Alice Ross

🥹🥹🥹 hör auf (jk, hör niemals auf)

this is unrelated but I think Charli xcx has produced the definitive party album AND the definitive gothic yearning album of the last few years essentially back to back and we don't talk about that enough 💅

well, one good thing is, I'm delighted to say I'll be sharing my work on "The Sound of Silencing: Identities and Ideologies in Commercial Text-To-Speech" with wonderful collaborators @ninamarkl.bsky.social @catlai.bsky.social @lhlew.bsky.social as a poster at @chi.acm.org 2026! ⛱️

not YET but I will!

Screenshot of a sent email from me to a University of Edinburgh support team. The text reads: Hi. I'm a PhD student and teaching assistant in the school of Informatics. I would like to know how much money the university has paid, and plans to pay, OpenAl for use of its model/s in the ELM platform. I have referred to the FAQ section but did not find this answered. Publicly available slides from Gavin McLachlan's presentation in 2024 state only that ELM "uses OpenAl's API, paid for centrally on token basis". Now that OpenAl is directly linked to the US military*, replacing Anthropic apparently by disregarding ethical concerns about the use of Al in warfare (along with many other GenAl harms**), I do not believe that this is an appropriate use of University funds. *this sentence is a hyperlink to Al-Jazeera's online coverage ** this is a hyperlink to Steven Bird's excellent paper 'Big AI is accelerating the metacrisis: What can we do?'

Politely asking my university to divest from war crimes, an approach which hasn't always worked in the past if we're honest

A screenshot from the long-poisoned social media site X. Sam Altman @sama writes: "Tonight, we reached an agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified network. In all of our interactions, the DoW displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome. Al safety and wide distribution of..." The rest of the post is not visible behind an info box reading "Readers added context: Government officials have contradicted Sam's claim, saying OpenAl will allow the DoW to use their models for "all lawful purposes". This could allow for uses Anthropic refused to engage in, namely mass surveillance tools and weapons systems with no human oversight."

Oh, look, the stupid plagiarism machine is now a stupid mass death machine.

CFP REMINDER!
Submissions are welcome of original research, by scholars of all backgrounds, broadly related to the study of language, sexuality, queerness & gender, particularly work which addresses the theme of ‘Queer (dis)belonging’. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🪻
Deadline is 28/03, 2 months to go!

lavlang32.ppls.ed.ac.uk

when I say humans are infinitely inventive and expressive with language in a way that a machine for generating statistically probable text can never be, this is what I mean btw

Manchester! Date for your diaries: 10/06/26, and check out the call for presenters below: for artists, academics, activists and anyone else who works with – or is interested in – queer data 🤩

see @kevinguyan.bsky.social and @aies-edinburgh.bsky.social for more!

The special session on Queer and Trans Speech Science and Technology (or QT sesh as I personally like to think of it) was the highlight of Interspeech 2025 for me! Could YOU be there at the next one? September in Sydney!

💔
I love this university so much. The culture of education as a commodity to be sold for profit must end. In flames.

A display of many bagged stotties - a large, round, thick, flat bread - for sale at Greggs in Newcastle central station

On a cheerier note, I was in Newcastle this week to talk about Jewish perspectives on AI with young people, and this also gave me a chance to stock up on STOTTIES - highlight of any trip to north-east England tbh

Indefensible from @rockstargames.com
People are losing their livelihoods, homes, right to remain in UK over shit like this. Thank you @chrisbratt.bsky.social / people make games for the reporting work!

We also have a proposed panel session on 'In-Group Queer Languages Beyond the West', details at:
lavlang32.ppls.ed.ac.uk/wp-content/u...
🤩 join in there if that's your bag, OR propose a different panel why not!
See you in Edinburgh in September!

Do you work on language and sexuality, queerness, gender, or something related? If yes, please submit to LavLang!
WIP and project launches are welcome along with completed work, and it's for all career stages, check out the CfP here:
lavlang32.ppls.ed.ac.uk?page_id=231

the community thanks you for your service.

The CfPs for LavLang32 at Edinburgh is now OPEN! A reminder of our stellar lineup:

• Dr. Nikki Lane (Duke)
• Dr. Kevin Guyan (UoE)
• Prof. Erez Levon (Bern)
• Dr. Stamatina Katsiveli (American College of Greece)
• Dr. Eddie Ungless (UoE)

Submit a paper here: lavlang32.ppls.ed.ac.uk?page_id=231

AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself Students use AI to write papers, professors use AI to grade them, degrees become meaningless, and tech companies make fortunes. Welcome to the death of higher education.

„CSU—US’s largest public uni system—went all-in with a $17mill partnership with OpenAI. . .CSU unveiled its grand technological gesture just as it proposed slashing $375mill from its budget. While admin cut ribbons on AI, they were cutting faculty positions, academic programs, student services.“

Queer identities In east and southeast asia April 6-7, 2026

Conference alert! Queer Identities in East & Southeast Asia, 6-7 April 2026, Edinburgh 💜
Abstracts are due by 18 Jan!
queeresea.wordpress.com

Hmm have just realised that bluesky did me dirty and didn't let me tag @kevinguyan.bsky.social properly in that post?? Kevin is GREAT go follow and read his books! 💚

Three smiling people (l-r: Dr. Nazanin Andalibi, Alice Ross (me!) and Dr. Oliver Haimson) standing in front of a colourful screen displaying the title 'Panel Discussion'

A photo of buildings at George Square, The University of Edinburgh, with text overlaid on a bright green background. The text is the title of last week's event, Gender and the Machine: Trans Tech, Emotion and AI

Such an inspiring, powerful event! Huge thanks: @naz-andalibi.bsky.social @haimson.bsky.social for their brilliant talks & sharing insights with me in the panel chat, @aies-edinburgh.bsky.social @kevinguyan.bsky.social @sj-bennett.bsky.social for putting it all together, & to everyone who attended!

Text-to-speech voices as human remains — Centre for Technomoral Futures Speech technology researchers worldwide are working on improving the smoothness and fidelity of text-to-speech towards the goal of accessible communication for all. However, TTS models are also being ...

www.technomoralfutures.uk/news-databas...
Happy Monday! Here's me thinking about speech tech, voices, and death thanks to the lovely @technomoralfutures.bsky.social

content notes: discussion of death, grief, online abuse

i'm in this skeet and i don't like it

IT'S TODAY 🤩 for my Edinburgh pals please note this event is in the *Business School* building (29 Buccleuch Pl). I'm excited! See you later!

Mgmt claim we need these destructive cuts to "save" >£90M and avoid a possible future financial deficit. They refuse to explain (to the joint unions or to Scottish Parliament) how such a situation could have arisen at one of the UK's wealthiest universities, with £3bn in reserves at last reporting.

A pink and purple poster announcing a rally at the Scottish Parliament, Wednesday 19 Nov, 1-2pm. Headline reads: Calling all staff and students! Join the fightback against job cuts!

PLEASE JOIN @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social rally Weds 19 Nov!
We are fighting to save @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social. Senior management are threatening staff with up to 1800 compulsory redundancies on top of the many recent redundancies and cuts that have already damaged our working and learning conditions.

Gender and the Machine: Trans Tech, Emotion and AI Join us for this afternoon of events discussing gender, marginalisation and emotion in AI and digital technologies

Really looking forward to this upcoming @aies-edinburgh.bsky.social event, where the great @naz-andalibi.bsky.social and @haimson.bsky.social will be talking about emotion, gender, marginalisation and AI 🤩

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/gender-and...

In unrelated news one of my undergraduate tutees told me I was a "very nice tutor" today and I maybe got more job satisfaction from that moment than in the entire rest of my career to date? 🥹😭 tutoring is brilliant, marking not so much

In my experience (9+ years there) there was always a divisive, secretive company culture around pay + contracts, & an unspoken threat that workers shouldn't rock the boat because we were all replaceable; last week they said that part out loud. Those of us who cared were brave and unionised anyway.

Good to see a decent turnout today in support of the 30 employees laid off by @rockstargames.com (my former employer!🍵) for union organising - bring back shame for those who still work there, didn't join the union and didn't join the rally honestly