Adrian Holme
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adrianholme.bsky.social
Adrian Holme
@adrianholme.bsky.social
42 followers 43 following 120 posts
Writer, educator, maker. Art, science and technology, Illustration Research, Journal of Illustration, 'It's Freezing in LA!' contributor.
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adrianholme.bsky.social
A UK FBI proposed by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood. Another extension of executive power by an increasingly authoritarian government. We only need to look across the pond to see the obvious dangers.
January 25, 2026 at 11:32 AM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
kevinmkruse.bsky.social
If you're living somewhere outside the USA, one thing you can do is pressure your leaders to boycott World Cup and Olympic events here.
January 24, 2026 at 8:29 PM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
chrislhayes.bsky.social
I genuinely think boycotting the World Cup is some of the strongest leverage the Europeans have.
January 24, 2026 at 12:39 AM
adrianholme.bsky.social
Oh boy... even the UK government is finally realizing that there is no special relationship
January 23, 2026 at 1:18 PM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
nature.com
After turning off ChatGPT’s ‘data consent’ option, Marcel Bucher lost the work behind grant applications, teaching materials and publication drafts

go.nature.com/4qLPpcb
When two years of academic work vanished with a single click
After turning off ChatGPT’s ‘data consent’ option, Marcel Bucher lost the work behind grant applications, teaching materials and publication drafts. Here’s what happened next.
go.nature.com
January 23, 2026 at 10:40 AM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
nature.com
For decades, researchers have noted that cancer and Alzheimer’s disease are rarely found in the same person

go.nature.com/4jVsd8N
Cancer might protect against Alzheimer’s — this protein helps explain why
A molecule produced by cancer cells can shield the brain from Alzheimer’s disease in mice.
go.nature.com
January 23, 2026 at 11:43 AM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
democraticwins.bsky.social
BREAKING: The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, just delivered the strongest rebuke of Donald Trump we’ve seen yet regarding Greenland. Wow.
January 19, 2026 at 9:52 PM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
anitaleirfall.bsky.social
💪🏻 Belgian AI scientists resist the use of AI in academia. apache.be/2025/10/24/b... #AI #academia #resistance #philsky #sciencesky
Belgian AI scientists resist the use of AI in academia
Several AI scientists have published an open letter calling for a ban on AI use by students.
apache.be
January 18, 2026 at 10:36 PM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
duncanweldon.bsky.social
Europe has - in technical terms - an absolute sod load of potential economic leverage over the United States.
It has turned the other cheek due to security concerns.
The US seems intent on demonstrating that it will not guarantee European security.
So Europe may start using that leverage.
January 17, 2026 at 7:02 PM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
abeba.bsky.social
are you displeased with today’s AI safety evaluation landscape and curious about what greater conceptual clarity, methodological soundness, and rigour in AI evaluation could look like? if so, consider coming to Dublin to pursue a PhD with me

apply here: aial.ie/hiring/phd-a...

pls repost
About the PhD: Audits and evaluation of AI systems — and the broader context that AI systems operate in — have become central to conceptualising, quantifying, measuring and understanding the operations, failures, limitations, underlying assumptions, and downstream societal implications of AI systems. Existing AI audit and evaluation efforts are fractured, done in a siloed and ad-hoc manner, and with little deliberation and reflection around conceptual rigour and methodological validity. This PhD is for a candidate that is passionate about exploring what a conceptually cogent, methodologically sound, and well-founded AI evaluation and safety research might look like. This requires grappling with questions such as: What does it mean to represent “ground truth” in proxies, synthetic data, or computational simulation? How do we reliably measure abstract and complex phenomena? What are the epistemological or methodological implications of quantification and measurement approaches we choose to employ? Particularly, what underlying presuppositions, values, or perspectives do they entail? How do we ensure the lived experiences of impacted communities play a critical role in the development and justification of measurement metrics and proxies? Through exploration of these questions, the candidate is expected to engage with core concepts in the philosophy of science, history of science, Black feminist epistemologies, and similar schools of thought to develop an in-depth understanding of existing practices with the aim of applying it to advance shared standards and best practice in AI evaluation. The candidate is expected to integrate empirical (for example, through analysis or evaluation of existing benchmarks) or practical (for example, by executing evaluation of AI systems) components into the overall work.
January 15, 2026 at 11:55 AM
adrianholme.bsky.social
The US is only relying on hard power now (while China is skillfully using soft power). If you think only in terms of hard power, Greenland is exactly the kind of issue that might run completely out of control, beyond conventional reason. It has its own dynamic.
January 17, 2026 at 12:03 AM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
implausibleblog.bsky.social
Pope Leo doing what Keir Starmer won't do, criticise Trump for attacking Venezuela,

"War is back in vogue. And the zeal for war is spreading"

"The principle established after WWII that prohibited nations from using force to violate the borders of others has been completely undermined"
January 9, 2026 at 8:41 PM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
marcveld.bsky.social
America isn’t drifting toward authoritarianism. It is living it. Authoritarianism doesn’t arrive with a dramatic or coup-like event. It advances quietly, in daylight, through choices, habits, and silence. The administration made all their actions clear, they spelled it out!
1/4
January 9, 2026 at 8:58 PM
adrianholme.bsky.social
The impoverishment of BBC News is well illustrated by reporters wandering about pathetically in small amounts of snow (e.g. Buxton in the middle of winter...) with really nothing significant to report
January 9, 2026 at 3:30 PM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
chrischirp.bsky.social
It was not a super flu year and why I think government and NHS messaging was wrong and counterproductive - my latest post

christinapagel.substack.com/p/it-was-not...
It was not a super flu year
Update on flu and covid in England
christinapagel.substack.com
January 8, 2026 at 6:12 PM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
literaryhub.bsky.social
“i want back my rocking chairs, / solipsist sunsets, / & coastal jungle sounds...”

A poem by Renee Nicole Good, who was murdered by ICE earlier today.

lithub.com/renee-nicole...
Renee Nicole Good, murdered by ICE, was a prize-winning poet. Here’s that poem.
Renee Nicole Good, 37, mother to a six-year-old boy, was murdered earlier today by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, a few blocks from her home. According to the Minnesota Star Tribune: [An ICE agent] s…
lithub.com
January 8, 2026 at 3:54 AM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
citizensimpeachment.com
Take five minutes to watch this video by the always excellent Prof. Pagel @chrischirp.bsky.social to understand under-the-radar authoritarian actions that you may have missed in these last few weeks.
chrischirp.bsky.social Prof Christina Pagel @chrischirp.bsky.social · 19d
While all the attention is on Trump's actions in Venezuela right now, here are some stories you might have missed over the holiday period told in 5 minutes.

youtu.be/-G7ZHqLiNu4
Authoritarian actions over the Holidays
YouTube video by Professor Christina Pagel
youtu.be
January 6, 2026 at 6:10 PM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
mehr.nz
somebody at UChicago is feeding preprints to LLMs without authors' consent, in a research study

they have the gall to suggest to authors they've opted-in that they volunteer to evaluate the LLMs' suggestions regarding their own work.

lol, lmao even. here is the invite and my reply
Dear Author, I am Honglin Bao (www.hbao.info), a data science PhD student in Knowledge Lab (https://knowledgelab.org/) at the University of Chicago, working on a study about “The Capabilities and Potential of AI for Automating Scientific Idealization: A Large-Scale Human-in-the-Loop Study” (under UChicago IRB25-1372). As AI plays an increasingly significant role in scientific discovery, this project aims to evaluate how far AI helps scientists extend their work in new directions – or if it is not useful in this regard. This is a research project – it has no commercial purpose. I will share the final draft, technical details, and aggregate results from scientists once the study is complete. We came across your preprint "Principles of music perception" and applied custom AI models on it in accordance with the terms of the preprint license, which generated five new extensions (i.e., ideas proposed by AI based on the same context as your paper). Our pilot study of 400 scientists (excluding you) indicates that around 60% found at least one of the proposed extensions thought-provoking and actionable. However, the remaining reported that AI only generates seemingly plausible but vague sentences. We solicit your help in evaluating whether you think AI is useful or not, since we believe you are the best judge of new ideas proposed from your own paper. No matter where you stand regarding AI and science: From principally believing that AI is prone to producing fake and morally problematic science to finding it useful, or something in between, we hope to receive evaluations that reflect a spectrum of views. The AI-proposed extensions are included in the survey link below. If you consent to review them and participate in the survey, we would appreciate it if you could do so within the next 14 days (it will take you < 10mins). If you do not consent, we will not use your research in this study. If you find these ideas valuable, you are welcome to purs… Please remove my data from your study. I want nothing to do with this — and I would also point out that if you had done appropriate background work in the selection of articles you fed to the plagiarism machine, you would have found that the preprint of mine you used is way out of date and has been updated substantially since it was first posted. ——— Samuel Mehr School of Psychology, University of Auckland and Child Study Center, Yale University Be a citizen scientist at themusiclab.org!
January 5, 2026 at 10:55 PM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
carissaveliz.bsky.social
Very happy to share my latest writing. "We are analogue creatures. Virtual water will not quench your thirst, digital food will not satisfy your appetite, and AI companions are no companions at all." Let's cherish the analogue, before we damage or lose it. #AIEthics

www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-01...
Expert Comment: Why cherish the analogue in a digital age? |
Dr Carissa Véliz, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Institute for Ethics in AI, examines human relationships with the analogue in an increasingly AI-driven and digital-focussed world.
www.ox.ac.uk
January 7, 2026 at 10:14 AM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
anticolonialhistry.bsky.social
On this day in 1901, CLR James is born in Trinidad. James was an important anti-colonial activist, socialist historian, theorist, journalist and cricket aficionado.

anticolonialhistory.com/event/148/
Photo of the young CLR James
January 4, 2026 at 3:53 PM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
altibel.bsky.social
Good post. I'd add that if you as a student care for the lives of other (human & non-human) animals and ecosystems, you definitely should not use genAI. The damage goes beyond energy, chips, and water consumption. It is an infrastructure that once cemented will negatively affect the lives of many.
eryk.bsky.social Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 21d
Many critical AI resources are written for teachers, rather than students. I wrote this for undergrad students dealing with “AI literacy” in the humanities, hoping to raise more fundamental questions about what it means to write. People have added it to syllabi, so maybe you’ll find it useful, too.
Human Literacy
Something I Can Tell Students Now That I Am Not Teaching You and I probably both keep hearing that students should be working toward AI literacy. That you should know what to type into prompt windo...
mail.cyberneticforests.com
January 4, 2026 at 4:38 PM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
chrischirp.bsky.social
I wrote this only last week, after saying that Trump seems about to wage war on Venezuela. It seems pretty relevant to what transpired today.

UK and Europe *must* reduce our dependence on America and its technologies as rapidly as we can.

christinapagel.substack.com/p/personal-r...
January 3, 2026 at 10:42 PM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
milenaivanova.bsky.social
Really grateful to see this article resonating with so many people concerned with the impact of AI on art and to see it reaching 10 000 downloads already. Thanks to everyone who has taken an interest in this piece.
#philsky #Philosophy #art #AI
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
AI, art and morality - AI and Ethics
After ‘Théâtre D’opéra Spatial’ won a prize in the Colorado State Fair’s annual art competition in 2022 there was a very strong outcry in the media that this signified the ‘end of art’. Allen himself ...
link.springer.com
January 3, 2026 at 12:03 PM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
implausibleblog.bsky.social
Rory Bremner mocks President Trump's attack, "I don't believe
in regime change except in Venezuela.. Iran.. Greenland"
January 3, 2026 at 11:01 AM
Reposted by Adrian Holme
judah-grunstein.bsky.social
Wallerstein's treatment of 16th-century England, echoing Polanyi, points out that initial periods of radical socio-economic transformation must be accompanied by braking mechanisms and welfare provisions when the resulting social conditions become unbearable.
January 1, 2026 at 1:17 PM