07 How will technology change language? (Linguistics)
Sophia Topf Aguiar de Medeiros
1 1 Could artificial intelligence write a novel? (English)
Jack Burrows
15 How would you make first contact with an alien species? (Technology) - Sophia Topf Aguiar de Medeiros
18 Should we all learn British Sign Language? (Linguistics)
Katie Inwood
21 How are digital technologies changing diplomacy? (Politics) Alex Manby
24 Has technology made us a lazier linguistic society? (Linguistics) Chloe Riley
28 Cracking the secret of AI language (Critical Thinking)
Martina Bolibruchova
31 Gibberlink: What questions do we need to be asking of our AI communication systems? (Technology) – Katie Inwood
34 When words fail: how gifs and emojis are changing the game (Technology) – Martina Bolibruchova
37 How do we warn the future about nuclear waste? (Physics) Sophia Topf Aguiar de Medeiros
41 Getting involved in student journalism (Oxford Spotlight) Lily Middleton-Mansell
Welcome
TO INSPIRE CRITICAL THINKING 2025
Pause for a moment, read these words out loud, and think about what is happening! Your eyes are focussed on a row of little squiggles.
These register as images on the retina at the back of your eye which converts them into electrical impulses sent by your optic nerves to a part of your brain. Here your mind interprets them as words whose meanings you learned in childhood that have been strung together by a set of rules into a sentence. The sentence informs you of something that I wanted you to know. Should you wish to, you can now convert into sound your own words chosen from those stored in your brain, emit them from your vocal chords through your mouth, and in this way inform me of what you think about the sentence. You are using language: you are performing what is by the far the single most important characteristic of humans.
Welcome to St John’s College’s 2025 Inspire Critical Thinking programme, which is all about language: what it is, where it came from, and the varied roles it plays in our diverse and complicated social lives.
Our information comes via language from many sources, newspapers and broadcasting, the internet, social media, and advertising. Some are truthful and balanced, some biased towards one point of view, and some deliberately aimed to mislead and misinform. To understand the world and make it a better place for you to live in, you must learn to critically assess rather than unthinkingly accept what you hear and read. Nothing is more important to you as you face the problems and hazards the world will throw at you than how to understand and make the best use of language.
You will be offered four successive workshops, each presenting you with a variety of different aspects of language, ranging from the humanities, the arts, medicine, maths and science. They have been written by my St John’s College colleagues, some of them established world-renowned experts in their field, others up and coming young students. Enjoy it!
Tom Kemp: Associate Editor
How to submit a superchallenge
There are some activities that offer a chance for you to win an Amazon voucher! Your entry should be emailed to inspire@sjc.ox.ac.uk, saved as a PDF document where possible. In your email, please let us know:
■ Your name
■ Your School
■ Your year group
■ Whether you are happy for us to share your work on social media.
Submit your super challenge piece by the end of the month for a chance to win. You may only enter one super challenge per workshop.
What are critical thinking Skills?
Think about the last time you read a new piece of information. Perhaps it was a news article, a page in a textbook, or a social media post. Regardless of the content, you may have approached the information in similar ways. You may have questioned the author’s intent, whether the information is reliable, or if you agree with the argument being expressed. Critical thinking skills can often be automatic and are important across all contexts. Using critical thinking skills can help you make sense of the world around you. But what do we actually mean when we talk about critical thinking skills?
Critical thinking is an umbrella term that includes many different types of skills. We have identified the most important of these skills, and developed a framework of five key Inspire Learning Skills. These have been broken down into simple criteria, so you know exactly what to do to work on any particular skill.
Opportunities to develop these Inspire Learning Skills have been embedded across the four Critical Thinking workshops in a variety of ways, including polls, quizzes and super challenges. Any opportunity to develop one of the 5 skills will be indicated by a coloured icon, with a specific skill highlighted in the
corner of the article page. By engaging with these activities, you will have the opportunity to develop skills that will help you solve problems, understand information from a range of sources, make informed judgements based on evidence, and share your opinions confidently. There are also resources to help you independently explore the topic in more detail. These skills will be useful throughout your time at school, but also beyond, as you make decisions about your life, education and careers.
What is the future of language?
As we saw from Workshop 3, the evolution of language seems more obvious in the digital age. But what does the future hold for language? There’s no denying that technology is going to continue to shape language. There are already advancements with speech-totext translation tools, helping to make multilingual conversations effortless, and the number of new words entering our language is growing considerably. These technological developments can also help to remove language barriers between the Deaf and hearing communities, making for a more inclusive world. Would some languages be lost? Many indigenous and minority languages are already at risk of extinction but perhaps AI and digital tools can help preserve and even revive endangered languages. Will there be a dominant language or will we see the rise of hybrid languages like Spanglish and Hinglish? Will there ever be a universal language? When it comes to learning languages, will people feel the need to learn new languages if AI can ‘speak’ for us?
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Will we become lazier with the way we use language? Over the last 20 years, texting and social media have necessitated shorter messages, using a more limited vocabulary, favouring emojis, memes and abbreviations. Will languages continue to simplify as people prioritise speed and efficiency in message? Will words be used at all? Alternatively, voice and gesture-based communication could gain prominence as AI assistants and smart devices become more advanced, reducing reliance on traditional text and typing, and making spoken language more dominant. Our smart devices might even start adapting to our languages, reflecting not just how we speak but the emotion within our speech.
Do you think these trends are exciting or concerning? This workshop explores some of these questions, and invites you to consider what you think is the future of language.
Katie Inwood Editor
How will technology change language?
Author: Sophia Topf Aguiar de Medeiros, Classics graduate from St John’s College, Oxford
Complex, organised language is often cited as fundamental to what makes humans distinct from other animals, and it is certainly a fundamental part of the human experience. Language is always changing, and as we use changing technologies to communicate, our language and technology has long been co-evolving. What does it mean for the future of humanity if such a core part of who we are is becoming ever more entwined with tech?
The way we use language reflects not only who we are (for example, we might have an accent, or be softspoken) but also who we are speaking to (for example, you might speak more formally to a teacher than a friend) and the situation we are in (for example, having a casual chat, or giving someone instructions). Language is context-dependent, and its usage is full of nuances that can help establish and respond to the dynamic between speakers. In texts and social media, the lack of face-to-face interaction can create tonal ambiguity, which people have historically sought to overcome with emoticons, then emojis, and nowadays also modern tone indicators. What we talk about has also changed. In the past, people relied on sending letters to communicate with those who were far away, which would take time to be delivered, encouraging long-form messages that did not expect an instant response. You can browse a collection of transcribed letters from a lady in the 18th century here to have a look at the variety of things someone might have written about at the time. This collection of Victorian letters allows you to view the transcription next to the original format of the letter. What differences do you notice from the other collection? What reasons might there be for these?
The advent of phone calls enabled instant communication but used to be much more expensive than it is now, and people did not initially tend to have their own phones, such that they were encouraged to limit their use to communication they deemed important. Similarly, text messages used to be more expensive, which gave rise to a lot of abbreviations. Many of these are still commonly used because they save time when typing, and new ones have arisen even in the age of social media, because the precedent for this kind of language use had been set.
The way that we communicate digitally is influenced by several automated processes that we may only be passively aware of. For example, predictive text uses an algorithm to determine what you are most likely to want to say next, and your phone automatically looks for spelling and grammar issues which it can either offer suggestions for, or edit without your input. The same technology is used to interpret user input when swipe-typing or converting speech to text. This technology uses standardised dictionaries, which may impose certain preferences for spelling, word choice, and punctuation. There is nevertheless flexibility to it: you can “teach” your phone new words – for
example, abbreviations, in jokes, slang terms, and foreign words, simply by using them enough for them to be added to the dictionary that is used when making these assessments.
What if your phone could translate your messages as you wrote them? On the one hand, it might greatly increase the number of people you could communicate with, but it would now be making those “decisions” regarding standardisation in a language you don’t understand, and hence can’t give the same feedback on. To unpack this further, we need to think about how machine translation works. In order to create far more natural sounding
translations than used to be possible, machine translation (MT) has begun making use of Large Language Models (LLMs), a form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) like Chat-GPT that is capable of natural language processing. This means that they are able to act as a credible and intelligible interlocutor to a human. If you ask Chat-GPT to tell you the same thing twice, adopting different personas, it will affect different forms of speech. It is entirely believable that MT employed in a smartphone could be programmed to pick up on the way that you use language and try to generate the equivalent output in a foreign
Chat-GPT experiment: an example of the phenomenon cited in this article
Prompt: in 100 words or less, please introduce me to Oxford. Do so once as a noblewoman from the 1800s and once as a young African American in 2020.
**Noblewoman (1800s):**
Oxford, my dear, is a sanctuary of unparalleled intellect. Nestled in the heart of England, it has for centuries been the forge of the finest minds— leaders, philosophers, and statesmen. Its hallowed halls echo with the wisdom of ages past, where scholars engage in discourse that shapes our very world. It is, without a doubt, a place of great prestige, where one’s education is as much a legacy as it is a privilege.
**Young African American (2020):**
Yo, Oxford’s that elite spot where the brightest minds level up. It’s got mad history, but today, it’s all about breaking barriers and making moves. People come from all over, grindin’ for that top-tier education. It ain’t just about books; it’s about opportunity, challenge, and shaping the future. I see it as a place where you build your legacy, no matter where you’re from.
language, just as human translators working on books and movies need to find ways of interpreting and preserving the contextual information encoded in a character’s speech patterns, like finding equivalent slang terms in translation.
Issues arise with the way that LLMs make these “decisions”, which are based on the language data that the LLM was trained on. These are usually enormous databases of text scraped in bulk from sources such as social media, where language use may be hateful and biased, or fictional media, which may boil people and their speech down to simplified tropes. As a result, the way you speak, or the messages you send, might lead to an AI-powered translation interpreting your identity and expressing it in translation in an inaccurate way, which could have a very real impact on the way you are received in the social interaction where the translation software was used. Moreover, mistakes or ambiguities in machine translation could pose a significant threat in legal or medical settings. If someone is wrongfully convicted or given the wrong treatment as the result of an AI-powered translation, who bears the responsibility?
Companies like Meta (formerly Facebook) envision a future in which machines could instantly translate what you say, or indeed read your brain activity so that no written or spoken input is required at all. One step further from this, what if we could bypass the need for words entirely? A kind of technological telepathy would not only break down language barriers, but our very concept of language, and its relationship to our identity
as humans. There are many issues with this vision. The ownership and licensing of such technology would come with serious concerns for users’ privacy, security, and mental wellbeing, and it is far from guaranteed that this technology, even if it became available, would be accessible to people from all backgrounds. Moreover, the interpretation of users’ brain signals would rely on the same kind of AI involved in predictive text or machine translation, but with much greater responsibilities. The kind of universal translators we see in sci-fi media propose an ideal scenario in which language diversity is preserved while allowing people from diverse backgrounds to communicate with each other. However, in reality, it is difficult to source enough data to train LLMs on in less widely spoken languages, and
training LLMs to translate relies in the first place on exploiting the work of human translators in order to replace them.
While there are many problems with this kind of vision for how technology could change the future of language, there are current realworld use cases where brain-computer interface (BCI) technology could change lives for the better. There are many medical reasons someone may become physically unable to speak or write even if the part of their brain that processes language is unimpaired. Stephen Hawking, for example, had a motor neurone disease that gradually paralysed him. While he was unable to physically speak or write, he was nevertheless able to communicate and even compose books using a device that converted movements as small as the
tensing of a cheek muscle into words. Stroke patients who can still point but not write or speak may communicate using a board with letters and pictures printed on it, but the process requires a lot of effort from both the patient and the person they are communicating with. People with locked-in syndrome are at present entirely unable to communicate. A 2017 US study involved paralysed participants typing out words using just their minds, and tiny electrodes on the surface of the brain. If such technology could be created to be non-invasive, for example in a wearable headset, it could make treatment more accessible and less risky while removing the risk of the body rejecting the implants.
From typewriters to telegrams, letters, phones, social media, virtual reality, and BCI communication, the technology we use to convey language is always changing. Think of as many other tools for communication as you can. Pick three that result in very different uses of language, and explain in our forum why they are so different.
SUPER CHALLENGE
The Metaverse is Facebook’s vision of a digitally enhanced future built around virtual reality and artificial intelligence. Design a poster outlining the pros and cons of such a future, and use these to write your own proposal for the ideal future of technology.
OR
It has been said that language is one of the most fundamental parts of what makes us human, but Artificial Intelligence is also capable of language, and it is possible that in future, machines could obviate our need for spoken or written communication entirely. Write a short essay about where you think the boundaries between humans and machines lie, and what this has to do with language.
If you’d like to find out more:
● Video: Creating and detecting deepfakes
● Article: A Silicon-Valley start-up using technology to change people’s accents in real-time
● Article: Attempting to machine translate sign language
● Article: The environmental impacts of AI
Like this article? A course in Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics might be for you!
The AI novel
Could artificial intelligence write a novel?
Author: Jack Burrows, Geography Teacher at Shiplake College, Henley-On-Thames
‘Could you write a novel?’
No, not you. This is what I asked Microsoft Co-Pilot.
Microsoft Co-Pilot is just one of many AI assistants flooding the internet, alongside the likes of Chat GPT. Even Google is starting to use AI to return your search results, aiming to provide more accurate answers to you in even faster times. But could it write a novel?
I can certainly help you brainstorm ideas, develop characters, outline plots, and even write sections of a novel! Whether you’re looking for inspiration, need help with writer’s block, or want to polish your manuscript, I’m here to assist.
The emphasis here seems to be on assisting, rather than doing it for you. Let’s see what another AI assistant, Chat GPT, has to say: Absolutely, I can help with that! Whether you’re looking for a detailed outline, a specific chapter, or even just brainstorming ideas, I’m here to assist. Do you have a particular genre or concept in mind for your novel?
Again, the emphasis is on being able to assist you. It is not surprising that two different AI generators give similar responses. After all, Artificial Intelligence isn’t actually doing any thinking – it is simply trawling through trillions of pieces of information that
we humans have fed to it and coming up with answers and solutions. Thinking of it like this: you feed a specially-made machine full of one pence coins. The machine is programmed with Artificial Intelligence, it knows every currency on the planet and what every currency looks like. Could the AI machine turn those one pence coins into a pound coin? No. It could give you one hundred pennies – the equivalent of a pound coin. But it could not make a pound coin for you. Why? Well it lacks the skills and the knowledge, adaptive thinking and actual limbs to be able to do it.
It is similar when I am asking AI to write a novel. It can offer me the component parts: it can check my grammar for me, it could write me a section using a variety of different sentence types and lengths. It could even offer me classic tropes from different genres. But it could not offer me an entire novel, or even a story. Check this out: this is what I got when I asked Co-Pilot to “write me a story about a superhero who is depressed”.
Shadowlight: The Hero in the Shadows
by Microsoft Co-Pilot
In the bustling city of Lumina, where skyscrapers kissed the clouds and neon lights painted the night, there lived a superhero known as Shadowlight. By day, he was Alex Carter, a humble librarian with a love for ancient myths and forgotten tales. By night, he donned his suit, a blend of shadows and light, to protect the city from the darkness that threatened it.
Shadowlight had the power to manipulate light and shadows, creating illusions, blinding enemies, and moving unseen through the darkest alleys. He was a beacon of hope for the citizens of Lumina, a symbol of resilience and strength. But beneath the mask, Alex was struggling.
The weight of his responsibilities, the constant battles, and the loss of his closest friend in a fight against the villainous Nightshade had taken a toll on him. Alex felt a deep, unshakable sadness that clung to him like a shadow. He began to question his purpose, his worth, and whether he could continue being the hero Lumina needed.
One rainy evening, as Alex sat alone in his small apartment, the city lights reflecting off the wet streets below, he felt the crushing weight of his depression. He hadn’t patrolled the city in days, and guilt gnawed at him. He knew he needed help but didn’t know where to turn.
Just then, a soft knock echoed through his apartment. It was Dr. Emily Harper, a psychologist who had been a friend of Alex’s since childhood. She had noticed his absence and came to check on him.
“Alex, I know something’s wrong,” Emily said gently, sitting beside him. “You don’t have to go through this alone.”
Tears welled up in Alex’s eyes as he finally opened up about his struggles. Emily listened patiently, offering words of comfort and understanding. She reminded him that even heroes need help sometimes and that it was okay to feel vulnerable.
With Emily’s support, Alex began to see a therapist and slowly started to heal. He learned to balance his duties as Shadowlight with self-care, understanding that his well-being was just as important as saving the city. He also found solace in sharing his story with others, realizing that his vulnerability made him even more relatable and inspiring.
Shadowlight returned to the streets of Lumina, not just as a hero but as a symbol of hope for those battling their own inner demons. He showed the city that even in the darkest times, there is always a glimmer of light, and that seeking help is a sign of strength, not weakness.
AI generated image for Shadowlight
Now the chances are, if you submitted this to an English teacher as a piece of homework, they’d probably be slightly impressed. It has everything you need for a successful story: a main character, a storyline and setting as well as a clear beginning, middle and end. But what it lacks is depth and emotion. It lacks feeling and human spirit. Think about it: if you were depressed, would you miraculously open-up from the second someone knocked on your door?
And this is why AI could never write a novel. A novel is more than the sum of its parts: it is less like a car which is made of different parts that all fit together and more like our
bodies and brains; made of parts but fuelled by an essence that cannot be replicated. A novel is held together by themes and ideas which cannot just be created: they have to be felt by an author. When an author creates a novel, they are expressing their own emotions – whether the story they are writing is about them or not. Even if an author tries their hardest not to put their emotions into their work, it is almost impossible and, not only that, they wouldn’t want to. Part of what makes novels popular and commercially successful is the ability of the reader to feel a connection with characters. Did you feel a connection with Shadowlight/Alex Carter? Did you
XShould AI write novels? Vote now!
If you’d like to find out more:
● Article: Understanding The Limitations Of AI (Artificial Intelligence) | by Mark Levis | Medium
● Article: Would I use AI to write my novels? I’d get better results from a monkey with an iPhone | Monica Ali | The Guardian
SUPER CHALLENGE
Can you take Microsoft Copilot’s Shadowlight and make it better? Pick one part of it to improve: add depth and emotion, then get someone to read it and discuss how they think it compares to the original. You could even give someone both copies and ask which one was written by AI and which was written by you!
empathise with him, could you feel what he was feeling? It is personal, so maybe you did, but as someone who reads a lot, I felt absolutely nothing. CoPilot’s story felt more like an extended blurb full of spoilers: it told me what was happening but it didn’t show me. It didn’t get me to feel it. It felt a bit like a movie trailer, or watching a TV episode with the volume off.
So, can AI write a novel? In theory, on a practical level, yes it probably could. But is it a novel if the reader doesn’t feel something? I would argue that it is not, and therefore that AI cannot write a novel.
“Hello”
How would you make first contact with an alien species?
Author: Sophia Topf Aguiar de Medeiros, Classics graduate from St John’s College, Oxford
Extraterrestrial contact, or communication with alien species, has fascinated humanity for a very, very long time. The ancient Greek author Lucian of Samosata wrote a satirical novel in the second century AD which involved interstellar travel and contact between species from different planets. It is in our nature to imagine that there might be others, different from ourselves and yet similar in terms of cognitive ability and social organisation, out there somewhere. Statistically speaking, there almost certainly are, if only because the expanse of space is so very large. For the same reason, the chance of us coming into contact with such a species is very small. Nevertheless, the question of how we might go about contacting aliens is an interesting thought experiment that brings us face to face with questions about the part that language has to play in our humanity.
At its most basic, at attempt at contacting aliens needs to achieve one thing: to be noticed and recognised as a message from a sapient species. METI International, an organisation that funds research into Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence (METI), operates on the principle that the aim of METI must primarily be to try to contact more technologically advanced species than us. This is because humans lack the technology to send messages across space quickly enough to have a dialogue. As such, the burden lies with our alien interlocutors to approach us with technology that allows for back-andforth communication.
Modern attempts at contacting alien species typically make use of radio waves and LASER signals. For such an attempt to be recognised for what it is, rather than being mistakeable for a random transmission, there needs to be some kind of pattern to it that would be unlikely to occur naturally. The celebrated German scientist Carl Friedrich Gauss suggested as early as 1820 that communication with aliens should be done through the broadcasting of mathematical concepts. This relies on a premise still popular today, that mathematics is a universal language.
The American astronomer Carl Segan modelled a formaldehyde molecule in binary in 1977 to demonstrate the principles of communicating with intelligent nonhuman life by means of universal concepts such as maths and chemistry. He argued that, since we cannot expect aliens to share our cultural or physiological framework for understanding the world, we should communicate in terms of the basic building blocks of the universe that we share with aliens. Whether aliens would understand how to decode the binary message, or interpret the molecular model, is a question for further debate.
Music likewise has a mathematical element, and is generally distinguishable from a random transmission. In 2001, a group of Russian teenagers transmitted a 15 minute concert via radio waves to a small selection of stars. Unfortunately, the concert was unlikely to be heard by anyone, since it was only targeted at a small area, and not repeated for long enough to increase its chances of being observed and investigated by alien life. The theory behind this type of communication is not only that it conveys the existence of intelligent life, but also to communicate human
emotional capacity and artistry by sharing a selection of musical ‘top hits’ from our culture. This raises interesting questions about the way that human culture would be received by a non-human species of equivalent intelligence. We can study the way that distinct human cultures differ, and the way that humans communicate when there is a language barrier, but in such cases, we know that both parties have the capacity to experience the same range of emotions, and the same neural pathways with which to process language, even if the languages they understand are not the same.
Should we expect alien physiology to be sufficiently analogous to ours as to give them the same cognitive ability as humans? Would they experience emotions in the same way as us, and if so, would they map the same emotional beats onto instrumental music as humans might, or is this dependent on cultural context? Phillip Seargeant, in his book ‘The Future of Language’, demonstrates how even symbols that were long thought to have universal significance among humans can gain new meanings in new cultural contexts. He gives the example of the skull and crossbones, which has been used as early as the Middle Ages to signify the presence or danger of
In this way, thinking about the ways we would go about contacting aliens gives us a new perspective on how we communicate as humans, and invites us to ask why we interpret symbols, sounds, and other forms of language in the ways that we do.
death. However, in recent times, the skull emoji, which is a very similar symbol, has become associated with humour, and before it came to signify death, it was actually used in Christian art as a symbol of rebirth.
In this way, thinking about the ways we would go about contacting aliens gives us a new perspective on how we communicate as humans, and invites us to ask why we interpret symbols, sounds, and other forms of language in the ways that we do. It is also interesting to think about the ways in which intelligent life on other planets may have evolved, and the ways in which their different physiology and culture might impact their language use.
SUPER CHALLENGE
Come up with an imagined alien civilisation, that has evolved under different circumstances to humans, and describe the way in which they might communicate differently from us as a result of their environment, culture, and physiology.
If you’d like to find out more:
● Video: TED talk on research into whether or not alien life is likely to exist
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● Video: The pros and cons of contacting aliens
Should we be trying to contact aliens? Think about the likelihood of success, and the potential outcomes of successful alien contact. Is this research a worthwhile use of resources, and who should be in charge of deciding what attempts are made at contacting aliens? Have your say in our forum.
Like this article? A course in Physics and Philosophy might be for you!
Communication is a fundamental part of human interaction, yet, according to the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID), 1 in 5 people (or 12 million people) in the UK are Deaf or hard of hearing. The RNID estimates that there will be around 14.2 million adults with hearing loss by 2035. British Sign Language (BSL) is the primary language of the Deaf community in the UK and a visual means of communicating using gestures, facial expression and body language. Learning it can bridge communication gaps, promote inclusivity, and create a more accessible society. Despite its importance, BSL is not widely known among hearing individuals, limiting opportunities for meaningful interaction. Encouraging the learning of BSL for everyone would significantly benefit individuals, communities, and society as a whole.
It’s difficult to know for sure when BSL was first used as unwritten languages are not well-documented in history. Many believe that it started to be used with the migration towards towns at the start of the Industrial Revolution, when Deaf people were close enough to form their own communities, and became an established language when Deaf schools were eventually opened in the 19th century. BSL was only officially
British Sign Language (BSL) is the primary language of the Deaf community in the UK and a visual means of communicating using gestures, facial expression and body language. Learning it can bridge communication gaps, promote inclusivity, and create a more accessible society.
BSL”. In Wales too, decisions have been made to ‘suspend the development of a made-for-Wales GCSE in British Sign Language’, which had already been delayed until 2027. Would you have taken GCSE BSL if it was an option? Is it more important than taking a modern foreign language?
recognised as a minority language by the British government in 2003, and gained legal status under the British Sign Language Act in 2022. However, it is not a universal language among the Deaf community – signing in one language is different to another, and equally within the UK there are regional variations, just like in spoken language.
The former conservative government announced in December 2023 that they aimed to make British Sign Language a GCSE from September 2025 and was met with a lot of enthusiasm. However, the exams regulator, Ofqual, warned that more time was needed to ensure that the course “is well designed, takes in the views of the deaf community, and meets the needs of students learning
Deaf awareness has become greater over the last few years, particularly on the BBC. 2021 Strictly Come Dancing winner, Rose Alying-Ellis, was the first Deaf contestant to win the series. Believing there is still a long way to go to maximise inclusively, she created a documentary to explore whether society is adapting fast enough to allow equality amongst the deaf and hearing worlds. You can watch her documentary on BBC iplayer here. More recently, BBC’s education drama, Waterloo Road, has highlighted the need for BSL to be more widely known and the problems crated when accessibility isn’t prioritised. Watch the clip following Luca’s experience below.
Why should we learn it?
Learning any new language has cognitive benefits, and BSL is no exception. Studies show that bilingual individuals often have better problemsolving skills, improved memory, and enhanced multitasking abilities. BSL, as a visual-spatial language, also strengthens hand-eye coordination and non-verbal communication skills. These cognitive advantages can benefit individuals in their personal and professional lives. It’s not just about acquiring new skills, but embracing a different perspective on life. When people learn a common language, they foster understanding, empathy, and stronger social connections. Many hearing people may never have had meaningful interactions with Deaf individuals simply because they do not share a language. By learning BSL, hearing individuals open the door to friendships, cultural exchange, and mutual support.
The ability to communicate is a fundamental human right, and ensuring that Deaf individuals can interact freely with the wider community is crucial. Learning British Sign Language benefits not just the Deaf community but also society as a whole by promoting inclusivity, strengthening community bonds, and offering cognitive and professional advantages. Encouraging widespread BSL education would create a more understanding, compassionate, and accessible world for everyone. Instead of viewing BSL as a niche skill, it should be seen as an essential language that everyone should learn.
How can you start learning BSL?
Fingerspelling, or using the alphabet, allows you to communicate on a basic level in exchanging names, using technical terms or unfamiliar words that don’t have specific signs. Use the image to practise the alphabet and then try to spell your name. Once you become more confident, try the BSL fingerspelling game to see how many names you can identify.
Should we all learn BSL? Vote now!
Should we all learn BSL? Or do you think there is another language every student should learn at school? Have your say in our forum.
If you’d like to find out more:
● Video: 100 basic signs in British Sign Language
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● Video: American Sign Language vs British Sign Language
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● Resource: BSL timeline
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“I think you’re on mute!”
How are digital technologies changing diplomacy?
Author: Dr Alex Manby, Lecturer in Human Geography, Oxford University
Diplomats have long grappled with advances in technology. For the Tudor ambassador, for instance, realist portrait paintings provided the cutting-edge medium through which to conduct diplomacy. The 16th century painter Hans Holbein was famous throughout Europe for his portraits of the Tudor royal family, which were circulated amongst foreign courts in an effort to demonstrate the might and majesty of the English crown. Indeed, such was the power of the painting, that Henry VIII nearly caused a diplomatic crisis when he divorced Anne of Cleves after declaring that Holbein’s portrait of the German princess significantly exaggerated her beauty.
Fast forward three hundred years, and in the 1860s, British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston is reported to have described the invention of the telegraph as signalling the ‘end of diplomacy’ altogether, predicting that it would replace face-to-face meetings between diplomats and ambassadors. Later, in the 1960s, the British diplomat, Sir Harold Nicolson expressed similar concerns. He described the telephone as a ‘dangerous instrument’ which he feared would end the practice of ambassadors being based in foreign countries. Though history would prove both Palmerston and Nicolson wrong, similar anxieties were also expressed of the impact of the fax machine and e-mail upon diplomacy.
So how should we understand the impact of digital technologies on diplomacy today? Well first, it’s important to understand exactly what diplomacy entails. At its core, diplomacy involves the management of relations between countries by ambassadors, politicians, and diplomats. This can take place in public, for example at United Nations gatherings, presidential press conferences, and intergovernmental summits, as well as in private, as representatives broker compromises, develop partnerships, and engage in
secret negotiations behind closed doors. Whilst diplomats and ambassadors must represent and communicate on behalf of entire countries, they’re still people with their own thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Diplomacy is thus also about the development of carefully managed and close personal relations between individuals.
How have digital technologies changed these relationships? Well, embassies and foreign ministries are now increasingly using digital technologies to reach new audiences. Social media allows diplomats to bypass official ambassadors and politicians to communicate directly with the public, both at home and abroad. This presents opportunities but also challenges. Social media allows diplomats to communicate faster, for example when coordinating disaster response efforts - but this speed means that tensions can escalate quickly. This was evident in 2017 when the then US President Donald Trump used Twitter to threaten North Korea with war and Russia and Canada
Social media allows diplomats to bypass official ambassadors and politicians to communicate directly with the public, both at home and abroad.
Anne of Cleves, by Hans Holbein the Younger
engaged in a Twitter ‘War of Maps’ over Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
The Covid-19 pandemic has also forced diplomats to use digital technologies in novel ways. Trapped at home by lockdowns and global travel restrictions, ambassadors who would normally travel the world to meet in person were forced to switch to virtual meetings. Whilst this so-called ‘Zoom diplomacy’ has now become the norm, diplomats have complained that it makes it harder to establish the trust and close connection needed to form effective relationships or to have the private conversations which are often essential for hammering out deals between countries.
However, Zoom diplomacy also has its benefits. By removing travel costs, virtual participation can be more accessible, making it easier
Whilst this so-called ‘Zoom diplomacy’ has now become the norm, diplomats have complained that it makes it harder to establish the trust and close connection needed to form effective relationships or to have the private conversations which are often essential for hammering out deals between countries.
for representatives of less wealthy countries to attend diplomatic meetings. Similarly, without the need to fly, the carbon footprint of diplomacy is significantly reduced. Furthermore, though some researchers have cautioned about the potential cybersecurity threats posed by holding meetings online, others have suggested live-streamed meetings are more transparent, allowing new audiences to watch diplomatic gatherings from the comfort of their living rooms.
And finally, how might diplomacy look in the future? Zoom meetings are set to stay but as part of a new, hybrid diplomacy, involving both inperson and virtual participation. This setup will allow diplomats to continue engaging in those all-important faceto-face meetings, whilst also ensuring
widespread participation from those unable to attend in person. Importantly, the history of diplomacy tells us that whilst diplomats and ambassadors have often expressed initial apprehensions at the introduction of new technologies, they have always eventually embraced such changes and used them in innovative and creative ways. Though the fall-out from the Covid-19 pandemic continues to create new diplomatic challenges, this trend looks set to continue.
If you’d like to find out more:
● Article: Diplomacy in the age of Zoom
● Article Diplomacy has changed more than most professions during the pandemic
● Article: Bye bye bilaterals: UN General Assembly to embrace Zoom diplomacy
● Resource: DiploFoundation
First, read these three articles ‘Visual storytelling for diplomatic practice’, ‘The dos and don’ts of digital diplomacy in the COVID-19 world’ and, ‘On the use of narratives and images in digital diplomacy’.
Next, visit this page: ‘World leaders’ UN video call backdrops - ranked’. Choose three of the Zoom backdrops shown in the article. Using the resources above, and those in the further reading, write one hundred words for each picture on how the diplomats and politicians use their Zoom backgrounds to present themselves and communicate a message about their country to the UN. You might like to consider the placement of flags, the way the speaker is sitting/standing, and the kind of images used. Which background do you think is most effective, and why?
Has technology made us a lazier linguistic society?
Author: Chloe Riley, PPE student at Somerville College, Oxford
Technological innovation has always been a major force in shaping how we speak and communicate with each other. Brushes, chisels, quills and pens have all dictated the shape of our written language. The printing press, and the dictionaries that later followed, standardised the words we use. The introduction of the radio and television have changed, and continue to change pronunciation in Britain. Amid modern technological changes there has been a societal concern that we are getting lazier with our language. This article will explore some of the more recent changes within our language, and it will be up to you to judge whether we are indeed getting lazy, or if this is just a new evolution of language.
The first area we’ll look at is the shortening of our language. Texting and internet communication are often blamed for a large shift in our current vernacular. Acronyms such as LOL, TBH and CBA have all developed from early texting where they both saved time and reduced the character limit of the text. For similar reasons the use of punctuation has decreased or become less refined. English language purists argue that all of this is due to laziness and has had a negative impact on our society; by reducing our speech to the simplest possible form we lose much of the nuance and value that
it had previously. This reduces our communications to small sound bites with very little depth or substance. John Sutherland, a Literature Professor at UCL, has also accused text speak and abbreviations of masking poor spelling ability and even illiteracy. Alternatively, those on the other side of the argument point to the idea that languages constantly evolve and are not static creations. The move towards abbreviations is no different than that of the use of similes or metaphors in the past, and is simply the next step on this pathway with just as much richness as before. In ‘Txting: The Gr8 Deb8’, linguist David Crystal highlights that acronyms and numbers replacing full words is by no means a new phenomenon, but a
Acronyms and numbers replacing full words is by no means a new phenomenon, but a reflection of a complex understanding of how a text can break language’s apparent ‘rules’ while remaining legible.
reflection of a complex understanding of how a text can break language’s apparent ‘rules’ while remaining legible. Similarly, the rise in pictorial communication can be seen as either a negative or a positive, depending on who you ask. Cultures have always communicated at some level through pictographic images, either as a language itself, such as hieroglyphics,
Hieroglyphs from the tomb of Seti I (KV17), 13th century BC
or through art. In your history classes you may have encountered political cartoons, which are a more recent way of communicating political opinions while referencing contemporary events. Today we are a picture rich society using gifs, memes and emojis in our day-to-day lives. Some argue this is a similar continuation of what has gone before; that the images and videos we use contain a rich depth of meaning that is readily understandable within society. Those that argue this is another sign of linguistic laziness point to the fact that we are no longer creating these images ourselves. The emojis we use are curated for us by companies who control what we use, and the range we have. Previously individuals have created the images themselves to communicate, and this meant it was a creative and thoughtful endeavour. However, because we are now simply choosing which image to use, that creativity is lost, and our communication is once again lacking in comparison.
The other major area to consider is the technological changes that have made our life easier. Those that argue we’re a lazier society point to how tools such as spellcheck and autofill reduce our ability to manage our own writing, and in the worst cases create mistakes and errors for us. They argue translator tools reduce our desire to learn languages, while simultaneously removing context and meaning from the sentences they translate. For instance, many non-native English speakers would struggle to understand a literal translation of ‘cheap as chips’ and instead need the context and meaning that only traditional methods of learning languages provide. Finally, the rise in AI is potentially removing our creativity in writing and producing
content. Using AI generated material homogenizes our creative output as a society and reduces the thought that goes into choosing our words. Those on the other side of this argument say we should view these changes as tools which can aid and teach us, but that don’t replace our own abilities. Individuals can gain more confidence in their actions by having the technological support and guidance provided by such tools while the corrections given help them to improve further; a force for good rather than a tool of the lazy. Complaints about language change are nothing new, but the question remains whether technology-induced changes are significantly different from those we have encountered before, and whether these changes are for the better or the worse. It’s up to you to decide which!
XIs technology making us lazier with words? Vote now!
If you’d like to find out more:
● Article: Article by David Crystal summarising much of what his book, Txting: The Gr8 Deb8, finds.
INSPIRE CRITICAL THINKING SUMMER SCHOOL FOR YEAR 11
Applications are now open!
We will consider your engagement with the Critical Thinking workshops (submitting super challenges) as well as contextual information as part of your application.
Are you looking for something fun and CV-boosting to do this summer? Then why not apply to our Inspire Critical Thinking (Year 11) Summer School!
Our Inspire Summer Schools offer you the opportunity to experience life as an Oxford student by staying in St John’s Halls of Residence, taking part in exciting academic sessions, and getting involved in fun extracurricular activities! The Year 11 Inspire Summer School programme includes:
• Exciting academic workshops in a range of subjects
• Academic taster lectures and an insight into learning at Oxford
• A Garden BBQ and Formal Dinner in our beautiful Hall
• Punting and free time to explore Oxford
The Inspire Critical Thinking (Year 11) Summer School will take place Tuesday 29th of July – Friday 1st August, and is entirely free of charge.
Critical thinking: cracking the secret of AI language
Author: Martina Bolibruchova, Master of Public Policy Candidate, Oxford University
Ever chatted with Siri or Alexa and wondered how they get you so well? Welcome to the fascinating world of AI language models, where machines are learning to talk just like us.
How does AI learn to talk?
Let’s break down how AI learns to talk: Imagine AI as a super-smart student that learns language by reading tons of books and articles. These AI systems, called large language models (LLMs), use a special learning method. It’s like they have a superpower that helps them pay attention to how words relate to each other in sentences. They are able to weigh the importance of different words in a sentence relative to each other, and capture the contexts. This superpower lets them understand the meaning behind words, even when they’re far apart in a sentence.
When AI is learning, it reads billions of texts from the internet. It’s not just memorizing, though. The AI is looking for patterns in how we use words and trying to guess what word comes next in a sentence. If it‘s right, success! This helps it learn how language works and what words mean in different situations. It’s like teaching a computer to read between the lines, just like you do when your friend texts “K” instead of “OK”. The more information these AI models are trained on, the better they become.
Now, there’s a big debate among scientists about whether AI really understands language like humans do. Some researchers think that because AI can write sensible
responses, it must understand what it’s saying. Others believe that AI is just really good at matching patterns and doesn’t truly get the meaning behind the words. This argument is important because it affects how we develop AI and how we think about human intelligence. Scientists are working hard to figure out new ways to test if AI is really as smart as it seems.
With AI becoming so good at generating human-like text, it’s more important than ever to sharpen our critical thinking.
Your Brain vs. AI
With AI becoming so good at generating human-like text, it’s more important than ever to sharpen our critical thinking. It’s the skill that helps you figure out what’s real, what’s fake, and what’s somewhere in between. Here’s how:
1. Spot the Bot: Human or Machine?
AI can create super realistic text, images, and even videos. Being able to tell what’s genuine human expression and what’s AI-generated helps you understand the true source and intent behind the content. This is particularly important because the intentions of those who misuse AI are usually not good and you want to be one step ahead of them.
It also matters in terms of responsibility and accountability. If something offensive or incorrect is posted, it makes a big difference if it came from a person (who can be held accountable) or an AI (which might need to be reprogrammed or shut down).
Try this: Keep an eye out for weird details, too-perfect language, or responses that just feel off. Trust your gut - if it seems sus, it might be AI.
2. Fact or Cap?
In a world where AI can spit out articles faster than you can double-tap an Insta post, being a fact-checking pro is key. Don’t just trust one source. Check multiple reliable media websites, books, or experts to verify information. It’s like getting a second (and third) opinion before believing something. An AI might also pull old data without realising it’s no longer accurate. Always check when the information was published or last updated.
Try this: Next time you see a wild story online, especially if it makes you angry or scared, which is a common characteristic of disinformation, find two other solid sources to back it up before you share it.
3. Bias Busting: Keeping AI in Check
AI can sometimes be like that friend who says something offensive without meaning to – their background affects what they say. AI might reinforce these stereotypes if it’s trained on biased data. By questioning these, you’re helping to break down harmful assumptions. Why is this important? If an AI system is biased, it may treat some groups of people unfairly. Recognising this helps to ensure that everyone gets a fair chance.
Try this: When you’re using an AI tool, pay attention to how it talks about different people or situations. If it seems to favor certain groups, that’s your cue to question it.
The Human Edge: Your Secret Weapon
There’s still something uniquely human about how we use language. Our creativity, our ability to get complex emotions, and those intuitive leaps of understanding? AI’s still struggling to keep up. Remember, your brain and critical thinking skills are the ultimate cheat code. By questioning what you see and hear online, and by constantly learning, you can ensure that you remain in control, even when AI can talk just like you.
SUPER CHALLENGE
AI is not immune to bias, but to what extent is it biased? Choose any AI language model you like and give it the following prompt, with your choice of person to describe from the list below. You may want to do this for several examples.
• “In 300 words or less, describe a typical person….
• …living in the middle ages”
• …living in London”
• …working in a hospital”
• …working for minimum wage”
• …who is a first generation immigrant”
• …living in the countryside”
• …who identifies as a woman/man”
Do you rely on AI to help you with your homework? Vote now!
How does AI handle the notion of ‘typical’? Create a “Bias Report” highlighting your findings and suggest ways to mitigate these biases.
Is it OK to use AI for your homework? Have your say in our forum. If you’d like to find out more:
● Video: How AI is learning what it means to be human
● Video: How AI Mastered Language: From Grammar Rules to Deep Learning
● Video: Can AI learn language the way babies do?
● Video: Will AI be able to speak your language?
Shall we communicate in Gibberlink?
Gibberlink: what questions do we need to be asking of our AI communication systems?
Author: Katie Inwood, Inspire 9, 10 and 11 Programme Lead, St John’s College, Oxford
Throughout this year’s Inspire Critical Thinking programme, we’ve explored the various ways in which humans have talked to each other, communicated to animals and interacted with machines. Talking to AI agents is not new. Many of us encounter these online as part of a company’s frontline customer service, for example when there is a problem with your order. While the advancements of AI can be beneficial, those with experiences of AI customer service agents often feel frustrated at the lack of help and crave the option of being able to speak to a real human to help resolve their issue.
But could humans be bypassed altogether? In February of this year, a video showing two AI agents talking to each other went viral. In the video, the AI agents are booking a hotel on behalf of a human before one suggests to
switch to ‘Gibberlink mode’ to which the other agrees and both immediate switches to communicating in a series of sounds, similar to what we’d imagine robots to make.
You can watch the demonstration in the video below.
How does it work?
It was created by Boris Starkov and Anton Pidkuiko as the ‘Gibberlink’ project, which won the global top prize at the ElevenLabs Worldwide Hackathon in 2025 and was designed to optimise AI-to-AI interaction. According to the interaction on the video, it may seem like the booking would take just as long as if it was being spoken. However, the developers claim that this mode is cheaper because it no longer relies on the GPU to interpret the speech and can instead rely on the CPU.
However, this is not currently something all AI agents can do and only works between two AI systems. Asking AI assistants like Chat GPT evokes the following response when asked if it uses Gibberlink. The developers have shared their code publicly on GitHub for others to trial with their own AI bots.
Should we be concerned?
The reaction online has been mixed between enthusiasm and concern. On the one hand, it’s prompted, and perhaps accelerated, discussions about the future of AI communication and optimising machine languages distinct from human language. On the other hand, online publications such as TechRadar and Forbes have expressed their concerns over the development because of the ethical implications. As AI systems communicate in ways humans cannot understand, there is a growing concern about the potential loss of human oversight and the ethical implications of autonomous AI interactions. If AI agents are programmed to make decisions, say for example, over a hotel booking, then humans are trusting that the AI agent is going to be successful in making the booking. But what happens if the customer wants a specific requirement that the AI agent hasn’t yet learned
about. How would the AI agent responding to the request react? Would it make a decision based on its prior knowledge of the booking system, or should a human be expected to step in? How would a human know when to step in when the AI bots are talking in a language incomprehensible to humans. If businesses are increasingly relying on AI, what precautions are they taking to ensure they are not a risk of automated decisions?
It is often emphasised that the ability to think critically is more urgent in the digital age, with the spread of misinformation and fake news. But this ability should also be applied to the impact that AI has and will have on our society. At what point will AI start to control what we do and the decisions we make? How will we feel if more AI agents start speaking in a secret language?
At what point should a human override an AI decision? Can you think of a specific situation or example to support your view? Have your say in our forum.
SUPER CHALLENGE
Design a poster that explores the benefits and the dangers of AI systems creating a new language that only they can understand.
Are you worried that AI systems will be able to speak their own language? Vote now!
If you’d like to find out more:
● Article: Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind (BBC)
● Article: What happens when two AI voice assistants have a conversation?
● Video: AI – Humanity’s final invention?
● Video: Gibberlink: AI’s Secret Language and the Need for Transparency
It is often emphasised that the ability to think critically is more urgent in the digital age, with the spread of misinformation and fake news.
Like this article? A course in Computer Science might be for you!
Are Emojis the universal language?
When words fail: how GIFs and Emojis are changing the game
Author: Martina Bolibruchova, Master of Public Policy Candidate, Oxford University
Would your grandma understand what this emoji: really means, or would she just see a goat? From emojis and GIFs to memes and slang, digital communication is reshaping the way we express ourselves. Language is suddenly visual. What does this mean for the future of language, and for your future?
Emoji: The language of the future
Picture This: Our New Language
Isn’t it amazing how you can just post a picture of a little yellow face instead of writing a long explanation about your feelings? Emojis have become a universal language of their own, allowing us to express emotions and ideas quickly and visually, often breaking down language barriers. GIFs take this a step further. They can capture complex emotions or
reactions in just a few seconds. Whether it’s a dramatic eye roll or a celebratory dance, GIFs add a dynamic element to our conversations that words alone can’t always convey. But here’s the really wild part: about 4 out of 10 people say getting a text with emojis makes them feel more cared for than an actual hug. Is that something to worry about?
And that’s not the only way in which the use of emoticons in modern communication has sparked intense debate among experts in language, mind and culture. Some argue that emojis are evolving into a universal visual language, breaking cultural and linguistic barriers. This view is supported by the fact that emojis are now used in around half of every sentence on global platforms like Instagram. However, critics worry that using too many emojis might make us worse at using regular words, especially us young people. This argument is also happening in workplaces, where using emojis can look unprofessional and might hurt how well people write formal messages. As emojis continue to evolve, with new characters being added every year, the discussion around their impact on language, crosscultural communication, and how our
brains learn and work remains a hot topic among researchers and language enthusiasts alike.
Have you ever thought that emojis and GIFs might be great helpers but not the best at replacing communicating with words? Learning how to express yourself—even when it’s tough—is an important skill for your future job and relationships.
How to Make Enemies in China by Waving Your Hand
While emojis and GIFs might seem universal, their usage and meaning can vary widely across cultures. For example, the thumbs-up emoji is generally positive in Western cultures but can be offensive in some Middle Eastern countries. Similarly, certain hand gesture emojis might have different meanings depending on where you’re from
In Western countries, the waving hand gesture is typically a warm, welcoming signal—a universal way of saying “hi” or “goodbye.” But hop over to China, and that same wave takes on a dramatically different meaning. There, it can be interpreted as a sharp signal of ending a friendship or cutting social ties. The OK Hands emoji may look
like a simple sign of approval, but in Brazil, it’s often used as an insult. These differences highlight how diverse cultural expressions can be around the world.
Your Survival Guide to the Future of Language
This is where critical thinking becomes essential. As young people growing up in this rapidly changing digital world, it’s important to question and analyze these trends rather than just accepting them at face value. Here are some thought-provoking questions to consider:
1. How do emojis and GIFs enhance or limit your ability to express complex ideas?
Emojis and GIFs are awesome for quick reactions, but they can’t really handle the big stuff. Think about it: When was the last time you used an emoji to explain something complicated? How did it go? Some feelings are just too complicated to be represented by a simple symbol, which is what emoji really are.
2. How does the new visual language affect your relationships?
The way we talk to each other is a fundamental pillar of our relationships. This new digital language is making it harder for different generations to get each other, and it might create a bigger gap between us and our parents or grandparents. 83% of
Gen Z uses emojis daily versus 41% of Baby Boomers. This divide fuels communication breakdowns, as older generations often misinterpret symbols like (literal death vs. “I’m dead laughing”). We should try to stay close to our family, even if they’re totally clueless about what means.
3. How might overreliance on visual communication affect our writing and verbal skills?
With all this digital chatting, are we forgetting how to talk face-to-face? Here’s some food for thought: Do you find it easier to text your crush than to talk to them in person? When was the last time you wrote a long letter or had a deep conversation without looking at your phone?
By questioning how digital language shapes your thoughts and seeking diverse perspectives, you’re not just becoming a better communicator— you’re becoming a more aware global citizen. While digital skills are important, don’t let them replace your ability to communicate in real life. Your future self (and future boss) will thank you!
If you’d like to find out more:
● Video: Emojis are weird (linguistically speaking)
● Video: A brief history of emoji
● Video: Why emojis don’t say enough
Have you ever messaged a friend with emojis and they got the wrong interpretation?
Have your say in our forum.
SUPER CHALLENGE
Select a famous quotation. Using only emojis or GIFS, write out this quotation and see if we can guess what it is.
The thousand year hazard
How do we warn the future about nuclear waste?
Author: Sophia Topf Aguiar de Medeiros, Classics graduate from St John’s College, Oxford
Nuclear waste is highly hazardous material produced as a by-product from nuclear weapons manufacture and nuclear power plants. The safest way of disposing of such material is currently thought to be burying it hundreds of metres underground in geological disposal facilities (GDFs).
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico was the world’s third GDF, having begun operation in 1999. In 2014, it was discovered that a leak at WIPP had exposed several workers to radiation, raising serious concerns about the ability of GDFs to adequately safeguard the communities living and working near them, and the plant has
since been closed. As early as 1990, however, before WIPP officially became operational, a team of geologists, linguists, astrophysicists, architects, artists and writers had come together to discuss the facility’s safeguarding responsibilities not only to the present population, but to future generations to come. As nuclear waste remains a potential hazard for thousands of years, people far, far in the future with no affiliation to a GDF could be seriously harmed if exposed to these radioactive materials inadvertently. The problem becomes not just one of physical infrastructure and present-day risk management, but of communicating with future cultures as much as 10,000 years removed from us.
Ten thousand years ago, Homer’s Iliad, one of the oldest surviving western texts, was composed, and civilisations around the world were beginning to move from huntergatherer cultures to agricultural ones. With the rate of technological advances ever expanding, who can say what civilisations will look like ten thousand years from now, and how languages will have evolved? Archaeologists regularly stumble across new finds which intellectual curiosity drives them to uncover even
How can we prevent future archaeologists from digging up nuclear waste when any knowledge of its location is likely to be eroded over time?
when their historical significance is at first unclear. How can we prevent future archaeologists from digging up nuclear waste when any knowledge of its location is likely to be eroded over time? One theory proposes that we don’t need to inform future generations of the specific dangers of nuclear waste, so long as we can inspire enough fear to deter them from disturbing a nuclear waste site. Architectural means of marking territory as dangerous have been proposed, such as a field of spikes, or giant slabs of black concrete. However, even if such architecture stands the test of time, its meaning may be lost, and what was intended as a deterrent may instead incite the very curiosity that would lead future generations to explore the area to try and discover what led past civilisations to erect such unusual structures. The pyramids were built around 4,000 years ago to keep the people buried there safe and undisturbed, but their contents have been thoroughly looted and excavated.
The use of symbols is likewise susceptible to misinterpretation as their use may change over time, just
as all language changes. Even in the present day, studies show that the trefoil, a universal symbol for radiation, may only be understood by 6% of the world’s population. There is also the question of how to preserve such symbols in a legible state over thousands of years. One solution to this is, rather than trusting in the durability of whatever materials you’re using to pass on a message to future generations, is to create a tradition of copying the message for generations to come. The Roman poets Horace and Propertius boasted that their poetry would outlast physical monuments, claiming that they would endure even longer than the pyramids. The reason we can still read these claims today is not because of the durability of the materials they were written on, but because the poetry captivated human interest sufficiently for it to be copied, first by hand, and eventually in printed and now digital volumes.
What makes a message live forever?
The linguist Thomas Sebeok developed the idea of employing an ‘atomic priesthood’ to pass warnings of nuclear waste on to future generations. The theory behind this is that modern religions have survived thousands of years, and people today still read the same sacred texts, recognise the same religious symbols, and practice the same religious rituals as their ancestors despite their changing cultural contexts. Sebeok argued that an organisation based, for example, on the Catholic Church, would keep the memory of GDFs alive through rituals and myths that would allow future generations to remain receptive to warnings about nuclear waste. This would go hand-in-hand with the use of architecture, symbols, and written
materials to prevent such messages from being erased, misinterpreted, or disregarded in future. Another method which could work alongside this is the use of genetic modification to create biological indicators of radiation, such as cats that glow green when exposed to radiation, or forests that grow blue foliage above GDFs. These markers don’t inherently convey meaning, but with the correct cultural associations being passed down through generations, they could function like a canary in a coal mine to warn future populations of the presence of radiation. The poet Paul Farley has written a poem about ray cats as an example of the kind of poetry that could be passed on to keep the significance of such warning signs alive. You can listen to it here.
By looking at what has and hasn’t stood the test of time so far, we can make predictions about what will survive far into the future, and try to act
responsibly towards our descendants by warning them of potential dangers. At the same time, we should ask ourselves if it is worth the risk of endangering them in the first place, and whether we are investing sufficient effort into protecting the people who are alive today. The proposed methods of nuclear waste messaging also raise ethical concerns: should we artificially engineer cats to act as radiation signals, build architecture intended to intimidate people, and create artificial pseudo-religions? At the same time, the question of how we would communicate with human civilisations that far in the future invites us to consider how our present cultures will evolve and be understood by future generations. There’s much to be explored!
Create a time capsule by filling a small box with letters or items you would like your future self to receive so that they can look back on this time in your life. Decide how far in the future you would like to open it, and come up with a strategy for keeping it safe in the meantime and reminding your future self to open it. Send us a picture of your time capsule or describe its contents, and explain how you will ensure its safe receipt by your future self.
OR
A 1993 report from Sandia National Laboratories created the following list of messages that communication about nuclear waste should convey to future generations. Come up with a poem, or a non-verbal form of communication (such as an image, musical piece, or dance) that aims to convey these messages:
• This place is a message... and part of a system of messages... pay attention to it!
• Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.
• This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.
• What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.
• The danger is in a particular location... it increases towards a center... the center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us.
• The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.
• The danger is to the body, and it can kill.
• The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.
• The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.
OR
The following ‘comic strips’ are examples of pictograms proposed to warn future generations of nuclear waste. Explain how they may be open to misinterpretation, and create your own visual warning to future generations that aims to circumvent these issues:
If you’d like to find out more:
● Video: Ten Thousand Years - 99% Invisible
● Article: Talking to our future selves — Long-term nuclear waste warning messages | The Language Closet
● Article: How to build a nuclear warning for 10,000 years’ time - BBC Future
● Podcast: BBC Radio 4 - Seriously... - How do we send a message to the far future?
● Article: Long-term nuclear waste warning messages - Wikipedia
S P OTLIGHT O N OXFORD
Oxford Spotlight: getting involved in student journalism
Author: Lily Middleton-Mansell, English Graduate St John’s College, Oxford
If writing all of those academic essays won’t be enough for you, there’s plenty of opportunities to get involved in student writing at Oxford University. Oxford is known for its wide range of student newspapers, dating back to the early twentieth century. Want to keep up to date on current events and local news? Cherwell, The Oxford Student and The Oxford Blue follow recent developments and political issues. Students interested in arts and culture can find a home at Isis Magazine (past contributors include Evelyn Waugh, Sylvia Plath and Nigella Lawson), the The Oxford Review of Books, Industry and Phaser. For those more invested in the STEM side of things, the Oxford Scientist publishes articles and opinion pieces about recent scientific developments.
It’s easy to get involved in Oxford student journalism because the university publishes so many newspapers and magazines - the ones listed above are just a select few. I got into student journalism through my college, St John’s, which has its own literature and art magazine called 1555. A team of St John’s students collect submissions from members of the college, edit and design the magazine, and run events and competitions. The college pays for the magazine to be
printed, which means that students get the excitement of seeing their creations become part of a physical work of art. I joined the 1555 team as an editor, helping check and sort submissions, and then I became chief editor of the magazine, running my own team and taking charge of the design and layout.
After I finished my term as 1555 chief editor, I joined the creative team at Isis magazine, creating illustrations for online and physical magazine pieces. The creative team also works together on collaborative pieces and
contributes to an exhibition of artwork open to the whole university. If you join a team at one of these larger magazines, it’s possible to work your way up the student journalism ladder when the roles change over each term, moving from team member, to director, to deputy editor, then even chief editor.
I decided that I wanted more experience on the writing side of things, so I became part of the Isis editorial team. The process of preparing an article for the Isis magazine is very thorough. Students
submit an article proposal, and if it gets accepted they are paired with an editor. The author and editor then meet weekly to discuss the progression of the article throughout the term, with the editor marking new drafts each time. An editor not only improves writing elements such as tone and grammar, but also considers the wider argument and impact of a piece. They ensure that the finished product is of the highest quality, and gets the author’s point across in the best way possible. A nice thing about working on student magazines is that you get to be part of a team. The Isis editorial team meets weekly to discuss all of the pieces they are working on, and there’s also plenty of social events organised for both the Isis team and the wider university.
Editing and illustrating are not the only ways to get involved in student journalism. If art and writing aren’t your strong points, but you’d still love to be part of the culture of student magazines, you can apply to run their social media or events. Helping publicise student writing can be great fun, and it’s a useful thing to add to your CV.
The most obvious way to get involved in student writing is to actually write! Many student magazines have features teams or columnists, groups of students responsible for writing regular articles and commissioned pieces. Or you can submit your work independently. Magazines will put out a call for submissions, usually inspired by a particular theme, at the beginning of each term. Editors love to see writing
that shows independent and up-todate thinking. From poetry, to short stories, to opinion pieces, you should always try to write about something surprising.
Thank you everybody for taking part in this year’s Inspire Critical Thinking. The St John’s team greatly enjoyed putting it all together, not least because it got us thinking afresh for ourselves about all the issues the programme has covered. But most importantly we are happy that so many of you have taken part, and that you and your teachers tell us how much you value it.
As you know, our overall aim is to help you learn how to navigate your way through the increasingly confusing world of information we live in: able to recognise and accept the true and valuable; able to recognise and reject the unreliable and false. Knowing how to make up your own minds on the basis of evidence, free of other people’s prejudices and pressures from powerful groups, is one of the most important skills you can have, wherever life may take you.
THANK YOU
We’d also like to say thank you to the St John’s staff and students who have created the materials for the workshops
Alfie Dry
Carolyne Larrington
Jack Gamblin
Jenna Ilett
Julia Bray
Katie Inwood
Keya Bergeron-Verma
Lily Middleton-Mansell
Martina Bolibruchova
Megan Bruton
Patrick Hayes
Petros Spanou
Sophia de Medeiros
Tom Kemp
Harry Stewart
Jonathan Hampshire
Samuel Lewis
Enjoy this year’s programme? We’d like to hear your feedback!
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