Professors’ blog

In August 2024 a Class Action Lawsuit, Bartz v. Anthropic PBC, No. 3:24-cv-05417-WHA, was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The lawsuit is of interest because the 1.5 billion USD proposed settlement has so far exceeded expectations and is now the largest ever proposed for a case related…

There have always been attempts to restrict the freedom of science. Science and the results of individual researchers have always met with opposition, for example from politicians. Concern about the state of researchers’ freedom of expression is common and internationally recognised. Harassment is the most common and recognised phen…

Most of us in the world of scientific publishing agree that the integrity and reliability of the literature is under threat from many directions. One of the most perfidious is generative AI. As it improves, it will soon be capable not just of writing a paper based around ‘real’ experimental data. It will become able…

Ever since the exodus of European scientists in the 1930s, people the world over have looked up to the US as the bastion of free enquiry and intellectual ingenuity, backed up by stalwart public support for science and academia. This is the world in which I grew up, forging part of my own scientific career…