Data controversies, James Stewart

This quote is set to be on the intro slide of an undergraduate lecture, soon.

Good bit of analysis here.

'Putting lay-offs down to AI sounds better than saying “we need to keep margins high so we’re sacking some low performers” and politically safer than saying “unpredictable Trump tariff policy means we are hiring less young people.”'

The end of the rip-off economy From finance and medicine to used cars, artificial intelligence is radically improving market efficiency

www.economist.com/finance-and-...

Who is Zico Kolter? A professor leads OpenAI safety panel with power to halt unsafe AI releases Zico Kolter leads a panel that can stop OpenAI from releasing new AI systems if they're deemed unsafe

www.independent.co.uk/news/openai-...

Hundreds of thousands of videos from news publishers like The New York Times and Vox were used to train AI models YouTube channels from major news publishers and creators were in video data sets used by Microsoft, Meta, Snap, Runway, and Bytedance.

www.niemanlab.org/2025/10/hund...

North-south interconnector: Developers 'walking over the will of the people' A County Armagh resident says people remain opposed to the decades-delayed north-south interconnector.

Data-centre power thirst www.bbc.com/news/article...

How AGI became the most consequential conspiracy theory of our time The idea that machines will be as smart as—or smarter than—humans has hijacked an entire industry. But look closely and you’ll see it’s a myth that persists for many of the same reasons conspiracies d...

I had a long conversation with MIT Tech Review’s @willdouglasheaven.bsky.social about AGI; it fed into this very good read on the rise of AGI orthodoxy

arXiv will no longer accept review articles and position papers unless they have been accepted at a journal or a conference and complete successful peer review.

This is due to being overwhelmed by a hundreds of AI generated papers a month.

Yet another open submission process killed by LLMs.

Applying to Jobs Has Become an AI-Powered Wasteland AI has done something amazing: it's caused the job application process -- which was already a nightmare -- to become even worse.

futurism.com/job-applicat...

Staff at Grand Theft Auto VI developer Rockstar fired en masse in “calculated attack on workers” Over 30 members of UK staff at Rockstar Games, developers of the Grand Theft Auto series, were fired on Thursday 30th October due to trade union activity.

IWGB statement on Rockstar firing a bunch of staff for trying to unionise iwgb.org.uk/en/post/staf...

No arrests from false facial recognition alerts, Met Police says The Met Police says it is "scaling up" Live Facial Recognition technology, following a new report.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

30 staff sacked at Grand Theft Auto developer in alleged ‘union-busting’ move A union has claimed more than 30 UK staff of Rockstar Games – the developers of Grand Theft Auto (GTA) – have been sacked in a 'union-busting'…

www.thenational.scot/news/2558855... @karengregory.bsky.social

Shein: Inside the Chinese factories fuelling the company's success Workers making clothes for the fast fashion giant tell the BBC they labour for up to 75 hours a week.

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

Why Every Family Needs a Code Word Authenticating the voice on the other end of the line is critical in an age of deepfakes.

"Criminals increasingly use generative AI to mimic real people’s voices and con their loved ones out of money. There’s a simple solution to this high-tech problem: a code word." www.wsj.com/tech/persona...

UK regulator threatens tech giants with algorithm audits to protect children Ofcom chief Melanie Dawes reveals she held meetings with US AI firms over Online Safety Act

"Tech companies will be subject to audits of the social media algorithms used to promote what children can see on their feeds in the next phase of a crackdown under the UK’s Online Safety Act."

Mood Machine — how Spotify detached music from the makers Liz Pelly’s rigorous analysis of the streaming giant reveals where ‘background’ playlists and cheaper content are taking the industry

on.ft.com/43cRV2l

‘Scamming became the new farming’: inside India’s cybercrime villages The long read: How did an obscure district in a neglected state become India’s byword for digital deceit?

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

I tried Grokipedia. It has something to teach Wikipedia about AI. Grokipedia's mission to be "anti-woke" doesn't appeal to me. But its use of AI to help write articles actually makes some sense. Wikipedia, take note.

Would be cool if racism and transphobia were non-starters for folks, but alas.

Really appreciate this review of our book (w/ @alexhanna.bsky.social)

"By insisting on the term “automation,” Bender and Hanna reveal that what’s sold as innovation is often just labor displacement with better branding."

"…a demystifying, often hilarious lexicon that cuts through the fog of hype."

How-To - Polidashboard How to Use PoliDashboard to Find Deceptive or Suspicious Advertisers Deceptive and suspicious ads have proliferated on social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, and others, par...

Check out our how-to page for examples of how we and others have used @PoliDashboard.org to identify malicious actors who use paid ads on Facebook and Instagram to deceive users. polidashboard.org/how-to-use-p...

We are working on a more detailed PoliDashboard how-to for journalists. #Staytuned.

4️⃣ It's not just gender: age matters too

When it comes to age, around half of Under-35s (48%) who use social media say they consume news from creators while older people are more likely to pay attention to mainstream media brands

Musk’s war on Wikipedia is a fight for a future without f... The tech mogul’s Grokipedia relies on right-leaning AI instead of consensus between human moderators

À strike at the heart of the democratic freedom of the internet. observer.co.uk/news/columni...

Danish Presidency backs away from 'chat control' | Euractiv The Danes will seek to propose a voluntary detection regime in the CSAM proposal, instead of controversial mandatory detection orders

"The Danish Council presidency is backing away from pushing for mandatory detection orders in a legislative proposal that aims to tackle the spread of online Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), the country’s justice minister said on Thursday." www.euractiv.com/news/danish-...

Today, someone who has been surfing the AI hype wave to boost his career, got upset by our position paper.

He gave no substantive couinterargument. Just called it “activism”. As if that is an insult.

In a world where techno-fascism hollows out our institutions, I’m a proud scientific activist.

venturebeat.com/ai/meta-rese...

Jihadists and AI–The Documentary Podcast – Apple Podcasts Podcast Episode · The Documentary Podcast · 30/10/2025 · 30m

Pretty interesting podcast from BBC Monitoring on the ‘responsible AI’ discourse within ISIS/Daesh and Al-Qaeda. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

Credit market hit with $200bn ‘flood’ of AI-related issuance Jumbo debt sales to fund huge artificial intelligence capex threaten to store up new risks for investors

Credit market hit with $200bn ‘flood’ of AI-related issuance - www.ft.com/content/82f6... via @financialtimes.com

Amazon shares jump 12% as AI powers fastest cloud growth in years Ecommerce giant boosts capital expenditure as it builds more data centres

www.ft.com/content/71e2...

America and Britain target Asia’s sprawling scam industry That alone will not halt the rise of online fraud

America and Britain target Asia’s sprawling scam industry
www.economist.com/asia/2025/10...
From The Economist