christening
hello!
i've been thinking / talking about starting a blog for the past several years, but all previous attempts resulted in feelings of embarrassment, shame, and subsequently their almost immediate deletion. which is a shame really, because 2026-aphie would love to have a (digital) paper trail of what exactly i've been thinking about since finishing university, and how i got here.
i settled for posting on linkedin (ah!!!!) for a while, but anyone who has tried to be in the least bit #authentic on the platform is likely familiar with the post-posting feeling of ick. I Am So Thrilled To Announce...
i used to post on social media all the time - made lifelong friends on it, started discourse, used it to explore all facets of my identity growing up. these days, i catch myself before posting even the most inoffensive of life updates. i'm bored of it, frankly. so i'm creating my own space. hello. here it is.
my name is aphie (pronounced AFF-eeeee; rhymes with taffy) and i'm a 26 y/o currently residing in brighton with my partner and our dog. we're moving up to york soon, because i applied to a phd programme up there earlier this year. and i got in! i often say it was a total whim, but secretly i wanted it very very badly. so i am uprooting our lives and we're running away up north.
at the moment, i'm a social researcher working on various lived experience and otherwise qualitatively inclined projects, mainly for charities. i'm very lucky to have a job in my field - i know this is not the case for many people my age - and luckier still for getting a funded place on a phd looking at AI safety from a sociological perspective.
my perspective on AI is probably a whole (series of...) blog posts in itself, but to be upfront i believe:
- AI hype is incredibly dangerous
- narratives of inevitability in particular
- different people with different opinions on and relationships to AI technologies are required to confront the myriad problems AI presents
- AI can mean very different things in different contexts (and is largely a marketing term)
- there are use cases for some kinds of AI that could positively serve humanity
- many may not exist yet because power and resources are unfairly concentrated
- we need to work harder to determine what AI for good actually means, or could mean
- and ensure those directly affected by AI are empowered to meaningfully influence its trajectory (including the ability to refuse such technologies)
it's a bit over 3 months until i start my doctoral programme. i hope whoever is reading this entry discovered it years after the fact so this reads as endearing. if i published a paper you found intriguing / infuriating / confusing and you somehow wound up here, welcome. if it's june 2026, please come back in 6-12 months when i've had a chance to say something more interesting. thank you for your patience and understanding.