Sam Illingworth, PhD
Full Professor of Creative Pedagogies
Founder of Slow AI
'When to use AI, and when to leave it the hell alone.'
As featured in
I am a Full Professor of Creative Pedagogies at Edinburgh Napier University, a poet, and the founder of Slow AI. My work sits at the intersection of AI, education, and critical thinking.
I help people develop the judgement to know when AI is useful and when it is not. Through research, writing, and teaching, I build the critical faculties that no AI tool can provide.
Slow AI
A newsletter and curriculum for critical AI literacy. 8,000+ subscribers. 0% paid churn. Substack Bestseller.
Learn more →Speaking
Keynotes, workshops, and panels on critical AI literacy, synthetic empathy, and the ethics of automation in education.
View topics →Resources
Interactive tools, guides, and games for developing critical AI literacy. Free and paid.
Explore →Can you tell human writing from AI?
Bot or Not is a Turing test for the age of generative AI. Try it.
Why Slow AI
AI is surrounded by hyperbole from all sides. Utopians who think it will save the world. Doomers who think it will end it. Oligarchs trying to control it. Snake oil salespeople profiting from the confusion.
None of them are right.
AI will make positive differences if we keep it out of the wrong hands. Slow AI exists to help people cut through the noise, develop critical thinking skills, and apply them to AI in their own context. I believe in friction, in slowness, in human judgement. The work is not to keep up. The work is to know when to stop.
What people say
'You're one of the few creators on here that actually makes me think. Not skim. Not nod along. Think.'
Nick Quick, Slow AI subscriber
'He bridges worlds that don't always talk to each other. His background in critical AI literacy, AI ethics, and education means he can connect what is happening with AI to the bigger questions about how people understand these systems.'
Karen Spinner, Writer & Content Strategist
'A true renaissance person and a compassionate folkbildare (people's educator): someone helping a broad public access and cherish complex subjects so they can form their own insights.'
Olle Bergman, Science Communication Consultant