2nd edition of our The AI Shift newsletter is out. The question today: could AI be making us LESS productive? @jburnmurdoch.ft.com www.ft.com/content/2480... At the individual level, it's clear we're not reliable witnesses on this Q. At an organisational level, it gets even more interesting...

Somebody at HMRC needs to be canned for this idiotic ‘fraud-detection’ idea. And I fear future use of AI in welfare cases might well produce this kind of story regularly (as they have in Nevada for example).

In news that will surprise no-one... www.404media.co/metas-ray-ba...

Does this description come from 2025, or 2006? Unnerving piece by @brookeamasters.ft.com www.ft.com/content/fddb...

Beautiful paragraph juxtaposition! www.nytimes.com/2025/10/26/t...

'It’s worth raising an eyebrow when companies announcing lay-offs link them in vague terms to becoming “AI ready”, but without any corroborating detail. Let’s face it, it sounds a lot more dynamic than just saying the business isn’t doing very well.' 👏 @sarahoconnorft.ft.com

New: a $60 mod to Meta's Ray-Ban glasses disables the privacy LED light. This is supposed to light when people are filming with the glasses. We bought the mod, verified it works. Now you can never be sure whether someone wearing Meta Ray-Bans is filming you or not www.404media.co/how-to-disab...

Read the headlines and you’ll see wildly different conclusions about whether AI is taking jobs or not. @jburnmurdoch.ft.com and @sarahoconnorft.ft.com break down what the data actually shows in their new newsletter The AI Shift. It's free to read here: on.ft.com/4niHdxo

Exciting day: one of my fave colleagues @jburnmurdoch.ft.com and I are teaming up on a weekly newsletter to track what's really happening with AI & the labour market. No hype, just spreadsheets & shoe-leather. You can sign up here to get the first edition at lunchtime today! ft.com/AIshift

This is going to be v v good

Have Your Say!

Why can’t I buy a small smartphone? on.ft.com/4nzyCqB Are phones too big? Tell us what you think in today's #FTEdit poll 👉 on.ft.com/47n8eKt

Bring back small phones! This is my iphone 13 mini. It is a perfectly-sized phone. But it's going to die - in a few years, Apple will stop supporting it w/updates. Yet there are now NO new smartphones to buy on the market that fit the human hand. www.ft.com/content/6332...

This piece is so funny and also so good

This is such a good corrective by @chrisgiles.ft.com to the "working-age welfare spending is exploding/out-of-control" narrative that more & more people seem to see as an incontrovertible fact www.ft.com/content/ee67...

In which @sheilahayman.bsky.social enjoyably skewers Geoff Hinton's suggestion that we should engineer AI to be like a "mother" to us. sheila-hayman.medium.com/mummy-knows-...

In which @stephenkb.bsky.social absolutely nails the way the Tories are performing a "never-ending lobotomy" on themselves by requiring everyone to believe (or at least pretend) Brexit was a good idea. www.ft.com/content/a65f...

Investors are betting big bucks on the idea that AI will create an explosion of leisure time...e.g. it was a key part of the public rationale for the massive $55bn takeover of video games maker Electronic Arts. But are they right?? (short thread linked to my column today www.ft.com/content/4011...)

Great piece from @emmavj.bsky.social who is calling Peak Vibe www.ft.com/content/14ef...

Those tall stools on that tiny raised platform are making me nervous... do you really want to be adding pints into the mix?

No.

Even Jane Austen had to put up with Those Guys www.ft.com/content/bdcd...

I know there are the ICE raids etc, but this is pretty weird given everything we're hearing about the scale of the data centre construction boom, no?

Brutal and enjoyable piece from @willdunn.bsky.social on Clegg's return from Silicon Valley with Views to Share on standing up to the US and how to save the internet (errr) www.newstatesman.com/comment/2025...

Great piece by @georginaq.bsky.social on the cottage industry that's grown up around UK universities, which are paying agents to recruit international students for them www.ft.com/content/3f49...

A cool use of AI in newsgathering, this. US companies are talking more and more about the risks rather than the benefits of AI in their SEC filings (while still being super-optimistic in earnings calls). By @melissahei.bsky.social @chriscook.news & @claradoodle.bsky.social www.ft.com/content/e93e...

Cool cool, all sounds very normal in a very normal competitive market-based economy www.ft.com/content/be8d...

I don’t know if it’s the tone or the frequency of these messages from Microsoft, but whenever they pop up I hear Regina George in my head saying “stop trying to make ‘fetch’ happen”

Why do some names get "second winds" like Sarah in the 80s? Why are the most popular names today waaay less popular than the most popular names of the past? I "fell into the onomastic rabbit hole" (as one academic researcher I spoke to so charmingly put it) www.ft.com/content/f929...

Yeah good luck with that. Humans are hard-wired to anthropomorphise, and kids especially. My kid is friends with a pair of chopsticks. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Check out this scatterplot of health spending per capita (x axis) & life expectancy (y axis) in OECD countries (lines = averages). The United States sits alone in the bottom right area due to its very high spending rate and below-average life expectancy. More www.oecd.org/en/publicati... 🧪

A reminder of what Mandelson said to the FT's questions about Epstein in February this year

Very cool sentiment analysis using FT articles by @joelsuss.ft.com. Also brings home how precisely I missed the Good Times. www.ft.com/content/9a99...

On time and on budget? Whaaat? Make this man prime minister immediately www.ft.com/content/639a...

Oh man, why did Apple go for "thinner" when all I want is "smaller"? My iPhone mini isn't going to last forever... www.ft.com/content/07ff...

Argh, not now, Atlantic meridional overturning circulation tipping point... www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Yellen not at all pulling her punches in this op-ed for the FT www.ft.com/content/d2ea...

I'm a bit shocked by this quote from Acas's chief executive. The work Acas does is about procedural justice as much as anything else: giving both parties a chance to feel heard, & negotiated with. www.ft.com/content/7d98...

When AI meets subtitles… (Amazon Prime - I assume AI, since no human professional would have hallucinated this!)

This piece by @jemima.bsky.social is so damn good. If you read nothing else all weekend, read this - trust me! www.ft.com/content/0e24...

What if you took dynamic prices - algorithms that change prices in real-time based on supply, demand, and other factors - but applied it to people's wages? This is not a hypothetical. It's the latest development in the gig economy. www.ft.com/content/c10d...

Wanna see a crazy chart? Of course you do. Spending on constructing datacenters and manufacturing facilities for computers & electronic products in the US now exceeds the entire retail and wholesale industry and almost as much as the rest of the office and manufacturing sectors combined.

Really interesting piece by Patti Waldmeir about fireflies. Sadly, we don't have them in the UK (that I know of?) but I used to love watching them on humid summer nights when I lived in DC. www.ft.com/content/c4f2...

If you’re looking for a murder mystery thriller set in the near future with a tech/AI twist (and who isn’t!) I can highly recommend this new novel by my friend @salmanshaheen.bsky.social. I just tore through it on holiday - a definite page-turner. Available to pre-order now! amzn.eu/d/gUlh3Kr

One of those headlines that make you wonder if you're having a stroke

FT Editorial: "Unless the Israeli government agrees to an immediate end to the war and a surge of aid into Gaza, western countries should be sanctioning Netanyahu and his government." www.ft.com/content/69d5...

Welcome to FT Edit! When the news is overwhelming, we bring you eight stories a day, chosen by editors, offering clarity, fresh perspectives, insight and inspiration — plus some extra treats! Explore more at www.ft.com/ftedit or, if you're reading on iOS, find us on the FT app: on.ft.com/44SHfGA

I've now written a piece about why the internet hates my apostrophe, which you can read here: www.ft.com/content/48d4... Huge thanks to everyone who replied to me about it!

It’s almost too perfect that the billboard behind these two confused Waymos says STOP HIRING HUMANS

Hard to express how annoying this is - surely after 30 years of the internet, people who make online forms should have figured out that some people’s names (as recorded in their passports) do have special characters?? (Solidarity with my fellow apostrophe owners!)