Anthony Painter

Universal basic income needed to cushion blow from AI job losses, says UK minister Lord Jason Stockwood had previously suggested that tech companies could pay a windfall levy to fund the payments

Now: we failed to support people through industrial transitions in the 80s-00s and that's why we have populism.

Also now: We can worry about current transitions further down the line.

www.ft.com/content/3ebc...

I remember the "vote Labour get a free microwave" thing. Still think it takes you to quite a micro politics. So if prices settle you've done some stuff that enables you to say "that microwave made all the difference, it was us!" But if they don't you'll still get the blame.

Problem: Trust.
Solution: Waiting...

That was where things went wrong....

What should AI regulation involve?

Well, regulation that allows X to release any more AI products to the public without fundamental changes to governance and conduct is woefully insufficient. That's the starting point.

So Blue Labour is even wrong about that! 😂

I thought it was the Norman conquest?

For all the thin rhetoric about "globalisation" *never* has our sovereignty- on defence, democracy, tech, health, growth, energy - been more interdependent.

And all this "alone and proud" stuff is just wasted energy. Make interdependence work - that's the conversation we need.

And the problem is we'll waste a decade or more on this stuff. Thinking a clever transactionalism will make us a nimble frigate on the open seas. And the whole time we'll be taking water into the vessel.

Britain needs a Gaullist leader The Labour Party must become the voice of national renewal

The biggest problem with a British Gaullism is that de Gaulle did precisely the opposite. He knew that true sovereignty comes from interdependence.

Quite apart from anything else Brexit has allowed Britain's politicians to indulge fantasies of "alone and proud"

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

And what of the European car industry. Lots of risk sitting in Germany - and it's expected to fund Europe's future. This won't work without serious strategy and burden sharing.

bsky.app/profile/anth...

The Russian refinery Berlin cannot afford to lose Looming US sanctions risk cutting fuel supplies to German capital, prompting government to review Rosneft expropriation

If we are committed to Net Zero, and we may still be, we are going to need a better story for the Schwedts. Green growth, green jobs - but what about my growth, my job?

Too much risk for individuals and communities- we know politically where that leads.

giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

AI Skills for Life and Work: summary report

The excerpt is from a just published paper on AI skills.

www.gov.uk/government/p...

And by the way, as Government desperately tries to work out what to do about social media regulation, frozen by past inaction and current geopolitics, getting ahead of AI regulation you'd have thought would be top of the in-tray.

We know enough now.....

Yes, and that mistrust is the core barrier. And entirely rational.

Yes to Deming! If you can't know then how do you know?

Government should be spending most of its time, working with EU governments especially, to create a regulatory framework that people can trust. Nothing will aid safe, ethical adoption more.

Boosterism is a barrier rather than support for adoption.

Our research suggests the lack of confidence in these skills stems from an "iceberg effect", where underlying fears and distrust of Al drive surface-level concerns about misinformation and other risks are driven by deeper feelings of discomfort, powerlessness, and fear from Al generally. This distrust leads to a reluctance to engage with Al or to recognise that skills to understand the risks are a necessity.

The number one issue and barrier with AI is not model capability. It's trust.

And frankly, the mistrust that people have is entirely justified. There are motives behind AI: from big tech companies themselves, to the Government, to employers. And those motives are not honestly expressed.

That's it. Exactly.

It goes back a couple of decades. They were outsiders and looking for attention - making liberals/centre left feeling guilty was the party trick. And here we are.

The fact that the "anywheres" were self evidently "somewheres" should have unravelled the whole thing. It didn't because there was a politics of division waiting to embrace this sort of stuff.

EVs overtake petrol vehicles

Europe is facing the same dilemma with Chinese car manufacturing as the UK faced with Japanese manufacturers in the 1980s. The UK made the right choice - importing factories.

The EU has a big strategic choice to make and shouldn't rely on protectionism. There's the added win of decarbonisation.

Nothing is more negatively selected than X brain. Here's Matt.

I feel for the people of Gorton and Denton. Their communities are going to be dragged through the mud over the next few weeks. They don't deserve the dystopian democratic pantomime that's about to descend on them.

It's clear that Trump is genuinely terrified of the midterms. Not from not wanting to be a loser but genuinely afraid of prison. The biggest crime enterprise the US has seen- he's every reason to be afraid.

And I am tough, rude and unreasonable.....

These are powerful technologies. And it's good to consider possible impacts. But even when we are being warned of the risks it's subtly part of the hype cycle.

The claims being made are so far from where we are other than in specific tasks and domains.

I'll give you an example. I recently asked this AI to gather, construct and visualise a basic dataset for me. It produced nonsense. Combining several data sources all measuring different things.

I challenged it. And I kid you not it basically broke down and cried. PhD level?

And as for "powerful AI" or AGI it's not convincing that genAI can get us there. It's logic just doesn't work the same way as the human mind - which actually is a combination of logics that we switch between and combine.

But we will do a lot of harm trying. Policy makers need to be less wide eyed.

Dario Amodei — The Adolescence of Technology Confronting and Overcoming the Risks of Powerful AI

As a user of this AI founder's products I can attest we are a long way from "artificial phd level intelligence" for all. We wouldn't know what to do with it anyhow.

He's right about risks that we aren't facing and concentrations of wealth and power though.

www.darioamodei.com/essay/the-ad...

Thank you for sharing this story. America also shows that societies must be ever vigilant.