Henry Fisher

God, today I stumbled across an essay I wrote five years ago for a Global Ethics course at Stockholm University. I was living in Berlin then, during the COVID lockdowns. At the time, the essay’s subject felt like something from a distant dystopian future. Now I realise we are already living inside that future. AI is developing faster than we can meaningfully align it with ethical standards. This is no longer a hypothetical concern. In the war in Ukraine and the conflict involving Iran, AI systems, drones, and platforms such as Palantir are becoming increasingly embedded in real military operations. The proximity and frequency of their use are unsettling. Where does this lead next? I would not be surprised if tomorrow begins to resemble the futures imagined in The Terminator or The Matrix. I am not an alarmist or an AI doomer. I simply picked up a five-year-old essay and realised that the world it warned about no longer feels theoretical. https://oleg.nu/bkGqcAmKdfS3e2

The whole Canvas educational system is down. No access to homework. No access to study content. No access to assignments, grades, or class communication. When one centralized platform controls the learning process, what is the real price of convenience? https://canvas-assistant.com/blog/canvas-breach-exposes-the-risk-of-centralizing-the-learning-process-around-private-student-data

Age Verification. I’m not sure children are actually fucked nearly as often as we are fucked over under the pretext that children might hypothetically be fucked.

Some fresh hallucinations from the ChatGPT Image2 model. Sweet dreams, folks.

@Sheep_Overboard@infosec.exchange exactly

ping

Shortly, my childhood story

We have encountered so much surrealism in our lives that it has become an integral part of our everyday existence. As a result, we increasingly submit to whatever phenomena unfold around us, accepting and resigning ourselves to them without meaningful resistance. This passivity is making us, as a society, incapable of resisting forces that may ultimately destroy us in the near future. https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jul/22/openai-cyberattack/

The biggest threat posed by open-source models is not to AI safety, but to Big Tech’s revenue. Dario knows it.

Western democracy is when your only choice is between a giant douche and a turd sandwich.

@_Colin_Watson@mastodon.social

@drgroftehauge@sigmoid.social Oh, the student was very sad, actually

Aggressive calorie deficit + three strength sessions a week + velvet narcissism =

"People have always used tools to reduce mental effort. Notes preserve information. Calculators automate arithmetic. Search engines locate facts. Cognitive scientists call this cognitive offloading: moving part of a mental task into the external environment. Offloading is not automatically harmful. It becomes risky when the outsourced process is the same process a learner needs to practise." https://www.notion4teachers.com/blog/the-ai-learning-divide-when-technology-supports-thinking-and-when-it-replaces-it

I dreamed about a nuclear apocalypse again. The dream was deeply strange. At first, I was spending time with a group of young people who explained that my behaviour was somewhat outdated and pointed out its “flaws.” Later, I was walking with another group past a massive concrete structure that resembled an abandoned barracks with boarded-up windows. For some reason, I suddenly decided to break into it. It felt illegal, but then someone called out to us, and everyone went inside. After we had spent a little time there, something strange happened. A sound or perhaps a flash of light caught our attention, and I opened a door leading outside. It turned out that a kind of “protective field” had formed around the building, glowing with a faint bluish light. Then it began. Projectiles streaked down from the sky, resembling the hypersonic warheads of the Oreshnik missile system. I shouted at everyone to get down and not look through the open doors or windows. Hell broke loose. The ground shook. There were flashes, explosions, and deafening crashes. It continued for some time. When everything finally went quiet, people cautiously began to rise from the floor, exchanging glances and whispering to one another. A thought crossed my mind that providence had brought us there, that everything had happened exactly as it was meant to happen, that it had all been planned. Someone said that it was the will of God and that we had to “lick the heavens.” Everyone dropped to the floor again and began licking it. Each person had their own “section.” I then noticed small pictures of the sky painted on the concrete, like tiny openings into the heavens. The person beside me pulled me out of my confusion and ordered, “Lick.” Obediently, I began licking a patch of filthy concrete floor on which clouds had been crudely painted. Then another noise came from somewhere nearby. It turned out that some of the people in the bunker were trying to go outside to “save” the others. I approached the door and stuck my face outside. Soft white ash was falling from the sky. I immediately understood what was happening and rushed towards a sink beside the entrance. At the neighbouring sink, a naked man was already washing ash from his body. I realised that he had come in from outside. I grabbed a bar of laundry soap and began scrubbing my face. The full horror of the situation finally struck me. I understood that I had to take control. “Attention, everyone,” I announced loudly. “My name is Henry Fisher. My first degree is in the chemical technology of organic substances and materials. In addition, I was once deeply interested in nuclear physics. I need to explain what is happening.” My voice trembled, yet it sounded firm and carried through the room. I felt everyone’s attention turn towards me. I was ready to explain alpha, beta, and gamma radiation, radioactive isotopes of caesium and other products of nuclear fission, their activity, and the danger posed by contaminated dust entering our bunker. But I could not. My consciousness began to cloud, and I suddenly realised that I was dreaming. My vision darkened, and the “reality” around me slowly disintegrated, dissolving into wakefulness.

@jackjanssen@ieji.de This is my personal argument, and I don't think you are in a position to categorise me into an ideology. I don't understand why I should pay more, but not those who are the richest once

Would vote for this masterpiece. Unfortunately, only boring birds and faces are available

@nabor@troet.cafe Why should I buy the same shit with the same shity quality, produced in the same Chinese factory from the "European" producer with an x10 pricetag?

@cocaine_owlbear@retro.pizza Loool, let’s start with the fun fact that the person who created this illustration himself obviously didn’t think about what it meant at all (sarcasm, in case that wasn’t clear) And I dont see myself as either pro-AI or anti-AI. AI is already here... right now.... That’s simply the reality.... Over the past two weeks, I’ve spoken to more than 15 students on the streets of Stockholm, and every single one of them uses AI in one way or another (I really found no one who avoids it dramatically. If you know one, let me know, would be interesting to talk). So whether you like it or not, the reality is that AI has already become an integral part of the learning process and our current loop of evolution of the social practice would be stupid to deny, soooory. And yeah... I’m writing about both sides of it, the positive and the negative (no more spoilers) (PS. pretty funny to see you make assumptions (even in an implicit way) about my position based on a single image, especially when you yourself just managed to interpret that same image in three completely different ways)

I'm currently working on a new article about generative AI in higher education. I've already interviewed several students and university teachers, but I'd like to include a broader, more diverse range of voices. If you're a university teacher with a thoughtful and well-argued perspective on generative AI in education, whether enthusiastic, skeptical, or somewhere in between, I'd love to hear from you. If you're open to a short interview, or know someone who might be, I'd really appreciate an introduction. Feel free to reply, send me a direct message, or share this post. Thank you.

It seems like everything in the digital environment has two final destinations:

1. Obsolete and become a useless piece of junk
2. Become an all-in-one AI-driven multifunctional piece of junk

@sobek@social.linux.pizza It doesn't solve the problem of externalities at all, none of these extra 4€ I pay will go to fix that already spoiled

@experimentmapass You can personally protect your child out of care... But once you say *we must protect our children,* you move from a private motive to a collective claim. That move turns personal concern into a program for collective action, and that is already ideological.

@cocaine_owlbear@retro.pizza elaborate plz

@serbianism@mastodon.social Western propaganda should not repeat Russian propaganda. But they do.

@jackjanssen@ieji.de I don't think you are in a position to decide for me what is useless and what is not

@experimentmapass Of course, bro, of course https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/1952-asch.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://www.researchgate.net/publication/215640111_Social_Identity_Theory https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.2420020110?utm_source=chatgpt.com

@drgroftehauge@sigmoid.social I only interviewed a teacher from a business department at Skövde University (he was my teacher and quite convenient to approach). I asked her because it could be easier to find someone with a strong perspective (Mastodon rebel style) on the question.

Yesterday, I couldn’t resist heading out to photograph some noctilucent clouds for you. It’s a relatively rare phenomenon that delights our Nordic eyes in July. For me, they always feel like the first sign of late summer. It is still warm, pleasant, and beautiful, yet there is also a slight sadness in realizing that our brief northern summer is already nearing its end.

AI slop is corroding the education system, and many teachers still do not know how to respond. Here is the story of one AI-generated essay and what it reveals about the problem. https://canvas-assistant.com/blog/how-i-killed-an-ai-generated-essay-during-its-defence

Stop Killing the Internet: No Digital ID and No Age Verification https://citizens-initiative.europa.eu/initiatives/details/2026/000011_en

@Benhm3@mastodon.social Nobody says "AI sucks". AI is a tool, they way you use the tool define if it sucks or not.

Here in Europe, we now have tariffs on goods purchased from outside the European Union: €3 per product category. So if I buy a €1 keychain on Temu, I have to pay an additional €3 tariff plus €0.75 in VAT. In total, a piece of crap that costs €1 ends up costing me almost €5. There was endless outrage in Europe over Trump’s tariffs in the US. Yet when essentially the same policy was introduced here, it happened with barely any public discussion. To me, this is a clear signal that the European Economic Area is losing competitiveness, and these measures are a desperate attempt to protect it, using highly questionable methods.