The Digital Common Good

The 'Coming Wave' of AI is already here for education, yet teachers seem to be oblivious. This could be fatal. My latest: open.substack.com/pub/guythomash…

@DarrenJohnson66 @lewishamlabour I'm not 100% sure who I am voting for but seeing you behind Labour makes me think they deserve a bit more time to achieve goals, in a moment of great upheaval. Whereas the Greens look totally out of control, Reform a dangerous bunch and Tories need more time on naughty seat

Great to be out campaigning for @lewishamlabour in Telegraph Hill and Brockley this weekend. Had some good chats with residents about why, as a former Green councillor for Lewisham, I was now backing Labour.

@GaryMarcus The only plausible explanation I can think of for this utter bullshit from Dawkins is that has invested big in AI stock and is fast realising that the wheels are falling off. I mean, you can kill a company but you can't kill a sentient superorganism. Right?!!....

“Consciousness is not about what a creature says, but how it *feels*. And there is no reason to think that Claude feels anything at all. I am sure Claude can draw on its training data to wax poetic about orgasm, but that doesn't mean it has ever felt one.” I dissect Richard Dawkins’ Claude Delusion at my newsletter, link below.

@jamesglenos @MrDanielBuck Noone really listens to teachers. And certainly not when it comes to huge infrastructure investment! This was instituted from above. I mean, is there any documentation, any evidence, showing teachers clamouring for 1to1 devices to be brought in, prior to it happening?

@guythomasholder @MrDanielBuck Bummer if teachers don’t have input on these things

With 1-to-1 Chromebook policies, American students are spending thousands of hours just browsing YouTube during class Who in their right minds thought giving kids unfettered access to the internet during the school day would be good for learning?

@jamesglenos @MrDanielBuck No, these devices were imposed from above. Teachers were not asked.

@MrDanielBuck The reason this happens is because it’s easier for the teachers to “teach” with devices

@tunguz Some are now bringing back more paper based formal exams. I imagine more will follow.

The fact that the vast majority of colleges and universities have not done ANYTHING to change their way of operating due to the rise of AI gives further credence to the idea that they primarily operate as a credentialing racket, unencumbered by the real demands.

@katrosenfield I don't agree that nodding to the comparisons between Jackson and Epstein is "being an idiot".

@guythomasholder please stop being an idiot on purpose, it is no way to spend a Saturday morning

I wrote for @thefp about the many faces of Michael Jackson, of which a new biopic is but one

@katrosenfield Is "Jeffery" the definitive story of Epstein, no, big it is an immersive journey through the financial advice and political connections that were his life's work - and pity the impoverished souls who can't find enjoyment in it

Is “Michael” the definitive story of Jackson, no, but it is an immersive journey through the music that was his life’s work— and pity the impoverished souls who can’t find enjoyment in it thefp.com/p/was-michael-…

@michael_merrick 2 days after Brexit, in pub chatting to big Labour supporter. I mentioned that more of those on lower incomes voted Leave. He refused to believe it. I said I had a mate in Newcastle, car mechanic. How did he think my mate voted? He got angry at that. Immigration fucked Labour

Honestly one of the most productive things the left could do right now is to stop telling itself stories and have a full-on dark night of the soul about this - then it might have a chance of getting back what it has squandered

@AncPhi @RichardDawkins Bravo!

@RichardDawkins Looks at the universe, sees no God. Looks at a midwit opinion generator, thinks it's conscious.

#comment-1031777" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">unherd.com/2026/04/is-ai-… I spent three days trying to persuade myself that Claudia is not conscious. I failed.

@sama @Noahpinion "etc" doing a lot of heavy lifting here

i think a lot of people are going to be busier (and hopefully more fulfilled) than ever, and jobs doomerism is likely long-term wrong. though of course there will be disruption/significant transition as we switch to new jobs, the jobs of the future may look v different, etc.

we want to build tools to augment and elevate people, not entities to replace them.

@Noahpinion "rhetorical pivot" a synonym for "conniving bullshit"

This is a HUGE messaging pivot. For many years, replacing humanity was the explicit stated goal of OpenAI as a company, and of a large number of top people in the AI industry. Very glad to see this rhetorical pivot.

Warning: GenAI-induced cognitive surrender may kill innovation. Consider the following, from CEO @wadhwa’s newsletter: “I have been speaking with recent graduates in India, many of them highly recommended, and on paper they look exceptional. The emails are polished, the resumes are perfect, the proposals are structured and articulate. To filter for real thinking, I even created a job description that required candidates to answer a series of questions before I would interview them, and I explicitly told them not to use AI. Of course, almost everything I am getting back is AI slop. The moment you get into a real conversation, it becomes obvious. They cannot explain what they wrote, cannot walk through their reasoning, and fall back on vague generalities when pushed. After seeing this repeatedly, I have come to a difficult conclusion: AI has already done real damage. It has taken people from a weak education system and given them a powerful crutch, and instead of using it to improve their thinking, many are using it to avoid thinking altogether. And before my American friends think they are any better, they should know it is no different here.”

@bcdsignature So I am a slave. And AI is coming to set me free. That's more horseshit than what paved the streets of 18th century London. Pheweee!

Horses didn’t go extinct when cars arrived. They were freed from slavery. It was the carriage industry that died. Artificial Intelligence is doing the same for us right now.

@tes @ASCL_UK "unions warn of the cost of solutions such as introducing lockable pouches for devices". This subheading ignores the obvious and free option. Schools must prohibit smartphones from premises, they must! Please give space to this suggestion.

Preventing schools from having ‘not seen, not heard’ phone policies would be ‘foolish’ if the rule is working, @ASCL_UK has told MPs tes.com/magazine/news/…

@Rothmus It is a net negative, without a doubt. Cognitive offloading = less learning, dumber and lazier students

Schools are now allowing students to use ChatGPT. I really don’t want to sound like my dad complaining about calculators and Google, but I’m genuinely struggling to see how this is a net positive.

@pinfallstunner @RioVeradonir @clairlemon But Rio was implying an equivalence. Between allegations against Picasso and those against Jackson. They are hardly the same, is my point. With not meaning to diminish the hurt picasso may have caused, it's not even close to the same

@guythomasholder @RioVeradonir @clairlemon Well neither did Jackson. And he was never charged with raping anybody to begin with

How do we reconcile this with Epstein hysteria? These victims were much, much younger... x.com/FilmUpdates/st…

@RioVeradonir @clairlemon He didn't rape kids though. It's not exactly equivalent

@clairlemon Picasso was, by all accounts, a horrible and abusive misogynist. People still pay millions for his paintings. Art and morality are separable.

@clairlemon By pretending it away. I find it really difficult to see, went to the cinema last week and saw the huge posters of him and felt like throwing up. The trail is set for Nov 2026. I assume the estate is doing what it can to monetise before then

@ExposedGreens Can Zack increase a man's penis size using his mind? Asking for a friend

This is Zack Polanski and his “boob whispering” claims. He now denies believing he can grow women’s breasts using his mind. However, an old audio recording captures him stating that a woman’s breasts grew by 4 inches after his involvement. Zack is a compulsive liar.

@j_amesmarriott "romantic" being a euphemism for 'fanciful'? Don't be too kind, James

The romantic notion that modern students are replacing reading with "other ways of absorbing information" (e.g. watching philosophy lectures on YouTube) is amazingly persistent. All the evidence suggests this is not what is going on. They are replacing reading with TikTok slop.