August 2025 – Mark Carrigan
17 posts published by Mark during August 2025| Mark Carrigan
I’ve not tried GPT 5 Pro yet so I withhold judgement. My impression is ChatGPT 5 is more useful than Claude as a practical assistant in some contexts but that Claude Opus 4.1 still feels fundamentally smarter in some important but nebulous way. However I think it will be much easier for a user to […]| Mark Carrigan
This observation by the tech journalist Casey Newton got me thinking about how LLMs are increasingly shaping the visibility of academics: Thinking models have gotten surprisingly good at identifying potential sources — potentially academic ones. When writing about Grok last month, I wanted to talk to someone who had studied relationships between people and chatbots. ChatGPT […]| Mark Carrigan
This is a concise summary by Ethan Mollick of what I increasingly see as a key factor driving the evolution of consumer-facing LLMs: Using AI well used to be a pretty challenging process which involved crafting a prompt using techniques like chain-of-thought along with learning tips and tricks to get the most out of your […]| Mark Carrigan
For last year’s words belong to last year’s languageAnd next year’s words await another voice. T. S. Eliot’s Little Gidding| Mark Carrigan
a pointis a beginningof everythingas well asan endof everything. Li Yuan-Chia| Mark Carrigan
From What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, pg 37 I’m struck by how, except when you’re young, you really need to prioritize in life, figuring out in what order you should divide up your time…| Mark Carrigan
I stumbled across this genre yesterday and I’m morbidly fascinated. It combines AI generated ‘motivational music’ with transformation videos: (To be fair I’ve had the second one stuck in my head all morning. I think it’s catchier than a lot of human-generated motivational music I’ve heard) And it uses this as background music for what […]| Mark Carrigan
I’m enjoying this series by Anthropic, even if it’s largely a new language for things I’ve already argued in Generative AI for Academics. I like their description of three modes of working with LLMs: In these terms my stance has been that augmentation offers tremendous intellectual possibilities for academic work but that the political economy […]| Mark Carrigan
I just read the Russell Group AI principles for the first time since they were released and was struck by principle number 2: “Staff should be equipped to support students to use generative AI tools effectively and appropriately in their learning experience“. This is exactly what I’ve been blogging about recently as the point where […]| Mark Carrigan
Seek transformation. O be eager for that flamein which something escapes you, proud of change.In overcoming the earthbound, that designing spiritloves the zest of a figure at its turning point. Whatever locks itself shut has already petrified.Does it feel safe and secure in inconspicuous grey?Wait – the hard warned by the hardest far away.Woe betide […]| Mark Carrigan
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This is an extract from Generative AI for Academics During those moments when change is taking place, it becomes easier to reflect upon the technology our scholarship depends on. We notice it far m…| Mark Carrigan
It occurred to me recently that I seem to enjoy writing more than most people I know. In this series of posts I will reflect on how I approach writing, in order to identify what it is about my writ…| Mark Carrigan
