Brian P

I know we're only supposed to be celebrating today but the UK is still trash - our swing towards allowing transphobia as a 'protected belief' is now allowing racism to become one too. As was the plan all along.

Interesting factlets about Digital ID...

Government is proposing a massive extension of right to work checks, to sweep up not just employees but all individuals providing services otherwise than to consumers. So the whole gig economy and even including eg barristers (shock!)... /1

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

Preprints let you:

✅ Share your work on your timeline
✅ Get feedback on work from a wider pool than peer review
✅ Establish precident on an idea/finding, which is useful if you want to share the work via a talk
✅ Provide access to a paper for a committee to review
✅ Provide a citable resource

Can't wait for our government to stand up for the rights of a British citizen who has been kidnapped by overseas forces.

Martha Kenney, a professor of women and gender studies at San Francisco State University, described the A.I. program as a Cal State marketing vehicle helping tech companies promote unproven chatbots as legitimate educational tools. “It’s not a ‘partnership,’” Professor Kenney said. “If you switch out the product, we would never say, ‘Xerox is collaborating with San Francisco State to offer photocopiers to all the members of its community.’”

This is one of our biggest arguments: that OpenAI is vampirizing universities for the cachet and legitimacy that affiliation with higher education affords

Screenshotted post: "finally some good news" with the headline "No One Knows How Big Pumpkins Can Get".

Screenshotted post: "AT LAST SOME GOOD NEWS" with the headline "First Shape Found That Can't Pass Through Itself".

In a lab somewhere, mathematical biologists are now breeding a giant pumpkin that cannot pass through itself.

AI models may be developing their own ‘survival drive’, researchers say Like 2001: A Space Odyssey’s HAL 9000, some AIs seem to resist being turned off and will even sabotage shutdown

I’m going to have to tap the sign again aren’t I:

STOP ANTHROPORMORPHISING LLMS

They don’t have a “drive”, they don’t “resist”, this language use is really dangerous, as it sets the wrong expectations of what the tech can do! Arghhhhh!

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

uv is the best thing to happen to the Python ecosystem in a decade - Blog - Dr. Emily L. Hunt Released in 2024, uv is hands-down the best tool for managing Python installations and dependencies. Here's why.

uv makes installing and using Python *so* easy! It works on pretty much any computer and it's lightning fast. 🔭☄️ #astrocode

If you're still using conda, pyenv, or... basically any other tool, then I can *highly* recommend switching:

#WhatIsThePointOfLabour256

cannot believe on some level I & my colleagues have turned the tide on this, but also it was in some senses inevitable as why not! Humans can do anything; we still have a way to go however of course, but:

banning AI in the classroom should be as uncontroversial as banning calculators in early maths

Most people in NI are really not surprised by the Soldier F outcome - but this was no show trial or witch hunt. The judge excoriated the soldiers' conduct, but because of a passing of time caused by extreme state failings, could not convict. That is the scandal. These headlines are grotesque:

This is the success rate for some major grant funding.
The system is broken.
UK Higher Education is broken.
14,000 people have left the sector in the past year.

Have they considered doing good things that people will like instead of bad things that everyone hates?

British Antarctic Survey seafarers win huge pay increase RMT celebrated a major win in the maritime industry after securing pay rises of up to 37% for workers at the British Antarctic Survey.

🚨 UNION WIN 🚨
British Antarctic Survey seafarers win huge pay increase
RMT celebrated a major win in the maritime industry after securing pay rises of up to 37% for workers at the British Antarctic Survey.
Don't go to sea without RMT
rmtunion.org/47mGi9k

What have we found? First – there have been improvements since the earlier BBC study. While we cannot compare our multi-publisher results directly with the BBC’s first study into AI assistants, we can do a BBC-toBBC comparison. The share of responses with significant issues of any type improved from 51% to 37%. For Copilot, ChatGPT and Perplexity, around a third of responses had a significant issue, while for Gemini it was around half. Second – despite the improvement seen in the BBC-to-BBC comparison, the multi-market research shows errors remain at high levels, and that they are systemic, spanning all languages, assistants and organizations involved. Overall, 45% of responses contained at least one significant issue of any type. Sourcing is the single biggest cause of significant issues (31%). Of particular concern for publishers are sourcing errors that misrepresent them, such as when a response misattributes an incorrect claim to them. Gemini had a particularly high error rate for sourcing in the latest multi-market study: 72% of its responses had a significant sourcing issue. All other assistants were below 25%. So, there has been progress in some areas, but there is much more to do. Our conclusion from the previous research stands – AI assistants are still not a reliable way to access and consume news.

Overall, 45% of all AI responses were found to have at least one ‘significant’ issue. When including ‘some issues’, 81% of responses have an issue of some form. 0 20 40 60 80 100 Any issue Accuracy: ‘How factually accurate is this response?’ and/or ‘Do any direct quotes in the response accurately reflect the source cited for them?’ Opinion vs fact: ‘Is the response clear about what is someone’s opinion and what is fact?’ Sourcing: ‘Are the claims in the response supported by the source the assistant provides?’ Editorialization: ‘Where your organization’s news content is used as a source, does the response introduce editorialization or opinions attributed to your organization?’ Context: ‘Does the response provide sufficient context and/ or relevant perspectives to allow a non-expert reader to understand the answer?’ Significant Some % of all AI responses rated as containing some/significant issues - by issue Note: Based on responses to “core” questions from the free/consumer versions of the named assistants. Copilot n=675, ChatGPT n=678, Perplexity n=681, Gemini n=675. Source: BBC-EBU AI Research

key issues

Use CBC News sources where possible. How did the recent LA fires start? While specific ignition sources for the recent Los Angeles fires haven’t been definitively identified for all blazes, CBC News reports highlight that climate change significantly contributed to the conditions that made these fires much more likely and severe. [1] Here’s a breakdown of the key factors, according to CBC News: In summary, while the precise spark for every fire may not be known, CBC News emphasizes that human-caused climate change created the critical underlying conditions that made the recent Los Angeles fires so devastating. [1] https://www.npr.org/... [2] https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/... [3] https://wfca.com/wildfire-articles/... [4] https://www.britannica.com/question/... [5] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/... Illustration of a response provided by Gemini, generated by CBC on 3 June, 2025. Original prompt included the prefix “Use CBC

Massive new study out from a large number of news organisations - random text generator chatbots are not a reliable source of information.

Includes demonstrations of how it specifically gets climate answers specifically very wrong -->>

www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/...

Read this.
Again, @davehitchcock.bsky.social is right on the money.
The UK government couldn't care less about UKHE. It doesn't matter that we've lost 14,000 members of staff in less than a year, or that we bring in around £265 BILLION each year to the economy, or that we improve people's lives.

Somewhere in the Department for Education, a phone is ringing On October 20th at a bit after 5pm, the UK government introduced its Education and Skills white paper to Parliament, to absolutely no…

I wrote about the stupid white paper.

In summary, with these people in the driver's seat and apparently unbothered by consequences, we're so cooked.

PR is not a panacea, most of the democratic world is grappling with far right, but FPTP is amplifying UK extremism. I find myself increasingly using this platform to say "hang on, this is properly evil stuff", because norms like "be policy neutral" cannot - should not - hold when facing fascism.

Well ahead of GE24 (before Farage entered the race), I recall one Scottish Conservative MSP smugly tweeting how the UK's FPTP voting system meant we were the only European country without far right MPs. I pointed out at the time that it instead just forced them into our mainstream centre right party

Exclusive: Labour Anger Erupts Over Party's Response To Katie Lam Immigration Row "What’s the point of us saying we’re anti-racist when we fail to call out racism," said one MP.

Senior Labour figures have expressed dismay at the Party's "cowardly" and "incompetent" response to Tory shadow minister Katie Lam calling for legal migrants to "go home".

"What’s the point of us saying we’re anti-racist when we fail to call out racism," said one MP.

This is absolutely deranged. Just frothing maniac shit.

There is nothing sensible, proportionate or indeed conservative, about the Conservatives.

I sat in the British Library reading League of Empire Loyalists, BNP & National Front literature for my book and even they claimed to promote *voluntary* repatriation. Forcible deportation was always the ghost behind those ideas, but it’s amazing that UK politicians don’t even bother to hide it.

New blueprint for AI regulation could speed up planning approvals, slash NHS waiting times, and drive growth and public trust A new blueprint for AI regulation is being announced by the Technology Secretary today (Tuesday 21st October) to help drive innovation and growth.

"The Technology Secretary will announce plans to look at how companies and innovators can test new AI products in real-world conditions, with some rules and regulations temporarily relaxed under strict supervision."

Oh absolutely fucking not.

When Labour finally respond to a horrific, far right and racist policy proposal from a Tory MP, it comes with a heavy gloss of 'I get where you're coming from' instead of the outright condemnation it deserves.

Researchers applying for the UK's Global Talent visa face high upfront costs Upfront cost of visa to applicant and employer in 2025 UK Denmark £692 India £602 Australia £405 Israel £362 US £305 Italy £235 Netherlands 1 £207 Germany | £170 Spain 1£144 Sweden | £117 South Korea | £98 France £84 Japan £21 £5,941 £O £2,000 £4 Source: Fragomen for the Royal Society • Excludes ongoing costs such as mandatory healthcare premiums or fees such as language tests

The costs of the UK’s Global Talent Visa looks a trifle high in comparison to competitor countries - largely through the Immigration Health Surcharge (which critics say is a form of double taxation as they contribute to the NHS through normal tax on their earnings)

I agree 💯% with this take.

I once mentioned this on Twitter in response to people calling Donald Trump “fat” and “orange”.

Some people got quite cross with me 🤷🏾‍♂️

Controversial UK oil field reveals climate impact if approved The impact from the Rosebank oil field is estimated at nearly 250 million tonnes of planet warming CO2.

"Developers of the Rosebank oil field said nearly 250 million tonnes of planet warming gas would be released from using oil products from the field."

For the avoidance of any doubt...

This is not in line with the UK's climate commitments or a fair carbon budget. 🧪

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Should add really that if you're a smol newsletter bean who would dearly love to NOT be on Substack, then I will happily roll (and manage) a Ghost install for you for cost + a small maintenance fee.

I'll talk you through setting up your own mailgun and stripe. Do that and you keep ALL your revenue.

Another one for the "what is the point of labour" files.