Rob Farrow
LightNews LightNews
banner
rfarrow.bsky.social
Rob Farrow
@rfarrow.bsky.social
1.2K followers 550 following 180 posts
Senior Research Fellow
Institute of Educational Technology
The Open University (UK)


Co-Editor, https://jime.open.ac.uk/
Co-Director, http://go-gn.net/
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=j3-x3WwAAAAJ&hl=en

(No DMs)
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Rob Farrow
anitaleirfall.bsky.social
Every major improvement in human wellbeing, from rising life expectancy to declining famine, has its roots in technological advance rather than moral evolution or political reform. iai.tv/articles/tec... #technology #wellbeing #PhilosophySky #philsky
Technology is the only thing that has ever reduced poverty
<p><em>Public debate increasingly casts technology as a threat — to jobs, to equality, even to civilisation itself. In this article, environmental activist Zion Lights challenges that narrative, showi...
iai.tv
December 17, 2025 at 7:06 PM
Reposted by Rob Farrow
akwyz.com
Coursera and Udemy enter a merger agreement valued at around $2.5B | TechCrunch techcrunch.com/2025/12/17/c...
Coursera and Udemy enter a merger agreement valued at around $2.5B | TechCrunch
Coursera and Udemy, two of the biggest names in online learning, are combining platforms next year.
techcrunch.com
December 17, 2025 at 6:25 PM
Reposted by Rob Farrow
mrmunchertoyou.bsky.social
Just so I'm clear on this, computer memory has tripled in price because a bunch of it that hasn't been produced yet has been ordered to populate GPUs that aren't installed in data centers that aren't built yet in order to service a demand that doesn't exist to make profits that don't happen.
December 15, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Reposted by Rob Farrow
adamfrank4.bsky.social
My @theatlantic.com piece on the emerging new "Physics of Life". Complexity science, information theory, network theory... a whole new trans-disciplinary way of asking an ancient question.

www.theatlantic.com/science/2025...
A Physics Renaissance Is Coming
The field can no longer ignore the fundamental mystery posed by living things.
www.theatlantic.com
December 15, 2025 at 3:23 PM
rfarrow.bsky.social
I'm pleased to announce my latest publication: Farrow, R. (2025). Open science and epistemic equity: opportunities and challenges in the contemporary research ecosystem. BMC Research Notes, 18(1). doi.org/10.1186/s131...
Open science and epistemic equity: opportunities and challenges in the contemporary research ecosystem - BMC Research Notes
BMC Research Notes - The contemporary context for open science is characterised by growing international policy momentum toward more transparent, inclusive, and collaborative scientific practices...
doi.org
December 12, 2025 at 10:32 AM
Reposted by Rob Farrow
floridi.bsky.social
AI-based review. As I stressed some time ago, see
papers.ssrn.com/sol3...
this is going to happen, more or less properly, depending on whether decision-makers will embrace, shape, and steer this technology or resist it.
Stanford Agentic Reviewer - Submit Paper https://paperreview.ai/
December 4, 2025 at 11:45 PM
Reposted by Rob Farrow
ibogost.com
Listen I know y’all don’t like AI on here, but this is the densest image you will ever see.
December 5, 2025 at 4:02 AM
rfarrow.bsky.social
Two AI copyright cases, two very different outcomes – here’s why

theconversation.com/two-ai-copyr...
Two AI copyright cases, two very different outcomes – here’s why
Cases in the UK and German courts are among the first to be decided on this pressing issue.
theconversation.com
December 3, 2025 at 7:47 AM
Reposted by Rob Farrow
andyfirr.bsky.social
Welcome to Open Scholar Cards. 24 cards capturing the methods, tensions, and values behind modern open research practice. Card 1- Transparent Process.
November 22, 2025 at 6:57 AM
Reposted by Rob Farrow
gav1nx.bsky.social
AI to power national renewal as government announces billions of additional investment and new plans to boost UK businesses, jobs and innovation. www.gov.uk/government/n...
AI to power national renewal as government announces billions of additional investment and new plans to boost UK businesses, jobs and innovation
A major package of new reforms and investment will put AI at heart of government’s mission to drive growth, create jobs and spread prosperity across the country.
www.gov.uk
November 27, 2025 at 1:28 AM
Reposted by Rob Farrow
rutgerbregman.com
I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.

They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1
November 25, 2025 at 9:26 AM
Reposted by Rob Farrow
technollama.bsky.social
Victory for GEMA in Germany against OpenAI

The Munich Regional Court has handed down its much-awaited decision in GEMA v OpenAI, and it is… a lot, and right on the back of the Getty Images High Court ruling. On the surface, this looks like a clear defeat for OpenAI: the court found copyright…
Victory for GEMA in Germany against OpenAI
The Munich Regional Court has handed down its much-awaited decision in GEMA v OpenAI, and it is… a lot, and right on the back of the Getty Images High Court ruling. On the surface, this looks like a clear defeat for OpenAI: the court found copyright infringement in the model and in the outputs, granted injunctive relief, ordered disclosure, and paved the way for damages to be decided at a later date.
www.technollama.co.uk
November 22, 2025 at 9:56 PM
Reposted by Rob Farrow
radonlinearchives.bsky.social
To give people an idea of the collections listed on the website, here is a 🧵of 10 of the most accessed collections via the radical online archives list.

hatfulofhistory.com/radical-onli...
radical online collections and archives
I am very interested in the growing amount of radical literature from around the world that is being scanned and digitised. As there are so many and from many different places, I thought it would b…
hatfulofhistory.com
October 21, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Reposted by Rob Farrow
cstross.bsky.social
Looks like LLMs are *very* vulnerable to attack via poetic allusion: "curated poetic prompts yielded high attack-success rates (ASR), with some providers exceeding 90% ..."

https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
November 20, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Reposted by Rob Farrow
eudch.bsky.social
Not sure where to start strengthening Diamond Open Access?

Over the next 11 weeks, we’ll be sharing the DIAMAS recommendations — clear, practical steps to make scholarly communication sustainable, inclusive, and high-quality.
November 20, 2025 at 2:27 PM
Reposted by Rob Farrow
annamillsoer.bsky.social
Very useful: a form to help you build an AI disclosure statement. Developed by Kari Weaver. aidframework.org
AID Framework – Statement Builder
Interactive builder for Artificial Intelligence Disclosure (AID) statements, plus an overview of the AID Framework and author bio.
aidframework.org
November 13, 2025 at 3:23 AM
rfarrow.bsky.social
November 11, 2025 at 8:45 AM
Reposted by Rob Farrow
pkp.sfu.ca
PKP released the Publication Facts Label for OJS 3.3–3.5, a transparency tool to strengthen journal integrity and reader trust.

Built as a plugin, it helps journals demonstrate their quality and accountability.

Learn more: pkp.sfu.ca/2025/10/31/p...
#OpenAccess #OJS #MediaLiteracy #ScholarlyComms
This label will put your journal's research integrity in black and white - Public Knowledge Project
The Publication Facts Label is now freely available for the 34,000 journals using OJS (V. 3.3 – 3.5)
pkp.sfu.ca
October 31, 2025 at 11:36 PM
rfarrow.bsky.social
Thanks to the 200+ people who signed up for my session this morning at Open Education 2025! My talk is about the sociopolitical and critical dimensions of openness.

You can find a copy of the slides (CC BY) at..
opened25.sched.com/event/270La/...
2025 Open Education Conference: Openness as Critical Perspective
View more about this event at 2025 Open Education Conference
opened25.sched.com
October 30, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Reposted by Rob Farrow
koutropoulos.bsky.social
Researchers show that training on “junk data” can lead to LLM “brain rot”
Researchers show that training on “junk data” can lead to LLM “brain rot”
Models trained on short, popular, and/or “superficial” tweets perform worse on benchmarks.
arstechnica.com
October 24, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Reposted by Rob Farrow
equityunbound.bsky.social
🎉 We’re thrilled to share some amazing news with you… MYFest has been awarded the 2025 @oeglobal.bsky.social (OEGlobal) Award for Open Practice!! 🎉
Read more: awards.oeglobal.org/revealing-20...
Thank you @oeglobal.bsky.social
2025 Open Practices Awards
Open Practices are collective behaviors and techniques that open up access to educational opportunities. These practices promote and support the use of open educational resources, technologies, and so...
awards.oeglobal.org
October 19, 2025 at 1:48 PM
rfarrow.bsky.social
The platform exposing exactly how much copyrighted art is used by AI tools www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
The platform exposing exactly how much copyrighted art is used by AI tools
From 007 to Elsa, Vermillio claims it can trace percentage of AI-generated image drawn from pre-existing material
www.theguardian.com
October 18, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Rob Farrow
hypervisible.blacksky.app
The administration “is currently pressuring OpenAI and other AI companies to make their models more conservative-friendly.”
OpenAI is trying to clamp down on ‘bias’ in ChatGPT
GPT-5 is better at resisting liberal ‘pressure,’ the company says.
www.theverge.com
October 11, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Reposted by Rob Farrow
matthewterrill.bsky.social
I was already a hard AI-skeptic but this cements my long suspicion that there is no feasible path to anything close to return on invested capital for these data centers. Tech would need 15 to 25 times current AI revenues within the next 2-3 years just to break even. Not financially viable.
"I clearly hit a nerve in the industry, when judging by the number of individuals who reached out to chat," he wrote in an followup blog post. "In total, l've spoken with over two-dozen rather senior people in the datacenter universe, and there was an interesting and overriding theme to our conversations: no one understands how the financial math is supposed to work. They are as baffled as I am, and they do this for a living." Kupperman's original skepticism was built on a guess that the components in an average Al data center would take ten years to depreciate, requiring costly replacements. That was bad enough: "I don't see how there can ever be any return on investment given the current math," he wrote at the time. But ten years, he now understands, is way too generous. " had previously assumed a 10-year depreciation curve, which I now recognize as quite unrealistic based upon the speed with which Al datacenter technology is advancing," Kupperman wrote. "Based on my conversations over the past month, the physical data centers last for three to ten years, at most." In his previous analysis, Kupperman assumed it would take the tech industry $160 billion of revenue to break even on data center spending in 2025 alone. And that's assuming an incredibly generous 25 percent gross margin - not to mention the fact that the industry's actual Al revenue is closer to $20 billion annually, as the investment manager noted in his previous blog. "In reality, the industry probably needs a revenue range that is closer to the $320 billion to $480 billion range, just to break even on the capex to be spent this year," Kupperman posited in his updated essay. "No wonder my new contacts in the industry shoulder a heavy burden - heavier than I could ever imagine. They know the truth." Kupperman called that gulf between tech industry spending and actual revenue in 2025 "astonishing." However, it doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. For example, how does it all shake out when we account for 2026, when hundreds of new data centers are expected to pop up? "Adding the two years together, and using the math from my prior post, you'd need approximately $1 trillion in revenue to hit break even, and many trillions more to earn an acceptable return on this spend," he writes. "If the economics don't work, doing it at massive scale doesn't make the economics work any better - it just takes an industry crisis and makes it into a national economic crisis," he concludes. Overall, the pessimists broadly agree: it's no longer a matter of if Al is massively overhyped, but when the whole thing comes crashing down. More on Al hype: Data Shows That Al Use Is Now Declining at Large Companies
October 11, 2025 at 5:23 PM
rfarrow.bsky.social
A small number of samples can poison LLMs of any size #ai

www.anthropic.com/research/sma...
A small number of samples can poison LLMs of any size
Anthropic research on data-poisoning attacks in large language models
www.anthropic.com
October 10, 2025 at 3:01 PM