1. Here’s a piece from Wired discussing how, because they are less fluent in languages other than English, the development of AI chatbots is threatening to amplify the existing bias in global commerce and innovation in favour of English, ChatGPT Is Cutting Non-English Languages Out of the AI Revolution https://www.wired.com/story/chatgpt-non-english-languages-ai-revolution/

2. One more on AI, from The Guardian: My students are using AI to cheat. Here’s why it’s a teachable moment by Siva Vaidhyanathan from the University of Virginia https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/may/18/ai-cheating-teaching-chatgpt-students-college-university

3. The Sutton Trust champions social mobility in the UK through programmes, research and policy influence. Their mission states: “Social mobility in Britain is low. The educational opportunities and life chances of a child born today are strongly linked to their parents’ socio-economic background. This is the challenge we face (…) We fight for social mobility from birth to the workplace so that every young person – no matter who their parents are, what school they go to, or where they live – has the chance to succeed in life.”

In the context of that mission, the Trust has for some time past been analysing the school and university background of each new Prime Minister’s cabinet of ministers. Here’s their analysis of Rishi Sunak’s cabinet https://www.suttontrust.com/our-research/sutton-trust-cabinet-analysis-2022-rishi-sunak/ PDF below and archive here – they’ve been busier than usual recently! https://www.suttontrust.com/our-research/?_sf_s=cabinet

So what should we make of the fact that neither of the two MPs who resigned in solidarity with Boris Johnson a few days ago, Nadine Dorries and Nigel Adams, went to university and were the first non-graduate cabinet ministers for some time past? Over-impressed by the non-lovable rogue and his Latin quotations? Or positive and rare examples of social mobility?

 4. Each month on the Words Without Borders website, Tobias Carroll makes an eclectic selection of the most interesting new translations into English. Last month, he chose translations from Korean, Arabic, Spanish, German, Italian and French https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2023-05/the-watchlist-may-2023-tobias-carroll/

5. And, finally and melodically, Fady Shewaya from the Egyptian singer-songwriter Hamza Namira https://youtu.be/guCwdHngTmM

If you like his music, there’s lots more here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChJW2HOHc5eWZi1X9jf9hTQ