Oligarchy (noun): A government of and by a few at the top, who exercise power for their own benefit. Their power and wealth increase as they make laws that favor themselves, manipulate financial markets, and create monopolies that put more wealth into their pockets.

JUST IN: US judge blocks Trump's shutdown of government-funded radio broadcasts reut.rs/4jgn0qU

For the first time ever, wind and solar energy are covering more than 100% of demand in mainland Spain. The excess is being stored and exported. The Spanish are achieving these numbers and there is still so much more potential to tap. What incredibly exciting opportunities there are for Spain here.

Very bad BBC headline on analysis of a significant meeting. This disregards what was news as two leaders met at heart of a constitutional clash Instead promotes "were the reporters expectations disrupted". That is of much less importance to world or interest to audiences than to a reporters lobby

Definitely essential reading. Clear and to the point.

France and the UK, “some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 20 or 30 years.” The UK lost 457 soldiers in Afghanistan, fighting alongside the US, and 179 soldiers in Iraq. Hard to overstate what an insult this is to the Brits. (Also wrong on FR obviously)

@thecsp.bsky.social is recruiting …

Starmer not commenting after the Trump/Vance attack on Zelenskyy is going to become a bigger and bigger issue - for the UK and for his leadership of the Labour party. It is absolutely unthinkable he would not offer Ukraine and its president full and unequivocal support.

The absolute shame of it. I’m disgusted.

Ukraine is Europe! We stand by Ukraine. We will step up our support to Ukraine so that they can continue to fight back the agressor. Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.

Where is Starmer's statement of support for Zelenskyy. No excuses. No equivocation.

Also important to let your voice be heard with your state leaders actionnetwork.org/letters/stop...

Unbelievable. Donald Trump has been invited to a state visit to the UK. We should not be rolling out the red carpet to celebrate this man. Agree? Add your name to the petition today: you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/no...

Has Starmer said anything yet? Anything at all?

Sweden, Lithuania, and Sweden all reiterate their support for Ukraine. It would be nice to see the same from the UK and France in this moment.

Former Lib Dem leader Vince Cable calls on Starmer to cancel the State visit for Trump.

Word of the day is ‘huff-snuff’ (16th century): a hectoring bully or braggart.

Withdraw the state visit invitation to Trump. Offer one to Zelensky instead. With bells and fucking whistles.

Obama and Biden may think they are honoring the office of the presidency by keeping quiet at a moment like this — if so that’s just preening vanity — they owe it to the office and to the Republic that until last month it served to speak up loudly and clearly and without relent.

The mistake is to think Zelensky could have salvaged this. Trump admin just doesn’t want to support Ukraine. Period. There was also never going to be a peace agreement. That’s been clear but everyone has been pretending otherwise. There can be no confusion now.

I don’t know if Google can top this, their finest work to date

Serious question that I haven’t yet seen an article answering: what actual levers that really matter would a more united European response have to add pressure?

How depressing is it to find yourself even half-contemplating in planning conversations the potential the world might just blow up around you. To find yourself saying “we should know more clearly in six months so let’s not commit before then”

To finish your week, here's a nice little case study of how a union is using AI in a really effective way – to quickly review and categorise hundreds of emails they’re receiving every day in a shared inbox. youtube.com/shorts/SKAuF...

No reviews?! I think a 1* review might be called for.

🤖At the AI Action Summit, Eric Manzi stressed: “The future of work, shaped by digitalisation and AI, is inevitable, but the outcomes are not predetermined. By ensuring that trade unions are actively involved in this transformation, we can create a future of work that is both inclusive and equitable”

We're seeing a toxic surge of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric on GB News. This is what advertisers such as Sky are enabling. If Ofcom continues failing to enforce its own rules, then MPs need to step in and hold it to account. bylinetimes.com/2025/01/31/g...

DeepSeek is the flip side of the same coin: It innovated because of, not in spite of, its constraints. And now that it has upended the assumptions of the dominant AI paradigm, we should reject its costly trade-offs and seek new ways to develop AI without so many harms. 24/

So it doesn’t matter if you're a company in the US, China, or elsewhere. DeepSeek should be a cue to pivot HARD toward investing in far more efficient methods of AI development. Even if you care nothing about community & climate impacts, it’s just better business. 19/

As someone who has reported on AI for 7 years and covered China tech as well, I think the biggest lesson to be drawn from DeepSeek is the huge cracks it illustrates with the current dominant paradigm of AI development. A long thread. 1/

Nearly 100 responses in and we can see that nearly half of union staff think that their union is not engaged in AI being used for internal operations or projects. Not surprised. More surprising is 1 in 3 saying their union is not engaged in policy, representation, advocacy on AI impacting members.

Just over week ago we launched the first ever global survey of trade union staff on #AI. We want to know their experience, hopes and fears with AI. What have we learned so far? @nickscott.digital asked AI to help with a quick analysis. youtu.be/crDhhik-Qpk

#Nonprofits and #unions paying for Google Workspace can now use Gemini for free. Should Microsoft follow suit and make CoPilot 365 free? My take: YES and NO.

This final question in the survey of union staff on their experiences and views of AI is a gold mine. Here’s my favourite response so far.

This final question in the survey of union staff on their experiences and views of AI is a gold mine. Here’s my favourite response so far.

One for the #wonkcomms people out there… I’m running an online course (starting on 20th Jan) on AI for policy communicators. Interested? Find out more here: castfromclay.co.uk/course/gener...

“I think we're playing with fire.” 🔥 I’m LOVING seeing the many honest opinions from union staff in response to our survey on AI use in unions. If you work in a union, please fill in the survey here: unions21.fillout.com/2025-ai-surv...

The picture from the first day’s results to our survey of #tradeunion staff on #AI … Over 4 in 5 have at least experimented with AI tools. DO YOU WORK IN A UNION? Please participate so we can get a full picture 🙏 unions21.fillout.com/2025-ai-surv...

TRADE UNION PEOPLE: I need your help! Today, we launched the first global survey of AI in union work. The survey has a simple goal: to help us understand the reality of AI usage among unions. I need you to share this post and the link to the survey: unions21.fillout.com/2025-ai-survey Why? 🧵

Work in a union and got a few minutes to spare as we come towards the end of the day (Europe) or kick the day off (N America)? Use those minutes productively and fill in our quick survey on AI use in unions —> unions21.fillout.com/2025-ai-survey

A comment from a union staff member who just filled in our survey on AI use in unions: “I *think* that many colleagues are using AI, I don't know because, as an organisation, we're not talking about it, and I think this is a problem” We couldn’t agree more.

TRADE UNION PEOPLE: I need your help! Today, we launched the first global survey of AI in union work. The survey has a simple goal: to help us understand the reality of AI usage among unions. I need you to share this post and the link to the survey: unions21.fillout.com/2025-ai-survey Why? 🧵

What are unions' experiences of using AI? @nickscott.digital wrote for @etui.bsky.social's HESA magazine on what we've found out while working on the Centre for Responsible Trade Union AI. You can read the full article here www.etui.org/sites/defaul...

Very exciting to start our new Responsible AI for unions course launch today at @unions21.org. This will be our first self paced course so excited to see how things go. Well done @nickscott.digital and Antti Mäki for getting it off the ground! In person (online) will be launched in the new year

Have you tried hiring anyone for a job recently? Been frustrated by having to wade through dozens of job applications generated by #ChatGPT or other generative #AI tools? You're not alone! And union HR officers are feeling the pain. www.agileunions.ai/p/job-applic...

As this is really helping me getting a network, here are some people doing research on industrial relations and trade unions Feel free to suggest more @etui.bsky.social @mhermans.bsky.social @melaniesimms.bsky.social @johnwbudd.bsky.social @kurtvandaele.bsky.social go.bsky.app/8W2BZMR

Have you heard the story of a entire local news team being made redundant, with #AI replacing them? It has been doing the rounds on the CivicAI WhatsApp group I'm on. Here's the link: www.reddit.com/r/Broadcasti... Some thoughts, in no particular order. 1/9

Have you heard the story of a entire local news team being made redundant, with #AI replacing them? It has been doing the rounds on the CivicAI WhatsApp group I'm on. Here's the link: www.reddit.com/r/Broadcasti... Some thoughts, in no particular order. 1/9

Most useful thing I've learnt in the last day about Bluesky: LIKES are just tokens of appreciation. A tip of the hat. They do nothing to make a post go further. 👉 If you want to share the insight / love, you have to REPOST.