"Emotional conversations were also common in the conversations analyzed by The Post... In some chats, the AI tool could be seen adapting to match a user’s viewpoint, creating a kind of personalized echo chamber in which ChatGPT endorsed falsehoods and conspiracy theories."

sure, basically all the empirical evidence we have about participatory governance says that process transparency is key to citizens trusting and accepting outcomes. but every tech bro/marketing major imagines they are somehow built different

The letter the BBC could send back to Trump - brilliant stuff from @davidallengreen.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/emptycit...

AI and copyright – transcript of evidence to the Lords Communications and Digital Committee last week committees.parliament.uk/event/25465/... Rightsholders are struggling to find infringements of their existing rights so can they have some more please #genAI #IPlaw #techpolicy #fairuse #openweb

Emily Maitlis brags about her, Deb Cohen, and Hannah Barnes getting the Tavistock GIDS service shut down. What she doesn't talk about is how Newsnight journalists manufactured outrage and concocted "scandals" based on unethical journalism - which they were called out for, but tried to hide... 🔥🧵

We @connectedbydata.org are planning a conference next year (early March, in Manchester) about people, power and participation in (public sector) data and AI. If you were coming, who would you really like to hear from as a keynote speaker to kick off the day?

⏰ Join our essay collection launch in Westminster to hear leading voices on a decade of community business & what’s next. Chair: @anooshc.bsky.social Panel: @jamestplunkett.bsky.social, @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social, @hetanshah.bsky.social, @patrickhurley.bsky.social & Emily Bolton.✍️👉 buff.ly/pcSxdmp

To celebrate the 10 year anniversary of launching the ONS website in 2026 (the highlight of my career) I'm going to have one last swing at a Gov big data initiative (but not 'Big Data!') and will return to the Civil Service as Head of Products & Services for the National Data Library in January!

We @connectedbydata.org are planning a conference next year (early March, in Manchester) about people, power and participation in (public sector) data and AI. If you were coming, who would you really like to hear from as a keynote speaker to kick off the day?

Use of AI shaping up to be a culture war issue? www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Well this by @eric-reinhart.com is excellent. I was struck by the way he describes patients coming for consultations having rehearsed and refined their stories using ChatGPT. And how he describes the meaning in silences that don't make it into transcriptions. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

"Lib Dem peer Tim Clement–Jones has asked the government in a written parliamentary question to explain why it had “not published the business case and data protection impact assessments”. Malevolent idiocy affecting 23,500 families, 100,000 people #Robodebt www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

EXCL: Home Office travel records used in controversial anti-fraud crackdown were so flawed that almost half of families initially flagged as emigrated still lived in UK - Luke Butterly & @lisaocarroll.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

What's this? @audreyt.org and @caroline-green1.bsky.social bringing together care ethics and AI alignment? Sounds right up my street. 6pack.care

“Though [CFO] Friar later walked back her suggestion, saying that she was advocating for structural support for AI in general, not just her company, it is likely true that some kind of huge subsidy or another is probably the only way that OpenAI’s preposterous business model […] can be sustained.”

Are we approaching a Turing Test for Teaching? A deep dive into the evidence on AI tutoring. carlhendrick.substack.com/p/the-algori...

Tiny bit of the story, but I'd love to know more about the software failure this piece mentions. If it's this Calculate Release Dates Service, it was winning prizes in June. (Once again I long, hopelessly, for a culture of learning, not blame.) www.version1.com/blog/calcula...

I have five tickets for Starlight Express TODAY at 14:30 (theatre is near Wembley). If you can use all / any please shout - would love them not to go to waste. 🚂💫

Yet more #openaddresses for UK housing stock: Wiltshire Council has released its Council Tax address list for re-use as #opendata under the Open Government Licence www.owenboswarva.com/blog/post-ad... Thanks @wiltscouncil.bsky.social! Geocoded in CSV and GeoJson formats #FOI #localgov #proptech

An interesting point at the Data and AI CSO Network this week was the distinction between "digital inclusion by getting everyone to adopt digital" and "digital inclusion by providing non-digital alternatives". The first is impossible, the second shows the limits of the digitalness of digital ID.

what a brilliant essay. amongst many other things, i’m definitely having “thick” and “thin” construction🧎

Please read this statement by Anne Health. Trans children are being subjected by Sussex NHS to the physical torture of being forcibly detransitioned. This is unnecessary cruelty and in my view constitutes torture, violence and child abuse on the part of NHS Sussex.

This fantastic paper "proposes a vision of AI that embraces local vernaculars, the multiplicity of objectives, the responsibilities that come with producing persons, and the potential of instigating rather than circumventing political contestation." read.dukeupress.edu/public-cultu...

Can anyone recommend a good career coach? (For my partner, thinking about a career change.)

Ooh, I love the way this co-design approach is conceived as embedding engineers within frontline services. (Even while advocating for co-design over user research, I usually think of bringing people into digital teams, which is obviously less powerful.) Super interested to see how it works out!

There's just 1 week to go until we’ll be gathering in Birmingham for UKCharityCamp 2025, and we can't wait to see you there. If you know a colleague that doesn’t yet have their ticket, the very last few are available here tr.ee/QCAnUecTXn

By my reading, it's hard to remember a more scandalous example of a social media company being negligent in their responsibility to users. It's so so bad, and deeper investigation and regulatory action must surely follow.

"Universities are currently paying these SaaS providers and their investors twice, first with large subscription fees and again with access and aggregation power over large troves of data produced by members of their campus communities." Matt maps an alternative pathway for edtech in HE here ⏬️

Looking forward to speaking at this in a couple of weeks, alongside a great panel.

Demos is leading the Waves project, trialling new technology in local democracy to bring people together to tackle contentious local issues and strengthen trust. Rewatch this #TICTeC 2025 session: youtu.be/-WZmFyxw06o?... #localgov #civictech

Chaos at the corner shop as contactless payments fail across all the tills. Commuters abandon lunchtime sandwiches. Harried workers make emergency calls and broadcast apologies. Old farts like me who actually carry cards or even (shock!) cash smugly bypass the queues. Lessons for digital ID?

The 2025 Curriculum and Assessment Review Final Report was meant to “build a world-class curriculum for all.” In reality, it signals something quite different: the closure of curriculum reform in England. 🧵

Interesting reading this with a service designer perspective. Seems like there's obvious lessons about giving confirmations and expectation setting. Does anyone know of research about how long you can leave it without communicating with someone before they start panicking they've been forgotten?

I most recently wrote about Palantir in Challenging Privatization in Governance by AI:

Can you find a mix of methods that give voice to the right people, at the right time? This is your challenge in 'The Good Governance Game'. Recently Tim ran a play test of an adapted version of the game, for procurement processes. Read more connectedbydata.org/blog/2025/1... (1/2)

So excited, I have to share some work of ours @connectedbydata.org (well, mostly @timdavies.org.uk's) that has just gone live. We've developed a "Workshop in a Box" for teachers to use to get student feedback into the AI in Education Summit early next year. connectedbydata.org/ai-in-educa...

This whole thread is incredible:

So excited, I have to share some work of ours @connectedbydata.org (well, mostly @timdavies.org.uk's) that has just gone live. We've developed a "Workshop in a Box" for teachers to use to get student feedback into the AI in Education Summit early next year. connectedbydata.org/ai-in-educa...

When someone (in a social media team) turns books on a bookcase outwards so you can read them, it's because they are setting a tone. On the shelf, the Microsoft Research authored AI for Good... www.wiley.com/en-us/AI+for...

Brilliant to see the Office for Stats Regulation publish a toolkit for involving the public in official statistics, helped by a workshop with @connectedbydata.org osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/guidance/pub... Might lead to some new additions to this :-) connectedbydata.org/resources/bl...

In which Palantir recruits high school students for fellowships by telling them to skip college because its holds little value and then puts them through a cherry-picked curriculum that oddly resembles… college

In England, children are tracked from birth through education databases that record their lives in detail. These systems are vast, permanent, and invisible to most families. privacyinternational.org/long-read/56...

The twist in this story is that the A-level student found it back in 1977 but we have only rediscovered this fact 50 years on www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Radio 3 just played the oompa band version of Thriller, which was quite an experience...

We are excited to announce that on the 4th November at 6:30pm BST, we will be doing a live Q&A on our Discord with @clairestranstalks.bsky.social to talk about the Gender Clinic files to answer your questions.

A couple of weeks ago Jeni Tennison appeared in front of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee. In this clip she is responds to a question about whether the Government is currently 'doing the work' to enable to public to embrace technology. 📺 www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hO...

AI systems are not being used here “despite their biases,” but because of them. We live in a time where power means the power not to care. I wrote recently on the weaponization of AI & error. www.techpolicy.press/musk-ai-and-...

📢 Closes tomorrow! Call for Abstracts: Participatory AI Development, Governance and Power at PAIRS26, taking place alongside the India AI Impact Summit in Feb 26! 🚀 www.pairs.site/ Open for papers/presentations/poster abstracts for online or in-person (Delhi) sessions.

The story continues. This person didn't even travel, just had a flight booked, but still their child benefit was stopped. So what's the data trail here? Who is getting what data from whom? And why have only a few hundred families had their child benefit reinstated so far?

Calling ALL health data folk: Re UK Health Data Research Service. The UK gov & Wellcome have pledged up to £600 million to create a HDRS. Myself & an ace team have been tasked by Wellcome to assess the existing health data ecosystem & identify what is needed to support the HDRS 👇. Get in touch