Jon Haslam

AI chatbots are sycophants — researchers say it’s harming science Nature asked researchers who use artificial intelligence how its propensity for people-pleasing affects their work — and what they are doing to mitigate it.

Good to see all the hard work on developing a validated measure of sycophancy wasn't wasted. Once again, thanks to our amazing funders. You were so great, I'll bring you some figs next time I'm in town. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Apple Cider Vinegar For Weight Loss - A Study That May Never Have Happened At All Some fascinating insights into the world of scientific integrity.

The importance of scientific sleuthing (although, why was this paper published at all?)

Apple Cider Vinegar For Weight Loss - A Study That May Never Have Happened At All open.substack.com/pub/gidmk/p/...

Dear Coroner It’s hard to know how to contact or potentially influence His Majesty’s Coroners without writing to them all individually, which then means you’re either writing in very general t…

NEW BLOG - "Dear Coroner"

I've now collected 135 PFD notices for mental health police contact deaths and there are obvious questions amongst them for the coroners themselves, as well as the agencies to which they direct their concerns.

mentalhealthcop.wordpress.com/2025/10/29/d...

I just think, well, we've had 50 years of white straight people in adverts, may as well let someone else have a go.

The title of the image is A national opportunity for positive transformational change. The image shows a vision for how land, diet and farming could be transformed by 2050, with farming which is more mixed, low carbon tech and more resilient, land where farming and livestock are more integrated, peatlands restored and landscapes are being used for multiple purposes. And diets where people are shopping and fruit and green veg is more accessible. Text on the image shows that if these three transformations can be achieved, then they will result in benefits including billions saved in healthcare, strengthened national resilience, healthy food, improved water quality, new rural jobs and enhanced biodiversity.

1/ How should the UK respond to mounting pressure from climate change, health problems, and global instability? Our Roadmap for Resilience report calls for rapid and urgent action on food, at a scale not seen since WW2.

Full report: tinyurl.com/369s6wuy

#UKFoodPlan2050 #AFNRoadmap

stop thinking right now

Quick, run, hide
Here comes Dave Stewart
Walking up the drive
With that look in his eye
That “Let’s do a project” look
“…about third-rate Swiss agit-pop”

Self-promotion works, especially if you are bad at your job I have come across a recent paper that measures equity analysts self-representation on LinkedIn and the tone they use to describe their research and their views on LinkedIn and in the media.

Analysts who excel at self-promotion on LinkedIn are worse at their jobs, but experience the highest rates of promotion. klementoninvesting.substack.com/p/self-promo...

Google's AI Overview still having trouble with that tricky past-present-future thing.

Delighted to see that our latest newsletter, which included an event being held in Scunthorpe, was delivered to everyone safely.

I wonder if any funders in agri-food offer seed-corn funding that is, actually, funding for seed corn.

I'd say opaque and unethical, rather than political? Anyway, YouGov poll of parents is here d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Yo... Pretty interesting, and, of course, some nuance to their enthusiasm 😆

a woman with long red hair says obviously in a pixelated image ALT: a woman with long red hair says obviously in a pixelated image

EvaluatiNg The High fat sUgar Salt rEgulations: practice, response and impact across retail settings (ENTHUSE)

That's a good shout. I also wondered about a younger Harry Maguire

This feels like an incredibly modern "look to camera" for a picture that was painted in 1845 (Une famille italienne by Auguste-Barthélemy Glaize) #timetravel

Assistant Professor - Plant Resilience to Climate Change - Department of Plant and Microbial Biology University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!

Our department (Berkeley PMB) is hiring an asst. prof. in Plant Resilience to Climate Change! aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05049

TLDR

I thought that about the wood wide web. It's basically sycamore roots shouting "get the f_ out of my way".

Weirdo #internationalcatday

Meet the AI vegans | Arwa Mahdawi They are choosing to abstain from using artificial intelligence for environmental, ethical and personal reasons. Maybe they have a point, writes Guardian columnist Arwa Mahdawi

You'll no doubt also be having heated arguments with "AI vegans", who are just like "AI vegetarians", only more so. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

🚨 New paper in Science Advances @science.org

Can changing how we argue about politics online improve the quality of replies we get?

T HeideJorgensen, @gregoryeady.bsky.social & I use an LLM to manipulate counter-arguments to see how people respond to different approaches to arguments

Thread 🧵1/n

Derry Girls’ blackboard goes on display as a museum piece ‘Protestants keep toasters in cupboards’ exhibition challenges NI stereotypes

www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-r...

This is a thread worth reading. There a quite a few obvious conflicts of interest in the WF… another writing scheme provider was advertising their role in the development of the policy on social media a few weeks ago.

A reason why using researchers/academics is helpful.

bsky.app/profile/warw...

Except when the researchers/academics have their own programmes too 😉

Might be of interest www.citystgeorges.ac.uk/news-and-eve...

Here comes the weekend!

The pub crawl phenomenon has not received sufficient research attention. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... "How long did your pub crawl take?" *shrugs* "A period of time." We've all been there.

If you need the audio from a YouTube video, simply delete the "ube" from the video link (so www.youtube.com/watch?v=blah... becomes www.yout.com/watch?v=blah...) and choose your options. Can't comment for high definition sound, but working well for my purposes.