Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 1d

The @theguardian.com’s @barneyronay.bsky.social on Gary Neville, patriotism and #GeorgeOrwell:

www.theguardian.com/football/202...

The best thing he said was that "the union flag being used in a negative fashion is not right", something that is, intentionally or not, very George Orwell in its understanding of patriotism. Orwell gets marched around the place in a headlock all the time these days, dragged randomly into every debate. But he knew about symbols and flags and about Englishness and its values.

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 1d

Surreal piece in @theguardian.com that pretends to be about an alleged crime wave in London, but in fact is largely about the “super-rich” having their watches and other signs of conspicuous consumption snatched…

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 1d

A Short History of #GeorgeOrwell, from #BBCR4:

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Short History Of... - George Orwell - BBC Sounds

Perhaps best known for Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell became a chronicler of modern society

www.bbc.co.uk

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 1d

See also:

bsky.app/profile/supe...

David Meyer @superglaze.bsky.social · 3d

Very interesting job ad, for a Peter Thiel-backed company, that involves trying to make sure AI models serve liberal users with liberal perspectives (and yes, there is an equivalent ad for a "conservative politics expert") www.linkedin.com/jobs/search/...

LinkedIn job ad for a "liberal politics expert" to work for Mercor in Germany

3

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 1d

Cc @jctanner.bsky.social

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 2d

Yep

Reposted by Sameer Padania

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 2d

important on LLMs for academics:

1️⃣ LLMs are usefully seen as lossy content-addressable systems

2️⃣ we can't automatically detect plagiarism

3️⃣ LLMs automate plagiarism & paper mills

4️⃣ we must protect literature from pollution

5️⃣ LLM use is a CoI

6️⃣ prompts do not cause output in authorial sense

5 Ghostwriter in the Machine
A unique selling point of these systems is conversing and writing in a human-like way. This is imminently understandable, although wrong-headed, when one realises these are systems that
essentially function as lossy2
content-addressable memory: when
input is given, the output generated by the model is text that
stochastically matches the input text. The reason text at the output looks novel is because by design the AI product performs
an automated version of what is known as mosaic or patchwork
plagiarism (Baždarić, 2013) — due to the nature of input masking and next token prediction, the output essentially uses similar words in similar orders to what it has been exposed to. This
makes the automated flagging of plagiarism unlikely, which is
also true when students or colleagues perform this type of copypaste and then thesaurus trick, and true when so-called AI plagiarism detectors falsely claim to detect AI-produced text (Edwards, 2023a). This aspect of LLM-based AI products can be
seen as an automation of plagiarism and especially of the research paper mill (Guest, 2025; Guest, Suarez, et al., 2025; van
Rooij, 2022): the “churn[ing] out [of] fake or poor-quality journal papers” (Sanderson, 2024; Committee on Publication Ethics,

Either way, even if
the courts decide in the favour of companies, we should not allow
these companies with vested interests to write our papers (Fisher
et al., 2025), or to filter what we include in our papers. Because
it is not the case that we only operate based on legal precedents,
but also on our own ethical values and scientific integrity codes
(ALLEA, 2023; KNAW et al., 2018), and we have a direct duty to
protect, as with previous crises and in general, the literature from
pollution. In other words, the same issues as in previous sections
play out here, where essentially now every paper produced using
chatbot output must declare a conflict of interest, since the output text can be biased in subtle or direct ways by the company
who owns the bot (see Table 2).
Seen in the right light — AI products understood as contentaddressable systems — we see that framing the user, the academic
in this case, as the creator of the bot’s output is misplaced. The
input does not cause the output in an authorial sense, much like
input to a library search engine does not cause relevant articles
and books to be written (Guest, 2025). The respective authors
wrote those, not the search query!

1 58 140

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 2d

Jokey meta headline, but this is significant - Pope Leo is building on his predecessor’s many statements on #journalism, communication and #media:

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

You won’t believe what degrading practice the pope just condemned

Communication must be freed from clickbait and misguided thinking, head of Catholic church tells journalists

www.theguardian.com

1 1 2

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 2d

(Kind of refreshing to hear a Spurs podcaster talking about the governance of the game and whether the FA/Premier League should use @hrw.org analysis or the #Civicus Index as part of determining fit and proper owner tests.)

1 1

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 2d

Off to Leicester on the coach for the @publicinterestnews.org.uk #LocalNews Forum, surrounded by signs:

The now weekly London Standard, but no local paper here in the local Cafe Nero in Golders Green.

2

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 2d

Interesting to see a #THFC podcast delving more deeply into #humanrights and #football ownership - sobering listening:

open.spotify.com/episode/6Oqz...

S3E11 | Sportswashing & Spurs: What Would You Tolerate?

open.spotify.com

1 1 2

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 2d

We know this already but we keep going as if we don’t.

aylgorith.com/the-children...

The Children Who Power Silicon Valley's AI Dreams

Congolese children mine cobalt for $2/day while 95% of Africa's AI researchers can't afford the GPUs their data trains.

aylgorith.com

3

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 2d

We now have clear evidence that the Secretary is guilty of “malice aforeskin”

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 2d

#epistemicsecurity

Center for Democracy & Technology @cdt.org · 3d

CDT’s Harper: “What we learned from consultants is that they expect more pressure to use AI more aggressively for persuasion, for targeting and messaging, for creating video, audio & image generations. The interest of staying competitive might push campaigns to push boundaries.”

Reposted by Sameer Padania

Emma Howard @emmahoward.bsky.social · 3d

“We need to be honest with ourselves that travel is not sustainable in its current format and anything suggesting otherwise is greenwashing.”

Refreshing honesty from a global travel company

www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Tour operator Intrepid drops carbon offsets and emissions targets

Firm will instead invest A$2m a year in ‘climate impact fund’ supporting renewables and switching to EVs

www.theguardian.com

3 2

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 3d

Right… got it…

#openai #nvidia #oracle #microsoft #amd …

Reposted by Sameer Padania

Context Newsroom @contextnewsroom.bsky.social · 4d

Despite federal rollbacks under Trump, U.S. cities and states are driving climate action by setting ambitious goals, updating building codes, and investing in renewables.

✍️ Carey L. Biron reports

🔗 www.context.news/green-cities...

1 1

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 3d

@thomsonreutersfndn.bsky.social - a case for Trust Conference…

Kathryn Tewson @kathryntewson.bsky.social · 3d

The bros are at it again! and make no mistake, they are LITERALLY calling it "Vibe Lawyering"

Reposted by Sameer Padania

The Information Society Project at Yale Law School @yaleisp.bsky.social · 20d

📢 Apply now for the 2026–27 ISP Resident Fellowship at Yale Law School! We encourage projects on AI and the digital public sphere—free speech, content moderation, privacy, antitrust, and algorithmic governance. More info: law.yale.edu/isp/join-us#...

Fellowships

law.yale.edu

6 3

Reposted by Sameer Padania

The Open Notebook @theopennotebook.bsky.social · 3d

What does trust in science journalism mean to you?

We're getting ready for #SJF25 and want to hear from you. Share your response below for a chance to receive 1 or 10 free e-books of “The Craft of Science Writing.”

Science Journalism Forum

virtual multilingual global event where science journalists, writers, publishers, scientists, students, and academia can share new ideas and thoughts in science journalism

sciencejf.com

1 1 2

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 3d

Not least, if anyone questions me listening to it, I can say it’s “for work”…

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 4d

It’s not the main takeaway from @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social’s piece below, which you should read, but I’m really enjoying Jayde Adams’ radio series on local community apps & messageboards (shades of Adam Buxton reading YouTube comments):

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand...

—

1 1

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 4d

Omid Djalili on why he performed at the Riyadh Comedy Festival:

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I have been criticised for being part of the Riyadh comedy festival. This is why I did it | Omid Djalili

The headlines focus on money, but the gigs were great and I think there are different ways to achieve progress. Art, especially comedy, can be part of that, says stand-up comedian, Omid Djalili.

www.theguardian.com

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 4d

Great story!

(On a related note, I’m dredging my deep 90s memories here, but I am pretty sure Beck used to claim that he once worked making “sound effects for Arabic kung fu movies” (this was well before the wave of factchecking organisations…)…)

2

Sameer Padania @sdp.bsky.social · 4d

For all #Kafka fans, @legorafi.bsky.social with a horrifying new take on Die Verwandlung (Metamorphosis):

LE GORAFI
Costume noir Celio Club, chemise blanche Uniqlo, chaussures en cuir de chez Bexley et after-shave Acqua di Parma, c'est sous cette nouvelle forme que Samsa, une blatte germanique, s'est réveillée ce matin dans sa chambre praguoise. Au prix d'un effort surhumain, Samsa parvient à s'extraire de son lit et découvre dans le miroir de la salle de bain l'image d'un homme brun d'une trentaine d'années rasé de près, les cheveux fortement gominés et 32 dents définitives blanchies au peroxyde. Une vision d'horreur qui la pousse immédiatement à se barricader dans sa chambre en feignant de ne pas entendre les appels de son père, de sa mère, de sa sœur, et de ImmoStores, sa toute nouvelle entreprise de Vélux.

Terrorisée, Samsa décide finalement d'expliquer la situation à ses proches à travers la porte mais les mots qui sortent de sa bouche la clouent aussitôt sur place : "Alors petit point rapidos : je suis en train d'expérimenter un process de transformation full-stack totalement disruptif. Il faut absolument que vous vous positionniez comme des facilitateurs pour orchestrer un écosystème de résilience framework parce que là ma lifetime value est limite border et j'ai zéro visibilité sur ma capacité à penser transverse face à ce nouveau challenge". Une explication qui entraînera aussitôt l'explosion en sanglots de sa mère de l'autre côté du mur ainsi que plusieurs coups de hache dans la porte par son père, bien décidé à le faire taire pour de bon.

1