Slow AI
Knowing when to use AI and when to leave it the hell alone.
What Slow AI is
Slow AI is a regular Substack newsletter and a 12-month academic curriculum for critical AI literacy. It is for educators, researchers, professionals, and anyone who wants to think clearly about AI instead of being sold to.
The free newsletter covers AI ethics, synthetic empathy, critical thinking, and the human cost of automation. Every post includes practical exercises you can try with any AI tool.
The paid edition goes deeper. Every post gives free readers the full argument. Paid subscribers get the argument and the exercise: the part where we test ideas against live AI systems and find out what holds up. You also get research syntheses, the full archive, and access to the Slow AI Curriculum that runs alongside the writing. £100 for the year. The 2026 curriculum cohort is the last one that runs live.
Read before you subscribe
What Is Critical AI Literacy?
The keystone post. What it means, why it matters, and how to build it.
The Humanities Are the Moat
Judging AI output takes the interpretive skill the humanities teach, the skill we spent two decades defunding.
We Are Using the Wrong Words for AI
Intelligence, hallucination, agent. The words we use for AI hide how it works and who is accountable.
Listen: Slow Takes
I sit down with Leor from Exploring ChatGPT and talk through the week in AI: the five stories that matter, what the hype gets wrong, and what any of it means for the rest of us. No doom, no boosterism, no jargon. It is a podcast, so you can listen wherever you get yours. New episodes are paused until 19 October, and the back catalogue is all there.
The player loads from Apple Podcasts only when you press play, so nothing third-party runs until you choose.
Also on Apple Podcasts, the live stream, and all good podcast directories.
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The Slow AI Curriculum
Reading the paid edition also gives you access to the Slow AI Curriculum, which runs alongside it: monthly sessions combining theory from the humanities, guided prompt exercises, and group dialogue, with recordings if you cannot make them. It is accredited for 25 CPD credits (Course #1019972) and carries a Certificate of Critical AI Literacy on completion. The 2026 cohort is the last one that runs live.
What the curriculum covers
- Synthetic empathy and the ethics of automated care
- AI bias, representation, and the colonial gaze in training data
- Critical prompt design and output analysis
- AI in education: trust, agency, and assessment
- The psychology of AI attachment and anthropomorphism
- Governance, regulation, and institutional AI policy
What others are saying
"For those feeling wary of speed, hype, or pressure to adopt AI wholesale, we especially want to highlight the work of Sam Illingworth, who writes the Slow AI Substack. His framework invites educators to pause, reflect, and ask harder questions about what we gain, and what we risk losing, when we integrate AI into our work."
Furman University (institutional faculty recommendation)
"Your work consistently slows me down in the best way. You write about AI with care, curiosity, and humanity, creating room for reflection instead of urgency. That feels rare, and very worth supporting."
Jessica
"Your writing creates a rare space where AI is approached with care, intellectual honesty, and respect for human judgement. This perspective directly supports my work with people and organisations by helping me articulate blind spots, assumptions, and decision-making dynamics."
Jukka
"Sam is possibly the best thing about Substack. He's created the best community, incredibly valuable content and is an expert at what he does."
The Strategic Linguist (Rebecca Wicker)
"I signed up for the certificate and it feels like I have found a raft in the ocean of AI hot takes. Not exaggerating when I say I feel like you’ve saved my relationship with my job."
Louisa, Higher Education Professional
Sponsor Slow AI
A small number of posts carry a sponsor. Placements are written by me, introduced in a sentence that connects them to the post, and only accepted from organisations whose work is consistent with critical AI literacy. There is no generic ad copy and no programmatic advertising.
Formats, pricing, audience data, and what I will not accept are all on the sponsorship page.
Read the newsletter. Join the curriculum.
The free newsletter publishes two to three times a week. The curriculum is £100/year.