial scholarly developments in this topic, we undertook a scoping review of empirical research into the use of ChatGPT for higher education teaching and learning, published in the first eight months since its release. We identified 39 articles through a systematic literature search in the Web of Science and Scopus databases. Our analysis identified five thematic areas that extant research has contributed to, including (1) ChatGPT's performance in assessment; (2) ChatGPT's capacity in facilitating learning; (3) staff and students' perceptions of ChatGPT; (4) the adoption of ChatGPT, and; (5) ChatGPT-related policy implications. Drawing on the findings, we discuss current understanding and directions for future research in each of the thematic area. We then discuss issues emerged from the reviewed literature, including implications for improving research design, researching academic integrity, and explaining ChatGPT's pedagogical value in light of learning theories and other digital technologies.

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Introduction

ChatGPT is a chatbot developed by OpenAI based on generative pre-trained transformer (GPT), a type of large language model, that learns from a vast amount of training data from different sources and generates outputs that are similar to the input training data. GPT was first developed in 2018, and ChatGPT, which was built on GPT-3.5, was released to the public for free in November 2022. In March 2023, GPT-4 was further released to the public via paid access. As an example of progress towards artificial general intelligence, where artificial intelligence (AI) systems perform intellectual tasks in a way that is indistinguishable from humans (Chan, 2023), ChatGPT is characterized as being able to generate human-like responses, converse with human users, and create textual content upon request. These characteristics afford ChatGPT great potential to be applied to aspects of contemporary work and lives, such as healthcare, translation, and programming (Stojanov, 2023), with significant practical and workforce implications in these areas.

For the higher education community, ChatGPT is arguably the most controversial, or even disruptive, technology that was made available in 2022 (Keiper et al., 2023). Since its release, there have been heated discussions, followed by preliminary exploration and evaluation, of ChatGPT's role and impact on core higher education activities. ChatGPT has infiltrated research and knowledge production processes, and suggestions for appropriate use have been put forward by the community (Stokel-Walker, 2023). In teaching and learning, educators have recognized ChatGPT's potential to allow personalized learning and timely feedback for students (Sallam, 2023) and facilitate course design and planning processes (Keiper, 2023). However, at the same time, they have identified various challenges associated with the application of ChatGPT. For example, ChatGPT's human-like textual responses are difficult to differentiate from student work, which imposes challenges to academic integrity (Chan, 2023; Perkins & Roe, 2023) and forces universities and educators to reconsider assessment design (Nikolic et al., 2023). Student use of ChatGPT to access and summarise information risks generation of inaccurate and unreliable information (Lin, 2023). Large-scale use of ChatGPT to complete academic tasks could also lead to a decline in students' writing and critical thinking skills (Warschauer et al., 2023).

Despite the above concerns and challenges, ChatGPT has been readily adopted by university students for learning and assessment preparation (Chan, 2023; Stojanov et al., 2024). Universities and educators have also sought to explore the efficacy of this technology and address the implications it introduces to higher education. In a few months, scholarly works have moved from highlighting ChatGPT's potential (e.g., Cotton et al., 2023) to empirical investigations on ChatGPT's performance in varied teaching and learning contexts, such as medicine (e.g., Gilson et al., 2023), language education (e.g., Yan, 2023), and chemical engineering (e.g., Tsai et al., 2023).

As empirical studies of ChatGPT in higher education increase, there is a need to synthesize the initial evidence in order to identify the overall research landscape and establish current understanding and knowledge gaps. Such a literature synthesis would provide guidance for further research on this topic and contribute to the integration of ChatGPT into higher education teaching and learning practices. Noting that this is a fast-moving area of research and development, a scoping review of the early work in this area helps document the challenges and responses of educators in the early days of a massive technological capability change.

Methods

Our knowledge synthesis reported here followed a scoping review method (Thomas et al., 2017), which was tailored to our attempt to understand the initial research into the use of ChatGPT in higher education teaching and learning. This review method is characterized as being able to identify, describe, and synthesize research that is emerging and fast developing (Levac et al., 2010). In comparison to systematic reviews that use research evidence to inform practice or interventions, scoping reviews have their focus primarily on informing future research by way of examining the nature and extent of research activities, summarizing current findings, identifying research gaps, and possibly determining the value of undertaking a full systematic review (Arksey & O'Malley, 2005). They originated from health-related research areas where findings from diverse research designs, as opposed to results from randomized controlled trials, comprised an important part of research evidence. Higher education researchers have increasingly adopted the scoping review method to address emergent challenges in contemporary higher education (e.g., innovation culture, Garcia, 2023) or clarify research topics that have been explored by various disciplinary and theoretical perspectives (e.g., flipped classroom, O'Flaherty & Phillips, 2015). Given the nascent state of research into ChatGPT for higher education teaching and learning, we chose this method to synthesize research on this topic.

Step 1: Identifying the Research Question

In line with scoping review's purpose, we asked a broad review question: what is the current status of research into the use of ChatGPT in higher education teaching and learning? In the iterative review process, this question was refined, based on the availability of evidence, to an identification of major thematic areas in the application of ChatGPT in higher education teaching and learning.

Step 2: Identifying Relevant Studies

We performed title, abstract and keyword search in Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases on 24 July 2023, using the search string: (ChatGPT OR "large language model" OR "generative language model" OR "generative AI"). We limited the search to peer-reviewed research articles that were written in English, and published within the 'Education, Educational Research' or 'Education, Scientific Discipline' category in WoS, or the 'Social Science' category in Scopus.

Step 3: Selecting Studies to be Included

We imported database search results to a web-based systematic review tool, Rayyan.ai, and removed duplications. Then, two reviewers (QL and AH) performed title and abstract screening independently, checked inter-rater reliability using Cohen's kappa (κ), and discussed any disagreement regarding article eligibility to reach a consensus. Following this, QL assessed articles in full-text and discussed the result with AH. The eligibility criteria applied during title and abstract screening and full-text screening are presented in Table 1.

Table 1 Eligibility criteria

Step 4: Charting the Data

The data were entered into a spreadsheet by QL, which captured author, publication year, journal title, research aim, subject areas where ChatGPT was applied, research design, and research findings. Data extraction results were then reviewed by AH in detail and agreed upon by the review team.

Step 5: Collating, summarising and reporting the results

The analysis followed an inductive approach where data extracted were analyzed in an effort to address the review question. For example, studies that evaluated ChatGPT's responses to various assessment items were grouped together and identified under one thematic area: 'Evaluating ChatGPT's performance in assessment'. Within this thematic area, differences in disciplinary contexts, study design and findings were explored to establish the current evidence-based understanding. The analysis was carried out initially by QL and then discussed, revised and agreed upon by the review team.

Results

The review process is described in the PRISMA flow diagram in Fig. 1. We identified 59 article entries from WoS and 187 from Scopus. After removing 45 duplicate records, we title and abstract screened 201 entries. During this process, we excluded 155 entries based on eligibility criteria and included 46 entries. The inter-rater reliability result showed a substantial agreement between the two reviewers in their screening decision (Cohen's κ = 0.74). Another 7 articles were further excluded during full-text screening, resulting in a total of 39 articles being included in this review.

Table 2 A summary of authors, study area and research design of all reviewed articles

Our review identified five thematic areas regarding research into the use of ChatGPT in higher education teaching and learning. In the paragraphs that follow, we present the thematic areas, describing the nature of the investigation, the methods employed, and findings reported.

Thematic Area 1: Evaluating ChatGPT's Performance in Assessment

This thematic area has the largest number of contributing studies (n = 20), all of which involved evaluating ChatGPT's performance in assessment. Four sub-areas were further identified, which focused on evaluating ChatGPT's performance in (1) answering multiple assessment items used in a taught subject; (2) answering multiple-choice questions (MCQs); (3) generating textual responses for writing-based tasks, and; (4) assisting with assessment design.

Answering Multiple Assessment Items in a Taught Subject

Three studies evaluated ChatGPT's performance across a suite of assessment tools typically adopted in discipline-specific teaching. The assessment tools included case-based, self-reflection, and problem-solving assessments in business education (Chaudhry et al., 2023); multiple-choice and written assessments in physics education (Kortemeyer, 2023); and quizzes, written work including code submission, oral and visual assessment, self-reflection, critique, and research-based reports in engineering education (Nikolic et al., 2023). One study adopted experimental design, comparing educators' evaluation of previous students' graded work with that of ChatGPT-generated responses while hiding the source of the responses from the educators (Chaudhry et al., 2023). The other two had educators evaluate ChatGPT's responses to the assessment items.

ChatGPT's performance was mixed across assessment tools. For MCQs, calculations, programming and coding, ChatGPT was likely to achieve a passing grade (Chaudhry et al., 2023). For written assignments that focused on analyzing, problem-solving and self-reflection in generalized scenarios or contexts, ChatGPT generated responses that were satisfactory (Chaudhry et al., 2023; Nikolic et al., 2023). By contrast, for written assignments such as experiment reports, project reports, and empirical case studies where students investigated a local issue and reported findings following academic writing and referencing standards, ChatGPT's performance was limited (Chaudhry et al., 2023; Nikolic et al., 2023). Additionally, ChatGPT's performance was limited in oral assessments or assessments that involved the creation of visual artifacts: ChatGPT could not replace human interaction during oral assessment nor process imagery content in visual-based assessments (Nikolic et al., 2023).

Answering MCQs

Seven studies evaluated ChatGPT's performance in answering MCQs. Among them, six were in medicine (Friederichs et al., 2023; Giannos & Delardas, 2023; Gilson et al., 2023; Huh, 2023; Takagi et al., 2023; Thirunavukarasu et al., 2023), and one in social work (Victor et al., 2023). One study adopted an experimental approach with control and comparison groups, assigning a parasitology examination to both ChatGPT and medical students (Huh, 2023). The rest adopted an evaluation design, assessing ChatGPT's responses to MCQs from established tests and comparing them with previous student results.

Findings suggested that ChatGPT could succeed in certain MCQ-based assessments. For example, ChatGPT achieved 66% correct rate in the Berlin Progress Test Medicine (Friederichs et al., 2023), reached the passing criteria in the US National Board of Medical Examiner's Step 1 exam (Gilson et al., 2023), and passed the Japanese Medical licensing examination (based on GPT-4 responses, Takagi et al., 2023) and the Bachelor and Masters versions of the Association of Social Work Boards Licensing Exams (Victor et al., 2023). However, it failed parts of the medical admissions tests (Giannos & Delardas, 2023), performed at a level lower than that of medical students in the specialized parasitology exam (Huh, 2023) and achieved an average mark lower than the previous passing mark in The Royal College of General Practitioners Applied Knowledge Test (Thirunavukarasu et al., 2023).

These mixed results showed that ChatGPT's performance in MCQ-based assessment varied according to the assessment and the subject (Giannos & Delardas, 2023; Thirunavukarasu et al., 2023) and was limited in areas that involved scientific and mathematical knowledge and application (Giannos & Delardas, 2023). Interestingly, three studies sought to explore the association between question difficulty and ChatGPT's performance. While one study confirmed that ChatGPT was likely to generate correct responses to questions that students perceived as easy (Friederichs et al., 2023), two other studies reported ChatGPT's performance variations being unrelated to question difficulty (Thirunavukarasu et al., 2023) or the level of knowledge (Huh, 2023). Additionally, the study by Takagi et al. ( 2023) confirmed that GPT-4 outperformed GPT-3.5 in MCQ-based assessments delivered in non-English languages.

Generating Textual Responses

Eight studies focused on evaluating ChatGPT's performance in generating textual responses, either to open-ended questions or as part of written assignments. The studies took place in chemistry (Clark, 2023; Humphry & Fuller, 2023), pharmacy (Fergus et al., 2023; Li et al., 2023), physics (Yeadon et al., 2023), telecommunication (Howell & Potgieter, 2023), sport management (Keiper et al., 2023) or were multi-disciplinary based (Rudolph et al., 2023). All studies adopted an evaluation approach where educators assessed ChatGPT's performance through benchmarking with previous student responses, existing rubrics, or informally.

Findings revealed that ChatGPT performed well across disciplines when the writing task emphasized general written communication skills. For instance, across disciplines, researchers reported ChatGPT's capacity in addressing questions involving the use of generalizable information (Clark, 2023) and creating text with high levels of coherence and clarity (Howell & Potgieter, 2023), especially when users provided further prompts for ChatGPT to refine its outputs (Howell & Potgieter, 2023; Humphry & Fuller, 2023). Additionally, for writing tasks that did not involve disciplinary-specific skills or higher-level cognitive skills such as research, educators had difficulties telling ChatGPT's responses apart from student responses (Li et al., 2023), as did text-matching tools such as TurnItIn and Grammarly (Fergus et al., 2023; Yeadon et al., 2023). However, for writing tasks that involved the use of disciplinary-specific skills and higher-order thinking skills, ChatGPT created seemingly logical and persuasive but incorrect and flawed explanations (Clark, 2023), was not always able to achieve a passing grade (Howell & Potgieter, 2023), and, even when it did, was at a level lower than a typical B grade according to the UK assessment standard (Rudolph et al., 2023).

Assisting with Assessment Design

Two studies explored ChatGPT's performance in tasks related to assessment design. Through a questionnaire design, Dahlkemper et al. ( 2023) compared physics students' perception of the linguistic quality and scientific accuracy of ChatGPT-generated MCQ options with those of educator-created options. They found that educator-created options were considered better than ChatGPT-generated ones when the question was considered less difficult and when students had higher self-rated knowledge. The discrepancy between educator-created and ChatGPT-generated options, however, decreased when questions became more difficult and students were less knowledgeable about the topic. The study by Khademi ( 2023) examined ChatGPT's capacity in evaluating the complexity of writing prompts of 20 IELTS test items and compared it with evaluation results from human raters and another generative AI, Bard. Findings suggested that the agreement between ChatGPT's evaluation and human rater evaluation was low, but on the other hand, higher than the agreement between human rater and Bard.

Thematic Area 2: Integrating ChatGPT to Facilitate Learning

This thematic area consists of 10 studies, with a common focus on using ChatGPT for learning activities. Given that the knowledge and skills to be learned varied across disciplines, we grouped the studies based on their disciplinary contexts and identified three sub-areas: (1) learning in the English writing area; (2) learning in the computing and programming area, and (3) learning in other subject areas.

Learning in the English Writing Area

While the study by Su et al. ( 2023) attested to the potential of ChatGPT in providing structural, dialogic and language support during learning of English writing from a teacher's perspective, the other two studies that included student use of ChatGPT identified common advantages and disadvantages of using ChatGPT for learning to write in English. The apparent advantage was that ChatGPT was considered easy to use (Ahmed, 2023) and was able to efficiently generate high-quality text that outperformed student work (Yan, 2023). However, it required negligible effort from students potentially resulting in minimal learning (Ahmed, 2023; Yan, 2023). Additionally, findings suggested that novice learners could not recognize ChatGPTs misinformation (Ahmed, 2023), and that the inability of current text-matching tools to tell ChatGPT-generated text from student work highlighted issues of academic integrity and fairness (Yan, 2023). In both studies, students preferred teacher-facilitated learning over ChatGPT-assisted learning.

Learning in the Computing and Programming Area

Two studies investigated the use of ChatGPT for computing and programming learning. Both employed experimental design, comparing student learning in ChatGPT-assisted scenarios (experiment group) with non-AI assisted scenarios (control). Findings confirmed the advantage of ChatGPT-assisted learning; outcome indicators including student task performance, computational thinking skills, programming self-efficacy and motivation were higher among students in the Chat-GPT assisted group than those in the control group (Elkhodr et al., 2023; Yilmaz & Karaoglan Yilmaz, 2023).

Learning in other Subject Areas

Five studies explored learning through ChatGPT in other areas, including ancient language (Ross, 2023), chemical engineering (Tsai et al., 2023), science education (Cooper, 2023), the technical aspects of ChatGPT itself (Stojanov, 2023) and construction management (Uddin et al., 2023). Three studies drew on teacher evaluation to explore ChatGPT's capacity in facilitating learning (Cooper, 2023; Ross, 2023; Stojanov, 2023), and two evaluated student performance and feedback after integrating ChatGPT into learning (Tsai et al., 2023; Uddin et al., 2023).

Despite diverse subject areas, the studies collectively confirmed the potential of integrating ChatGPT for learning. They reported that when intended learning involved accessing and recognizing generalised information, integrating ChatGPT could facilitate learning (Cooper, 2023; Stojanov, 2023; Uddin et al., 2023); however, when the intended learning involved highly specialized knowledge (Ross, 2023) and an application of that knowledge to solve complex problems (Tsai et al., 2023), ChatGPT had limited capacity. Additionally, while ChatGPT's immediate and interactive responses could motivate the learner (Stojanov, 2023), its misinformation and errors were considered a barrier for novice learners who may not be able to identify such misinformation during learning (Cooper, 2023; Stojanov, 2023; Tsai et al., 2023).

Thematic area 3: Exploring General Perceptions of ChatGPT

This thematic area consists of four studies with a common focus on exploring student and staff perceptions of ChatGPT. Two studies used online questionnaires to capture either student perception of ChatGPT in relation to library services (Adetayo, 2023) or student and staff perspectives on integration of ChatGPT into university teaching (Firat, 2023). The other two studies adopted interviews, with one focusing on higher education in general (Limna et al., 2023) and the other specifically on English-as-foreign-language (Mohamed, 2023).

Studies reported that both students and staff agreed that ChatGPT and other generative AI would have an influence on the future of work, and university teaching, learning and assessment (Firat, 2023). ChatGPT was recognized as able to provide immediate responses to questions and personalized feedback, and potentially reduce educators' teaching workload (Limna et al., 2023). However, students and staff were concerned about issues relating to information accuracy, loss of human interaction, data ethics, privacy and governance, and the potential damage to the development of critical thinking and research skills (Adetayo, 2023; Mohamed, 2023).

Thematic Area 4: Explaining the Adoption of ChatGPT

Thematic Area 5: Identifying Institutional Policy Implications for ChatGPT or Generative AI

The last thematic area is concerned with identification of institutional policy implications relating to the application of ChatGPT or generative AI in higher education teaching and learning. Two studies contributed to this area. Perkins and Roe ( 2023) undertook a document analysis of 142 institutional policies between November 2022 and May 2023 and identified a lack of recognition of ChatGPT or generative AI in academic integrity policies. Based on this, they introduced the notion of 'technological explicitness', recommending that universities include explicit guidelines about using emerging technologies and their implication for academic integrity policies. The second study (Chan, 2023) proposed AI-related policy dimensions for universities. Through a questionnaire design with 187 staff responses and 457 student responses from Hong Kong universities, the researcher identified three AI policy dimensions: governance (related to academic misconduct, data governance and equitable access to AI), operational (related to monitoring and evaluating AI implementation, and developing staff and student AI literacy and capacity), and pedagogy (related to redesigning assessment, facilitating appropriate AI adoption, preparing students for AI-driven workplace and developing holistic competences among students).

Discussion

The review included 39 empirical studies published within the first eight months since the public release of ChatGPT, capturing the initial scholarly development in relation to using ChatGPT for teaching and learning in higher education. The identification of five thematic areas further exposed knowledge gaps within current understanding. In the rest of the section, we synthesize the findings according to the thematic areas and then look into key issues that emerged from the reviewed literature as a whole.

ChatGPT's Performance in Assessment

Overall, ChatGPT produced responses that passed objective assessments (e.g., MCQs, see Tavakol & Dennick, 2011) in a range of disciplines (Friederichs et al., 2023; Kortemeyer, 2023; Victor et al., 2023). It also produced responses that tended to be equivalent to or of higher quality than human responses in written tasks that applied generalized information (Clark, 2023) and/or relied primarily on writing skills (e.g., reflective writing, see Li et al., 2023). In comparison, for written tasks that required the application of specialized disciplinary knowledge, were practice-oriented, and required research into context-specific issues, ChatGPT's responses were likely to be poorer than human-generated responses (Howell & Potgieter, 2023; Rudolph et al., 2023). Finally, for assessment tasks that were not dependent on writing skills or textual outputs (e.g., oral or visual-based assessment, see Nikolic et al., 2023), ChatGPT's advantage was at present minimal.

Although the above findings demonstrated ChatGPT's variable performance in assessment, none of the studies sought to explain such differences using evidence. One possible explanation, based on our interpretation, might be that objective assessment tests skills at the lower end of the spectrum of cognitive skills, for example, 'recall' and 'understand' in Blooms' taxonomy (Krathwohl, 2002). Similarly, some written tasks may ask learners to reorganize, describe, explain, and reflect on information, but not apply and evaluate knowledge in a specific context. In both cases, being able to retrieve foundational knowledge would allow adequate performance. Given the vast volume and diverse sources of input data being used to train GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, ChatGPT is therefore likely to perform well. However, there was little investigation into how assessment tasks and their characteristics differentiate human performance from ChatGPT's performance. Admittedly, the wider educational literature has long established the difficulties in identifying the level of cognitive skills required for an assessment (Liu et al., 2023a, b) and has shown that, even for MCQs designed to assess higher-order cognition, students could achieve passing marks by accessing foundational knowledge (Zaidi et al., 2018). Despite the difficulties, we argue that it is this kind of task analysis that would advance the understanding of ChatGPT's utilities in assessment, because it has the potential to reveal what human capabilities can continue to be assessed despite the presence of generative AI. Without this analysis, findings might simply conclude, as we have seen in this review, that ChatGPT is a threat to academic integrity because it passed an existing assessment, or that ChatGPT is not yet a threat so educators could carry on replicating the assessment. Taken together, while current research establishes ChatGPT's performance variations, future research could draw on work on assessment design to explain how ChatGPT performs in response to different assessment characteristics and intended assessment outcomes.

There have been attempts to use ChatGPT for assessment design. The evidence so far demonstrated ChatGPT's potential, as well as limitations, in designing MCQs and assessing student written pieces. However, research into this issue has been scarce (n = 2), therefore, it remains unclear how ChatGPT could effectively contribute to assessment design. In light of thinking on technology-led educational transformation, we note that using ChatGPT for assessment design appears to at least augment, if not modify or redefine, current assessment practice (Hamilton et al., 2016). This is in marked contrast to efforts that seek to measure ChatGPT's performance in existing assessment practices. More innovative attempts should perhaps be encouraged in future research if universities are to transform assessment practices through the integration of AI systems.

ChatGPT's Capacity in Facilitating Learning

Interestingly, even in the above areas where ChatGPT has proven to be 'capable' of assisting students in delivering satisfactory performance, students would not necessarily benefit. It seems that over-reliance on ChatGPT by students may prevent them engaging in necessary components of learning such as practice, making mistakes, receiving feedback and consolidation. On the other hand, when students struggle with certain problems and need performance scaffolding, the extraneous errors and misinformation introduced by ChatGPT could render learning effortful and unnecessarily challenging. Research has established the importance of active participation and practice and the importance of scaffolding in challenging but achievable learning tasks (Geertshuis et al., 2024). In light of these, the evidence gathered in this review suggests that ChatGPT might not yet be able to replace human instruction. Future research that compares student learning between educator-led and ChatGPT-assisted conditions is perhaps less fruitful than research that explores the conditions by which ChatGPT could be introduced alongside human instruction in order to facilitate student learning and/or alleviate teaching workload.

Additionally, the findings on ChatGPT's capability to facilitate learning were largely based on an assumption that learning would remain unchanged. None of the studies engaged in an analysis of what learning should look like in the context of generative AI. This however may not be a safe assumption given ChatGPT's generative capacity. It is likely that with the presence of generative AI, novice learners who possess only partial knowledge will need to learn to ask the right question and prompt for improvements (e.g., prompt engineering) and to evaluate AI output (e.g., evaluative judgement, Bearman et al., 2024). These activities have traditionally been placed with great emphasis during advanced disciplinary learning but are likely to also become essential part of learning for junior students in the future. Empirical research that investigates what comprises human learning in the context of the wide application of generative AI is needed.

Perceptions, Adoption and Policy Implications Regarding ChatGPT

Admittedly, the two studies relating to institutional policies provided important implications for institutional adoption of ChatGPT or other generative AI systems. They identified the need to address, for instance, academic integrity, governance, operational and pedagogical issues in the context of wide application of ChatGPT to teaching and learning activities. These findings, derived from a focus on current policy deficit (Perkins & Roe, 2023) and possible policy dimensions (Chan, 2023), warrant further investigation. For instance, while it is clear that the application of ChatGPT has academic integrity implications as reported in the current literature, we were unable to locate studies on the trends and patterns of academic misconduct associated with ChatGPT. We acknowledge that studies of this kind would take longer to be made available. This kind of research would, no doubt, assist universities further targeting their policy interventions to ensure academic integrity in a time when generative AI becomes infused in teaching and learning practices. To this end, we consider that future research can advance the current understanding by looking into the expressed challenges and barriers associated with the application of ChatGPT and identifying, implementing and evaluating strategies aimed at facilitating appropriate application of ChatGPT into teaching and learning activities.

Issues Represented Across the Thematic Areas

In looking at this reviewed literature as a whole, we note that, while certain disciplines have contributed more than others (e.g. Medicine, English-as-foreign-language), there was no apparent disparity in terms of the number of contributing articles across health-related areas (n = 8), STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) areas (n = 10), and social sciences and humanity areas (n = 12). This suggests that the influence of ChatGPT has likely been extended to higher education as a whole, although there are likely variations in its performance across disciplines and levels of learning as previously reported.

Academic Integrity in Current Research

There have been widely shared and articulated concerns among university educators on the implication of ChatGPT for academic integrity (Cotton et al., 2023). In our review, this issue was frequently referred to and discussed. However, except for the study by Perkins and Roe ( 2023), none of the reviewed studies identified academic integrity as their primary research focus. The underlying assumption has been that academic integrity issues are largely a by-product of assessment. If ChatGPT's performance is not inferior to student performance or cannot be distinguished from student work, then it imposes a risk to academic integrity, which would require the redesign of the assessment or uptake of alternative assessments. There was limited direct evidence that described the extent of academic misconduct associated with ChatGPT. The review also suggested that students were worried about academic misconduct associated with ChatGPT use, but their worries were associated with the feeling of others gaining an unfair advantage through ChatGPT (Yan, 2023). There was little guidance regarding learning to use ChatGPT responsibly and appropriately to avoid academic misconduct. The issue of academic integrity is not new, and research has established the possible origins of academic misconduct and provided recommendations (Hughes & McCabe, 2006). If university educators are to move beyond the conclusion that certain assessment tools are naturally more 'ChatGPT-proof' than others, then research needs to investigate the scope and origin of ChatGPT-related misconducts as well as effective educative interventions. That said, we do acknowledge that more research on academic integrity in the context of generative AI has been made available since our literature search (e.g., Moya et al., 2024), and will likely continue increasing to address this practical challenge that many higher education institutions face.

Conceptualization of ChatGPT in Current Research into Learning

The second issue represented in the reviewed literature concerned the extent to which ChatGPT was conceptualized. Oliver ( 2013) describes ways of conceptualizing learning technologies as for example, an instrument, an intervention and a social change, which would in turn help inform the way technologies are used for learning. Such conceptualizations on the role of ChatGPT are largely missing in the reviewed literature. Most research focused on the performance, capacity and perceived utilities of ChatGPT, presenting descriptive results derived from evaluation but not analyzing and positioning ChatGPT in light of existing learning theories. That is, overall there has been little attempt that seeks to theorize how learning occurs with ChatGPT and what roles ChatGPT can play in the learning process. We do recognize the need for researchers to explore ChatGPT's affordances. However, if ChatGPT is going to be used for learning by students and educators, then future research needs to explain what ChatGPT can do pedagogically. An accumulation of descriptive results regarding ChatGPT's performance is unlikely to achieve this.

As an exception and perhaps also an exemplar, the autoethnographic study by Stojanov ( 2023) sought to explain ChatGPT's role in light of the notion of 'more knowledgeable others'. Such a conceptualization of ChatGPT offers rich understanding that is likely to facilitate appropriate application: as a more knowledgeable and experienced senior student, ChatGPT can clarify basic understanding and suggest directions for possible solutions; it can also provide immediate and easy-to-understand feedback. On the other hand, ChatGPT is, like any student, prone to making mistakes, especially when presented with challenging tasks. Such an explanation clearly suggests that ChatGPT cannot replace educators nor can it be regarded as epistemic authority but can be introduced as peers to facilitate learning in certain occasions. This theoretically-informed insight is well-suited to account for findings from other reviewed studies, where ChatGPT was found to be able to contribute to foundational learning (e.g. answering MCQs) and, with appropriate guidance, to facilitate student exploration and brainstorming and provide support related to generic academic skills such as writing.

The above theoretical understanding regarding the role of ChatGPT in learning is in marked contrast to how AI has been described in the educational literature. Ouyang and Jiao ( 2021), for example, identified three paradigms of AI application. The AI-directed learner-as-recipient paradigm theorizes AI as experts in imparting knowledge; the AI-supported learning-as-collaborator paradigm theorizes AI as experts in tutoring through appropriate hints based on coded procedural knowledge, and; the AI-empowered learner-as-leader paradigm theorizes AI as experts in generating analytics for learner decision-making. Our review, however, would suggest that, as a GenAI application, ChatGPT is not assuming an expert role in any of the paradigms, not at least for now. While it provides immediate responses to students, the responses may not always be correct and may not always guide students in the right direction. It exposes students to possible solutions and conceptions but also misconceptions simultaneously, creating a necessary but not sufficient condition for learning (Marton, 2014). We do acknowledge that this theoretical explanation may change as ChatGPT evolves and as more research into ChatGPT's potential for learning is conducted. However, it is the theoretical explanation that allows the translation of research findings to educational practice, and it is the theoretical explanation that has been largely absent in the current research.

ChatGPT in the Landscape of Educational Technology

The last issue concerns the role of ChatGPT in the landscape of digital learning technologies. Contemporary university teaching and learning is supported by a range of digital technologies (Liu, Gladman, et al., 2023). Therefore, to understand the impact of ChatGPT on teaching and learning, we need to understand how the application of ChatGPT fits into, augments or potentially transforms the current digitally mediated educational practice. That is, we need to establish an understanding of ChatGPT's pedagogical value to current teaching and learning activities that are configured through existing digital technologies. Achieving such an understanding requires research to go beyond examining ChatGPT as an isolated technological addition but exploring it in relation to digital technologies that staff and students already use. Regarding this, the reviewed research clearly focuses on investigating ChatGPT independent of the existing technologies. There is a need for future research to look into the synergies between ChatGPT and other digital technologies in supporting higher education teaching and learning.

Practical Implications

Although scoping reviews do not usually include concrete recommendations as the literature may not be mature enough to inform practice, we offer some reflections based on the preliminary findings to help educators incorporate ChatGPT in their teaching activities. First, our review suggests that educators need to move beyond asking if ChatGPT can pass certain assessments. Instead, we encourage educators to analyze their assessments in light of ChatGPT's variable utility, which from our analysis depends on assessment type and context. Recognizing that utility may change as the technology continues developing, we consider that these capabilities will need to be constantly re-evaluated. Engaging in assessment analysis and design, and keeping up to date with ChatGPT's utility in assessment, will help educators make design decisions that support valid and reliable assessment practice. That said, we do not underestimate the workload involved in assessment design and in marking, especially in large classes. Universities also need to resource and support such explorations if they are genuinely interested in ensuring assessment relevance in the age of generative AI. Relatedly, there need to be explorations into what constitutes valuable human learning within disciplinary contexts. This is as much a research topic as pedagogical decision-making where educators do have some say in terms of how students may or may not use ChatGPT for disciplinary inquiry. Finally, if ChatGPT is to be introduced for learning and assessment, universities and educators might find it worth articulating their expectations on the use of generative AI, such as ChatGPT, in policy guidelines as well as facilitating the integration with existing educational resources and tools.

Limitations

Our work followed a scoping review method, which is different from systematic review methods that are designed to integrate evidence to guide practice directly. Therefore, the findings should be interpreted to inform reflection on research into and use of ChatGPT. Systematic reviews could be performed based on the literature we identified to guide institutional policies and practice. Additionally, we may have missed studies that are not indexed in WoS or Scopus databases. We are confident that the databases we chose captured the most reputable and high-profile academic journals in the field of education. Finally, ChatGPT is fast developing as are the text-matching tools mentioned in this review. We expect that as ChatGPT would perform better academically over time, so would the text-matching tools in identifying text generated by ChatGPT or similar generative AI systems. In light of the fast-paced development of ChatGPT and the likely exponential increase in research around ChatGPT, our review provides a baseline of early work in this emerging area, which could serve as a point of comparison for future studies.

Conclusion

ChatGPT became an emerging research topic in higher education soon after its public release in November 2022. Our scoping review is an attempt to synthesize initial scholarly developments. The five thematic areas identified established that ChatGPT's performance varied according to the assessment tools, level of knowledge and disciplines; ChatGPT could facilitate learning but may not be considered as content expert to replace human instruction; and research endeavours and institutional practice could seek to identify strategies to address the expressed and shared concerns in order to facilitate appropriate use. We also recommend future research adopt explanatory research designs and focus on academic integrity issues to advance current understanding. Finally, we call for future research to explain ChatGPT's pedagogical value in light of learning theories and other digital technologies already adopted to support higher education teaching and learning.

Data Availability

An online Supplementary Material that records research aims and findings of individual articles is available via the Open Science Framework repository: https://osf.io/k9mbf/?view_only=b2172e76dce94f25b51e7528a482eddb.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

Funding

Open access funding provided by The University of Otago. No funding was received for this review.

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Authors and Affiliations

Higher Education Development Centre, University of Otago, 65 Union Place West, Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand

Qian Liu & Anjin Hu

Education Unit, University of Otago Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

Tehmina Gladman

Education Unit, Dunedin School of Medicine, Dunedin, New Zealand

Steve Gallagher

Contributions

QL: conceptualisation; methodology; Formal analysis; Investigation; Resources; Data curation; Writing - Original draft; Writing - Review & editing; Visualisation; Supervision; Project administration. AH: Validation; Investigation; Writing- Review & editing. TG: Conceptualisation; Writing- Review & editing. SG: Conceptualisation; Writing- Review & editing.

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Correspondence to Qian Liu.

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Liu, Q., Hu, A., Gladman, T. et al. Eight Months into Reality: A Scoping Review of the Application of ChatGPT in Higher Education Teaching and Learning. Innov High Educ (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-025-09790-4
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Eight Months into Reality: A Scoping Review of the Application of ChatGPT in Higher Education Teaching and Learning - Innovative Higher Education

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ChatGPT has sparked heated discussion in higher education since its public release and increasing empirical studies have been made available examining its application to higher education teaching and learning. To capture and synthesize the initial scholarly developments in this topic, we undertook a scoping review of empirical research into the use of ChatGPT for higher education teaching and learning, published in the first eight months since its release.

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it's important to note how obvious the problems with generative AI have been, and for how long.

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Before we get going - please enjoy my speech from Web Summit, Why Are All Tech Products Now Shit? I didn't write the title.
What if what we're seeing today isn't a glimpse of the future, but the new terms of the present? What if artificial intelligence isn't actually capable of doing much more than what we're seeing today, and what if there's no clear timeline when it'll be able to do more? What if this entire hype cycle has been built, goosed by a compliant media ready and willing to take career-embellishers at their word?

Me, in March 2024.

I shared concerns in that the transformer-based-architecture underpinning generative AI was a dead end, and that there were few ways we'd progress past the products we'd already seen, in part due to both the limits of training data and the limits of models that use said training data. In, I summarized the Pale Horses of the AI Apocalypse - events, many that have since come to pass, that would signify that the end is indeed nigh - and again added that GPT-5 would likely "not change the game enough to matter, let alone [add] a new architecture to build future (and more capable) models on."

Throughout these pieces I have repeatedly made the point that - separate to any lack of a core value proposition, training data drought, or unsustainable economics - generative AI is a dead end due to the limitations of probabilistic models that hallucinate, where they authoritatively state things that aren't true. The hallucination problem is one that is nowhere closer to being solved - and, at least with the current technology - may never go away, and it makes it a non-starter for a great many business tasks, where you need a high level of reliability.

I have - since March - expressed great dismay about the credulousness of the media in their acceptance of the "inevitable" ways in which generative AI will change society, despite a lack of any truly meaningful product that might justify an environmentally-destructive industry led by a company that burns more than $5 billion a year and big tech firms spending $200 billion on data centers for products that people don't want.

The reason I'm repeating myself is that it's important to note how obvious the problems with generative AI have been, and for how long.

And you're going to need context for everything I'm about to throw at you.

Sidebar: To explain exactly what happened here, it's worth going over how these models work and are trained. I'll keep it simple as it's a reminder.

A transformer-based generative AI model such as GPT - the technology behind ChatGPT - generates answers using "inference," which means it draws conclusions based off of its "training," which requires feeding it masses of training data (mostly text and images scraped from the internet). Both of these processes require you to use high-end GPUs (graphics processing units), and lots of them.

The theory was (is?) that the more training data and compute you throw at these models, the better they get. I have hypothesized for a while they'd have diminishing returns - both from running out of training data and based on the limitations of transformer-based models.

And there, as they say, is the rub.

I also want to stop and stare daggers at one particular point:

These issues challenge the gospel that has taken hold in Silicon Valley in recent years, particularly since OpenAI released ChatGPT two years ago. Much of the tech industry has bet on so-called scaling laws that say more computing power, data and larger models will inevitably pave the way for greater leaps forward in the power of AI.

Despite the billions of dollars burned and thousands of glossy headlines, it's difficult to point to any truly important generative-AI-powered product. Even Apple Intelligence, the only thing that Apple really had to add to the latest iPhone, is utterly dull, and largely based on on-device models.

Microsoft has no "AI business" unit, which means that this annual "$10 billion" (or $2.5 billion a quarter) revenue figure is split across providing cloud compute services on Azure, selling Copilot to dumb people with Microsoft 365 subscriptions, selling Github Copilot, and basically anything else with "AI" on it. Microsoft is cherry-picking a number based on non-specific criteria and claiming it's a big deal, when it's actually pretty pathetic considering its capital expenditures will likely hit over $60 billion in 2024.

Note the word "revenue," not "profit." How much is Microsoft spending to make $10 billion a year? OpenAI currently spends $2.35 to make $1, and Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said that OpenAI would cut into Microsoft's profits this October, losing it a remarkable $1.5 billion, "mainly because of an expected loss from OpenAI" according to CNBC. A year ago, the Wall Street Journal reported in October 2023 that Microsoft was losing an average of $20 per-user-per month on GitHub Copilot - a product with over a million users. If true, this suggests losses of at least $200 million (based on documents I've reviewed, it has 1.8 million users as of a month ago, but I went on the lower end) a year.

Microsoft has still yet to break out exactly how much generative AI is increasing revenue in specific business units. Generally, if a company is doing well at something, they take great pains to make that clear. Instead, Microsoft chose in August to "revamp" its reporting structure to "give better visibility into cloud consumption revenue," which is something you do if you, say, anticipate you're going to have your worst day of trading in years after your next earnings as Microsoft did in October.

I must be clear that every single one of these investments and products has been hyped with the whisper that they would get exponentially better over time, and that eventually the $200 billion in capital expenditures would spit out remarkable productivity improvements and fascinating new products that consumers and enterprises would buy in droves. Instead, big tech has found itself peddling increasingly-more-expensive iterations of near-identical Large Language Models - a direct result of them all having to use the same training data, which it's now running out of.

The other assumption - those so-called scaling laws - has been that by simply building bigger data centers with more GPUs (the expensive, power-hungry graphics processing units used to both run and train these models) and throwing as much training data at them as possible, they'd simply start sprouting new capabilities, despite there being little proof that they'd do so. Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Google have all burned billions on the assumption that doing so would create something - be it a human-level "artificial general intelligence" or, I dunno, a product that would justify the costs - and it's become painfully obvious that it isn't going to work.

Chief Valley Cheerleader Casey Newton wrote on Platformer last week that diminishing returns in training models "may not matter as much as you would guess," with his evidence being that Anthropic, who he claims "has not been prone to hyperbole," do not think that scaling laws are ending. To be clear, in a 14,000 op-ed that Newton wrote about, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said that "AI-accelerated neuroscience is likely to vastly improve treatments for, or even cure, most mental illness," the kind of hyperbole that should have you tarred and feathered in public.

So, let me summarize:

The main technology behind the entire "artificial intelligence" boom is generative AI - transformer-based models like OpenAI's GPT-4 (and soon GPT-5) - and said technology has peaked, with diminishing returns from the only ways of making them "better" (feeding them training data and throwing tons of compute at them) suggesting that what we may have, as I've said before, reached .

Generative AI is incredibly unprofitable. OpenAI, the biggest player in the industry, is on course to lose more than $5 billion this year, with competitor Anthropic (which also makes its own transformer-based model, Claude) on course to lose more than $2.7 billion this year.

Every single big tech company has thrown billions - as much as $75 billion in Amazon's case in 2024 alone - at building the data centers and acquiring the GPUs to populate said data centers specifically so they can train their models or other companies' models, or serve customers that would integrate generative AI into their businesses, something that does not appear to be happening at scale.

Worse still, many of the companies integrating generative AI do so by connecting to models made by either OpenAI or Anthropic, both of whom are running unprofitable businesses, and likely charging nowhere near enough to cover their costs. As I wrote in the Subprime AI Crisis in September, in the event that these companies start charging what they actually need to, I hypothesize it will multiply the costs of their customers to the point that they can't afford to run their businesses - or, at the very least, will have to remove or scale back generative AI functionality in their products.

The entire tech industry has become oriented around a dead-end technology that requires burning billions of dollars to provide inessential products that cost them more money to serve than anybody would ever pay. Their big strategy was to throw even more money at the problem until one of these transformer-based models created a new, more useful product - despite the fact that every iteration of GPT and other models has been, well, iterative. There has never been any proof (other than benchmarks that are increasingly easier to game) that GPT or other models would become conscious, nor that these models would do more than they do today, or three months ago, or even a year ago.

Yet things can, believe it or not, get worse.

The AI boom helped the S&P 500 hit record high levels in 2024, largely thanks to chip giant NVIDIA, a company that makes both the GPUs necessary to train and run generative AI models and the software architecture behind them. Part of NVIDIA's remarkable growth has been its ability to capitalize on the CUDA architecture - the software layer that lets you do complex computing with GPUs, rather than simply use them to render video games in increasingly higher resolution - and, of course, continually create new GPUs to sell for tens of thousands of dollars to tech companies that want to burn billions of dollars on generative AI, leading the company's stock to pop more than 179% over the last year.

Back in May, NVIDIA CEO and professional carnival barker Jensen Huang said that the company was now "on a one-year rhythm" in AI GPU production, with its latest "Blackwell" GPUs (specifically the B100, B200 and GB200 models used for generative AI) supposedly due at the end of 2024, but are now delayed until at least March 2025.Before we go any further, it's worth noting that when I say "GPU," I don't mean the one you'd find in a gaming PC, but a much larger chip put in a specialized server with multiple other GPUs, all integrated with specialized casing, cooling, and networking infrastructure. In simple terms, the things necessary to make sure all these chips work together efficiently, and also stop them from overheating, because they get extremely hot and are running at full speed, all the time.

The initial delay of the new Blackwell chips was caused by a () design flaw in production, but as I've suggested above, the problem isn't just creating the chips - it's making sure they actually work, at scale, for the jobs they're bought for.

But what if that, too, wasn't possible?

A few days ago, The Information reported that NVIDIA is grappling with the oldest problem in computing - how to cool the fucking things. According to the report, NVIDIA has been asking suppliers to change the design of its 3,000-pound, 75-GPU server racks "several times" to overcome overheating problems, which The Information calls "the most complicated design NVIDIA had ever come up with." According to the report, a few months after revealing the racks, engineers found that they...didn't work properly, even with Nvidia's smaller 36-chip racks, and have been scrambling to fix it ever since.

While one can dazzle investors with buzzwords and charts, the laws of physics are a far harsher mistress, and if NVIDIA is struggling mere months before the first installations are to begin, it's unclear how it practically launches this generation of chips, let alone continues its yearly cadence. The Information reports that these changes have been made late in the production process, which is scaring customers that desperately need them so that their models can continue to do something they'll work out later. To quote The Information:

Two executives at large cloud providers that have ordered the new chips said they are concerned that such last-minute difficulties might push back the timeline for when they can get their GPU clusters up and running next year.

The fact that NVIDIA is having such significant difficulties with thermal performance is very, very bad. These chips are incredibly expensive - as much as $70,000 a piece - and will be running, as I've mentioned, at full speed, generating an incredible amount of heat that must be dissipated, while sat next to anywhere from 35 to 71 other chips, which will in turn be densely packed so that you can cram more servers into a data center. New, more powerful chips require entirely new methods to rack-mount, operate and cool them, and all of these parts must operate in sync, as overheating GPUs will die. While these units are big, some of their internal components are microscopic in size, and unless properly cooled, their circuits will start to crumble when roasted by a guy typing "Garfield with Gun" into ChatGPT.

Remember, Blackwell is supposed to represent a major leap forward in performance. If NVIDIA doesn't solve its cooling problem - and solve it well - its customers will undoubtedly encounter thermal throttling, where the chip reduces speed in order to avoid causing permanent damage. It could eliminate any performance gains obtained from the new architecture and new manufacturing process, despite costing much, much more than its predecessor.

NVIDIA's problem isn't just bringing these thermal performance issues under control, but both keeping them under control and being able to educate their customers on how to do so. NVIDIA has, according to The Information, repeatedly tried to influence its customers' server integrations to follow its designs because it thinks it will "lead to better performance," but in this case, one has to worry if NVIDIA's Blackwell chips can be reliably cooled.

While NVIDIA might be able to fix this problem in isolation within its racks, it remains to be seen how this works at scale as they ship and integrate hundreds of thousands of Blackwell GPUs starting in the front half of 2025.

Things also get a little worse when you realize how these chips are being installed - in giant "supercomputer" data centers where tens of thousands, or as many as a hundred thousand in the case of Elon Musk's "colossus" data center - of GPUs run in concert to power generative AI models. The Wall Street Journal reported a few weeks ago that building these vast data centers creates entirely new engineering challenges, with one expert saying that big tech companies could be using as much as half of their capital expenditures on replacing parts that have broken down, in large part because these clusters are running their GPUs at full speed, at all times.

Remember, the capital expenditures on generative AI and the associated infrastructure have gone over $200 billion in the last year. If half of that's dedicated to replacing broken gear, what happens when there's no path to profitability?

In any case, NVIDIA doesn't care. It's already made billions of dollars selling Blackwell GPUs - they're sold out for a year, after all - and will continue to do so for now, but any manufacturing or cooling issues will likely be costly.

And even then, at some point somebody has to ask the question: why do we need all these GPUs if we've reached peak AI? Despite the remarkable "power" of these chips, NVIDIA's entire enterprise GPU business model centers around the idea that throwing more power at these problems will finally create some solutions.

What if that isn't the case?

The tech industry is over-leveraged, having doubled, tripled, quadrupled down on generative AI - a technology that doesn't do much more than it did a few months ago and won't do much more than it can do now. Every single big tech company has piled tens of billions of dollars into building out massive data centers with the intent of "capturing AI demand," yet never seemed to think whether they were actually building things that people wanted, or would pay for, or would somehow make the company money.

While some have claimed that "agents are the next frontier," the reality is that agents may be the last generative AI product - multiple Large Language Models and integrations bouncing off of each other in an attempt to simulate what a human might do at a cost that won't be sustainable for the majority of businesses. While Anthropic's demo of its model allegedly controlling a few browser windows with a prompt might have seemed impressive to credulous people like Casey Newton, these were controlled demos which Anthropic added were "slow" and "made lots of mistakes." Hey, almost like it's hallucinating! I sure hope they fix that totally unfixable problem.

Even if it does, Anthropic has now successfully replaced...an entry-level data worker position at an indeterminate and likely unprofitable price. And in many organizations, those jobs had already been outsourced, or automated, or staffed with cheaper contractors.

The obscenity of this mass delusion is nauseating - a monolith to bad decision-making and the herd mentality of tech's most powerful people, as well as an outright attempt to manipulate the media into believing something was possible that wasn't. And the media bought it, hook, line, and sinker.

Hundreds of billions of dollars have been wasted building giant data centers to crunch numbers for software that has no real product-market fit, all while trying to hammer it into various shapes to make it pretend that it's alive, conscious, or even a useful product.

There is no path, from what I can see, to turn generative AI and its associated products into anything resembling sustainable businesses, and the only path that big tech appeared to have was to throw as much money, power, and data at the problem as possible, an avenue that appears to be another dead end.

And worse still, nothing has really come out of this movement. I've used a handful of AI products that I've found useful - an AI powered journal, for example - but these are not the products that one associates with "revolutions," but useful tools that would have been a welcome surprise if they didn't require burning billions of dollars, blowing past emissions targets and stealing the creative works of millions of people to train them.

I truly don't know what happens next, but I'll walk you through what I'm thinking.

If we're truly at the diminishing returns stage of transformer-based models, it will be extremely difficult to justify buying further iterations of NVIDIA GPUs past Blackwell. The entire generative AI movement lives and dies by the idea that more compute power and more training data makes these things better, and if that's no longer the case, there's little reason to keep buying bigger and better. After all, what's the point?

Even now, what exactly happens when Microsoft or Google has racks-worth of Blackwell GPUs? The models aren't going to get better.

This also makes the lives of OpenAI and Anthropic that much more difficult. Sam Altman has grown rich and powerful lying about how GPT will somehow lead to AGI, but at this point, what exactly is OpenAI meant to do? The only way it's ever been able to develop new models is by throwing masses of compute and training data at the problem, and its only other choice is to start stapling its reasoning model onto its main Large Language Model, at which point something happens, something so good that literally nobody working for OpenAI or in the media appears to be able to tell you what it is.

Putting that aside, OpenAI is also a terrible business that has to burn $5 billion to make $3.4 billion, with no proof that it's capable of bringing down costs. The constant refrain I hear from VCs and AI fantasists is that "chips will bring down the cost of inference," yet I don't see any proof of that happening, nor do I think it'll happen quickly enough for these companies to turn things around.

It's unclear how much OpenAI could charge advertisers, or what percentage of its reported 200 million weekly users have an ad-blocker installed. Or, for that matter, whether ads would provide a perverse incentive for OpenAI to enshittify an already unreliable product.

OpenAI could, just as easily, fall into the same temptation. Most people who use ChatGPT are trying to accomplish a specific task - like writing a term paper, or researching a topic, or whatever - and then they leave. And so, the amount of ads they'd conceivably see each will undoubtedly be comparatively low compared to a social network or search engine. Would OpenAI try to get users to stick around longer - to write more prompts - by crippling the performance of its models?

Even if OpenAI listens to its better angels, the reality still stands: ads won't dam the rising tide of red ink that promises to eventually drown the company.

And, as The Journal claims, his enemies fear that he could use his position of influence to harm them or their businesses - chiefly Sam Altman, who is "persona non grata" in Musk's world, largely due to the new for-profit direction of OpenAI. While it's likely that these companies will fail due to inevitable organic realities (like running out of money, or not having a product that generates a profit), Musk's enemies must now contend with a new enemy - one with the full backing of the Federal government, and that neither forgives nor forgets.

And, crucially, one that's not afraid to bend ethical or moral laws to further his own interests - or to inflict pain on those perceived as having slighted him.

Even if Musk doesn't use his newfound political might to hurt Altman and OpenAI, he could still pursue the company as a private citizen. Last Friday, he filed an injunction requesting a halt to OpenAI's transformation from an ostensible non-profit to a for-profit business. Even if he ultimately fails, should Musk manage to drag the process out, or delay it temporarily, it could strike a terminal blow for OpenAI.

That's because in its most recent fundraise, OpenAI agreed that it would convert its recent $6.6bn equity investment into high-interest debt, should it fail to successfully convert into a for-profit business within a two-year period. This was a tight deadline to begin with, and it can't afford any delays. The interest payments on that debt would massively increase its cash burn, and it would undoubtedly find it hard to obtain further outside investment.

Outside of a miracle, we are about to enter an era of desperation in the generative AI space. We're two years in, and we have no killer apps - no industry-defining products - other than ChatGPT, a product that burns billions of dollars and nobody can really describe. Neither Microsoft, nor Meta, nor Google or Amazon seem to be able to come up with a profitable use case, let alone one their users actually like, nor have any of the people that have raised billions of dollars in venture capital for anything with "AI" taped to the side - and investor interest in AI is cooling.

It's unclear how much further this farce continues, if only because it isn't obvious what it is that anybody gets by investing in future rounds in OpenAI, Anthropic, or any other generative AI company. At some point they must make money, and the entire dream has been built around the idea that all of these GPUs and all of this money would eventually spit out something revolutionary.

Yet what we have is clunky, ugly, messy, larcenous, environmentally-destructive and mediocre. Generative AI was a reckless pursuit, one that shows a total lack of creativity and sense in the minds of big tech and venture capital, one where there was never anything really impressive other than the amount of money it could burn and the amount of times Sam Altman could say something stupid and get quoted for it.

I'll be honest with you, I have no idea what happens here. The future was always one that demanded that big tech spent more to make even bigger models that would at some point become useful, and that isn't happening. In pursuit of doing so, big tech invested hundreds of billions of dollars into infrastructure specifically to follow one goal, and put AI front and center at their businesses, claiming it was the future without ever considering what they'd do if it wasn't.

The revenue isn't coming. The products aren't coming. "Orion," OpenAI's next model, will underwhelm, as will its competitors' models, and at some point somebody is going to blink in one of the hyperscalers, and the AI era will be over. Almost every single generative AI company that you've heard of is deeply unprofitable, and there are few innovations coming to save them from the atrophy of the foundation models.

There are some that will boast about "being right" here, and yes, there is some satisfaction in being so. Nevertheless, knowing that the result of this bubble bursting will be massive layoffs, a dearth in venture capital funding, and a much more fragile tech ecosystem.

I'll end with a quote from Bubble Trouble, a piece I wrote in April:

How do you solve all of these incredibly difficult problems? What does OpenAI or Anthropic do when they run out of data, and synthetic data doesn't fill the gap, or worse, massively degrades the quality of their output? What does Sam Altman do if GPT-5 - like GPT-4 - doesn't significantly improve its performance and he can't find enough compute to take the next step? What do OpenAI and Anthropic do when they realize they will likely never turn a profit? What does Microsoft, or Amazon, or Google do if demand never really takes off, and they're left with billions of dollars of underutilized data centers? What does Nvidia do if the demand for its chips drops off a cliff as a result?

I don't know why more people aren't screaming from the rooftops about how unsustainable the AI boom is, and the impossibility of some of the challenges it faces. There is no way to create enough data to train these models, and little that we've seen so far suggests that generative AI will make anybody but Nvidia money. We're reaching the point where physics - things like heat and electricity - are getting in the way of progressing much further, and it's hard to stomach investing more considering where we're at right now is, once you cut through the noise, fairly god damn mediocre. There is no iPhone moment coming, I'm afraid.

I was right then and I'm right now. Generative AI isn't a revolution, it's an evolution of a tech industry overtaken by growth-hungry management consultant types that neither know the problems that real people face nor how to fix them. It's a sickening waste, a monument to the corrupting force of growth, and a sign that the people in power no longer work for you, the customer, but for the venture capitalists and the markets.

I also want to be clear that none of these companies ever had a plan. They believed that if they threw enough GPUs together they would turn generative AI - probabilistic models for generating stuff - into some sort of sentient computer. It's much easier, and more comfortable, to look at the world as a series of conspiracies and grand strategies, and far scarier to see it for what it is - extremely rich and powerful people that are willing to bet insanely large amounts of money on what amounts to a few PDFs and their gut.

This is not big tech's big plan to excuse building more data centers - it's the death throes of twenty years of growth-at-all-costs thinking, because throwing a bunch of money at more servers and more engineers always seemed to create more growth. In practice, this means that the people in charge and the strategies they employ are borne not of an interest in improving the lives of their customers, but in increasing revenue growth, which means the products they create aren't really about solving any problem other than "what will make somebody give me more money," which doesn't necessarily mean "provide them with a service."

Generative AI is the perfect monster of the Rot Economy - a technology that lacks any real purpose sold as if it could do literally anything, one without a real business model or killer app, proliferated because big tech no longer innovates, but rather clones and monopolizes. Yes, this much money can be this stupid, and yes, they will burn billions in pursuit of a non-specific dream that involves charging you money and trapping you in their ecosystem.

I'm not trying to be a doomsayer, just like I wasn't trying to be one in March. I believe all of this is going nowhere, and that at some point Google, Microsoft, or Meta is going to blink and pull back on their capital expenditures. And before then, you're going to get a lot of desperate stories about how "AI gains can be found outside of training new models" to try and keep the party going, despite reality flicking the lights on and off and threatening to call the police.

I fear for the future for many reasons, but I always have hope, because I believe that there are still good people in the tech industry and that customers are seeing the light. Bluesky feels different - growing rapidly, competing with both Threads and Twitter, all while selling an honest product and an open protocol.

There are other ideas for the future that aren't borne of the scuzzy mindset of billionaire shitheels like Sundar Pichai and Sam Altman, and they can - and will - grow out of the ruins created by these kleptocrats.

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Before we get going - please enjoy my speech from Web Summit, Why Are All Tech Products Now Shit? I didn't write the title. What if what we're seeing today isn't a glimpse of the future, but the new terms of the present? What if artificial intelligence isn't actually capable

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A useful position on the thorny (for some) sustainability issues of tipple tins

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We are very aware that the RTD (Ready to Drink) market has steered very heavily in the direction of cans over bottles. Although the vast majority of that market is hard seltzer type drinks with less than 5% ABV, there are still hundreds of cocktails from brands like Marks & Spencer and so on that people have got us

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My Chinese Spy, also known as Me Saying Goodbye to My Chinese Spy, refers to a catchphrase and meme trend on TikTok in which users post satirical videos an

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The Contingency Contingent | Leigh Claire La Berge

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By December 1999, the feeling at the Conglomerate’s Y2K office was that nothing more could really be done. This is a common enough cliché on the approach of any moment of finality, but was particularly apt in our case, since nothing really had been done.

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So glad Pat's work stands the test of time 

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So glad Pat's work stands the test of time 

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I hope you are also familiar with his angelic voice

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The Play Ethic: Advocating the power and potential of play

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Exploring the power and potential of play, in web/tech, organisations and pop culture

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Very pleased the Ragged University project endures

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Very pleased the Ragged University project endures

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Back in touch with Alex Dundein through an unexpected route :) Could be a contender for fUN25 experiment

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Action Research: Outcomes and Measurements - Ragged University

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1904 depiction of an acquisitive and manipulative business enterprise (Standard Oil) as an all-powerful octopus This is an archive of articles and interviews done as an action research project which has the focus of administrative structures at [...]

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to all our dear little listeners

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TTSMYF 2024 podcast recommendations - The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret

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As mentioned in our Hogswatch Extravaganza (and extended as and when we feel like it) Non-fiction No Such Thing as a Fish – Facts! You’re Dead to Me – History of all flavours Omnibus – Entertaining esoterica Rule of Three – Comedy analysis Trial by Content – Pop-culture discourse Maintenance Phase – Dissembling diet culture […]

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First minute, beyond that the skyline bothers me.

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Sounds like a full life's work

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This is why we can't have 'nice' things 

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This is why we can't have 'nice' things 

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Tho I think in general the real threat is how much we give up for convenience

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What If the Robots Were Very Nice While They Took Over the World?

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First it was chess and Go. Now AI can beat us at Diplomacy, the most human of board games. The way it wins offers hope that maybe AI will be a delight.

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“We will not, we will not… we will not do fluffy ‘values’ talk” 

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“We will not, we will not… we will not do fluffy ‘values’ talk” 

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We see you, GRIPP 😍

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“We will not, we will not… we will not do fluffy ‘values’ talk” - GRIPP

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The members of GRIPP reflect on their November 2023 residential, and the “We Will Not” process they used to spark conversation.

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HT public science supremo Dr Hannah Fry :)

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HT public science supremo Dr Hannah Fry :)

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The Open University and Hannah Fry, delve into the fascinating dilemmas behind some familiar technology

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Wonderful to see public evidence of GoldAngel in action

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Wonderful to see public evidence of GoldAngel in action

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Postgraduate Research Seminar: Prof. Deirdre Osborne & Angelique Golding Date: Wed, Dec 11 2024

Location: Rehearsal Room 1, ArtsOne, Queen Mary University of London https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/postgraduate-research-seminar-prof-deirdre-osborne-angelique-golding-tickets-1105098963749?aff=ebdsshother&utm_share_source=Search_android

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Seems a good purpose for single-use plastics that already exist, pleasing people locally and across the world.... also displeasing to those who encounter unsightly, disrespectful damage

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Googly Eye Street Art in Bulgaria: Everyday Objects Turned into Hilarious Characters

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Discover how Vanyu Krastev turns ordinary objects in Bulgaria into laugh-out-loud street art with just a pair of googly eyes!

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Informed and interesting response to changing social media landscape

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Informed and interesting response to changing social media landscape

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I’ve been thinking a lot about how social networks die. Will Twitter decline like MySpace, or collapse like Digg?

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This notice tells lies, but you only see it once inside

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This notice tells lies, but you only see it once inside

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https://www.canalmuseum.org.uk/ice/index.html

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Seen in London

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Two men criticise Met for spying on their campaigns to secure justice for their sons

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John Burke-Monerville and Richard Adams give evidence at undercover policing inquiry about impact of intrusion

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Tell a man he shouldn't think of a pink elephant and he can't get that beast out of his mind!

This quote, from Curt Siodmak's 1974 novel City in the Sky, describes how hard it can be to suppress our thoughts. "Don't think of a pink elephant" has become a classic example of how difficult it can be to intentionally avoid visualising.

Research suggests many of you, having read about a pink elephant, will have imagined seeing one.

However, some people, like us, have aphantasia - we cannot visualise. So we are a little confused at the idea other people can imagine seeing things that aren't there.

In a new study, we have found evidence the pink elephant problem is not universal. Some people - including people with aphantasia - can block involuntary visual thoughts from their minds.

What is aphantasia?

People with aphantasia cannot voluntarily imagine seeing things in our mind's eye. So if you ask us not to think about a pink elephant, we won't visualise one, because we can't.

Aphantasia is typically described as a deficit. When people first learn they have aphantasia they are often upset, as they realise other people can do things they cannot. It might be nice to imagine seeing the characters described in a book, for example, or to visualise an absent loved one.

However, deficits are often balanced by benefits. There are suggestions people with aphantasia (or aphantasics, as we're sometimes called) may have a heightened resistance to involuntary intrusive thoughts.

Another way to look at it is that aphantasics are one portion of a natural diversity of human minds, with people having different capacities to visualise. Where aphantasics have no capacity, most people would have an average ability, and a small number of people would have an extremely strong ability to visualise.

Vivid mental imagery and involuntary visualisations

In our new study, we looked at links between the intensity of people's visual imaginations and their tendency to visualise, even when they try not to. People with vivid visual imaginations were more likely to have involuntary visualisations, and we could predict these outcomes by measuring brain activity.

Some people might enjoy being able to imagine seeing detailed scenes whenever they wish. However, this seems to come at the cost of not being able to shut down these experiences.

Most people have less vibrant imagery, but they seem to be more able to suppress these thoughts.

Do aphantasics have peaceful minds?

Aphantasics are unlikely to have involuntary visualisations. Does that mean they have peaceful minds?

In our study people who reported having weak imagery were less likely to imagine seeing things they were trying not to think about. However, they were more likely to report mind-wandering.

If this describes aphantasics, instead of visualising things we are told not to think about, we may turn our minds to other thoughts, such as what's for dinner. So we would not have more peaceful minds, just a resistance to think about things we are trying to put out of mind.

If aphantasics do not visualise, do they have daydreams?

From our own experience, we can confirm at least some aphantasics have minds that wander. But when our minds wander, neither of us imagines seeing things. Our experiences are different.

When Derek's mind wanders he imagines hearing and engaging in purely audio conversations. As daydreaming is typically associated with vision, he did not realise until very recently these imagined conversations could be described as his experience of daydreaming.

Loren cannot visualise or imagine hearing things. She experiences her thoughts as different sensations of texture and imagined feelings of movement - and these are what she experiences when her mind wanders.

Are aphantasics resistant to trauma from re-living events?

Perhaps.

While our evidence suggests aphantasics are resistant to involuntary visualisations, more research will be needed to work out if we are resistant to reliving traumas, or if these will simply trigger different types of imagined experience.

What is clear is that Siodmak was wrong. If you tell people they shouldn't think of a pink elephant, some of us will happily put that beast out of our minds, and turn our thoughts to other matters. What's for dinner?

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The pink elephant test: what your visual imagination predicts about your ability to control your thoughts

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Research shows people with more vivid visual imaginations may also be more prone to certain kinds of intrusive thoughts.

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Goldsmiths realism: how London’s radical university ate itself

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‘There is no shortage of TikToks of crying students warning prospective enrollees to go somewhere else’

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Look closely at the photo above and you’ll notice bubbles. Tiny bubbles making their way up through the layers of ingredients as well as larger bubbles, turning cabbage leaves into buoyant rafts I have to weigh down with glass weights. This is kimchi, a rock star of the fermentation world. Along wit

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Radical Objects: The London Women’s Handbook

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What can The London Women’s Handbook reveal about the Greater London Council and radical feminist organising? Lucy Brownson explores the 1986 Handbook which captures a turning point in British political and social life.

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Explore more from Horses

We sent Napoleon's horse Marengo to the Natural History Museum to prepare him for display in the new galleries. They were tasked with moving his skeleton from its original mount and repositioning him.

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We sent Napoleon's horse Marengo to the Natural History Museum to prepare him for display in the Battle gallery. They were tasked with moving his skeleton from its original mount and repositioning him.

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A mountain hamlet in northern Japan claims Jesus Christ was buried there

Smithsonian Magazine |

On the flat top of a steep hill in a distant corner of northern Japan lies the tomb of an itinerant shepherd who, two millennia ago, settled down there to grow garlic. He fell in love with a farmer's daughter named Miyuko, fathered three kids and died at the ripe old age of 106. In the mountain hamlet of Shingo, he's remembered by the name Daitenku Taro Jurai. The rest of the world knows him as Jesus Christ.

It turns out that Jesus of Nazareth-the Messiah, worker of miracles and spiritual figurehead for one of the world's foremost religions-did not die on the cross at Calvary, as widely reported. According to amusing local folklore, that was his kid brother, Isukiri, whose severed ear was interred in an adjacent burial mound in Japan.

A bucolic backwater with only one Christian resident (Toshiko Sato, who was 77 when I visited last spring) and no church within 30 miles, Shingo nevertheless bills itself as Kirisuto no Sato (Christ's Hometown). Every year 20,000 or so pilgrims and pagans visit the site, which is maintained by a nearby yogurt factory. Some visitors shell out the 100-yen entrance fee at the Legend of Christ Museum, a trove of religious relics that sells everything from Jesus coasters to coffee mugs. Some participate in the springtime Christ Festival, a mashup of multidenominational rites in which kimono-clad women dance around the twin graves and chant a three-line litany in an unknown language. The ceremony, designed to console the spirit of Jesus, has been staged by the local tourism bureau since 1964.

The Japanese are mostly Buddhist or Shintoist, and, in a nation of 127.8 million, about 1 percent identify themselves as Christian. The country harbors a large floating population of folk religionists enchanted by the mysterious, the uncanny and the counterintuitive. "They find spiritual fulfillment in being eclectic," says Richard Fox Young, a professor of religious history at the Princeton Theological Seminary. "That is, you can have it all: A feeling of closeness-to Jesus and Buddha and many, many other divine figures-without any of the obligations that come from a more singular religious orientation."

In Shingo, the Greatest Story Ever Told is retold like this: Jesus first came to Japan at the age of 21 to study theology. This was during his so-called "lost years," a 12-year gap unaccounted for in the New Testament. He landed at the west coast port of Amanohashidate, a spit of land that juts across Miyazu Bay, and became a disciple of a great master near Mount Fuji, learning the Japanese language and Eastern culture. At 33, he returned to Judea-by way of Morocco!-to talk up what a museum brochure calls the "sacred land" he had just visited.

Having run afoul of the Roman authorities, Jesus was arrested and condemned to crucifixion for heresy. But he cheated the executioners by trading places with the unsung, if not unremembered, Isukiri. To escape persecution, Jesus fled back to the promised land of Japan with two keepsakes: one of his sibling's ears and a lock of the Virgin Mary's hair. He trekked across the frozen wilderness of Siberia to Alaska, a journey of four years, 6,000 miles and innumerable privations. This alternative Second Coming ended after he sailed to Hachinohe, an ox-cart ride from Shingo.

Upon reaching the village, Jesus retired to a life in exile, adopted a new identity and raised a family. He is said to have lived out his natural life ministering to the needy. He sported a balding gray pate, a coat of many folds and a distinctive nose, which, the museum brochure observes, earned him a reputation as a "long-nosed goblin."

When Jesus died, his body was left exposed on a hilltop for four years. In keeping with the customs of the time, his bones were then bundled and buried in a grave-the same mound of earth that is now topped by a timber cross and surrounded by a picket fence. Though the Japanese Jesus performed no miracles, one could be forgiven for wondering whether he ever turned water into sake.

***

This all sounds more Life of Brian than Life of Jesus. Still, the case for the Shingo Savior is argued vigorously in the museum and enlivened by folklore. In ancient times, it's believed, villagers maintained traditions alien to the rest of Japan. Men wore clothes that resembled the toga-like robes of biblical Palestine, women wore veils, and babies were toted around in woven baskets like those in the Holy Land. Not only were newborns swaddled in clothes embroidered with a design that resembled a Star of David, but, as a talisman, their foreheads were marked with charcoal crosses.

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The Little-Known Legend of Jesus in Japan

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Smithsonian Magazine | On the flat top of a steep hill in a distant corner of northern Japan lies the tomb of an itinerant shepherd who, two millennia ago, settled down there to grow garlic. He fell in love with a farmer's daughter named Miyuko, fathered three kids and died at the ripe old age of 106.

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The UK will need to do more to reassure international applicants if it wants to remain a first choice destination

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Simon Emmett explores the latest findings from IDP’s Emerging Futures data and looks at how the UK may seek to boost its reputation

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On today's episode of Decoder, we're going to try and figure out "digital god." I figured we've been doing this long enough, let's just get after it. Can we build an artificial intelligence so powerful that it changes the world and answers all of our questions? The AI industry has decided the answer is yes.

In September, OpenAI's Sam Altman published a blog post claiming we'll have superintelligent AI in "a few thousand days." And earlier this month, Dario Amodei, the CEO of OpenAI competitor Anthropic, published a 14,000-word post laying out what exactly he thinks such a system will be capable of when it arrives, which he says could be as soon as 2026.

What's fascinating is that the visions laid out in both posts are so similar - they both promise dramatic superintelligent AI that will bring massive improvements to work, to science and healthcare, and even to democracy and prosperity. Digital god, baby.

But while the visions are similar, the companies are, in many ways, openly opposed: Anthropic is the original OpenAI defection story. Dario and a cohort of fellow researchers left OpenAI in 2021 after becoming concerned with its increasingly commercial direction and approach to safety, and they created Anthropic to be a safer, slower AI company. And the emphasis was really on safety until recently; just last year, a major New York Times profile of the company called it the "white-hot center of A.I. doomerism."

But the launch of ChatGPT, and the generative AI boom that followed, kicked off a colossal tech arms race, and now, Anthropic is as much in the game as anyone. It's taken in billions in funding, mostly from Amazon, and built Claude, a chatbot and language model to rival OpenAI's GPT-4. Now, Dario is writing long blog posts about spreading democracy with AI.

So what's going on here? Why is the head of Anthropic suddenly talking so optimistically about AI, when he was previously known for being the safer, slower alternative to the progress-at-all-costs OpenAI? Is this just more AI hype to court investors? And if AGI is really around the corner, how are we even measuring what it means for it to be safe?

To break it all down, I brought on Verge senior AI reporter Kylie Robison to discuss what it means, what's going on in the industry, and whether we can trust these AI leaders to tell us what they really think.

If you'd like to read more about some of the news and topics we discussed in this episode, check out the links below:

Machines of Loving Grace | Dario Amodei

The Intelligence Age | Sam Altman

Anthropic's CEO thinks AI will lead to a utopia |

AI manifestos flood the tech zone |

OpenAI just raised $6.6 billion to build ever-larger AI models |

OpenAI was a research lab - now it's just another tech company |

Anthropic's latest AI update can use a computer on its own |

Agents are the future AI companies promise - and desperately need |

California governor vetoes major AI safety bill |

Inside the white-hot center of AI doomerism |

Microsoft and OpenAI's close partnership shows signs of fraying |

The $14 billion question dividing OpenAI and Microsoft |

Anthropic has floated $40 billion valuation in funding talks | The Information

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What Anthropic and OpenAI are racing to build and why they think it will change the world.

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Change of Gauge (Entry 206.LV2733) — Omnibus

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In which the nightmarish complexity of the world’s non-standardized rail systems is marveled at, and Ken hatches a zeppelin-related plan to resurrect Dame Agatha Christie. Certificate #48966.

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How to translate academic writing into podcasts using generative AI

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One of the benefits of generative AI is the ability to transform one media from text, to speech, to imagery to video. In this post Andy Tattersall explores one aspect of this ability, by transformi…

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The bio tool intrigues me, and my techbro podcast suggests AI assistants are getting personal

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ChatGPT 4.0 discloses it's own rules (July 24)

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Thread by @tombfowler on Thread Reader App

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@tombfowler: The video of Roger Pearce being questioned at the #spycops inquiry is STILL not online. Probably the most damning live evidence that has been filmed as is meant to have a general release. Maybe it’ll...…

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As Wonkhe has pointed out repeatedly, in recent years we have witnessed a substantial growth in the number of students enrolling on taught masters courses at UK universities.

Registrations in the UK have almost doubled, increasing from 400,000 in 2015-16 to just over 700,000 in 2021-22 The rise in numbers has been linked to the introduction of the postgraduate taught loans scheme in the UK in 2015-16 and changes to the visa requirements for international students since 2021. Although government policy may reverse the number of international students recruited, the significance of the taught masters course for UK institutions is likely to remain high.

But are taught masters courses in the UK equivalent in their design and assessment regulations?

Little in common

A recent survey by the Student Assessment and Classification Working Group (SACWG) suggests that when it comes to assessment regulations, UK institutions play by many different rules. The survey - which you can read more about in our recent article for the journal Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education - captured information about the assessment rules and regulations of 21 higher education institutions.

While small, it reflected the makeup of the UK sector reasonably well. It included a cross-section, evenly split between pre- and post-1992 institutions and members of various mission groups. Three salient areas of comparison stood out: the design of an award, the achievement of an award, and the classification of an award.

We found that, aside from the requirement that a taught masters course should consist of 180 credits, HEIs have little in common concerning the design of taught masters awards. The most obvious variant is the use of different-sized modules and credit denominators. Module sizes of 5, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30, 40, 45, 60, 80, 90 and 120 credits were used for specific design purposes.

Disparities also existed around the requirement for, and the length of, the major project or dissertation. Indeed, the maximum length of a 60-credit dissertation ranged from under 10,000 up to 20,000 words. And there was also no common ground for the absolute time allowed for students to complete a masters course: some institutions restricted this to one year, one did not have a limit, while the others ranged between two and six years.

Quite an achievement

Rules surrounding the achievement of an award are just as murky. A third of the sample allowed undergraduate credit to be included in the programme while two thirds did not. Similar proportions set the module pass mark at 40 per cent and 50 per cent.

And the apparent simplicity of passing is complicated by additional hurdles, such as achieving a minimum mark in all assessments, submitting all assessments, or satisfying an attendance requirement. Institutions set very different conditions for allowing or not allowing compensation or condonement of failed marks: approximately half compensate, half condone, and some both compensate and condone. And there are varied and often obscure rules about the circumstances in which these practices operate.

Rules for classifying awards, or the issue of degree classification algorithms (DCA), were just as multifarious for masters awards as elsewhere. While there may be near uniformity in the use of terms and mark thresholds to describe performance - pass (40 or 50 per cent), merit (60 per cent), and distinction (70 per cent) - there is very little togetherness in the sector. A sizable minority of institutions continue to discount credits from their DCA, privilege the dissertation mark, or permit classification borderlines of various breadths.

And this of course brings us back to the lack of agreement on what should constitute the pass category. Should it be 40 per cent or 50 per cent?

Overcoming differences

The differences revealed by the survey were numerous. In an attempt to understand whether there could be any common ground across the sector, SACWG held a seminar that focused on the key principles for the design, achievement, and classification of taught masters awards. The seminar included participants from 40 institutions.

In the first part of the seminar, participants discussed and sought to explain the survey results. This provided the groundwork for the second session which took the form of a thought experiment. Delegates were asked to set aside the rules used by their institution and to find commonality on a set of principles on which to base assessment regulations. Not only were the outcomes positive, but there was also an unexpected level of accord among delegates around several key principles. This included agreement on: rules for reassessment, a universal adoption of a 50 per cent pass mark, and a stricter use of Level 7 credit.

While differences between delegates and groups remained for some issues, such as compensation rules, it was apparent that delegates wanted to engage in an open dialogue and wished to understand the rationale for the adoption or rejection of certain assessment principles in a given context. What seemed fundamental was to find agreement in principle.

Moving out of the murk

Our survey revealed disparities in the use and application of assessment regulations across the board. This, in turn, raises questions about equity. Could the same performance at one institution have a different award or outcome at another institution? The most glaring difference for taught masters courses is the module pass mark or award boundary.

And, like so many of the differences in assessment regulations, there is little understanding of why one rule is used rather than another.

The discussions at our seminar suggested there is a way to find some common ground and create open dialogue. One method of achieving this may be in the form of a working paper on assessment rules. This would involve consultation and dialogue from those engaged in teaching and quality-assuring masters courses. Establishing dialogue and shared reasoning might shore up advice and guidance to providers, perhaps by adding to what is currently available in documents such as the QAA Characteristics Statements: Master's Degree.

This will benefit designers and developers of masters courses and it will enhance the external examiner process. In the meantime, we should not assume that all taught masters courses are equivalent.

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Taught masters degrees are one award but with many rules

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Shaun Le Boutillier and Harvey Woolf present research showing the wide variation in postgraduate taught assessment and course design across UK institutions

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An interesting blog post by an iOS developer about Steve Jobs. There have been countless articles, posts, and interviews wherein people discuss Steve Jobs - so why I do find this one interesting? It claims that people misrepresent the unique skill of Jobs simply as an excellent marketer, charismatic, etc., but it misses the other main point: the recognition of skill in others to provide oneself with a skilled team.

It always seems odd to me that many of the so-called 'greats' in history are loved by their fanboys as if they operated in a vacuum. In the case of Jobs, people almost gleefully discuss how much of an asshole he was to everyone around him as if it was simply 'Jobs vs the World,' but in reality he had an incredible team of designers surrounding him. This is typically the case when you go back in history and research the big names in various fields. FDR never would have accomplished what he did, whether you love him or hate him, without Louis Howe by his side.

Arguing that Jobs is misunderstood because people are unaware of how obsessive he was over small details is entirely missing the point and just another form of fanboyism, in my opinion. Some of you here have technological knowledge and experience with this particular field, I'm curious what you think.

I'm not a techie expert but I am a high-level management consultant in my not-writing-space-stories life.

Jobs is fascinating and rewriting management textbooks - I use him a lot as a case study. What we have in him is a spider - centre of a web, focusing on everything in the web, responding to the web's needs, mixed with a charismatic leader* - hence the communication, the ability to gain and keep followers - in a flat organisation. Spiders traditionally struggle in flat organisations as they like to be so central to everything, they are the hierarchy. This is what is so hard to replicate (well that and the leadership skills, which, contrary to what the chap was quoted as saying at the start of the blog, are far from easily transferred or learnt) - the level of control he held combined with the ability to lead in a largely laissez faire basis (in that he was prepared to give autonomy over decisions to those below him, not that he was laid back) in an organisation that ordinarily is hard to hold structurally after a certain size.

Have I bored everyone enough yet?

* which is not an unusual mix

Why do you think people so frequently remember the leader without being either aware of or noting their team? Granted, I know much more about political management than I do business, but the notion that the greats surrounded themselves with talent seems to hold true in both spheres.

It does. If you look at theorists around transformational leadership, eg Kotter, they will tell you that it is essential for the leader to build a guiding team of followers. Covey, too, argues strongly that the leader must seek the strength of others to lead, and to create a synergistic organisation. And Lessons from the Geese is based entirely around the capabilty of a leader to use the strength of the whole.

However, the leader's role is to be visible, the point of attention. They set vision and shape the organisation and, as such, thrust themselves into the position of being the leader, the person intrinsically linked. Indeed, it's so central to a leaders' role, as is the importance of having followers, that for a follower to rise to the point of being the figurehead would put two shapers into the team, and that never works out.

As for us not remembering teams - don't we? We could name Himmler and Goerring, for instance. Those of us in the UK know for Bob Geldof there was Midge Ure. We know the names of Jesus' disciples and something of who they are. With Jobs we know of Tim Cook. Granted it depends on the profile of the team and, indeed, the kind of leader but it doesn't always hold true that we don't know the team.

He was a egotist, extremely obsessed, a waster of people. He was JUST REALLY REALLY lucky with a few products.
The whole starting in a Garage thing misses fact that it was an ideal time, he had finance and the other Steve's design. AND LUCK. Basically Visicalc saved the Apple II.

Apple Computer Corp. nearly died. Ironically Microsoft rescued them. The Lisa GUI later revamed as Mac was copied wholesale from Xerox.
Lisa Failure.
Pippin Failure.
Newton might have succeeded but Steve Jobs scrapped it.
Mac was 5% to 8% world wide for years.
OS X based on NextStep, Steve Jobs failed project. The OS is derived from BSD UNIX, NOT INVENTED BY NextStep, Jobs or Apple!
They where about #4 to market with MP3 player just as costs got lower and managed to get Record Label support for iTunes. That and hype made it a success.
The iPhone was bought in GUI, long after smart phones. Why was it a success? First time non-business user could get a decent data package! The Hardware was mostly Samsung off the shelf parts stuck into simple case with their Ipod hardware. Then good marketing.
iPad built on top of iPod and iPhone.

There is nothing exceptional about Apple or Steve Jobs except the Myths and their massive profit margins (x3 to x5 the industry due to Market Perception)!

Jony Ives' styling is all 100% a copy of Dieter Rams styles for 1950s and 1960s Braun Electronics. Ives is just a package styler.

Jobs was just a lucky CEO / Manager and occasionally good at picking winning products (About 4) and the marketing strategy. He hindered more than helped develop the actual products!

I feel Ray is right on target, Apple didn't invent much of anything, as much as package it well, and create a "mystique" about their products. They do make things easy for the average user, and that again is good marketing as much as anything. But there's many products available that are better than Apple's, they just don't have the same cachet. And the walled garden mentality drives me nuts.

What Jobs did (or what happened under his jurisdiction) was the closing of the loop between product and uploads - so having itunes led to having an apple which led to more apple products and de nada...

But the refutation based on the products isn't the point of the blog - it's about whether or not Steve Jobs could lead. And, based on just about every parameter of what makes a leader*, he could. Being a leader isn't about developing good products. Good leaders often drive their followers mad by being impractical, driving the vision instead of what's realistic. Often, whisper it, they fail miserably in their intent because they've shot for the moon and failed (but they tend not to be the leaders we hear about and yet, if you asked their team, they'd name them as a leader). It's about a set of attributes and behaviours, and yes, someone will them will sometimes get lucky or unlucky - it doesn't take away from whether or not they have them.

*a good communicator, capable of inspiring loyalty and enabling others to follow their lead would be the baseline leadership qualities. There are other nicities that can be added - and he fills a lot of them, too.

He was poor leader. He had a couple of lucky breaks due to negotiations.

The tech industry is poisoned with poor leaders that run engineers & programmers into ground and mismanage them. I saw no evidence at all 1976 to his death of good leadership. He's a really bad role model. I can't say or explain more without risk of a law suit. But the Cult of Jobs and Apple ought to be past its sell by date.

Sorry, that's nonsense. What he did was make a successful walled garden to exploit consumers as never before. I believe that is why the Mac Air and eventually the Mac generally will be replaced by models that only run iOS. Or even dropped. They killed the Mac server line and took Computer out of the name already.

A single store per product is Ghastly vendor lock in. That's why Nokia (badly) tried to copy it and Google uses it for Android and MS would love to do the same. iTunes is the worst thing for Consumers of Apps since 1980-1981 backward leap from real 16bit and new OSes to the kuldged 8088 and MS rip off of Digital Research CPM/86, an OS dead end. As a result Computing was held back in Consumer Space for 10 years.

iTunes in providing digital downloads of Music was a step forward. Everything else by Apple since is a disaster for the Consumer.

Apple is also bad for the World & US economy, but that's a separate story.

My first Desktop Computer was an Apple II. Not even an Apple IIe

While it may fade slightly, I doubt it will ever go away completely. There are very few household names from the business world of that particular generation. It is him and Gates.

I didn't say I liked him, or indeed Apple....

On what counts was he a bad leader, out of interest? Not product reasons, or marketing reasons, but personality reasons? He could certainly communicate and he could certainly gain followers - or why would there be a cult of Jobs and Apple? - and he had charisma in any of the footage I've seen of him. Those are the key traits of a charismatic leader - which is not true and why?

Meanwhile more ARM based CPUs are produced in about a week as x86 / x64 Intel & AMD in a year. A UK development.
Almost nothing outside of PCs/Laptops uses the Intel/AMD.
Not just phones and Tablets, but Routers, Modems, TVs, DVD/BluRay players, Setboxes, even Microwave, Dishwasher and Washing Machines are unlikely to have Intel/AMD but may have ARM CPU.

The USA is Really Big with a culture of Venture Capitalism. So we have Apple, Intel, Oracle, Microsoft, Cisco. Very few big successes vs size of Company. Many of these people succeed by IP theft, Threats, Bullying and burning up their developers. They are not people to emulate. But China and India are big. When Europe pulls together we get stuff like ESA.
Search what people think of Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Darl the CEO of SCO. Or what they think of Intel methods (courts cases) vs competitors.

Again, I didn't say he was to be emulated - many leaders aren't. Hitler is an exceptional example of a leader but I wouldn't be reccommending him as a role model. But you still haven't explained under what criteria Jobs fails as a leader. I'm interested as I use him as a case study - which covers much of the ground you've mentioned, such as his ethics.

Bill Gates is another interesting consideration. In Microsoft I felt he showed few leadership attributes, I'd have seen him as a good manager rather than natural leader. Then I saw him talking about his foundation and he was a different man. I feel he is a leader but was possibly not leading something he was passionate about.

Those are rabble rousing externalities. Nothing to do with managing people, making good decisions, ethics, running a company properly. Apple succeeded due to luck, two good deals and not Job's leadership. The charisma etc was excellent for marketing (Reality Distortion Field).

Éamon de Valera was a charismatic leader. He caused more NEEDLESS deaths AFTER the Independence than during the War. Many deaths in the war of Independence were his policies. He then practically Bankrupted Ireland approx 1933 onwards (Economic War) and held back modernisation for 12 years. We still suffer on the whole Island from the legacy of that charismatic leader who unfortunately still inspires people (I'm an Irish Nationalist, but the policies of that man and his followers are aborrant to me). Fortunately Steve Jobs was only a Business man.

But being a good leader is rarely about being a good manager of people. In the rare person who has both leadership and management skills (and they are very, very rare) things are different. In fact, leaders are often poor in the management skills. Generally they take those skills from the tier below them, their senior management followers if you like.

I think sometimes people confuse leadership with people who make the right decisions, or are the good guys, and Steve Covey is interesting to read regarding that paradigm. They're often not. They're just people who have certain attributes which enable them to be followed. Sometimes that works out well, sometimes not.

I think, looking at this, he's even more certainly in my list of good - ie strong, not that they neccessarily did good - leaders. Thanks for the insights.

Bill Gates wasn't as bad in MS, nor MS as bad as some painted. Not good though. But eventually MS got too big and BG couldn't possibly manage it. His Empire started by him organising his friend to port the Free Dartmouth BASIC (a cut down ForTran) to the 8080 (and later 6502) and selling it to the S100 and other pre-PC makers. Getting the contract with IBM to supply MS-DOS (which they didn't then have!) was an amazing piece of luck and cheek (They bought outright a reversed clone of DR CPM/86). The reason why IBM dealt with Bill and not Gary are shrouded in myth. At the time I was gobsmacked as were the rest of us. That was MS "lucky break".
Sinofsky and Balmer were toxic as managers (and product decisions) and MS may never recover the high point they reached in 2003.

Bill Gates made maybe really few "good" (in sense of madly successful) and very very bad decisions.

Some Successes (some of these bad for Industry):

BASIC sold to anyone

MS-DOS

Deal with IBM to develop OS/2 (1985?)

Pulling out (had MS OS/2 product in 1990!) and going alone with NT based on OS/2 and inspired by VAX VMS. That's why first NT is 3.1 in 1993.

Developing real windows Word & Excel before MS Windows worked, by doing them for Mac!

Pushing a polished up Win95 which wasn't really 32bit at all and really only Win3.1 with a new Shell instead of NT (People wouldn't pay for the x4 more RAM and HDD needed!) Bad for Industry, but killed off OS/2.

Win 2000 / XP (same OS, XP is finished NT 5.1, Win2K is unfinished NT 5.0)

Buying in SQL , Visio

Some Disasters.

Windows 1.x, Windows 2.0, windows 286, Windows 3.0

DOS 4, 5 and 6 and Disc Compression. Only Good DOSes were 2.11, 3.3 and 6.22

Buying in Powerpoint!

Win95/Win98 resulted in badly written programs for NT and bad XP Security

Win ME

Vista

Not giving the bug fix free (Win 7 is fixed version of Vista)

Trying to make WinCE like Win9x

Trying to make Desktop Windows (8) like the Zune/WinPhone that replaced WinCE (used as Phone and PDA up to Version 5 or 6, I forget)

Strong, Charismatic and Achieving "Success" is completely separate to being a Good Leader. The Success may only be personal at everyone else's expense, or benefit a chosen few.

But that's exactly what I've been saying. Nor did I list strong or achieving success as the qualities of leadership (although they may be). Communication and gaining followers are the most intrinsic qualities, although there are many more.

Acheiving success does not make someone a good leader. Being charismatic on its own may not make a good leader. The success may indeed be entirely personal and yet have a good leader - provided others buy into it. Look at some of the cults over the years. A good leader isn't judged by the outcome - it's judged by a range of behaviours and attributes, most of which Jobs had.

I'll bow out now. i think we're going in circles. Not liking the guy or his business approaches is one thing, evidencing he's a poor leader something else again.

Exactly how is it useful to have a Leader that is not a good role model, achieving good goals rather than evil and that "uses people up" rather than good leadership? A good leader must at least be competent as a Manager. I think eventually when there is no-one that will sue, the truth of Steve Job's Leadership will come out.

Not useful at all. And many managers aren't that competent.

I don't make the rules of leadership, I just try to break them down. Not every leader is nice. Not every leader seeks the greater good. Not every leader is to be emulated. But they still share basic characteristics and Steve Jobs (who I don't see as a great evil in comparison to many other leaders - Papa Doc, Stalin) shares those characteristics. Again you're mixing up good as is we should be good to each other with good, as in I am a successful leader. They are not the same thing.

Night!

Having lucky breaks and thus a valuable company is no evidence of successful Leadership.

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An interesting blog post by an iOS developer about Steve Jobs. There have been countless articles, posts, and interviews wherein people discuss Steve Jobs - so why I do find this one interesting? It claims that people misrepresent the unique skill of Jobs simply as an excellent marketer...

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The unpleasantness of thinking: A meta-analytic review of the association between mental effort and negative affect.

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The Contingency Contingent | Leigh Claire La Berge

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By December 1999, the feeling at the Conglomerate’s Y2K office was that nothing more could really be done. This is a common enough cliché on the approach of any moment of finality, but was particularly apt in our case, since nothing really had been done.

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What is AuDHD? 5 important things to know when someone has both autism and ADHD

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Autism and ADHD frequently overlap and the combination can create internal conflict and unmet needs.

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Smerins Anti-Social Club - Dr Who (Live)

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Your learning conditions are my working conditions. 

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Your learning conditions are my working conditions. 

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“Importantly, while acknowledging the role played by staff-student relationships in creating a teaching and learning environment that is positive for student well-being, it is essential to pay attention to the well-being of the other ‘actors’ involved in this relationship: the teachers (Brewster et al., 2022). When thinking about student well-being, it is therefore important to realise how their well-being is linked to that of their teachers, in what it has been defined as ‘student/staff well-being loop’ (Riva et al., 2020). Indeed, the ability of staff to positively impact student well-being is impeded if their own well-being is poor, and this can be a barrier to a caring, kind, and compassionate learning environment"

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Tim Clare - Author, Poet and Creative Writing Advice Podcaster

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A free 100 day fiction writing course by podcast. Learn to write more, better and happier. Award-winning author Tim Clare presents.

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Reflecting on positive noises from government towards the sector at Universities UK annual conference, Debbie McVitty argues for assessment of past failures to make the most of future opportunities

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It's not as if we didn't know what was coming 

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It's not as if we didn't know what was coming 

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Though we could not have predicted all the effects of the relatively recent invention of the private sector

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The private sector is amazing, isn't it? It's easily the best sector. Apart from the voluntary sector, of course, which is inspiring and humbling and should give us all pause. But obviously, it's not really a proper sector. By which I mean it's vital - perhaps even more vital than the others - in just the same way that the Paralympics is perhaps more important than the Olympics.

But out of the two other sectors - which I'm certainly not going to call "the main two sectors" because that's, I think, a really unimaginative way of looking at the vital voluntary sector - the private one has got to be the best, right? It's like the free west, while the public sector is the Soviet Union but without the nuclear threat: all drab suits, grey offices, unattractive women and queues. You get a sense of concrete and drizzle, flares and puddles, all very 70s, whereas the private sector is dynamic and 80s. It's much more Dynasty, more Howards' Way, more using-proper-nouns-as-adjectives. It's fax machines and swimming pools, shoulder pads and telling people where to stick it, in both professional and sexual contexts.

Yes, people who work in the private sector must look at public sector workers in disbelief. How did you end up there, they must think. What personality cocktail of laziness, self-loathing and intractable mediocrity would have led you to try to make your fortune (your incredibly modest fortune, albeit with overgenerous pension provision made possible only by tying the hands of enterprise) in that gloomy bureaucratic Mariana trench, far from the nourishing rays of the profit motive? How did the sorting hat of fate come to put you in life's Hufflepuff (but with a touch of Slytherin thrown in when it comes to local government contracts)?

Those are the sort of questions that Carl Lygo, the chief executive of BPP, Britain's only run-for-profit university, must have to bite his tongue to stop himself asking when talking to other educators. And he has been talking to them: he's been discussing the possibility of running the business side of at least 10 publicly funded universities, going into "partnership" with them. They'd still make all the academic decisions, while BPP would deal with the admin. But isn't this an uneven partnership? It lacks a shared aim. One half wants to run a good university, the other wants to make money. If a marriage is a partnership, isn't this like getting hitched to a hooker?

Or maybe it's just paying for goods and services. As Lygo says: "Most universities are running at high costs and don't properly utilise their buildings. The private sector is better at procurement, because they are keener at negotiating better prices." That's the key argument in favour of outsourcing and subcontracting and other expressions for an institution giving up roles it was constituted to fulfil: the public sector is so congenitally wasteful that a private company will always be able to undercut it - that the inherent public-sector inefficiency equates to more than the profit the subcontractor takes.

There are certainly many circumstances where this is true. There is little doubt that state funding changes an institution's attitude to money and can increase its propensity for waste. But I think it's a big jump from that observation to the current orthodoxy that the public sector's flabby inefficiency and the private's dynamic productivity are inevitable and universal - that the private sector possesses some kind of magic which, by dint of being paid by the state, no one in public service has access to; that the private sector is always brilliant and the public always useless.

I suspect Lygo of subscribing to this view when he says: "We have got a lot of universities in the UK and not all are in a strong financial position... the private provider would add expertise in the back-office functions." What expertise? Expertise in administering, say, Bristol University that the people currently administering Bristol University don't possess but a new company that's never done it before is going to be brimming with? Won't they just employ the same people to do the job but pay them less or sack a few? Is that what he means by expertise?

It's not expertise, it's ruthlessness, it's the prioritisation of profit. What Lygo is offering people running universities is the opportunity to divest themselves of many of the problems inherent in their jobs. If you don't want to take the tough decisions, he's saying, if you doubt you've got the backbone to make the efficiency savings, then we'll handle them for you. Pass your troubles on to those of us untroubled by conscience. Not only would this be a dereliction of the universities' duty, it would also help perpetuate the myth of the private sector's omnipotence and the public's doltish money-burning idiocy.

The private sector caused the credit crunch, the financial crisis, the global recession. The public sector bailed out the banks and brought the world back from the brink of ruin. When our railways were in public hands, they were shabby, unreliable and loss-making. In private hands, they still are but public money ends up in the hands of shareholders and the tickets cost vastly more. The NHS is the most efficient health service of its peers despite having, up till now, much less private sector involvement than they do. The armed forces remain in the public sector and people seldom have cause to criticise their efficiency or commitment.

Having said all that, Brent council is useless and the world glitters with the achievements of private enterprise: from smart phones to cappuccinos, from cheap fridges to full supermarkets, from Viagra to Vegas, the by-products of the profit drive have given hundreds of millions of us the lifestyles of emperors.

And, of course, the private sector is usually better at making money but, as that's its sole aim, it would be tragic if it weren't. The aims of public bodies are more complex, varied and, usually, worthwhile. We mustn't allow this necessary lack of single-mindedness to be mistaken for an inevitable lack of drive or focus.

So, if those universities with which BPP are negotiating feel they could make savings by outsourcing their back-office functions (which sounds like a euphemism for getting a colostomy bag) but would be unwilling to cut costs without being able to blame a private company, maybe that's a sign that they're the wrong savings. If not, and if failing to make such cuts jeopardises those institutions, I hope they'll find the courage to reform themselves without holding hands with a profiteer.

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Lesson one: when it comes to the crunch, private sector knows best | David Mitchell

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David Mitchell: Universities can reform themselves without any help from the private sector

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Community and commentators deal with contemporary values clash

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NaNoWriMo is in disarray after organizers defend AI writing tools

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It said opposing the tech ignores “classist and ableist” issues.

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Looking forward to getting my dragademic head on...

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You may remember Cheddar Gorgeous as the Drag performer who stormed our TV screens in 2022, taking the title of first runner up on Ru Paul's Drag Race UK. What you might not know is that Cheddar is also a visual artist and academic based in Manchester, with a passion for discussing the important things in life.

Join them as they explore the arts and the recent effects that AI has had on an artist in today's world and pick the brain of a special guest and expert as they contemplate the question: where does AI belong in an artist's world?

This is not an event to be missed, so book your tickets or risk having to sashay away.

15 September 2024 - 16:30
Old Town Hall Stratford

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In conversation with Cheddar Gorgeous: Ethical use of AI in the Arts | British Science Festival

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Run time: 16:30 - 17:30 You may remember Cheddar Gorgeous as the Drag performer who stormed our TV screens in 2022, taking the title of first runner up on Ru Paul's Drag Race UK. What you might not...

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and I am pleased that the world contains us both

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Vinay Gupta Explains How to Stop the Future from Destroying Us

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Nuclear war. Climate war. AI war. Outer space. Network states. We’ve got our hands full. But Vinay Gupta has a plan.

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Sounds Of Summer Carnival mix by Revolution Sound Community Soundsystem

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This is the sort of thing that we would have played at the Leaf Creative Arts Sounds of Summer Carnival, at The Midlands Arts Centre on 20/7/24, had we not had PA gremlins!

Mfsb Feat. The Three Degrees - Love Is the Message (Single Version)	
Bob Marley - Sun Is Shining
Manu Dibango - Soul Makossa
Roy Ayers - Everybody Loves The Sunshine
Staple Singers - Brand New Day
Spanky Wilson - Sunshine of Your Love
The Velvelettes - Needle In A Haystack
Gloria Jones - Tainted Love
Gil Scott-Heron - Lady Day and John Coltrane
Winston Curtis - Be Thankful For What You've Got
Althea & Donna - Uptown Top Ranking
Janet Kay - Silly Games
Alton Ellis & Janet Kay - Still In Love
Friendly Fire Band - It's a Brum Ting

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Our Subversive Voice · The history and politics of the English protest song

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Our Subversive Voice is a 2-year research project funded by AHRC, investigating the use of song to register protest from 1600 to 2020.

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Oof... Is the single word post that pushed this quote my way. Perhaps the poster - a brown man - was looking in the mirror.

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They were a bit shy when I dropped by.

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LONDON, 23 August 2024-Today, 14 young trans activists, all aged 18 or under, initiated an occupation at the Department for Education's (DfE) Westminster headquarters to protest for their right to a safe and inclusive education, as well as the overall rights of trans youth and adults. Hundreds of people of all ages also turned up outside the building in support of their cause.

The activists aim to underscore the urgent need for policy changes that respect and protect the rights of trans youth, including their rights to autonomy, safety, trust, respect and inclusion. Their occupation, taking place in the multiple arched recesses in the DfE building along Great Smith Street, is intended to continue for multiple days.

Their protest comes amidst increasing pressure on the Government to respect and uphold trans rights, following a decision by Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Wes Streeting to extend a ban on puberty blocker access, as well as concerning draft guidance from the Department for Education that if implemented would potentially violate the Equality Act and harm a whole generation of trans and non-binary children.

"As trans youth, our rights are constantly violated, our health and safety are put in jeopardy and our very existence is demonised-in policy and in practice, everywhere from our schools to our doctors' offices," said one of the teenage activists staging the protest. "It is unacceptable that 10% of trans children are bullied every day and 54% experienced bullying at least once in the last year. Our lives and our education are at stake, and we unfortunately must take action to remind politicians and policymakers that we're real kids, and we deserve safety, respect and representation at school."

"I have never felt safe as a trans person in school, unless I'm around other trans people. I have been bullied in school for my gender to the point I feared I would be hunted and killed. Not once have I felt I can truly be myself without risk of judgement, criticism, hate speech or violence," said one of the activists, aged 15, staging the protest. "I'm out here because I want school to be safe. I want to not be outed by my teachers, I want my name to be respected, and I want every other young trans person in school to not have to undergo what I have. I want to stop this from ever happening again, because it is a truly torturous experience that needs to be stopped."

"My school is so afraid of the right-wing media that they've been advised to not talk about trans issues (the trans 'problem', which is all I am to them). It changes nothing for the school, all it means is I cannot talk or educate others about myself. I have such a depth of knowledge that I want to share with my school so they do not go about the world ignorant or hurtful of people like me, but I'm not allowed to because a minority of people in power regard the very fabric of my being as 'contested'," said another one of the activists, aged 16. "I am an ideology, not a person, to them, let alone a vulnerable child. So we're scared and we're angry, but most of all we're fed up with the way we are denied any say in the discussion about ourselves."

The protest calls for respect and protection for the rights of trans youth, including:

Autonomy: "We deserve to make our own decisions about our social transition, and about who gets to know about it."

Priority: "Our comfort and safety deserves to take priority over theoretical disapproval from people who are unaffected by us."

Safety: "We should be protected from transphobic bullying and harassment, including misgendering and deadnaming."

Trust and respect: "Our identities are not up for debate, and shouldn't be subject to any external validation."

Inclusion: "Who we are is not a contested ideology, and our reality should be reflected in what we learn about in school."

The activists are part of the trans+ youth-led UK action network "​​ Trans Kids Deserve Better ". The group previously staged a in July to call for equal access to gender-affirming healthcare, protection from discrimination in all areas of life and the right to be heard in all decisions that affect them. four-day occupation of NHS England headquarters

To learn more about the Trans Kids Deserve Better action network, visit https://transkidsdeservebetter.org or contact . press@transkidsdeservebetter.org

10% of trans children said they were bullied on a daily basis, and over half (54%) had experienced bullying in the past year prior to being surveyed (compared to 21% of their non-LGBT+ peers).

Just 19% of transgender young people report feeling optimistic about the future on a weekly basis, compared to 36% of their nontransgender peers. 15% of transgender young people said they had never felt optimistic about the future in the past 12 months.

15% of trans children never feel optimistic about their future.

Almost half of LGBTQIA+ children (48%) had experienced no positive messaging on LGBTQIA+ inclusion at school over the last year.

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Teenage trans activists occupy Department for Education headquarters in protest for safe, inclusive education for trans students | Trans Kids Deserve Better

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LONDON, 23 August 2024-Today, 14 young trans activists, all aged 18 or under, initiated an occupation at the Department for Education's (DfE) Westminster headquarters to protest for their right to a safe and inclusive education, as well as the overall rights of trans youth and adults.

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I'm sticking with the neologisms and nonsense 

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I'm sticking with the neologisms and nonsense 

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You would expect nothing less from yours truly

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Every sector has terms that can be understood by others in the same game, but for the public too much management speak can be a turn off.

Melody Hossaini's tough grilling on The Apprentice showed that hiding behind business jargon to describe complex concepts is a sure way of alienating the public. However it also demonstrates how difficult entrepreneurs find it to meaningfully and concisely explain what it is they do and the benefits they bring.

But while management speak can be a problem in other sectors, is it really a problem in the world of social enterprise?

Cast your vote and leave us a comment below.
This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional. To join the social enterprise network, click here.

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Poll: Management speak - hired or fired?

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Using management speak to describe what your social enterprise does can prove a turn off to the public, but does the sector have a problem?

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I don't like this expression though I share his sentiment 

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I don't like this expression though I share his sentiment 

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It's not all about what you want, after all

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Worth combining with open badges and micro credits? Requires strong handling.

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I was born in poverty in Fitzrovia, there are so many layers of people in my world city

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The area in London bounded by Oxford Street to the south, Great Portland Street to the west, Euston Road to the north, and Tottenham Court Road to the east, was dubbed the London's Old Latin Quarter by E. Beresford Chancellor and later Fitzrovia by the Labour MP Tom Driberg. It has has a long history of radicalism with waves of French and German revolutionaries arriving after 1848 and then with the clampdown by Bismarck in Germany and the defeat of the Paris Commune. Swiss and Italian immigrants also added to the radical mix in the area. The Fitzroy Tavern, home of Augustus John and then Dylan Thomas, originally had the very Germanic title of The Hundred Marks.

Much has been written already on the Free School set up by Louise Michel and other anarchists in Fitzroy School, not to mention the Communist Club in St Stephen's Mews and the Autonomie Club in at first Fitzroy Street and then Windmill Street. This article instead focusses on other establishments used by French anarchists in the area which were components of a vibrant network of meeting places, of foci of discussion and activity and of mutual aid and support.

At 67 Charlotte Street stands the three story building where Victor Richard, a refugee from the Paris Commune, who originally hailed from Burgundy, had his grocer shop the Bel Epicier. The anarchist Charles Malato in his De La Commune A L'Anarchie (From the Commune to Anarchy) remembered Richard as "the most jovial, the most smiling of grocers. Yes a grocer, but he is so little that! All the refugees came there because he expressed, without sectarianism, the most crimson opinions". Victor Richard had been a grocer in Paris when he was caught up in the events of the Paris Commune and he had fought heroically on the barricades. He was a close friend of Zéphyrin Camélinat who had also fought on the Commune barricades up to the last moment.

The smell of fresh ground coffee

Victor Richard was then in his fifties. His grocer shop appears to have been a roaring success. He stocked wines from Anjou "sparkling and non-sparkling", cornichons and mustards from his native Burgundy, and one account alleges that his coffee mill popularised the contraption in Britain as well as the French way of making coffee (as in later decades Emidio Recchioni's King Bomba shop in Old Compton Street introduced many British people to continental gastronomic delights- perhaps someone should write an article on the anarchist contribution to good eating and drinking!). He only stocked red beans and not the "reactionary" white ones! Monsieur Richard was a loyal friend of another Communard, Jules Vallès, who penned a fine novel on the Commune, Jacques Vingtras: L'Insurgé, and of the radical journalist and feminist Séverine (Catherine Rémy) who was always sympathetic to anarchism. Indeed she thought so highly of him that she dedicated one of her articles to him. The great French revolutionary songwriter Eugène Pottier, author of The Internationale, was another who dedicated one of his songs Les Affameurs (The Starvers) to the benevolent grocer. For the "generous Burgundian" was always willing to extend credit to revolutionary exiles and much of the money he made was spent on the cause in one way or another, including funds on at least one occasion for French revolutionaries hounded in Britain to enable them to leave the country. Victor Richard was also a good friend of that icon of Italian anarchism, Errico Malatesta.

Malato refers to the area as a "small anarchist republic". His first visit to Richard's grocery store when he was in search of Louise Michel is described thus:

"Is M. Richard here?" I asked the phlegmatic René, his trusted assistant.
René examined me with a nuance of suspicion: from the fact that, if enemies of the State came into the shop, informers did too, French naturally. The chief of these was Inspector Houillier, who stole the name of Johnson, correspondent for Le Figaro, and asked for the names of exiles to render them a service.
It appeared that I did not have the air of a policeman, because without reservation René replied:

"He is still in bed- the sybarite! But if you would like to wait just half an hour".
I risked asking the address of Louise Michel. The suspicions returned: René looked at me as if I wanted to force open the till. I named myself, he found that I was not unknown to him, the ice is broken.

When the grocery store was raided by the police in 1894, a list of phrases useful to French exiles in London were discovered. This may refer to Malato's little work, The Pleasantries of Exile, where in addition to ferry time-tables between England and France, a number of helpful phrases are included. Here are some of them.

French
Donnez-moi un shilling

Written English
Give me a bob

Spoken English (How to pronounce)
G'hive mi é bob

Written English
Shut up !

Spoken English (How to pronounce)
Chotte ap !

French
Je vous mettrai mon pied dans le derriere

Written English
I will put my foot on on your bottom

Spoken English (How to pronounce)
Aill ouille poute maille foute one your botome

Vile Melville

With the attentats of Vaillant, Ravachol and Emile Henry in France, surveillance from the French state on the exiles in London increased. The afore-mentioned Inspector Prosper-Isidore Houillier of the Sûreté, with his assistant Fedeé secretly arrived arrived in London, with the connivance of Inspector Melville of Special Branch. "Le vil Melville" (the vile Melville) as he was known to the exiles was a sworn enemy of anarchism and he was once again breaking the rules in allowing the French cops to operate in London. Houillier seems to have spent a lot of his time eating at the best London restaurants, apparently all at the French public's expense. On the track of the anarchist Meunier, the cops were given a tip-off that he was holed up at 30 Charlotte Street. On arriving there they were surrounded by a large crowd of anarchists, and serenaded with revolutionary songs accompanied by the barrel-organ played by the colourful anarchist Zo d'Axa. Uniformed police had to be sent in to get the cops out of the sticky situation.

On another occasion Houillier and his SB pals followed removals vans around London that they had mistakenly linked to anarchist fugitives. On yet another occasion Houillier tried to pass himself off as an anarchist but was recognised by the comrades, who decided to lead him a merry dance. He was in search of the anarchist Mathieu, suspected of the crimes later accredited to Ravachol and Meunier. Day after day they promised that Houillier would meet Mathieu, day after day there was always an excuse, and day after day Houillier treated the comrades to food and drink, to the value of sixty francs a day.

Finally, Houillier was lured to a pub on Great Portland Street full of French anarchists. Asking once more for Mathieu, he was told that he couldn't come because he was getting his hair cut. The penny now dropped and Houillier became conscious of the crowd in the pub all staring at him. Some had taken out large clubs which they were leaning on. He turned pale. After a heavy silence, M..., a Parisian anarchist, raised his pint of bitter and proposed a toast "To the French police, so well represented here today by our excellent friend Houillier, by our old chum Houillier!" The anarchists lined up to shake his hand whilst M.. continued "Something tells me that he has leave England very soon, and we must give up all hope of seeing him again. He should know that we will always guard a memory of his good manners and excellent meals that we will never relinquish. Hurrah for comrade Houillier!" Houillier was finally allowed to leave the pub after many more sarcastic toasts.

The humiliation was not over for him, however. The following morning, arriving at Charing Cross to take the train to Folkestone, he was welcomed by a large crowd of anarchists, who helped him with his luggage and accompanied him to his compartment. There they lavished him with advice that he could have expected from his mother, warning him against cold draughts and other hazards of the journey. M.. implored him: "At least promise us that you will write to us"! As the train set off, the anarchists following it along the platform waving their hats and handkerchiefs and crying out "Vive Houillier!".

Read all about it!

Another centre of the anarchist community in Fitzrovia was the book and newspaper shop run by the anarchist Armand Lapie at 30 Goodge Street. Armand Denis Célestin Lapie, to give him his full name, was born at Saint Ermes on 26th April 1865. His father was the Blanquist Alcindor Lapie, who had blown himself up in his bomb factory during the siege of Paris by the Prussians in 1870. The director of the anarchist paper Père Peinard, he fled to London after being sentenced in 1892. His shop became the main meeting point of French anarchists in the capital including Ernest Delebeque, François Duprat, Jules Corti and Pétronille Altérant.

Alexandre Cohen, the Dutch Francophile and erstwhile anarchist has left this account of Lapie's shop in his book Van anarchist tot monarchist (From Anarchist to Monarchist) where every evening at 5pm many French anarchists headed to Lapie's shop where he was returning from the depot with a heavy burden of French, Italian and Spanish newspapers. Putting them down with a "Han!" of relief "he was sold out in a flash. For even the poorest among the poverty-stricken refugees handed over their three pence to see whether this revolution had not yet broken out, whether there was a general amnesty, which liberal government had opened a border... And the longer the good news was delayed...how irritable they felt, and how bitter were their mutual feuds. Dissensions usually arose from trivial circumstances," but also over political points. " Individualist anarchism? Anarchist communism? Attentats? No attentats? "

Cohen describes how sometimes even, fights broke out in the shop over these differences. As the narrowness of the shop only allowed for two people at a time, they at first thought of continuing the quarrel outside. However, on second thoughts, the aggrieved parties realized that they risked harassment and arrest by the police on the pavement and were forced to calm down.

Like all exile communities, the French and Italian anarchists in London had their share of dissensions and bitter feuds as described by Cohen. They had the further misfortune of having a sizeable number of illegalists and individualists among them, not least the dubious character Luigi Parmeggiani. This group was totally opposed to what they called the "associationists" (anarchist communists) and in particular to Malatesta's advocacy of effective organisation. Parmeggiani used proceeds from his expropriations 1 to line his own pockets, buying an antiques shop for himself. He built up the individualist group La Libera Iniziativa which was favourable to "Ravacholism". Meeting at the Autonomie Club, this group denounced Victor Richard and other "associationists". Worse, Parmeggiani accused Lapie of being an informer at the end of 1895 and his group put up a series of posters around the area publishing these accusations. As a result of these accusations, Lapie was eventually forced to leave London for Switzerland where he remained active as an anarchist. There were suspicions among the "associationists" that Parmegianni was himself a provocateur (never corroborated from Italian police records) and it was certainly the behaviour of him and his associates that decided Malatesta and others that any work was in the future impossible with the anti-organisationalists. Parmeggiani dropped anarchism completely at the end of the 1890s, though he remained involved in illegal activity, like faking expensive antiques and acting as an international receiver of stolen antiques.

The above-mentioned Ernest Delebecque lived at 28-30 Fitzroy Street with his wife and six children. Originally from Lille, he had had to flee France in the 1890s. He worked as a cabinet-maker and rented rooms to incoming French comrades. There was a regular weekly meeting on Sundays at his place, attended by Emile Pouget, Lapie, François Duprat, Clovis Sicard , as well as the Italians Malatesta and Santo Magrini.

The Delebecques were hounded by Melville and his gang on suspicion of having harboured Meunier. Zo D'Axa believed that this harassment led to the death of the five-month old daughter:

And for Delbecque and his female companion, there was a long series of persecutions of all sorts. The man was continually shadowed by police agents ... and risked losing every job. The woman, who nursed a five-month-old kid at the time, became the target of the most odious plots: as soon as they knew she was alone, the investigators would wrangle their way into her house, passing on false news about her husband, sowing anxiety, trying to extort some compromising confession out of her through intimidation, forcefully offering this deal: tranquillity at the price of informing. And since the woman maintained her silence in dignity or raised her voice to hurl her contempt in the face of her tormentors, they turned it into a brutal, ongoing obsession. The mother's health didn't hold up against the moral tortures and her milk could no longer nourish the baby girl-causing her to die in slow agony.

The foul Melville used the same tactics at another time with the English anarchist Charles Mowbray and his French wife Mary.

Give us this day our daily bread

Ending on a lighter note, we turn to the anarchist baker Pateau who supplied bread to the French exiles. He is fondly remembered by Cohen, as is his bread "fragrant, dark golden French bread that is nothing like the under-done, unsavoury, chalky, corpse-pale 'loaves'...that the English eat". He made deliveries both in Fitzrovia, Soho and the suburbs. Once making a Sunday delivery in suburban London he was confronted by a group of religious bigots who had just left the chapel "where they had refreshed their souls" and were waiting for the Spotted Dog pub to open "where they could quench their thirst with a gin and bitters or a pint of pale ale". They chastised him for working on a Sunday to which he responded by striking them about the head with one of his flutes with the hardest crust. Later he quipped "to distribute pains there is nothing like le pain français!"

Sources

Zo D'Axa on the Delebecues:
https://sites.google.com/site/historicalanarchisttexts/zo-d-axa/from-mazas-to-jerusalem/english-holiday
Cohen, A. Van anarchist tot monarchist:
http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/cohe002vana01_01/
Malato, C. De La Commune A L'Anarchie:
http://archive.org/details/DeLaCommuneLanarchie
Entries on Lapie and Delebecue at:
http://militants-anarchistes.info/spip.php?article7962
and
http://militants-anarchistes.info/spip.php?article7768
Debra Kelly,D, Cornick, M (eds): A History of the French in London: Liberty, Equality, Opportunity (2013)
Dipaola, P. Italian Anarchists in London (1870-1914)

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"A small anarchist republic": French anarchists in Fitzrovia

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Nick Heath's riproaring short journey through the escapades and intrigues of the French anarchist exile community in London's Fitzrovia in the late 1800's.

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I'll want to see these again someday

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Stories of AI - The Internet Health Report 2022

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This year, the Internet Health Report dives into just one critical topic for the internet: artificial intelligence. And it's a podcast!

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Updated

Later today in Nevada, Hillary Clinton is scheduled to deliver a speech on the subject of "Donald Trump and his advisors' embrace of the disturbing 'alt-right' political philosophy" that she characterizes as "embracing extremism and presenting a divisive and dystopian view of America which should concern all Americans, regardless of party."

That's a striking level of prominence for a movement that until recently was extremely obscure. A movement lurking in Reddit and 4chan threads and in community blogs and forums, a movement of right-wingers who openly argue that democracy is a joke. That it's weak, it's corrupt, and it caters to the whims of a fickle electorate rather than the needs of the citizenry. That Congress and the president must be replaced with a CEO-like figure to run the country as it truly should be, without the confused input of the masses.

For some in the movement, Donald Trump really is that figure. For the hardcore, even the most authoritarian-styled presidential candidate in decades isn't good enough.

Welcome to the alt-right.

The label blends together straight-up white supremacists, nationalists who think conservatives have sold out to globalization, and nativists who fear immigration will spur civil disarray. But at its core are the ideas of a movement known as neoreaction, and neoreaction (NRx for short) is a rejection of democracy.

Is Trump likely to cancel the constitution, declare martial law, declare himself emperor to be succeeded by his children, nationalize the banks and media, hang some of the worst criminal bankers, send the Israelis back to Israel, call the National Guard to roll tanks into Harvard Yard, place all communists and other anti-American elements under house arrest, retire all government employees, replace the USG with the Trump Organization, and begin actually rebuilding America and western civilization?

Short of that, he is simply another phenomenon within the arcane workings of the system, as worthy of support as the ebb and flow of the tides. Surely, the unprecedented nature of his campaign warrants excited interest as a historical case-study and promising fore-shock of a true restoration, but he is not the king, and we have a ways to go yet.

The alt-right is often dismissed as white supremacist Trump supporters with Twitter accounts, and they are certainly that. But spend some time talking to key players and reading the movement's central texts, as I did, and you'll find it's more than a simple rebranding of the white nationalist movement. It's the product of the intersection of a longstanding, long-marginalized part of the conservative movement with both the most high-minded and the basest elements of internet culture. It's a mutated revival of a monster William F. Buckley thought he killed in the early 1990s, given new energy by the web.

And it's making its impact felt in a big way this election. In the past, when mainstream conservatives have gone up against racialist, conspiratorial elements on the right, they have emerged the victors. Buckley successively marginalized the John Birch Society in the 1950s, and then Pat Buchanan and his followers in the 1990s. People like Continetti and Young are trying to do the same thing to the alt-right. But with huge amounts of online energy behind the movement, and Trump this year's GOP nominee, it's not clear that the mainstream will win.

Let's start with the most theoretically minded, and probably most interesting, branch of the alt-right: the neoreactionaries.

And the core contention of Moldbug and the other NRx thinkers is one that's been common in technolibertarian circles for a long time: Democracy is a failure.

The purpose of government, in the view of neoreactionaries, isn't to represent the will of the people. It's to govern well, full stop. "From the perspective of its subjects, what counts is not who runs the government but what the government does," Moldbug explains. "Good government is effective, lawful government. Bad government is ineffective, lawless government. How anyone reasonable could disagree with these statements is quite beyond me. And yet clearly almost everyone does."

And democratic government, the neoreactionaries insist, is not effective, lawful government. Because the will of the people is arbitrary and varying, it cannot have the consistency of real, durable law, and it creates incentives for wasteful and, worse still, left-wing government. Moldbug started as an Austrian-school libertarian, and most neoreactionaries have general small-government sympathies and express a fear that democracy inevitably leads to ever greater taxation and redistribution, and otherwise encroaches on individual liberty.

"Democracy and 'progressive democracy' are synonymous, and indistinguishable from the expansion of the state," Nick Land, the next most influential neoreactionary thinker after Moldbug, writes. "Since winning elections is overwhelmingly a matter of vote buying, and society's informational organs (education and media) are no more resistant to bribery than the electorate, a thrifty politician is simply an incompetent politician, and the democratic variant of Darwinism quickly eliminates such misfits from the gene pool." The result is a government that grows larger and larger.

Moldbug is even blunter: "Cthulhu may swim slowly. But he only swims left."

This is a strain of thinking that more mainstream libertarians have expressed in greater and greater numbers of late. In 2007, George Mason economist Bryan Caplan argued in The Myth of the Rational Voter that democracy will inevitably lead to suboptimal economic policy because the general public is systematically biased against markets, increased productivity, and trade with foreigners. Peter Thiel, the libertarian billionaire who co-founded PayPal and Palantir and was the first outsider to invest in Facebook, declared in 2009, "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible."

When asked who should lead it, Moldbug's tech roots come through. "It's easy to say 'put Elon [Musk] in charge, he'll figure it out,' and he might well," he tells me via email.

Libertarians also tend to be big fans of modernity, and despite its affinities to the tech world, neoreaction really, really is not. Neoreactionaries believe that for a long time - maybe since the French Revolution - things have been going to shit. Moldbug likes to trot out anecdotes about crime in the Victorian era to make his point. Here's a description of 1876 London he cites:

There are, of course, in most great cities, some quarters of evil repute in which assault and robbery are now and again committed. ... But any man of average stature and strength may wander about on foot and alone, at any hour of the day or the night, through the greatest of all cities and its suburbs, along the high roads, and through unfrequented country lanes, and never have so much as the thought of danger thrust upon him, unless he goes out of his way to court it.

The point is clear: Do you feel that safe in 21st-century America? If not, could it be the case that we're regressing as time wears on, and not progressing?

"The present system has every incentive to portray itself as superior to all past systems," the neoreactionary Michael Anissimov writes. "Reactionaries point out this is not the case, and actually see present society in a state of severe decline, pointing to historically high levels of crime, suicide, government and household debt, increasing time preference, and low levels of civic participation and self-reported happiness as a few examples of a current cultural and historical crisis. The demographic crisis in First World countries is cited as another example of decline."

This countering of the narrative of constant progress also makes it easier for the neoreactionaries to defend actually existing monarchy in the past. Most people living today think of contemporary democratic regimes as clearly better than, say, England as ruled by Elizabeth I. Moldbug believes no such thing:

Hitler and Stalin are abortions of the democratic era - cases of what Jacob Talmon called totalitarian democracy. This is easily seen in their unprecedented efforts to control public opinion, through both propaganda and violence. Elizabeth's legitimacy was a function of her identity - it could be removed only by killing her. Her regime was certainly not the stablest government in history, and nor was it entirely free from propaganda, but she had no need to terrorize her subjects into supporting her.

Neoreaction, race, and the Cathedral

The other distinguishing conflict between the neoreactionaries and the libertarians is that neoreaction places huge value on group membership and group loyalty. Most modern libertarians are individualists, motivated by a desire to prevent the masses from oppressing the individual through the mechanism of democratic government.

Neoreactionaries are not individualists. They think in terms of social structure and order, and view social classes or races as the units determining the future of society, much as Marxists speak not of individual workers and capitalists but of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie as a whole. They are tribalists, and for the most part - let's not mince words - they are racists.

Just as importantly, he and other neoreactionaries insist that contrary perspectives - support for racist governments, opposition to black liberation movements, etc. - are being viciously suppressed by liberal elites in the US: "even just suggest it," Moldbug writes, "and you'll see what it means to have enemies."

Neoreactionaries are obsessed with taking down what Moldbug refers to as "the Cathedral": a complex of Ivy League universities, the New York Times and other elite media institutions, Hollywood, and more that function to craft and mold public opinion so as to silence opposing viewpoints.

Park MacDougald, in an excellent piece on Nick Land's brand of neoreaction, describes the Cathedral as a "media-academic mind-control apparatus." I actually think the best analogy is to the role the patriarchy plays in radical feminist epistemology, or the role of "ideology" in Marxism. Neo-reaction demands a total rethinking of the way the world works, and such attempts generally only succeed if they can attack the sources of knowledge in society and offer a theory for why they're systematically fallible.

That's how feminist scholars have (I think correctly) undermined pseudoscientific attempts to paint female servility as natural, or male aggression and violence as inevitable and ultimately acceptable. Yes, the argument goes, these ideas have had elite supporters in the past, but those elites were tainted by institutional sexism. Similarly, Marxists are always alert to how media produced by big corporations can be tilted to serve those corporations' class interests. The philosopher Paul Ricoeur once helpfully dubbed this kind of argument the "hermeneutics of suspicion."

Neoreaction takes this approach and flips it on its head. No, it's not institutional sexism or bourgeois class interest that's perverting our knowledge base. It's institutional progressivism, and fear of the revival of monarchism, tribalism, and prejudice.

That makes it a lot easier for neoreactionaries to defend their narrative of Western decline and democratic failure. If you look at the numbers, the Whig theory of history - with some faults and starts, everything's getting better - appears to be basically right. Extreme poverty is at historic lows, hunger and infant mortality are plummeting, life expectancy is going up, war is on the decline, education is more available, homicide rates are down, etc.

But what if those numbers are all lies produced by biased Cathedral sources in academia and propagated by Cathedral tools in the media like Vox? What then?

Before the neoreactionaries, there were the paleocons

The neoreactionaries are a distinctly '00s and '10s phenomenon, but they draw on the racialist and traditionalist arguments of a much older movement: paleoconservatism.

The term "paleoconservatism" is a retronym coined in the 1980s to characterize a brand of conservatism that was by then going extinct, a brand exemplified by Robert Taft, the Ohio senator and legendary isolationist who lost the 1952 Republican nomination to Dwight Eisenhower, and by Pat Buchanan in his 1992, 1996, and 2000 presidential runs.

Paleocons agree with mainstream conservatism on social issues - they tend to be stridently anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ rights, pro-school prayer, and disproportionately traditionalist Catholic - and on the evils of the welfare state, but part ways on international affairs, including immigration, trade, and warfare.

Paleocons are largely isolationist, warning America against foreign entanglements and dismissing neocon attempts at democracy promotion as hubristic and doomed to failure. They were overwhelmingly against the Iraq War, and tend to be heavily critical of Israel. They're also more fervently nationalist than mainstream Republicans. That translates into a very negative view of immigration, both due to its perceived economic harm to Americans and because of the "damage" it does to American culture, and into more support for tariffs and trade protection.

But since Buchanan, the movement hasn't had a loud national voice. After 9/11, paleocon isolationism became anathema among conservative intellectuals and politicians. Mainstream conservatives like George W. Bush and Marco Rubio embraced immigration reform that offered unauthorized immigrants citizenship. Free trade opposition within the GOP went extinct.

There are a number of reasons the paleocons lost ground, but a big one was that the movement had a huge racism problem. In particular, skepticism of foreign entanglements and of the alliance with Israel specifically would occasionally bleed into overt anti-Semitism.

The saga of Joseph Sobran is a case in point. A longtime columnist at National Review, he was fired by William F. Buckley in 1993 following years of open clashes about his attitude toward Israel and Jewish people in general. In 1991, Buckley had dedicated an entire issue of the magazine to a 40,000-word essay he wrote, "In Search of Anti-Semitism," in which he condemned Buchanan (then challenging President George H.W. Bush in the GOP primaries) and his employee Sobran for anti-Jewish prejudice. Buckley had a point. Sobran really was a world-class anti-Semite, writing in one National Review column , "If Christians were sometimes hostile to Jews, that worked two ways. Some rabbinical authorities held that it was permissible to cheat and even kill Gentiles."

After that, Derbyshire started writing at VDARE, an anti-immigration white nationalist site named after Virginia Dare, the first white Christian born in British North America. The article that got him fired wasn't actually posted at National Review but at Taki's Magazine, an outlet run by millionaire paleocon Taki Theodoracopulos that was formerly edited by outspoken white supremacist Richard B. Spencer and has run articles by Theodoracopulos in support of the Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn.

Meanwhile, Pat Buchanan, the paleocons' great political hope, has more or less always been this openly bigoted. In 1990 he infamously insisted that 850,000 Jews couldn't have died at Treblinka from diesel fumes. In 2007 he declared, "If you want to know ethnicity and power in the United States Senate, 13 members of the Senate are Jewish folks who are from 2 percent of the population. That is where real power is at." In 2008, he wrote an entire book arguing that the Second World War was basically Britain's fault and Hitler was largely blameless. So it's no surprise that he, too, has been increasingly marginalized, losing his MSNBC position in 2012.

The neoreactionaries are not simply heirs to the paleoconservatives. The paleocons are ultimately more religious, and more loyal to the US Constitution and basic small-r republican ideals. But the neoreactionaries share with the paleocons a belief in tribalism and racial difference, and a deep sense that the mainstream is trying to crush them. Joseph Sobran didn't use the term "Cathedral," but he'd surely think it to blame for his marginalization.

And then there are the channers

The leading actual neoreactionaries are not fans of Donald Trump. "Trump appears to have no ideology at all and very little historical/intellectual awareness of his context," Moldbug - who now just goes by his birth name, Curtis Yarvin - writes in an email.

"I would love to see a CEO with a real track record of strategic execution in a large enterprise - an Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos - running against Trump. I don't even think the ideology matters that much; once someone competent got in that office, and felt a real sense of both authority and responsibility, ideology would start to matter a lot less."

Instead, the alt-right's affiliation with Trump comes from another group that blended paleocon-ish ideas with internet culture. I speak, of course, of 4chan.

4chan is mostly still a forum for trolling and random nonsense. It was started to discuss anime, and insofar as it's been political it's been in a not strictly left-right way, and usually through the avenue of Anonymous, the activist group that split off from 4chan to do direct action. Protesting Scientology and leaking information on the Steubenville rapists are definitely political acts, but they're not identifiably left-wing or right-wing.

But in recent years, a vocal right-wing contingent has popped up. As New York magazine's Brian Feldman explains, part of this is an artifact of 4chan gaining popularity and its popular catchall board - /b/ - losing ground to alternatives, notably /pol/, or the "Politically Incorrect" chat board. "To the extent that there is a shared political ideology across /pol/, it's a heavily ironic mix of garden-variety white supremacy and neo-reactionary movements," Feldman writes.

"Most days," the Daily Beast's Jacob Siegel writes, "/pol/ resembles nothing so much as [white supremacist blog] The Daily Stormer with the signal to noise dial turned only slightly." The Southern Poverty Law Center has taken notice, with fellow Keegan Hankes telling Siegel, "You can't understate 4chan's role. I constantly see 4chan being mentioned by the more Internet- and tech-savvy guys in the white nationalist movement. They're getting their content from 4chan."

Hankes has noticed this trend on Reddit as well, noting in a Gawker essay that "Reddit increasingly is providing a home for anti-black racists - and some of the most virulent and violent propaganda around."

This has channeled into the Trump movement. Milo Yiannopoulos, the Breitbart writer and major Trump defender who's perhaps the most vocal exponent of alt-rightism online, famously employs an army of interns, a lot of whom he says are "young 4chan guys." In their own alt-right explainer, Yiannopoulos and co-author Allum Bokhari argue that /pol/'s alt-righters have embraced racism purely for shock value:

Just as the kids of the 60s shocked their parents with promiscuity, long hair and rock'n'roll, so too do the alt-right's young meme brigades shock older generations with outrageous caricatures, from the Jewish "Shlomo Shekelburg" to "Remove Kebab," an internet in-joke about the Bosnian genocide. Are they actually bigots? No more than death metal devotees in the 80s were actually Satanists. For them, it's simply a means to fluster their grandparents ... Young people perhaps aren't primarily attracted to the alt-right because they're instinctively drawn to its ideology: they're drawn to it because it seems fresh, daring and funny, while the doctrines of their parents and grandparents seem unexciting, overly-controlling and overly-serious.

For good measure, they quote Moldbug/Yarvin: "If you spend 75 years building a pseudo-religion around anything - an ethnic group, a plaster saint, sexual chastity or the Flying Spaghetti Monster - don't be surprised when clever 19-year-olds discover that insulting it is now the funniest fucking thing in the world. Because it is."

This branch of the alt-right has also played an important role in the Gamergate movement, an ongoing effort to harass women in the video game industry until they shut up about equality and representation. Yiannopoulos, who before the controversy called gamers "pungent beta male bollock-scratchers and twelve-year-olds," jumped on it as a cause with reactionary potential. "GamerGate is remarkable - and attracts the interest of people like me - because it represents perhaps the first time in the last decade or more that a significant incursion has been made in the culture wars against guilt-mongerers, nannies, authoritarians and far-Left agitators," he wrote in late 2014.

The affinity between gamers and right politics makes sense. "It's not hard to see why this ideology would catch-on with white male geeks," Klint Finley writes in his excellent explainer on neoreaction. "It tells them that they are the natural rulers of the world, but that they are simultaneously being oppressed by a secret religious order. And the more media attention is paid to workplace inequality, gentrification and the wealth gap, the more their bias is confirmed."

"While GamerGate started off as a very diverse, vocal opponent to what they saw was unethical journalism (before it was debunked), many of the anonymous /pol/ rightists would take advantage of its anti-left character by creating sock-puppets," an anonymous 4channer and ex-Gamergater wrote last year. "Today it is hard to find a 4chan user that doesn't have an attachment to far right politics."

And this enthusiasm for far-right politics has bled into Trumpism. JaredTSwift, an alt-righter who got his start on 4chan, gushed to Motherboard's Oliver Lee, "Trump was meme-able and entertaining, and something like a ban on Muslim immigration would never have been considered before him."

r/The_Donald - the alt-right dominated home of Trump supporters on Reddit - racked up 52 million pageviews in March, way more than the 35 million at r/SandersForPresident. The driving force behind the subreddit is CisWhiteMaelstrom, a user whose very name includes the kind of purposefully offensive trolling that defines the Channer alt-right. "Clicking through r/The_Donald is like walking into a rowdy clubhouse for (mostly) men who feel under siege from 'political correctness,'" MSNBC's Benjy Sarlin reports. Scrolling through the Reddit page, one sees reference after reference to "cuckservatives," an alt-right term of art which analogizes mainstream conservatives to cuckolded husbands.

Does the alt-right matter for Donald Trump?

While the alt-right constitutes a big share of Trump's online support - if you've ever criticized Trump on Twitter, you've probably dealt with alt-rightists - the internet is not the real world. They're not a necessary part of Trump's electoral coalition. They're not organized enough to make policy demands of a policy administration, and too disillusioned by mainstream politics to make such demands in any case.

Insofar as the alt-right's role in the Trump movement matters, it matters because it suggests a route for Trumpism to survive past Trump. If the polls are right, Trump is set to go down in fiery defeat in November, crushed by Hillary Clinton.

But win or lose, Trump has shown that overt contempt for racial equality, naked tribalistic appeals to white racial solidarity, and vaguely authoritarian rhetoric can add up to a very successful campaign, at least within the Republican Party. That gives the alt-right new relevance, and helps convince its members that America might be ready for their ideas.

It also opens the door for a more sophisticated future candidate, one reared on alt-right arguments rather than stumbling into them the way Trump has. Such a candidate could effectively whip up an alt-right base of support, but potentially use it more intelligently and effectively than Trump. If this sounds fantastical, it's worth remembering that open white supremacists like Strom Thurmond and James Eastland were serving in the US Senate 40, 30, even 20 years ago. Our current period without avowed white nationalists in power, backed by an organized constituency of the same, is the exception, not the norm.

"Trump is a flashlight. Trump shines a light on forgotten truths," the neoreactionary Ryan Landry writes. "Trump shines a light on the fact that we truly have reached a point where a candidate who implicitly advocates for whites is considered dangerous and a cause for protest. ... Those on the edge have known this anti-white mania is out there, but the protest-riot made it real for millions more."

That's exactly it. Neoreaction is on the edge, as is the alt-right as a whole, but Trump is not. Trump is decidedly mainstream. He's scaring mainstream conservative outlets like National Review and Commentary. And like Gamergate before him, he suggests that the ideas of neoreaction and alt-rightism could break through, and that candidates supported by alt-right elements have a bright future ahead of them.

Donald Trump's rise is a scary moment in American history

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The alt-right is more than warmed-over white supremacy. It's that, but way way weirder.

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Vox is a general interest news site for the 21st century. Its mission: to help everyone understand our complicated world, so that we can all help shape it. In text, video and audio, our reporters explain politics, policy, world affairs, technology, culture, science, the climate crisis, money, health and everything else that matters.

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Bristol's solution to the bridge problem is walkable 

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Bristol's solution to the bridge problem is walkable 

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Bristol Bridges Walk - Bristol Civic Society

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Bristol has 45 bridges that span the main waterways of the city which can be crossed on foot. Is it possible to walk across all of them without crossing the same bridge twice? This is the question posed by the 300-year-old ‘Konigsberg Bridge’ problem in mathematics.

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Sharply observed activism of the moment 

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Sharply observed activism of the moment 

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Closing Ranks: Notes on a Community Meeting

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the coordinated dissipation of antifascist energy

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Please tell me what you know

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The Crisis of Narration by Byung-Chul Han review – how big tech altered the narrative

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From Instagram to health apps, the modern world no longer allows for rich and complex storytelling argues the philosopher in an entertaining polemic that’s short on humility

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Demolish enough statues of men to achieve gender equality, then attend to equity. No need to replace all. Let weeds grow in the cracks.

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London is a diverse city, with a diverse art scene. However it doesn't fair well in the gender equality of statues! Although there is no clear list of statues in London, it is estimated that around the 265 depict historical figures, of which 17 are of women. The percentage of women's statues in the UK that aren't mythical or royal is approximately 3%, with more statues of statues named John dotted around the country than of women! This puts London, at 6%, double the national average. Some examples of statues of women in London include Virginia Woolfe, Sarah Siddons, Noor Inyat Khan, Mary Seacole and most recently, Millicent Fawcett.

CURRENTLY IN THE UK THERE ARE 828 STATUES AND 21% ARE WOMEN

Current Statues of Women in London
Violette Szabo

In 2009, the Duke of Wellington unveiled a new memorial to those who served in the Special Operations Executive during World War II. The bust of Violette Szabo was created by Karen Newman to celebrate a moving story that commemorates the heroism of the men and women who served as secret agents and risked their lives. Violette Szabo (1921-1945), was captured by the German army, interrogated, tortured and deported to a German concentration camp where she was executed. This sculpture is located on Albert Embankment, London and is a memorial of Szabo who sacrificed her life in the field in order to fight fascism.

Edith Cavell

Edith Cavell (1865-1915) was a British nurse based with the Red Cross in occupied Belgium. She treated both armies, but helped hundreds of Allied soldiers escape to the Netherlands. She was arrested in 1915 on the charge of harbouring prisoners of war where she confessed in full to her crimes and executed by a firing squad. Her death quickly became the subject of Allied propaganda worldwide, becoming the most prominent female casualty of the Great War. The 3 meter high sculpture was designed by architect Sir George Frampton and was unveiled by Queen Alexandra on 17 March 1920 in St Martin's Place, London. Architect Frampton was criticised for its 'modernity' of style as the female figure completes a cross form; she is not a Madonna and Christ child, but rather a mother protecting a female child. Frampton was known for a symbolist style, often executing figures in a dream-like state; making him a central judge in the selection of official war artists and memorials.

Catherine Booth

Leaders of The Salvation Army from across the world met in Champion Park, London on 8 July 1929 to honour and unveil a statue of the Army Mother, Catherine Booth. The wife of William Booth - with whom she co-founded the Salvation Army - she was an early Christian feminist and became a powerful speaker in her own right, smashing the convention that women were not allowed to speak at meetings. British sculptor, George Edward Wade (1853-1933) was a largely self-taught artist best remembered for his statues of royalty and politicians. The statue, a depiction of Catherine in bonnet, hand extended and clutching a Bible to her chest; is a reflection of putting her whole heart into her preaching, her arm not raised but extended as if in plea for the souls of the listeners. 150 years on, Catherine Booth is honoured today for advocating for women's equal rights to preach.

Sarah Siddons

Sarah Siddons (1755-1831) was a Welsh-born English actress and the most famous tragedienne of the 18th century. She was an acting sensation, dominating the London theatre scene. Her statue, by French sculptor Léon-Joseph Chavalliaud, was unveiled in 1897 on Paddington Green and is based on a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds as 'The Tragic Muse'. The sculptor wanted to portray her expressive and brilliant acting talent, that left audiences swooning out of the theatre.

Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. The statue was designed by Sir Arthur George Walker and unveiled in 1915 in Waterloo Place, London. It is a bronze standing portrait of Nightingale, holding a lamp in her right hand. She stands on a granite pedestal which has bronze plaques showing scenes of her at work - interviewing officers, attending a meeting of nurses and arranging transport for the wounded. The sculptor reflects the decisive contribution Nightingale made at the time and subsequently in civilian life.

Joan Littlewood

The bronze statue, called 'The Mother of Modern Theatre' is based on an iconic photograph of Joan Littlewood in the 1970s, when the Theatre Royal Stratford East was threatened with demolition, sitting on rubble in almost exactly this location. Joan Littlewood (1914-2002) was an English theatre director, who demolished the barriers between 'popular' and 'art' theatre. The sculpture was created by Philip Jackson, an award-winning Scottish sculptor, noted for his modern style and emphasis on form. It was unveiled in 2015 outside Theatre Royal, the year in which she would have turned 101. Jackson wanted the sculpture to be a permanent reminder of her great contribution not just to British theatre, but to world theatre.

Margaret Ethel MacDonald

This is a warm-hearted tribute to Margaret Ethel MacDonald (1870-1911) who was a British feminist, social reformer, and wife of Labour politician Ramsay MacDonald from 1896 until her death from blood poisoning in 1911. The bronze statue was unveiled on 19 December 1914, sculpted by Richard Reginald Goulden to Ramsay's design. It depicts MacDonald herself in kneeling posture, extending her arms lovingly around a row of playful little children. Sculptor Goulden wanted to honour her naivety, simplicity and unselfishness over a granite alcove seat in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where the memorial resides.

Noor Inayat Khan

Noor Inayat Khan (1914-1944) was not what one would expect of a British spy. She was a princess, having been born into royalty in India; a Muslim, whose father was a Sufi preacher; a writer and a musician. But she was exactly what Britain's military intelligence needed in 1943, becoming the first woman radio operator to be sent to occupied Paris. The sculpture was created by a British-born sculptor Karen Newman, and has been described as a tribute to a young Muslim woman who fought against racism and oppression. On 8 November 2012, The Princess Royal unveiled the memorial at a moving ceremony attended by over 450 people.

Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was an English writer and considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors. A bronze sculpture of the bust of Virginia sculpted by Stephen Tomlin was erected in 2004 in Tavistock Square, London. Virginia became one of the central subjects of the 1970s movement of feminist criticism and her works have since gathered much attention and widespread commentary for inspiring feminism.

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London is a diverse city, with a diverse art scene. However it doesn't fair well in the gender equality of statues! Although there is no clear list of statues in London, it is estimated that around the 265 depict historical figures, of which 17 are of women.

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Just what we need in these overheated times?

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DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.3.2.04

Keywords:
Cooling out, Eco-tourism, Goffman, Science studies, Social construction of experience, Tour guides, Tourism, Narrative, Whale watching, Naturalists

Abstract

This article focuses on the social world of the commercial whale watch cruise. It draws on several years of participant observation research with marine field scientists, particularly field scientists who serve as naturalists on commercial whale watch cruises. Using Erving Goffman's work, the essay details how the naturalist's narration is an example of "cooling the mark out" that Goffman conceptually outlined and others have explored. In the social world of the commercial whale watch, the naturalist is the "operator and the tourist the mark". It is argued that the naturalist's narration is the principal means for cooling the tourists' out. This is done within a context of the operator anticipating a set of spoiled expectations the tourist is likely to experience. While this essay extends the work of Goffman and others who have explored different settings of the cooling out process, it substantially differs from them. Past studies have focused on the cooling out process primarily within a context of individual face-to-face interaction. This essay looks at the commercial whale watch as a social setting of cooling out the mark not on a face-to-face basis but as a process of a "group of individuals who are being "cooled". Most importantly, this is viewed as occurring not after they have been conned or duped but in anticipation of their likely experiencing a set of spoiled expectations.

Author Biography

Frank Nutch, Trent University, Canada

Frank Nutch (PhD) teaches sociology of science and the sociology of everyday life at Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. He received his MA from the University of Hawaii - Manoa and his PhD from York University, Toronto, Ontario. His main research focus in the sociology of science and scientific knowledge has been in investigating the use, history, and development of the scientific field research technique of photographic identification of cetecea (whales, dolphins, and porpoises). He is currently writing a book based on his two decades of participant observation research with marine field scientists, tentatively titled: Scientists at Work: Reflections on doing fieldwork with marine scientists.

References

Goffman, Erving (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.
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Goffman, Erving (1961) Asylums. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.
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Goffman, Erving (1963) Stigma. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
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Goffman, Erving (1966) Behavior in Public Places. New York: The Free Press.
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Lynch, Michael (1997) Scientific practice and ordinary action: Ethnomethodology and social studies of science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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MacCannell, Dean (1976) The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Schocken Books.
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McKegney, Doug (1980) "Situation, communication, and use: The roots of scientific knowledge." M.A. thesis, Department of Communication, Simon Fraser University, Canada.
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Urry, John (1990) The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies. London: Sage Publications.
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On Cooling the Tourist Out Notes on the Management of Spoiled Expectations

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https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.3.2.04 Cooling out, Eco-tourism, Goffman, Science studies, Social construction of experience, Tour guides, Tourism, Narrative, Whale watching, Naturalists This article focuses on the social world of the commercial whale watch cruise. It draws on several years of participant observation research with marine field scientists, particularly field scientists who serve as naturalists on commercial whale watch cruises.

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Today I am learning about James Baldwin 

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Today I am learning about James Baldwin 

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Warming up my brain for a discussion in a Peckham car park later.

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Your browser does not support the audio element.

This week David discusses James Baldwin's 'Notes of a Native Son' (1955), an essay that combines autobiography with a searing indictment of America's racial politics. At its heart it tells the story of Baldwin's relationship with his father, but it is also about fear, cruelty, violence and the terrible compromises of a country at war. What happens when North and South collide?

Further reading in the LRB

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This week David discusses James Baldwin's 'Notes of a Native Son' (1955), an essay that combines autobiography...

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Weird and wonderful artistry

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Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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Well done chum :)

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Y'all know I'm a sucker for London

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We Built a Giant LEGO TUBE MAP With Working Trains!

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The Kamala Question with Tressie McMillan Cottom

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You don't have to be right. I appreciate your working/thinking out loud and reflective practices.

I just wrote this elsewhere, I don't usually mix my vocabularies. Another moment of self / integrity / consistency best measured over decades.

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This is not my experience of multi-sensory #aphantasia 

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This is not my experience of multi-sensory #aphantasia 

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Deep aphantasia: What it's like to have no visual imagination or inner voice

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Deep aphantasia is a condition where individuals cannot imagine sensory experiences or hear an inner voice, affecting both imagined and actual visual inputs.

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Deep cut for TWIPPIES

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The carriages could be converted into glamping pods or cafes

Up to 20 former Glasgow subway carriages have been put up for sale, with £5,000 price tags.

The city's old-style trains were gradually taken out of service this year and replaced with new modern cars.

It is hoped the carriages could be bought and reused in a variety of ways including as glamping pods, community hubs, cafes or even art galleries.

Contractors Stadler Rail said the £5,000 sale price would cover the cost of scrappage. They have agreed to waive the fee for charities. Any un-sold carriages will be scrapped at the end of August.

Ben Denton-Cardew, a rail industry lawyer is behind the search for buyers. He told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland programme there are "many, many" potential uses for the carriages.

He said: "I think they are really part of the fabric of Glasgow, they've been more than a train. They've been a cultural icon to this city."

Mr Denton-Cardew says he already has 10 buyers interested in purchasing a carriage.

The train enthusiast warned any interested parties that there would be a substantial cost to move the carriages, but there is loads of potential.

"We've talked about glamping pods before, we've talked about reuse as cafes, as community hubs or even art studios as former train carriages have been in London before," he said.

"They're very easy to repurpose, the interiors can just be stripped out. And, if they are used as buildings, because they are on wheels often they don't require planning permission. It could be quite an easy job to reuse them.

"We'd really, really like it if anyone in the Glasgow region would like to save one and keep it local. That would really be brilliant."

The old-style trains were introduced to passenger service on 16 April 1980 as part of the system's second modernisation project, which started in May 1977.

This project closed the subway for three years.

It introduced 33 Metro-Cammell trains to the system, with eight additional carriages built in 1992 to make all trains three carriages long.

Of the 33 carriages, about 13 have already been disposed of with the rest due to be moved to a scrap yard at the end of August.

One of the legacy carriages has been moved to Glasgow's Riverside Museum as part of its transport exhibits.

At Hamilton Central station, a former train carriage has been transformed into an interactive art installation, while across the UK there are multiple holiday rentals made out of old train carriages.

The 44-year-old legacy subway trains were introduced in 1980

A spokesperson for Stadler, the rail stock manufacturers currently in procession of the old stock, said the fleet was being "disposed of responsibility" but they are open to selling the carriages.

A spokesperson for Stadler said: "We are delighted that the Riverside Museum has secured one of the old trains, which is now on display for the citizens of Glasgow and beyond to view and enjoy. We have received a few other inquiries, and these are currently under review.

"For businesses and profit-making entities, Stadler has set a fee of £5,000 to cover the cost of scrappage. However, we have waived this fee for charities and not-for-profit organisations.

"This, we hope, may mean that one or two further carriages are available for the general public to see, promoting the city's rich history and culture.

"Costs associated with transport and logistics will remain the responsibility of interested parties, including charities and not-for-profit organisations."

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Fancy buying an old Glasgow subway carriage? Yours for £5,000

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It is hoped the carriages could be reused as glamping pods, community hubs or even art galleries.

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Meet Mellody Hobson, marvelously disagreeable giver 

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Meet Mellody Hobson, marvelously disagreeable giver 

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And thanks again to one of my favourite public intellectuals, critical thinkers and academics. (Adam)

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Podcasts ›

Mellody has a long list of trailblazing achievements. In March, she became the first Black woman to be chairperson of an S&P 500 company-you may have heard of it? Starbucks. She'll soon become the first Black woman to have a building named after her at Princeton. She's been on many lists, including Time's 100 most influential people. But through it all, she's only worked in one place, Ariel Investments, the first Black-owned mutual fund in the U.S.-- where she is now the president and co-CEO.

Mellody Hobson:
30 years at one company since 1991, I've only worked at one company. The average American has 11 jobs in their lifetime, but it makes complete and total sense, if you grew up as me, that you would cling to permanency and security. I'm the youngest of six kids. My mother was a single mom, she worked really, really hard, but we often were in tough situations of getting evicted or getting our lights turned off, or our phone disconnected, our car repossessed. Sometimes I didn't know where we're going to live. It was just a terrible way to live. And as a result of that, I just had this great sense of financial insecurity. I ended up having an obsession with school which was the center of calm and security for me in a world that was not calm and not secure. I could control outcomes at school. So I became this, crazy student, and then I went to Princeton and in all of those settings, I was just an observer. I saw the life that I wanted, I romanticized the friends that I had in the lives that they had and the two parent households and all of these things. And it did give me this aspiration for financial security. At some point I felt like I had won the birth lottery in every way.

Adam:
Anybody who knows anything about your childhood would suggest that that is not the first narrative that comes to mind.

Mellody:
The reason that I say I won the birth lottery is not because I didn't work extraordinarily hard and still do, and not because I didn't pay my dues and consult with really smart people to help me in tough moments but let's just start with DNA. I got a brain from those two people that put me in good stead in school. That's, that's a fluke. You don't know what you're going to get. When I meet really smart kids, I'm like, thank your parents for that DNA. That's the first thing that put you in a good place. So then they had the DNA. A lot of people don't necessarily use it to their advantage I was fortunate I made the right decisions at the right time. That I chose Ariel. And I didn't go. I'm not saying I wouldn't have everything wouldn't have worked out, but I'm just saying that I took these non-traditional paths. And at the end of the day, you know, all my friends were going to big wall street firms. And I went to this little firm in Chicago because I could sit next to and work with this guy that I thought was really smart and that understood me and that would foster, um, talent, my talent and allow me to grow. So that's why I say I won the birth lottery.

That I was born in America. I mean, that's a real thing. You know, Warren buffet talks about that. If you could be born anywhere in the world to be born in America, even with all of our. All of the things that are wrong in America, which is a lot, it still has a, I think, a leg up on a lot of other places in terms of creating the opportunity for success.

Adam:
I'm Adam Grant, and this is Taken for Granted, my podcast with the TED Audio Collective. I'm an organizational psychologist. My job is to think again about how we work, lead, and live.

Adam:
You're one of my role models when it comes to feedback and you have had incredible experiences of receiving difficult feedback and then learning to benefit from it. And I wonder if you could share, how you've learned to take tough feedback well?

Mellody:
We have this really great coach at Ariel. And one of the things that he told me was that feedback was not a right. You're not entitled to it. So whenever you get it, it's a gift and you had to treat it that way. And that was something I really took to heart. And he also told me that you should be willing to receive feedback from. Anyone, and it shouldn't be dependent upon if you like the person or don't like them respect them. Don't respect them. They may have a point that really makes a lot of sense and something for you to think about. Thirdly, if someone calls you a horse's ass the first time you might say, okay, the second time you might say, I'm going to think about it. The third time they call you a horse's ass. Buy a saddle.

If you start to get feedback that is repetitive, see what it is that people are seeing in you that you need to work on. So with all of that in mind, one of my mentors is bill Bradley, the former us Senator and hall of fame, basketball player. One day he sat with me and he said, you know, melody, if you're not careful, you could be a ball hog.
You could really step over a lot of people and it has the potential do not be good. And I remember sitting there and telling myself don't cry. I was certainly second guessing myself and thinking, why is he saying this to me? It didn't feel very good, but I also thought to myself at the time, if I cry, he won't ever give me feedback again.

Because who wants to sit and have to put someone back together after they've given them feedback and then want to do it again. So I just remember sitting and really quieting myself emotionally so that I could receive what he said. And then I left thinking about ways to solve for some of the things that he had mentioned.

Adam:
Mellody. It's an amazing story. And it raises some questions for me. The first one is it doesn't seem like calling someone, a ball hog is a gift. Did that not bother you?

Mellody:
Sure. It bothered me, but this idea that I could hijack a conversation and he said it, with your enthusiasm and your charisma you could dominate. And in dominating, you can silence other people. So one of the ways that I actually went about it was, I try to engage with people by asking them questions about themselves. First, from the person who picks me up in the lobby for a meeting to wherever I am, it takes the attention off of me and people like to talk about themselves. I also ended up learning a ton of things about people. It's a tool that I use to not be a ball hog.

Adam:
There's so much that can, be learned from this, I think also though I would go to bill Bradley and say, there might be a more effective way to deliver that message. Maybe if you're a little bit less harsh, you're a little bit less judgmental. Uh, maybe it elicits less of that defensiveness. Maybe you're not as likely to cry. Agree or disagree?

Mellody:
I disagree because one, he wasn't being harsh. He loves me. And that's what I told myself in my mind. They're not trying to hurt me. I think he was pointing out something that he saw and I appreciated him for doing it. You received feedback in any way that someone gives it to you? It doesn't have to be packaged for you to receive it. So I disagree. If we live in a society where all feedback has to be couched in some kind of terms, you won't get people's authentic truth.

Adam:
What if he had been someone that you didn't know loved you, or if maybe even he didn't have an accurate picture of you, what would you have done then to validate whether the feedback was worth listening to?

Mellody:
I think that's something that we all have to work on. And that happened to me very recently. I was talking to someone very, very, very successful in the investment world. The person was giving me feedback on something that I was working on. They did it in a way that I did not react well to. And so I'm telling the story to another very senior leader and I'm griping about it.

And he said, okay, separate how the person said it. Is there anything in there? That's true. Let's look for grains of truth before you dismiss the whole conversation. That is when I had to really stop and say, okay, I see the grains of truth here, and I have to figure out how to solve for this objection that was made and divorced myself with how the objection was stated.

Adam:
Of the things I think is powerful about that is it makes it possible to learn from your critics, even if you don't agree with them. Right, you can listen to somebody as criticism and say it, It doesn't matter whether they're right or wrong. The question is what did I do that provoked that reaction? And then what can I do differently to avoid it next time?

Mellody:
Well also, let's be clear. I don't want to suggest that every person has given me feedback have given me life altering information. Sometimes people are wrong. The question is, Can you get the signal from the noise? Well if you can discover that kernel or that gem that will really help you.

Adam:
There's a relativelynew finding in feedback research, which shows that novices in a given area of skill or domain they'd benefit more from praise than criticism because they don't have a lot of confidence and it encourages them to keep trying and learning. Whereas experts are the opposite. They don't need to know what they're doing well, they need to find the gaps. And close them. And as I've read this research, I've started thinking maybe I'm being too harsh on people who are junior or new? And maybe I need to reassure them more before I challenged them. I don't think you're going to agree with that. And I'd love to hear your take

Mellody:
I'm just not a person for couching. It goes against my basic beliefs in being authentic. I don't want anyone dealing with me that way. Zero. I have no interest in that. I don't like those meetings where it's like, here are your, areas where you're doing really well and here are your areas of development we need to couch the language in a way that is, pleasing to people. This all feels extraordinarily, limiting in some ways, because it just means if you don't get the feedback and the way that you wanted it, you can't receive it.

Adam:
I am a hundred percent with you in that belief. And I have the same preference in all my relationships. I want people to just tell me the truth as they see it, not to try to sugar coat the feedback or to serve me some kind of feedback sandwich that never tastes as good as it sounds on the menu. It's a sign to me that you haven't built real trust or respect in the relationship.

Mellody:
Yeah. It would make me very suspect. But it also it's about your personality. I mean, you have to be who you are as you deliver feedback. I'm more direct, I was having this conversation once with Dick Parson, who is someone who's been a mentor as well, and I remember once I was asking him for feedback and I said, be brutally honest. He said, I'll be honest, but I don't need to be brutal. And I thought that was a really great comment. I learned I can be honest and not be brutal. And I hope that I work with people and surround myself with people who believe that, you know if you were giving someone's feedback, you only have their best interest at heart. It's easier not to say anything. And the only reason you say something, if there's something in it for you or in it for that person, and I'm okay with people having their own self-interest in a better outcome for someone else.

Adam:
I would echo that. And it's interesting to me that when you talk about giving honest feedback, without being brutal, that a lot of times people don't understand that it is just your perspective. How do you make that clear when you're giving feedback?

Adam:
Separating style from skill there, is obviously a key. I wonder what happens when, when you give this kind of critical feedback to more junior people and they don't take it with the same resilience that you did when you were in their shoes, how do you help them move through that?

Mellody:
So sometimes I have to actually have a conversation about "I'm giving you this feedback and you're crying. I have to add another 20 minutes to this conversation to put you back together when time is of the essence for me every day, which will discourage me from doing this again. So I want you to understand what the cause and effect can be in this situation."

I'm not saying people should be unemotional. I want to be really clear about that, but I do think that it can't be over something like "we didn't do this right," and you break into tears. It just doesn't work. We're professionals and that's not the way to run a railroad. At the same time, there are times when I want to walk you through why I feel this way. What I see, what I think, where you just don't go in with guns blazing because you know, they can't handle it.
No, at the end of the day, I have to tell you, I want to work with resilient people. That's very, very important to long-term success. Resilience is like a muscle that builds up. If that resilience is not starting to build up in that individual, I will have serious questions about them over the long-term, especially in a leadership role or in an inner circle kind of situation.

We have a new CFO joining Ariel in a couple of weeks. I said, "I just want to be super clear about what kind of partnership I need with you. I cannot ever walk on eggshells with you. I don't want to ever sit and think about how to say something to you. This role and partnership with me is so critical, I need you to be super resilient and I could come at you in the way I need to come at you at that time, in that moment and not thinking I have to call him back and make sure he's okay. That is the CFO that I want. If you can do that, we're going to be great partners. That's what I need." Now that isn't true of every role at Ariel, but in that role, that is what I was looking for.

Adam:
This is one of the things I admire most about you, Mellody is how clear you are with your expectations. I never have to wonder where I stand with you, because if you think something, you're going to say it, and that means I don't have to waste all this energy worrying I said the wrong thing, or in some way, it fell short of your standards. And I think sometimes I've struggled to get people to be that way with me. I think the most effective discussion I've had with people so far is just to sit down with them and say, look, if you ever hesitate to tell me something, because you're afraid it's going to hurt my feelings or hurt the relationship? Don't. The only way you can hurt me is not being honest with me. And I take your candor as a sign that you care enough about me to tell me the truth. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. What else do I need to do when it doesn't?

Adam:
Mellody's spouse is George Lucas-- you know, the Star Wars creator.

Adam:
Your point about commenting on your own imperfections is timely for me because I just finished a new paper with a doctoral student, Constantinos Coutifaris, where weshow that it's not enough for leaders to ask for criticism. If they want to open that door and make it safe for people to speak up, it actually is more effective for them to criticize themselves out loud because then they're proving that they can take it, not just claiming that they're open to it. And I wondered if you could highlight what that sounds like? Because for a lot of leaders, there's some hesitation of, "oh no, if I admit my insecurities, if I disclose my weaknesses, everybody's going to know I'm weak, and then I'm going to be seen as incompetent and my career is over." And you just seem completely unfazed by this.

Mellody:
So, first of all, in every job interview I do, I ask people a couple of questions. So one, I asked them, "What is your genius? What do you do better than anyone else?" People just, it, the word spew so fast, it doesn't take them even a minute to lock in on their genius. And then I say, "When you're truly honest with yourself, what don't you do well?" So one of the things people say, I'm not good at saying no. This is like the biggest BS answer that everyone gives because they don't want to acknowledge that they're bad at something. And they think it sounds great. So I said "now give me the number two," and I say, "the reason I want to know that is it's not about defining you for this role as being the right fit or not the right fit, but it's understanding what we need to work around. And it's better to know on the front end, what the shortcomings are, so we can plan for it." And so I always do that to try to show them the path to being intellectually honest about your weaknesses.

And, just so you know, why don't I give you a few for me? One of my great strengths, I am the person that if you have a problem, I should be your first call. I am the consummate problem solver of something really hard. I can think of five or six things, people, et cetera, get them on the phone. But on the flip side, if you are a person who constantly has problems and need to be held, I am not going to be a good leader for you. I'm going to disappoint you. Because after a while, I will see the constant need for support and needing to be held up as weakness and I will start to become very weary. If that is something you need, I won't be a good leader. And so I try to tell people that weakness right out of the gate to help them to understand.

And then I give them all sorts of other ones. They have a joke in my office that I'm uber focused when I'm doing something, to the extent that people talk to me, I do not hear them. I can be looking right at you and not hearing you because my mind goes to another place, which then makes it seem like I don't care that much about you. So I had one chief of staff who used to say "The window just closed didn't it?" He's like, "I'm talking to you and the window closed." It's annoying, I do it all the time, and I try to tell myself focus, concentrate, listen to them. But if like someone's going on and on and on and on, I like checkout.

Adam:
I can think of a moment or two when I've seen you do it. And I didn't realize that was what was happening. I'm like, oh, Mellody's lost interest. Now, as I hear you talk about it, I think it might be part of what makes you such a good problem solver; you have this laser-focus on whatever's urgent or important, and so the thing in front of you, isn't, you're going to go somewhere else.

Mellody:
First of all, part of what I react to is just brevity. Can you explain the issue in a way that I can understand? So I tell people all the time, I'm like, I'm really smart. I am not tracking. Like, what is the headline? Because I don't even know where you're going in this conversation. What are you leading me to? So if I'm in that kind of situation, I'm definitely starting to lose my focus, but I have to be more considerate. Like that's not an excuse. It's a shortcoming of mine and I need to be better because it makes people feel that I'm not interested and that's not a good thing.
BREAK
Adam:
Welcome back to Taken for Granted, and more of my conversation with Mellody Hobson.
Adam:
Well, let's talk about when somebody recognizes a weakness like that and says, "I need to be more considerate," but then doesn't make the change. You've said that some people don't change until they're in pain. What's that about?

Mellody:
I learned that from Nancy Peretsman at Allen and company, she was on the board of Princeton with me and she said her mother was a psychologist. And her mother said that people don't change unless they're in pain. And it just stuck with me. I thought about the times that I had been in pain, that I had changed. And it's unfortunate that that's what does it to you. You see that in smokers who stopped smoking after getting cancer, run-ins with the law, whatever it might be. There are plenty of examples of that where change comes from feelings of great fear or pain.

The pandemic is a perfect example of that. We had to pivot in a major, major way. And you saw companies really not just survive but thrive. We asked a lot of people in this pandemic in terms of change and modifying behavior and it was something that I know didn't come easy for certain people, but the adaptation was necessary. So this was a people change when they're in pain.

Adam:
Yeah. I think one of the reasons people don't adapt is they're holding onto the past. And I know George has some advice for you and others on that, about what Jedis do and don't do.

Mellody:
Jedi's don't hold on. That is a very important concept that George had to teach me in a very sad moment where I'd lost an individual that worked at the firm. And I was just so sad and it was a young woman who had gone on to start her own business. And she was a superstar, so great and I poured my heart into her, and I thought she'd be running Aerial one day, and when she left I literally, I was choking back tears and George looked at me and he said, "Jedi, don't hold on. That's why they have no attachments and you're a Jedi master." And it was like within a minute I processed that and then I thought of Sting and that song, if you love someone and you set them free, and I was like, I have to set her free. And it was really one of the most profound concepts for me that you can't hold onto people. You actually can't hold on to anything.

Adam:
I'm struck by a few things in that story. The first thing is when you started it, I thought you were talking about someone who died. I can hear the pain of loss in your voice. Like this person is no longer alive and like-nope-she just left my company. You care that much.

Mellody:
Well, she was special, And it was more about my loss as opposed to the game that she was going to have, which was pretty selfish and something that I had to reconcile myself with.

Adam:
Well, that goes to the other thing that jumped out at me that I think, especially new managers and leaders, fail to understand. Being a good boss is about investing in them, developing them and promoting them, even if it means promoting them out of the organization because you put their best interests above your own. And it sounds like that was what you had to realize.

Mellody:
That's the goal. The coach, one day he sat with me and he said, "Wouldn't it be great if you channeled all of your energy into other people's success? That's worth doing." And so when I thought about all the opportunities I have had, I realized I've had enough in making it about other people, I found myself to be happier. And so when I thought about that situation with the former colleague, I remember just thinking it should be about her, and to the extent that I could help stand up other people that will make the firms so strong and great, and we will have such a great reputation. But it has to be genuine. This is not one of these things you can just fake. You have to believe it. At some point I felt like, in terms of how my life had turned out and all the miracles that had happened and the way the universe had conspired to create such opportunity for me, that I owed it to all these other people, to give them my energy, to move them forward because I had gotten so much. So I think it was the right approach. And he asked me that question in such a way that, again, it's how you are asked. Sometimes it's the moment, it's the frame of mind you're in, but it did create this sense of purpose for me in a different way at that point. And that sense of purpose has stuck.

Adam:
I think that's the hallmark of being a giver that you care as much about other people's success as your own, and maybe even more.

Mellody:
I don't know if I would define it as being a giver. I think I would define it as being someone who wanted to pay it forward. I see it as a debt.

Adam:
That's like a matchers theory of why it makes sense to be a giver; You have this cosmic balance sheet and you have to settle it.

Mellody:
Well, I do think that's true because at the end of the day, what do you have? Reputation. What did you do for others?

Adam:
You have often been the only black woman in the room. I hope that changes soon, but in the meantime, how have you navigated environments that are dominated by white men?

Mellody:
A friend once said to me, "You are not threatened, and non-threatening. You're kind, but you're not soft. And you're strong, but you're not tough. that is a real skill." And I was like, "that sounds pretty great."

Adam:
Mission accomplished. You have been very vocal, and also put your money where your mouth is when it comes to changing some of the broken systems around race in this country. Tell me about what the future ought to look like to build anti-racist workplaces, universities, and other kinds of systems.

Adam:
That's a beautiful vision. How can we get there sooner?

Mellody:
Well, it takes work. It takes us holding each other accountable. It takes making sure that I tell people in corporate America, you get what you incent, that we incent the right behavior. If diversity and inclusion is a strategic imperative, which is in all of the annual reports, then you have to treat it like one. All the other strategic imperatives around product launches and profitability targets and the like, so people should have incentives tied to those outcomes. You also should have targets. That's not quotas. There's a difference. In corporate America, we're very used to targets, we have earnings targets. Again, profits targets, et cetera. You have to have a goal or there's no way to meet it.

And last but not least you have to count. If you're trying to have a more diverse organization, then you need to measure ethnicity by group across categories. C-suite, middle management, rank and file. No putting everyone together in a multicultural umbrella, that's what they do. Here's our multicultural population, throw every ethnicity together. It masks under-representation. And so at the end of the day, holding yourself accountable, as we do to so many other things in corporate America, will allow us to get to a better place. It's not just about, people say, well, you have the Rooney rule and things like that, where maybe you say that, you know, all of your slates will be diverse. Well, there's science and math around that. I'm sure, you know, the studies in Colorado where they say you have to have more than one person on that slate that is diverse in order for the diverse person to have any chance of being selected. Then when they sit there on their own, they stand out too much and they look too risky.

And so when you have two, it looks more like, oh, well, you know, here's our slate and should we choose from these? So there are basic ways of getting there. And I'd focus obviously in this conversation in corporate America, but when it comes to people in my TED talk, I said, invite people in your life who don't look like you, who don't think like you, who don't act like you and who don't come from, where you come from. And I tell people, you can make a conscious decision to do that. You could actually go, and in your workforce invite people that you don't normally see or know to lunch, and not in some creepy, weird way. But in a way of just, you know, trying to foster knowledge and information. And then I ask the person who was invited to stay open-minded and give people the benefit of the doubt. What if we lived in a world where there was all benefit and no doubt that we could actually create a scenario where we understand people are going to ask questions that are difficult and they're going to put their foot in their mouth, but they're well-intentioned, or they're trying to learn or know more?

And they're imprecise and awkward in the exchange, as opposed to you being annoyed by it. I gave a talk to a group of students at Princeton once. And they were like, "We're tired, tired of people asking us, 'Do [you] get sunburn?' And 'How do we wash our hair when we have braids?'"-all of that stuff. And I was like, listen, easier than picking cotton in a field. If that is the worst of your job right now, I think our ancestors had a harder, harder road to hoe here. So if part of your responsibility is to educate people about what it is like to be us, because we know so much more about them than they know about us, I think you're up to it.

Adam:
I love that. One of my big regrets in my career to date is that when I have seen moments like that, sometimes I haven't spoken up. What advice can you offer in closing to make sure that I stand by my values as opposed to shying away from the conflict?

Mellody:
People are counting on you. There's so much injustice. It is so wrong. And Martin Luther King talked about the silence of the good person. That's the killer. It's not the person who tells you who they are and what they believe that is directly in conflict with your beliefs. It is a person who won't stand up for what they believe that leaves everyone else dangling. They always think that it's about power and influence. And I always tell them Rosa parks just didn't get up, this is this regular person and she shifted a whole society. So instead of saying my voice doesn't matter, I'm not going to make a difference, understanding that collective can be a very, very powerful thing. That's what we saw in the wake of the George Floyd murder globally. It was a movement that is about everyday people being unafraid. They were marching in a pandemic. It's a very brave thing to do, that's a values-based moment I cannot sit and stand by. So, I would only ask you every time you have that moment and you know, in your mind you should speak, do it because you have a lot of power.

Adam:
Well, thank you, Mellody. You are one of the people who gives me courage. I learned so much from listening to you and watching you in action. And I just really appreciate you taking the time to share your wisdom today.

Mellody:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Adam:
Taken for Granted is part of the TED Audio Collective. The show is hosted by me, Adam Grant, and is produced by TED with Transmitter Media.

Our team includes Colin Helms, Gretta Cohn, Dan O'Donnell, Constanza Gallardo, Grace Rubenstein, Michelle Quint, Banban Cheng and Anna Phelan. This episode was produced by JoAnn DeLuna.

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Mellody Hobson on Taking Tough Feedback (Transcript)

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Taken for Granted: Mellody Hobson on Taking Tough Feedback Transcript

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When I accosted some chaps using this album to brighten their working day. Hearing them brightened mine.

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Name: Quiet hiring.

Age: New for 2024.

Appearance: Like quiet quitting, but much busier.

I don't even know what quiet quitting is. It's when you remain employed but perform only the minimum duties required: no late nights, no non-mandatory meetings, no going the extra mile.

In other words, having a job. A lot of people see it that way: a 2023 Gallup report found that quiet quitters comprised up to 59% of the global workforce.

Good - that means I won't stand out. It's also led to something called "quiet firing" - where employers make a job so unrewarding that unmotivated employees resign.

I dare my employer to try to make my job less rewarding. But it's also led to this year's big trend: quiet hiring.

Which is what? Quiet hiring refers to the practice of offering new responsibilities and opportunities to existing staff, rather than going through a recruitment process to find new people.

When you say "new responsibilities and opportunities" do you mean "more work"? It's also a chance to get additional training, enhance your skill set and take on fresh challenges.

All I'm hearing is more work. Think of it as promoting from within. It could lead to higher job satisfaction and better morale.

I'm not coming in early for this. As well as a new job title. Would you like that?

How am I supposed to squeeze in all these additional duties? If you've been quiet quitting for a few years, you may find you have some slack in your workday.

Maybe. But I'm still struggling to see what's in it for me. Obviously with greater responsibility comes greater reward: a salary increase would be part of the quiet hiring package.

Great - how much? We can talk about that.

Why quiet hiring and why now? First, necessity - there are more job opportunities than there are candidates to fill them. Second, money - recruitment is expensive so companies are hoping to increase their productivity without expanding their workforce.

There must be some drawbacks to quiet hiring. A few: it can lead to higher stress levels, employee burnout and ultimately even more quiet quitting.

Quiet quitting with a pay rise? I accept. You're fired!

Do say: "At least I didn't have to interview to get this job."

Don't say: "I quit!"

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Quiet hiring: the fast track to career success - or catastrophic burnout?

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Many companies need more staff, but the recruitment process is expensive. So they're offering existing workers the chance to take on new responsibilities. What could possibly go wrong?

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This came as a complete surprise to me... 

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This came as a complete surprise to me... 

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Knowing Rachel as I do, I was honestly expecting a compendium of ladybirds.

What we get is a fascinating exercise in perspective taking.

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The English written thriller Sangre de Toro ( Bull's Blood), starring a Spanish bull, was released this spring. The book is written by Rachael Adam, and deals with the cruelties of bullfighting, among other things.

Here is a brief summary of Sangre de Toro:
Bull Pepelito dramatically escapes a certain death in the bullring, which for some is a reason to celebrate. But not everyone is happy about this. Quickly he begins to heal from his deep physical and psychological wounds. But his healing process is interrupted by a true nightmare: matador Javier Castella would kill to finish his masterpiece...and he is not the only one.
Rachael Adam has been so kind to decide to dedicate a part of the profits of this book to the fight against bullfighting by donating it to CAS. From CAS, we also contributed to the book by providing information about bullfighting.

You can order the book in two ways:
Help us so we can continue with our impactful campaigns! Become a sponsor or make a donation.

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Thriller with a bull in main role: Sangre de Toro

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The English written thriller Sangre de Toro (Bull's Blood), starring a Spanish bull, was released this spring. The book is written by Rachael Adam, and deals with the cruelties of bullfighting, among other things. Here is a brief summary of Sangre de Toro: Bull Pepelito dramatically escapes a certain death in the bullring, which for...

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Do try to see or hear her speak on the topic.

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by Erica McAlister with Adrian Washbourne

ISBN 9780565095567

hardback

216 pages

W130mm x H195mm

made from materials certified as sustainable by the Forest Stewardship Council

Description / Metamorphosis: How Insects are Changing our World

Before humans stamped their mark on this planet, insects had shaped it into the colourful and extraordinary world we all share today. Now these minibeasts are leading extraordinary discoveries from robotics to genetics to forensics, transforming our knowledge of agriculture, medicine, aerospace, artificial intelligence, biodiversity and ourselves.

Whether it's the astonishing properties of resilin, the protein that makes fleas jump, the needle-like proboscis of the mosquito's mouth being used to develop smart needles or the computational dynamics gleaned from studying locust swarms in Africa, Erica McAlister and Adrian Washbourne reveal the wonder of insects, the historical figures who have made great breakthroughs in understanding them and the increasingly vital role they play in ensuring life, as we know it, continues.

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metamorphosis: how insects are changing our world

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Metamorphosis: How Insects are Changing our World

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Inspired by the BBC Radio 4 series, Metamorphosis: How Insects are Changing our World uncovers a treasure trove of remarkable entomological facts which promise to transform our knowledge.

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This place nurtures conversations into action 

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This place nurtures conversations into action 

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Go for an echo of oldskool silicon Shoreditch vibes

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Newspeak House is an independent residential college founded in 2015 to study, nurture and inspire emerging communities of practice across civil society and the public sector in the UK.

About

Events

As part of our research we offer our spaces for civic communities of practice to convene. Since opening in 2015 we have hosted over a thousand events, including lectures, meetups, hackathons, conferences, unconferences, workshops, roundtables, screenings, fundraisers, launches, and exhibitions.

Subscribe to our Event Calendar

If you'd like to host an event in our space, you can hire it outright, or if you're convening a civic community of practice do get in touch ([email protected] ) to see if it could fit into our programme.

What's On

Ration Club

Wednesdays * 7:00pm - 9:00pm * Lounge

Edward Saperia

Each week the college hosts a community dinner called Ration Club. It's open to anyone who'd like to find out more about the college and its work. To find out more or if you'd like to attend, please register.

Register ↗

Wed 17 JUL 2024 * 9:30am - 8:00pm * Newspeak Hall + Terrace

​How can digital technologies strengthen democracy rather than weaken it? And how can you get involved in making that happen?

​Join us for an inspiring day with Audrey Tang, Taiwan's first Digital Minister and co-author of " Plurality," as we launch the Plurality London network at Newspeak House.

​Plurality details how Audrey Tang and her collaborators - architects of Taiwan's internationally acclaimed digital democracy - achieved inclusive, technology-fueled growth that harnesses digital tools to strengthen both social unity and diversity. It is an open-source, collaborative project that will constantly evolve based on input from the global community.

​This event aims to bring together changemakers from across society who all hope to use this moment, post general election, to make genuine and real change to our democracy in the UK. Whether you're an activist, a technologist, a civil servant or just an engaged citizen, this is an unmissable opportunity to come together and learn from each other.

Register ↗

Wed 17 JUL 2024 * 10:00am - 10:00pm * At Large

The digital lives of almost all non-technical people are spent in the walled gardens of enshittified and enshittifying platforms: https://craphound.com/internetcon

These non-technical individuals know this is happening but do not have the knowledge or skills to move to better, safer, leaner, open-source, more private, products. Most do not want to completely deshittify all at once. They need advice about the best ways to deshittify their own specific digital lives and to manage risks. Some will pay; particularly to a bootstrapped CoOp that has no external funders or profit that shares revenue fairly and transparently among those who do the work.

An initiative group is starting a CoOp that will answer this. We are looking for 1) the advice of technical people, of which there are many with Newspeak House, 2) the work of those who want to help individual clients, and 3) the clients themselves. But mainly right now, we are looking for allies and supporters. Find Mark at the Ration Club 7-9 on Wed 17 July. He will be at the Plurality event that day and hopes to pitch there. Contact him via Mmmullen at gmail dot com, or https://chat.whatsapp.com/Fbv5AcbrzYD04lz4WTLB8t

Mark Mullen is from Texas, lived outside the US for twenty five years, mainly in Tbilisi (but also Tokyo, Malawi, and Palestine), then moved to San Francisco. Most of that time was working on elections and democracy and other community focused non-profit initiatives. He started Turnout Nation in the US which conducted the RCT with the highest voter turnout effect ever tested. He is now based in Barcelona and focusing on collective decision making and community building, in part via new software.

Register ↗

Sat 03 AUG 2024 * 12:30pm - 10:30pm * Terrace

​Thank you so much for all of the work you have put into this election; we could not be more grateful to have such a committed community of developers.

As a token of our thanks, we warmly invite you to the Campaign Lab Summer BBQ. Please join us on August 3rd from 12:30pm on the terrace at Newspeak House for some music, a cold drink and a BBQ cooked by Douglas, Campaign Lab's resident Braii expert!

We will be out enjoying the sun until 10:30pm so if you are around at all before that time then you are more than welcome to join us.

Register ↗

Event Archive

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The London College of Political Technology

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Important interim report on institutional inhumanity

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Important interim report on institutional inhumanity

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Law enforcers' contempt for society abounds

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'A basic rule of government is never look into anything you don't have to, and never set up an inquiry unless you know in advance what its findings will be.'
This was the advice of permanent secretary Sir Humphrey Applebey in the 1980s satirical political sitcom Yes Minister, in response to the Prime Minister explaining his concern about British arms deals to terrorists and his wish to investigate further. Sir Humphrey's comments feel particularly resonant for those of us involved in the real Public Inquiry into Undercover Policing currently being chaired by Sir John Mitting.

When in 2015 then Home Secretary Theresa May established the public inquiry into the wrongdoing by undercover police officers - colloquially known as 'spycops' scandal - she clearly felt she had no choice. The revelations of sexual abuse of women activists by undercover police, the spying on family justice campaigns including the Lawrence family, and the practice of stealing the identities of dead children to create fake persona for the spies proved too shocking a public story for parliamentarians to ignore. Perhaps she and those who advised her to set up this inquiry believed, as Sir Humphrey suggested, that they knew in advance what its findings would be. Perhaps they hoped to control the narrative: agree to all anonymity requests by the police; place great emphasis on the importance of secrecy to protect both police officers' privacy and the security of the nation; hang individual officers out to dry whilst promoting the importance of undercover policing as a tactic; exploit the inevitable bureaucratic delays and drag it out for years so those who are most invested either give up the fight or die.

Their problem, however, is that for those of us who contributed to this scandal being exposed in the first place we won't give up. For us, it's personal.

A few weeks after my boyfriend Mark Cassidy disappeared from my life in Spring 2000, I started to suspect he had been some sort of state spy. I had been involved in a political campaign group in Hackney that he'd joined five years earlier in 1995 called the Colin Roach Centre, an independent group that had exposed police corruption in the early 1990s and promoted trade union, anti-fascist politics. I've told my story in the book Deep Deception, written with some of the other women who first discovered and then exposed this appalling secret state abuse. Our experiences, like those of more women who later found out that they too had been victims of these undercover police deployments, followed a pattern. The police call it tradecraft. We call it violation.

These men ingratiated themselves into our lives by mirroring our passions, presenting us with their easy-going alter egos, and cultivating our hopes and dreams of a shared future. For many of us we were robbed of our most fertile years and when they executed their pre-planned exit strategies - usually in the style of a well performed emotional breakdown - we were left devastated and confused. When Mark left his final note on the kitchen table explaining he wasn't coming back, I needed answers. It was my quest for these answers that ultimately led me to exposing his true identity as police officer Mark Jenner who had been married with children throughout our entire five-year relationship.

The public inquiry has been organised chronologically in tranches. The first tranche, covering deployments into political groups between 1968-1982, ended in February 2023 and was followed by an interim report published in June 2023. We welcomed some of the findings of this report. For example, Inquiry chair Sir John Mitting accepted our arguments about the unreasonable level of intrusion into lives of members of the public and the likelihood that officers had been guilty of trespass when they entered private homes illegally without a warrant. Furthermore, he concluded that by the end of this period - that is, the early 1980s - the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) should have been disbanded: ' had the use of these means been publicly known at the time, the SDS would have been brought to a rapid end'. For those of us campaigning to draw public attention to these human rights violations by undercover police in order for such abuse to never happen again, this was a real victory. It felt like an important acknowledgment that from its early days in the 1970s, the SDS's spying could not be justified. And yet it continued for 40 more years.

Given the apparent shared understanding between those running the public inquiry and those participating as non-state witnesses as to the unjustified nature of these spying operations, many of us have been surprised to learn that Tranche 2 hearings are being approached almost as if this interim report had not been written. In other words, the issue of 'justification' is back on the table to the extent that Sir John has explained he will make findings of fact regarding serious criminal allegations about members of the public based on police reports from the time. The focus, therefore, appears to be shifting from the actual wrongdoing of the police to the alleged wrongdoing of members of the public based on allegations made by the very officers under investigation.

The argument seems to be that whilst Sir John accepts that the sexual violation of women activists is not acceptable, the presence of the undercover police officer in a woman's life might be justified if he judges she was guilty of a serious crime. When agreeing to participate in this inquiry, members of the public did so in order to make sure lessons were learnt, to prevent any repetition of the serious human rights abuses committed by these units and to learn the truth about the officers spying on them and to expose the murky underbelly of the British secret state. No-one signed up for being found guilty of criminal allegations based on the reports written by trained liars who were seeking to justify and continue their own existence as a unit. Knowing these reports were to be shared with Box 500 - that's M15 to you and me - officers appear to have submitted exaggerated and misleading reports filled with hearsay and gossip about supposedly violent and volatile political activists. If staff at Special Branch and MI5 who sifted through these reports at the time did not feel it appropriate to share these allegations with the Crown Prosecution Service in order to bring charges against those alleged criminals, then how can it be acceptable for an inquiry Chair to pass judgement decades later? It is simply not what this inquiry is meant to be about. To make matters worse, many activists have still not been provided with all the reports written on them, despite being asked questions about the allegations made against them. The same reports have nevertheless been supplied to former police officers two or three years ago. To many activists affected, this feels like an attempted cover up, preventing them from having an equal opportunity to see and comment on the material being used against them.

Starting this July and covering deployments between 1982-1993, Tranche 2 will include evidence from a range of officers guilty of violating the human rights of women activists. For those who have been following this scandal from the outset, it includes some of the more well-known cases such as Bob Lambert, John Dines and Andy Coles: Lambert deceived at least four women into sexual relationships and even fathered a child with one of them. Dines subjected Helen Steel to prolonged emotional and psychological abuse during their relationship; Coles lied about his age (32) when he made his advances towards 19-year-old 'Jessica' and is now denying the relationship took place. What these men all have in common - apart from their obvious misogyny - is an arrogance that led them to believe that despite their years undercover they could nevertheless go on to take up public facing roles pontificating about matters of policing, security and intelligence. Lambert lectured on counter-terrorism at London Metropolitan, Exeter and St Andrews Universities, Dines was involved with the Charles Sturt University's policing programme in New South Wales, Australia, whilst Coles became a Conservative party councillor on Peterborough City Council and deputy police and crime commissioner for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. The idea that these men's undercover experience, a significant part of which involved violating the bodily autonomy of women activists, qualified them to train or advise others is sickening.

I have been involved in this campaign since 2011, soon after 'Lisa' unmasked Mark Kennedy, when eight of us first met with lawyer Harriet Wistrich and we started working to bring our legal challenge against the Metropolitan police. I've still received no disclosure as to why Mark Jenner was in my life and I have to wait until 2025 for Tranche 3 (covering the years 1993-2007) before I hear his evidence first hand.

Despite having little faith in the judge who oversees the inquiry, like many others I continue to participate. With those involved in our campaign group Police Spies Out Of Lives, I will keep trying to draw public attention to the misogynistic, human rights abuses perpetrated by these policing units so this cannot happen again to other women.

Instead of that task getting easier, however, new legislation passed in 2021, has made things more difficult. Rushed through parliament during the Covid years, the Covert Human Intelligence Sources [CHIS] (Criminal Conduct) Act, places no limits on what state spies can be authorised to do. Criticism of the Bill by the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights Legislative Scrutiny report from 2020 was ignored; it stated: 'The lack of limits on the use of Criminal Conduct Authorisations risks the human rights of victims ... being violated.' In its current form, this Act enshrines in law the very wrongdoing and criminality we have been fighting to legislate against. Despite the College of Policing's guidelines for undercover operatives, there is still no law that specifies sexual relationships between CHIS and members of the public are prohibited. Without this specificity, interpretation of the law can be warped by institutional prejudice and discrimination.

As it stands, state operatives are officially above the law. A society that allows for authorised sexual offences and even torture and murder is one that is brutalised and desensitised to violence and which has no respect for human rights. A key element of our campaign work, therefore, is to call on opposition parliamentarians to commit to reforming this regressive legislation. We welcome all the support we can get to enable this progressive change.

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'As it stands, state operatives are officially above the law'

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'A basic rule of government is never look into anything you don't have to, and never set up an inquiry unless you know in advance what its findings will be.' This was the advice of permanent secretary Sir Humphrey Applebey in the 1980s satirical political sitcom Yes Minister, in response to the Prime Minister explaining his concern about British arms deals to terrorists and his wish to investigate further.