Hamilbug

Palantir lands biggest ever UK defense deal The £240 million contract with the Ministry of Defence has renewed a debate about Britain’s dependence on American technology.

Great spot from @jbambridge.bsky.social here - Palantir getting its biggest-ever contract with the MoD. No competitive process, triple what they were awarded last time www.politico.eu/article/pala...

UK set to ban deepfake ‘nudification’ apps Campaigners have long argued that apps allowing the creation of fake nude images need reining in.

Politico's @mizyjudah.bsky.social and Tom Bristow scooped the UK's nudification ban more than a month ago - we'll be keeping a close eye on how the gov plans to enforce it. Watch this space! www.politico.eu/article/uk-s...

I hate that AI has made me approach cute animal videos with an air of suspicion. I resent having to harden my heart to the possibility of an unlikely friendship between a very large dog and a very small one

"We must ally with the hard men," Musk mutters, stuffing cherry tomatoes into his mouth

Apple is teaching its artificial intelligence to adapt to the Trump era Apple policy documents enacted by a subcontractor show how the company shifted its approach to fine-tuning its AI in March, two months after the U.S. president was inaugurated.

Some great reporting here from @heroceane.bsky.social on how Apple's AI is getting fine-tuned to deal with *sensitive* issues like politics, copyright, and Apple's brand image www.politico.eu/article/appl...

Important reporting here - the HO has steadfastly resisted attempts from MPs, immigration lawyers, and campaigners (plus Mizy) to find out how often the UK's eVisa system malfunctions. A glitch could be devastating, as it could falsely call someone's immigration status into question.

Britain’s secretive fund for spies comes out of the shadows Britain’s National Security Strategic Investment Fund has ties to MI5, MI6, and GCHQ — and now it’s getting extra cash.

Did you know Britain's spies have their own VC fund? Well they do, and it's coming out of stealth www.politico.eu/article/brit...

Doctors to refer NHS to data watchdog over feeding patient data to AI Patient data that was only supposed to be used for Covid-19 research got plugged into an all-purpose AI model, doctors say.

SCOOP for @politico.eu: GP leaders are drafting a formal complaint to the Information Commissioner alleging that NHS England broke the law by training generative AI model Foresight on patient records.

www.politico.eu/article/doct...

The UK government thinks AI can do 62 percent of the most junior civil servants’ work Meanwhile, the most senior civil servants perform zero routine (i.e. automatable) work.

From @mizyjudah.bsky.social: the methodology the UK gov used to calculate how much civil service work can be done by AI assumes that 62% of the work done by the most junior civil servants is "routine" (i.e. AI can do it) www.politico.eu/article/uk-g...

Labour’s AI gold rush gets stuck in the mud Ministers are preparing a string of AI announcements for early June, but voters are skeptical about the technology. That leaves the ruling Labour Party with a huge problem.

From Politico's Tom Bristow: Labour's mad rush towards AI is falling way, way short of being a vote-winner

www.politico.eu/article/labo...

My copy's due to arrive on Friday! Love presents from past me - even if they do not conform to the kallax capacity of current me

Fun to see Meta pursuing the Ursula-the-sea-witch style of AI data mining (www.theverge.com/news/658602/...)

OpenAI, Google reject UK’s AI copyright plan The U.K. government’s AI copyright plans can’t seem to please anyone.

Amused if slightly exasperated to report that the government's copyright plans to make creatives "opt out" of having their works scraped for AI are pleasing no-one, AI firms included. www.politico.eu/article/open...

‘Nothing is off the table’ in Trump trade talks, UK tech chief says Peter Kyle says both sides are ‘exploring all’ options as London considers putting its Big Tech tax up for negotiation with the U.S.

Rachel Reeves told Kuenssberg that talks with the US about potentially scrapping the Digital Services Tax are 'ongoing.' Tech secretary Peter Kyle went a step further, telling us that 'nothing is off the table' in negotiations with the US www.politico.eu/article/noth...

New York Times excerpt that reads: Musk makes sweeping claims about federal corruption, without evidence. The billionaire Elon Musk said in an extraordinary Oval Office appearance Tuesday that he was providing maximum transparency, while offering no evidence for his sweeping claims that the federal bureaucracy is corrupted by cheats and officials who have approved money for “fraudsters.” Answering questions from the media for the first time since his arrival in Washington to run the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, Mr. Musk stood next to the Resolute Desk and asserted that his work was in the interest of the public and democracy. President Trump sat behind the desk, chiming in with approval as he let the world’s richest man expound for roughly 30 minutes on the rationale for the administration’s overhaul of the federal bureaucracy. Among Mr. Musk’s claims, offered without evidence, was that some officials at the now-gutted U.S.A.I.D. were taking “kickbacks.” He said that “quite a few people” in the bureaucracy somehow had “managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position.” He later claimed that some recipients of Social Security checks were as old as 150.

Report on Musk long enough and you start to see him say the same things over and over.

He agreed to buy Twitter then made sweeping accusations about fraud and bots to try to break the deal. He also accused Twitter of harboring "ghost employees" who took paychecks.

www.nytimes.com/live/2025/02...

Less is More: Who’s Afraid of DeepSeek? Yesterday saw a huge selloff in US tech stocks after a Chinese AI chatbot app DeepSeek shot to the top of the Apple App Store. Why the fuss?

Nice article on #DeepSeek global political / economic impacts, with a paragraph towards the end talking to me. The Daily Upside by Isobel Hamilton @hamilbug.bsky.social

www.thedailyupside.com/technology/a...

All in the mind? The surprising truth about brain rot Is screen use really sapping our ability to focus and lowering our IQs? The scientists who have actually analysed the data give their verdict

Refreshing piece by Amy Fleming in The Guardian, where I joined scholars to unpack misconceptions that disempower parents & young people around tech. Evidence doesn’t support fear—our approach shouldn’t either. Let’s pause panic & do better for families in 2025!

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...