Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

David Higgins

@davidhiggins.bsky.social

8.1K followers 2.7K following 1.7K posts

Professor of Environmental Humanities at the University of Leeds, UK. Working on culture and environmental crisis. Writing a book about birds, loss, and restoration. Worried parent. Luddite. Opinions my own. Reposts ≠ endorsement.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · Oct 17

The book I'm writing -- on bitterns, loss, and hope -- has for a while seemed impossible. Today it seems merely improbable. I'm counting that as progress!

30 38 1K

David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 14h

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand:

Research Excellence Framework 2029.

Natasha Simonova @philistella.bsky.social · 17h

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand:

New library catalogue website.

🏰meg⚔️ @Birthright Audiobook! @impavid.us · 3d

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand

I'll go first: Six page commercial lease.

2 2 12

Reposted by David Higgins

Dr Rebecca Warren @drrjwarren.bsky.social · 16h

The lifelong psychological trauma of this destruction on those who have survived is beyond comprehension.

Resist 🕎🍉 @antizionistjew.bsky.social · 17h

No homes left, Gaza.

(Muhammad Smiry)

11 34

David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 18h

Portrait of me, by my son.

Green line picture of a flat blobby man with huge ears, resembling a particularly hideous goblin.

1 12

Reposted by David Higgins

Paul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 22h

People freaking out over the Chat-fishing dating-app article seem to miss that this is the *whole point* of ChatGPT and similar generative AI: writing as though you’re something other than you are. The whole idea is deception. Writing like a pro, like a lawyer etc, when you’re too lazy to be one.

4 29 100

Reposted by David Higgins

William Carruthers @williamcarruthers.bsky.social · 1d

Do I know anyone on here who has either applied for or received an AHRC Catalyst Award?

9 2

Reposted by David Higgins

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 1d

The alarming aspect of this deliberate "anti-woke" algorithmic biasing of LLMs from an educational perspective is our institutions all bought in to an imaginary of innovation, then got locked in to enterprise contracts, and now the models are being recoded so they undermine educational values

Marcus Luther @marcusluther.bsky.social · 1d

Genuine question: for those enthusiastically pushing AI tools into every part of our education system—what checks/guardrails are there around algorithmic biases like this?

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 1d

The administration “is currently pressuring OpenAI and other AI companies to make their models more conservative-friendly.”

3 67 120

Reposted by David Higgins

Jessica Kant @jessdkant.bsky.social · 3d

So when I hear of students being encouraged to use GPT in college I don’t hear innovation. I hear cognitive atrophy, the inability to think critically for oneself, and total dependence on vulnerable centralized repositories of data for knowledge without ever understanding how knowledge is generated.

10 160 780

David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 3d

very grateful to @victoriaxiaoxiaoma.bsky.social for getting me into the building!

1 5

David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 3d

Thank you!

David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 3d

Really up against it today so arrived at work at 6.20 before realising that I’d forgotten my keycard and therefore can’t access my office…

3 16

Reposted by David Higgins

Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 4d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

340 8.9K 28K

David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 3d

CFP: 'Poetry's Environments', University of Leeds, June 2026.

About poetry and the natural environment in relation to the environments in which it is written, experienced, performed, preserved, and studied.

Please submit a proposal! Deadline 5 December.

conferences.leeds.ac.uk/poetryenviro...

Call for Proposals | Poetry's Environments

conferences.leeds.ac.uk

1 11 15

Reposted by David Higgins

Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 4d

I just cannot comprehend how a massive bung for older rich homeowners, at the expense of sicker and younger people who have to bear all the cuts, is seen as some sort of 'win'. Britain has become a grotesque and narrow place indeed. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Conservatives would scrap stamp duty, Kemi Badenoch announces

The Tory leader says the move would help millions buy a home, in her annual conference speech.

www.bbc.co.uk

3 14 54

Reposted by David Higgins

Polly Atkin @pollyrowena.bsky.social · 4d

It's taken over 24 hours to get this uploaded with passable captions, but here's my talk from last night @cumbriauni.bsky.social with @drpennybradshaw.bsky.social on #TheCompanyOfOwls and #DorothyWordsworth. Including some terrible slights on robins, and blackbird impressions. youtu.be/goiC3hhlsx4

Companions of Nature: from sickbed consolations to mimic hootings

YouTube video by Polly Atkin

youtu.be

1 6 15

David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 4d

I’m pleased to see them but they terrify my son, which can make going outside a bit of a lottery at this time of year! (

Reposted by David Higgins

Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 4d

Reposting because I too need the answer.

John Kuhn @johnmkuhn.bsky.social · 4d

genuine question for mid-career people: what concrete tips do you have to keep service from swamping your own writing?

6 4 7

David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 4d

Being (deliberately?) incompetent at admin has worked for one or two academics of my acquaintance.
More seriously, being ruthless at blocking out research time — easier said than done of course.

David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 4d

A Gen AI argument I hate:

‘We disadvantage our students if we don’t teach them to use it “responsibly”’

For fuck’s sake, no.

1: it can’t be used responsibly
2: it’s antithetical to what makes humanities work worthwhile: critical thinking, deep research, self expression, self reflection, etc.

5 26

Reposted by David Higgins

Lindsay Beyerstein @beyerstein.bsky.social · 4d

Students talk about the demoralizing effects of AI. It makes them feel like they don't need to know anything and can't learn how to do anything well enough to compete with the machine.

MiMi Aye @meemalee.bsky.social · 8d

Author and filmmaker Justine Bateman on generative AI

"They're trying to convince people they can't do the things they've been doing easily for years - to write emails, to write a presentation. Your daughter wants you to make up a bedtime story about puppies - to write that for you." We will get to the point, she says with a grim laugh, "that you will essentially become just a skin bag of organs and bones, nothing else. You won't know anything and you will be told repeatedly that you can't do it, which is the opposite of what life has to offer. Capitulating all kinds of decisions like where to go on vacation, what to wear today, who to date, what to eat.
People are already doing this. You won't have to process grief, because you'll have uploaded photos and voice messages from your mother who just died, and then she can talk to you via AI video call every day. One of the ways it's going to destroy humans, long before there's a nuclear disaster, is going to be the emotional hollowing-out of people." - author and filmmaker Justine Bateman from a piece by Emine Saner for the Guardian

2 18 53

David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 4d

I suspected that the most annoying part of getting home from Graz today would be the 57 miles between Manchester airport and Leeds railway station and that has turned out to be correct. Going to take nearly 3 hours, with 2 changes. Remember the Northern Powerhouse?

1 1 14

David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 4d

Excellent discussion as always. Sad that this will be our last face to face project meeting… 😢

Warren Pearce @warrenpearce.bsky.social · 4d

On way home from superb Cultural Climate Models meeting in Graz with @davidhiggins.bsky.social @caroschwegler.bsky.social et al. Looking forward to seeing in print the new approach to modelling from this truly interdisciplinary international collab

gewi.uni-graz.at/en/unsere-fo...

Entrance of Graz train station with Graz Hauptbahnhof written in capital letters on a light coloured stone building against clear blue sky

David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 4d

Really feeling those Brexit benefits as I traverse passport control at Munich airport (hope to make my connection).

Reposted by David Higgins

Eben Muse @ebenmyrddin.bsky.social · 5d

First of all, 5mm isn't microscopic and you CAN see them.

Second of all, the fact that our Chancellor thinks she can't see these seems to mean she thinks they're not worthy of our consideration.

A hallmark of this government's terminal lack of imagination.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

5 15 39

Reposted by David Higgins

Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 5d

Robert Jenrick can take his bullshit racist concerns about ‘integration’ and shove them. And so can everyone else pitching in to defend him & pretend it’s a legitimate concern coming from a good place. Is it hell.

1 3 39

David Higgins @davidhiggins.bsky.social · 6d

Yep — not very easy to get to from Leeds!