Max Long's Blog

Hard Fork is a weekly podcast published by the New York Times, and presented by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton. The show features discussions about new developments in tech, which in recent years generally translates to ‘AI and little else’. I started listening to the podcast sometime around late 2023: ChatGPT had recently hit the headlines, and I was starting a new research fellowship on the Congruence Engine project which explored the use of digital methods in historical and curatorial work. But although AI was increasingly a subject matter of mainstream news coverage, I didn’t feel like there were many places to keep up to speed with the latest developments in a way that was both detailed and accessible.

At first, Hard Fork seemed like a good way to get clued into the way that the world was being, or at any rate was about to be, transformed by the arrival of newly-transformative Large Language Models. I learned a lot by listening to Kevin and Casey discuss the inner workings of Silicon Valley, often through interviews secured with leading figures in the world of AI like Demis Hassabis or Dario Amadei. The tone, admittedly, was ocassinally a bit grating, but in this instance it had the upside of making the fast-paced world of tech understandable to a relative novice to the field.

In the US, unemployment among recent college graduates is up 1.3 percentage points from its mid-2022 low, but by almost double that among recent labour market entrants without a degree, who have seen a 2.4 point rise. This is very different to the much more modest 0.7 point rise among the frequently — but inappropriately — cited group of non-grads in their mid-twenties who are sheltered from today’s harsh hiring conditions.

The FT finally stating what others in HE policy have been saying for years: that graduate outcome metrics tell us far more about the economy that students graduate into than the skill levels of those graduates or the quality of their education!

We see this legal claim as the culmination of an extraordinary effort by local community members and campaign groups to research, monitor and advocate for their rivers. The claimants have watched their rivers become the subject of national press coverage, public campaigns, Parliamentary debates and government pledges. Formally commencing this legal action is a concrete step towards protecting these vital national ecosystems. (via Leigh Day)

Lots of press coverage for this today, which is set to be biggest environmental lawsuit in the UK to date. Almost 4,000 locals have joined the legal claim against Avara Foods, Freemans of Newent, and Welsh Water, for “extensive and widespread pollution” in the rivers Wye, Lugg and their tributaries. The River Wye is going to be one of the case studies in my upcoming book project on the history of river pollution in Britain.

There’s so much discussion in the media about river pollution right now, but the historical context has been largely lacking. There are some interesting historical precedents to this case, including the 1952 ‘Pride of Derby’ case pursued by the Anglers’ Cooperative Association against British Celanese, Midland Tar Distillers, the Derby Corporation, and the British Electricity Authority for polluting the River Derwent, resulting in an injunction against all four defendants.

“I am not now, nor have I ever been, part of any kind of antifascist or anti-racist organization – I just haven’t. I’m a professor,” Bray said on Monday about the circumstances. Noting that antifa is a decentralized movement, he added: “I’m a professor of the history of the left.” (via The Guardian)

Very concerning news emerging from the USA, where academics are increasingly targets of political attacks and ostricisation. This is part of a much longer campaign from the organisation which is notorious for its Professor Watchlist, which encourages students to report on left-wing professors at US institutions.

If, as the Education Secretary claimed this week, the government is serious about choice, social mobility and access to education it needs to appreciate that the provision of local universities and courses is now at considerable risk given the financial turmoil affecting UK higher education. What’s clear is that our current situation and trajectory is not a route to greater choice and accessibility. Rather, it is a potential channelling of resources and students into an ever narrowing range of options deemed by policy makers as being in the country’s best interests for the future. (via the RHS blog)

Lucy Noakes, President of the Royal Historical Society, on ‘The Value and Provision of History and the Humanities’

The University of Oxford have recently published new guidance on the use of Generative AI in Research, as well as new policies on the use of GenAI in summative assessments. The university has also published guidance on the safe and responsible use of GenAI tools. This follows a recent deal between the University and OpenAI, which will see ChatGPT Edu made available to all users in the university.

Much of this is very informative, and it feels like a positive step to have clearly articulated policies on the use of GenAI in a university context, especially one which lays out guidance for both students and researchers. However, as with any blanket set of policies and recommendations, there still remain questions as to how these will apply within the context of individual subjects and fields, and how the use of specific tools and methods should be reported, registered, and cited. This is particularly the case in many fields, including History, where registering the declaring the use of specific tools and data associated has not been common practice in the past, except in the case of digital humanities specialists.

The policies introduce a key distinction between what the university terms substantive use, including the use of GenAI to “interpret and analyse data”, “formulate research aims”, “identify research gaps”, or to produce transcriptions of interviews (interestingly OCR is not mentioned). There are a few exclusions, mostly relating to the use of AI to overcome language and accessibility barriers.

This weekend we celebrated the career of Prof. Peter Mandler with a book launch and a conference featuring contributions from friends and colleagues across his career. The book, entitled Democratising History: Modern British History Inside and Out, is edited by Freddy Foks, Laura Carter, and Philip Harling. The introduction, by Laura and Freddy, is a particularly rich contribution to the field, outlining a rough genealogy for the concept of ‘democratisation’, which has so far received surprisingly little detailed attention by historians of Britain. The book is available to download for free now!