Oh, what's that... some recent articles on machines praying, you say?! 1. "Will AI Create a Religion?" 2023 muse.jhu.edu/pub/3/articl... 2. Existential Conversations with LLMs (with M. Shanahan) 2024: arxiv.org/abs/2411.13223 3. LLM theisms (book chapter, behind paywall) 2026, tinyurl.com/2rdntkz9

Series 2 Amanda is not the same as Series 1 Amanda.

👇👏 "UK AI policy has become heavily supply-side: compute targets, hyperscaler partnerships, frontier model announcements. The harder and more valuable question is: how do nurses, teachers, planning officers, accountants and small business owners adopt these tools in their own organisations?"

This is what I would be doing if I was running the UK government's IT systems procurement. Just stop. And start building the in house capabilities.

cc @williamcb.bsky.social

The rewriting of history carries on. It was the 2016 Brexit referendum that has crowded out more important issues from British political life. The single biggest cost of Brexit is its opportunity cost: all the things that could’ve happened between 2016-24. But sure, let’s talk about “SW1 pathology”.

NEW: Palantir’s revolving door. A new investigation by @thenerve.news has found Palantir has recruited more than 30 senior officials from UK govt, a strategy transparency experts say poses an ‘acute risk’ of corruption. 1/ Link ⬇️

Yes, Swiss scientist Fritz Zwicky coined the term “dark matter” which is impressive, but he also coined the term “spherical bastard” to describe people who are bastards no matter which way you look at them, and I think that should be celebrated more.

📉 Visiting and posting on X and Facebook has collapsed: nearly 50% drop! On X, it is mostly Democrats who have become inactive. Many still occasionally log on, but rarely and quietly.

This makes no sense at all: "While the dominance of the fiscal rules left them tied to pledges not to raise income tax or national insurance." Nothing in the fiscal rules stops the government from putting up taxes! www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

In 2016, I spoke to veterans of Hungary's 1956 revolution for a BBC radio doc. They told me how student protesters plucked up courage, & began to shout "Ruszkik haza!" - "Russians go home!" Now Hungarians are shouting it again. @newstatesman1913.bsky.social www.newstatesman.com/internationa...

Guess how many times this Spiked piece - which blames Orban’s loss on ‘identity politics’ and ‘therapy culture’ - mentions that Furedi is literally working for Orban? democracyforsale.substack.com/p/orbans-brits

I am now on this team.

it feels quite bad that it's basically impossible to argue that much of the modern right in the west has become both entirely intellectually shallow and deeply, fundamentally morally corrupt without sounding like a tedious teenage tankie, because it is.....the factual truth

This is the line I was looking for this morning

1956, 1989, 2026

no one is doing it like jd vance, a loser across three continents in a single weekend

It's not just that Orbán losing inspires hope in other competitive-autocratic countries ruled by right-wing nationalist authoritarians. It's that his loss materially changes things in those other countries, because he's been operating as a headquarters and funding source...

People in the Budapest Metro, Hungary, shouting: “Russians, go home!”

Defeat for Putin. Defeat for Trump. Defeat for Farage.

So @jderbyshire.ft.com asked @philgordondc.bsky.social if the Iran war is the US’s Suez moment. He said no, but then pithily and pitilessly sums up how it has been a comprehensive strategic failure. Oof! www.ft.com/content/0cbc...

New two party system just arrived in Cliftonville. Wonder how many wards will become Green vs Reform battlegrounds in local elections next month. Suspect quite a few (plus plenty of other new two party contests springing up)

I'm kind of fascinated by the way that people have literally forgotten what town and city centres used to be like on a Friday and Saturday night. Or what town centres and city centres used to be like on match days. Now if some folks get rowdy in a public space it's all '[x] has fallen'

I really want to know what happened here

Hell yes. Get it fucking up you.

Trutin or Putump?

Tariffs work differently to how economic textbooks say www.ft.com/content/2e68...

Yes. Yes it does.

@acjsissons.bsky.social and I think Rachel Reeves does have a broadly plausible 'theory of growth', but the government isn't following it to its conclusions getting-out-of-the-hole.uk/labours-red-...

"To put it bluntly, an X post today receives less than 3% of the views a single tweet delivered seven years ago." If you think it is necessary to be on Twitter to communicate your fact-based worldview, the reality is that worldview is being smothered.

Conservative operative makes something up about London to try and prove it’s a hell hole. Unlike his experience on the tube, this is now a daily occurrence.

I have signed this petition and urge you to do so, too. We need trenches to defend our democracy from a British Trump and this is one of them.

We’re backing a National Commission on electoral reform. If we reach 100,000 signatures, Parliament must debate it. It’s just launched, so every signature counts. Sign and share 👇 🔗 petition.parliament.uk/petitions/76... #FairVotes

Extraordinary. (Douglas Murray and Tim Montgomerie also mentioned in this article.)

She's my old boss but this really is a very good article on the rudderlessness of UK tech strategy by Chi Onwurah, who now chairs the commons select committee. American Big Tech, and China, are making hay while DSIT dithers. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

When you go with Virgin Media you know that bad support is part of the deal but even so… Chat disabled. Don’t answer on social media. Community forum down for two months. You’re on your own guys.

She's my old boss but this really is a very good article on the rudderlessness of UK tech strategy by Chi Onwurah, who now chairs the commons select committee. American Big Tech, and China, are making hay while DSIT dithers. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

What the hell.

Spoiler alert: nothing trickled down.

Scotland's Reform manifesto is opposed to the SNP government in Scotland "welcoming uncontrolled immigration from the rest of the UK". www.reformparty.uk/view-pdf/sco...

US media: Escalating tension Real world: bombing US media: A dire ultimatum! Real world: bombing US media: Frenzied diplomacy! Real world: bombing US media: The brink of war!! Real world: bombing US media: CEASEFIRE!!!! Real world: bombing US media: A fragile peace Real world: bombing

Always fun watching racism slide from a verb (are this person's actions likely to make specific ethnicities feel unsafe?) to a noun (is this person someone liable to do this again and again?) to a subclass of noun that refers to invisible supernatural traits ("does he have the racist-nature?").

Good primer on the substantive decisions ahead for the UK and EU.

Brexit. Something's got to give......

Exactly

The whole “we’re going to nuke Iran, nudge nudge wink wink” thing was just a way to stop everyone saying TACO. But what is this climb down if not TACO?

The Trump Tax on petrol is going to cost about $80 billion a year.

*many people are saying* it sure looks like the White House wrote this for Pakistan’s PM, who posted it then quickly deleted the top part 😬