Josh Bowsher
@jbowsher.bsky.social
Capitalism Hater, Sociology Lecturer: the cybernetic and the computational, STS, critical human rights studies. Author of The Informational Logic of Human Rights (Edinburgh University Press)
(he/him)
(he/him)
Pinned
Josh Bowsher
@jbowsher.bsky.social
· Nov 26
Now I'm starting to be here a bit more, thought I'd take the opportunity to outline my work. I'm a lecturer in sociology who has worked quite a lot on critical human rights stuff, but more recently has begun pairing this with STS stuff and digital social theory...
Reposted by Josh Bowsher
On Monday, former Bellingcat journalist Tristan Lee and open-source researcher Jennefer Harper will launch Decoherence Media, a new digital publication covering “authoritarian and anti-democratic movements, with a particular focus on the far-right.”
Data journalists start news site to track extremist movements
Decoherence Media is a new digital publication covering “authoritarian and anti-democratic movements, with a particular focus on the far-right,” co-founder Tristan Lee told Semafor.
www.semafor.com
October 27, 2025 at 1:17 PM
On Monday, former Bellingcat journalist Tristan Lee and open-source researcher Jennefer Harper will launch Decoherence Media, a new digital publication covering “authoritarian and anti-democratic movements, with a particular focus on the far-right.”
Reposted by Josh Bowsher
It's worth adding that while the hack of 2+ years ago has been dreadful for British Library users, it is also been awful for BL staff, who cannot fulfil readers' requests and are then confronted by their consequent frustration. With no end in sight.
The risible wages are well-known in the wider field of the library, museum, gallery and archive world. I’d like to think public opinion is with the people who make the place click day-in-day-out; they deserve better.
Knowledge may be free but labour isn’t: spread the wealth and pay the workers!
Knowledge may be free but labour isn’t: spread the wealth and pay the workers!
October 26, 2025 at 8:33 AM
It's worth adding that while the hack of 2+ years ago has been dreadful for British Library users, it is also been awful for BL staff, who cannot fulfil readers' requests and are then confronted by their consequent frustration. With no end in sight.
Reposted by Josh Bowsher
The AI industry wants us to believe AI superintelligence is the real threat from generative AI.
But that narrative was crafted to distract from the many ways genAI is being used to tear our societies apart, as we saw this week when a deepfake video rocked the Irish election. It must be reined in.
But that narrative was crafted to distract from the many ways genAI is being used to tear our societies apart, as we saw this week when a deepfake video rocked the Irish election. It must be reined in.
Generative AI is a societal disaster
Governments are deluding themselves into believing investment justifies allowing AI to upend society
disconnect.blog
October 24, 2025 at 10:12 AM
The AI industry wants us to believe AI superintelligence is the real threat from generative AI.
But that narrative was crafted to distract from the many ways genAI is being used to tear our societies apart, as we saw this week when a deepfake video rocked the Irish election. It must be reined in.
But that narrative was crafted to distract from the many ways genAI is being used to tear our societies apart, as we saw this week when a deepfake video rocked the Irish election. It must be reined in.
This from San Francisco in 2019 popped up. Evergreen graffiti.
October 23, 2025 at 8:22 PM
This from San Francisco in 2019 popped up. Evergreen graffiti.
Reposted by Josh Bowsher
I don’t know if there’s a more perfect illustration of the utter fucking nonsense that creative pollution by AI will produce than this choice to illustrate the power of Paramount’s new “localization” and “customization” technology by face-swapping Brad Pitt into the lead role of GET OUT
October 23, 2025 at 8:13 AM
I don’t know if there’s a more perfect illustration of the utter fucking nonsense that creative pollution by AI will produce than this choice to illustrate the power of Paramount’s new “localization” and “customization” technology by face-swapping Brad Pitt into the lead role of GET OUT
Reposted by Josh Bowsher
ICYMI: Ryan Bishop, 'The Eames Office, the Cold War and the Avant-Garde: Making the Lab of Tomorrow' - a collaborative, affair linking Hollywood, the State Department, universities, the corporate sector and international fairs during the Cold War. (Open Access) journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
journals.sagepub.com
October 13, 2025 at 12:01 PM
ICYMI: Ryan Bishop, 'The Eames Office, the Cold War and the Avant-Garde: Making the Lab of Tomorrow' - a collaborative, affair linking Hollywood, the State Department, universities, the corporate sector and international fairs during the Cold War. (Open Access) journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
Neferti Tadiar's Remaindered Life: disaster capitalism constitutes disposable lives as a ‘pipeline’ of ‘aggregate material’ for ‘productive
consumption,’ by accumulative processes embedded in ‘border patrol, refugee processing and
detention, and other industries of life expenditure.’
consumption,’ by accumulative processes embedded in ‘border patrol, refugee processing and
detention, and other industries of life expenditure.’
"Screenshots of internal documents obtained by NYT show that Salesforce has pitched ICE on using the company’s artificial intelligence capabilities to help ICE staff up as Mr. Trump expands immigration raids and deportations around the country".
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/u...
Salesforce Offers Its Services to Boost Trump’s Immigration Force
www.nytimes.com
October 17, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Neferti Tadiar's Remaindered Life: disaster capitalism constitutes disposable lives as a ‘pipeline’ of ‘aggregate material’ for ‘productive
consumption,’ by accumulative processes embedded in ‘border patrol, refugee processing and
detention, and other industries of life expenditure.’
consumption,’ by accumulative processes embedded in ‘border patrol, refugee processing and
detention, and other industries of life expenditure.’
Behold the power of AI (subject to hallucinations, will likely tell you what you want to hear, S&C's apply)
Wow. Just wow.
"Students pay premium prices for information that AI now delivers instantly and for free. A business student can ask ChatGPT to explain supply chain optimization or generate market analysis in seconds. The traditional lecture-and-test model faces its Blockbuster moment."
"Students pay premium prices for information that AI now delivers instantly and for free. A business student can ask ChatGPT to explain supply chain optimization or generate market analysis in seconds. The traditional lecture-and-test model faces its Blockbuster moment."
When Knowledge is Free, What are Professors For?
Higher Education Must Stop Competing with AI on Information and Start Teaching What Machines Can’t Do
www.forbes.com
October 16, 2025 at 8:20 AM
Behold the power of AI (subject to hallucinations, will likely tell you what you want to hear, S&C's apply)
Lol GenAI remains a technology in search of a use case. Sounds like a really convoluted version of... Making a video of yourself?
Nothing could possibly go wrong with this. Creating a lifelike digital avatar on a third party platform will definitely not open teaching staff up to career destroying issues in the event of that platform being hacked.
Exclusive: Teachers will use 'deepfake' technology to create an AI avatar of themselves to deliver catch-up lessons for pupils who have missed school
Watch one of the school’s ‘deepfake’ teachers in our story below
schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-trus...
Watch one of the school’s ‘deepfake’ teachers in our story below
schoolsweek.co.uk/schools-trus...
October 12, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Lol GenAI remains a technology in search of a use case. Sounds like a really convoluted version of... Making a video of yourself?
Reposted by Josh Bowsher
I strongly urge everyone to not just read this warning from @marcwatkins.bsky.social, but heed it, and be vocal and forceful pushing back against using AI to grade student writing. This must be anathema if we're going to have a world where learning means something. substack.com/inbox/post/1...
The Dangers of using AI to Grade
Nobody Learns, Nobody Gains
substack.com
October 10, 2025 at 1:16 PM
I strongly urge everyone to not just read this warning from @marcwatkins.bsky.social, but heed it, and be vocal and forceful pushing back against using AI to grade student writing. This must be anathema if we're going to have a world where learning means something. substack.com/inbox/post/1...
I dunno man, I think they are both problems maybe?
“The problem with billionaires isn’t that they’re hoarding money that would otherwise pay for a Scandinavian social utopia. It’s that their money has become a source of wildly distorted political power that allows a few men with extremist views to wreak havoc on the rest of us.”
Billionaires Are Hoarding Power, Not Money
Billionaire money has become a source of wildly distorted political power that allows a few men with extremist views to wreak havoc on the rest of us.
www.liberalcurrents.com
October 10, 2025 at 5:49 PM
I dunno man, I think they are both problems maybe?
Reposted by Josh Bowsher
This number alone is distressing. Now also imagine the staggering number of young lives irrevocably traumatised. www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...
Young lives cut short on an unimaginable scale: the 18,457 children on Gaza’s list of war dead
Every name on a list compiled by health authorities in Gaza of the child victims of Israel’s offensive
www.theguardian.com
October 8, 2025 at 9:02 AM
This number alone is distressing. Now also imagine the staggering number of young lives irrevocably traumatised. www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...
Reposted by Josh Bowsher
Two of the core myths of late twentieth century have been that we could have won Vietnam if we just let the Rambos do their thing and we could solve crime if we just the Dirty Harrys of the world do their thing--in other words embrace violence.
www.unemployednegativity.com/2022/03/oper...
www.unemployednegativity.com/2022/03/oper...
Operation Blue Thunder: Or, First time as Violence, Second time as Action
www.unemployednegativity.com
October 6, 2025 at 11:30 AM
Two of the core myths of late twentieth century have been that we could have won Vietnam if we just let the Rambos do their thing and we could solve crime if we just the Dirty Harrys of the world do their thing--in other words embrace violence.
www.unemployednegativity.com/2022/03/oper...
www.unemployednegativity.com/2022/03/oper...
Really good to see this particular genocide denier looking very uncomfortable, uninformed, and deliberately stupid. There is nothing left to stand on but vibes - which is, I think, a general problem of politics today.
October 2, 2025 at 8:38 AM
Really good to see this particular genocide denier looking very uncomfortable, uninformed, and deliberately stupid. There is nothing left to stand on but vibes - which is, I think, a general problem of politics today.
Reposted by Josh Bowsher
For years I wasn’t sure if it was a fever dream but I found the doc recently. this is 4 years after the MacPherson report - this stuff never goes away, and every other year we have an exposé and a bunch of recriminations and apologies
m.youtube.com/watch?v=V5A2...
m.youtube.com/watch?v=V5A2...
The Secret Policeman - BBC Documentary by Mark Daly from 2003. *Police Racism*
YouTube video by Rare Tracks UK
m.youtube.com
October 2, 2025 at 8:32 AM
For years I wasn’t sure if it was a fever dream but I found the doc recently. this is 4 years after the MacPherson report - this stuff never goes away, and every other year we have an exposé and a bunch of recriminations and apologies
m.youtube.com/watch?v=V5A2...
m.youtube.com/watch?v=V5A2...
Reposted by Josh Bowsher
This image is seared into my mind and it will never leave - it’s a police officer with a white hood talking about how he will beat up an Asian police officer in the same dorm - it’s from a BBC documentary in 2003
October 2, 2025 at 8:27 AM
This image is seared into my mind and it will never leave - it’s a police officer with a white hood talking about how he will beat up an Asian police officer in the same dorm - it’s from a BBC documentary in 2003
Reposted by Josh Bowsher
On Thursday, @workersobservatory.org will run a workshop for on-demand couriers in Edinburgh. The workshop will explore how these workers can shape demands for inclusion in the city's Fair Work Charter and FW consultation.
Thanks to @edi.bike and @edinburghminute.bsky.social for picking up news of the @workersobservatory.org workshop this week:
We Deserve Fair Work - Workshop for Delivery Riders in Edinburgh
luma.com/3r5hmptg
We Deserve Fair Work - Workshop for Delivery Riders in Edinburgh
luma.com/3r5hmptg
We Deserve Fair Work - Workshop for Delivery Riders in Edinburgh · Luma
Food delivery workers in Edinburgh, join the Workers' Observatory and ROOM for our workshop titled "We Deserve Fair Work!"
For too long, delivery workers have…
luma.com
September 30, 2025 at 10:31 AM
On Thursday, @workersobservatory.org will run a workshop for on-demand couriers in Edinburgh. The workshop will explore how these workers can shape demands for inclusion in the city's Fair Work Charter and FW consultation.
More like get in loser we're openly doing war crimes
get in loser, were doing war crimes
Hegseth: "We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement."
September 30, 2025 at 1:21 PM
More like get in loser we're openly doing war crimes
We're all Virilians now
A factor in this triumphant return is how platforms (Spotify) dissolve historical time, with the effect that a) nobody needs to remember that this was a band whose 'good' patch lasted circa 18 months and b) they provide the backdrop for inter-generational bonding
Oasis stadium jaunt ends (for now), it has been odd seeing how massively they’re loved, and also odd that it is seen as churlish to critique it. For me, they inescapably represent the worst of the 90s, the banterous homophobia, the conservatism. It made life miserable & I struggle to get over that.
September 30, 2025 at 11:40 AM
We're all Virilians now
Reposted by Josh Bowsher
It isn't that data centers use too much water (though they can and do). It's that the water could be used for other, more worthwhile things! Water used in one place might return through the water cycle elsewhere. So, the costs and benefits are distributed geographically and unequally
September 28, 2025 at 8:40 PM
It isn't that data centers use too much water (though they can and do). It's that the water could be used for other, more worthwhile things! Water used in one place might return through the water cycle elsewhere. So, the costs and benefits are distributed geographically and unequally
Reposted by Josh Bowsher
In the UK, the @ippr.org and @cmmonwealth.bsky.social concluded that "large companies appear to have preserved or even expanded profit margins during inflationary times, thereby amplifying the inflationary shock."
www.ippr.org/media-office...
www.ippr.org/media-office...
Revealed: How powerful companies are amplifying inflation through their profit margins | IPPR
The role of ‘excess profits’ by dominant companies in exacerbating inflation is revealed in new report Driven by a small number of firms, business profits
www.ippr.org
September 24, 2025 at 5:39 AM
In the UK, the @ippr.org and @cmmonwealth.bsky.social concluded that "large companies appear to have preserved or even expanded profit margins during inflationary times, thereby amplifying the inflationary shock."
www.ippr.org/media-office...
www.ippr.org/media-office...
Reposted by Josh Bowsher
And analysis by Unite argued that in a recent half-year, 58.7 % of inflation was due to profit increases (versus ~8.3 % from labour cost rises).
www.unitetheunion.org/media/4757/u...
www.unitetheunion.org/media/4757/u...
www.unitetheunion.org
September 24, 2025 at 5:41 AM
And analysis by Unite argued that in a recent half-year, 58.7 % of inflation was due to profit increases (versus ~8.3 % from labour cost rises).
www.unitetheunion.org/media/4757/u...
www.unitetheunion.org/media/4757/u...
Some interesting thoughts here about which critiques of AI are worth pursuing and in what ways
apropos of recent posts, I was invited to give a talk to my faculty about "social impacts of AI" on Monday and I have decided to stop being coy about it
September 23, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Some interesting thoughts here about which critiques of AI are worth pursuing and in what ways
Reposted by Josh Bowsher
Problematic (to put it kindly) on so many levels.
1) there isn't really 'unfunded' research. The REF is there to allocate resources so that research is possible without a grant.
1) there isn't really 'unfunded' research. The REF is there to allocate resources so that research is possible without a grant.
Ministers ‘want to shift funds away from low-quality research’ .
Universities UK president says institutions cannot afford “unfunded hobbyist research”.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...
Universities UK president says institutions cannot afford “unfunded hobbyist research”.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...
Ministers ‘want to shift funds away from low-quality research’ - Research Professional News
Universities UK president says institutions cannot afford “unfunded hobbyist research”
www.researchprofessionalnews.com
September 12, 2025 at 7:18 AM
Problematic (to put it kindly) on so many levels.
1) there isn't really 'unfunded' research. The REF is there to allocate resources so that research is possible without a grant.
1) there isn't really 'unfunded' research. The REF is there to allocate resources so that research is possible without a grant.
Blood Orange's new album is really just an astonishing piece of work. Moving across genres in a way that still feels coherent, homages to Elliot Smith sitting alongside beautiful jazz saxophone, rnb, and 80s synth pop. An achievement and a joy. 5 ⭐
September 11, 2025 at 11:03 PM
Blood Orange's new album is really just an astonishing piece of work. Moving across genres in a way that still feels coherent, homages to Elliot Smith sitting alongside beautiful jazz saxophone, rnb, and 80s synth pop. An achievement and a joy. 5 ⭐