Dr Carolina Are / Blogger On Pole

The value of public R&D

Government has published one of those quiet but important documents that might get overlooked as it is not 'newsy'. The headline finding is that £1 of public R&D investment generates £8 in net economic benefits for the UK over the long term
www.gov.uk/government/p...

Coverage of Badenoch's speech was one of the worst examples ever of Westminster Brain and Lobbythink. A litany of nonsense applauded by a policy elite that can't even think three moves ahead. (1/3)

Also that, but if the next lot has it then.. is that gonna help us

I just really dislike the UK approach. It’s very much based on populist standpoints instead of actually doing something useful

😛😛😛 looks like they’re consulting with the Tony Blair institute on this one ☠️

This is going to create yet more oligarchies of unelected tech company bosses who administer access to society without any scrutiny.

If you don’t conform to society’s idea of the “right” citizen this can be dangerous - and it can exclude older adults who are not tech literate from services (like QR codes during the pandemic did).

If predictions for what these digital ID technologies will be used for are met, they are likely to then be used to access the platforms citizens utilise for work &/or social networking, tying their jobs and political views to their government issued identity.

The Emotional and Financial Impact of De-Platforming on Creators at the Margins - Carolina Are, Pam Briggs, 2023 This study provides one of the first examples of de-platforming’s direct emotional and financial impact on Instagram and TikTok content creators at the margins....

Digital ID is likely to exclude marginalised demographics such as SWs & trans people from society unless they create one, like removal from social media has: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Keir Starmer to announce plans for digital ID scheme - BBC News The prime minister believes a new scheme would help crack down on illegal working in the UK.

What’s wrong with the UK govt #digitalidentity plans? *eyerolls*
the utter disregard for previous research & lived experience showing how technosolutionist & overly risk-focused approaches to #onlinesafety affect civil liberties & the safety of marginalised people.

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

After Charlie Kirk's death, teachers and professors nationwide fired or disciplined over social media posts At least a dozen faculty and staff have faced fallout over insensitive comments online.

I am having a hard time reconciling "Charlie Kirk was a fierce advocate of open dialogue and free expression" with "we must identify and persecute everyone who is insufficiently mournful"

Now that the @aoir.bsky.social 2025 Timetable is live, catch our panel: "PLATFORM GOVERNANCE AT THE MARGINS: RULES, RELATIONS AND RESISTANCE" on 17 Oct at 2pm! Loved putting it together w/ Samuel Cabbuag, Crystal Abidin, Ruepert Cao, @zaritaylor.bsky.social, Kiara Child & @cjpersaud.bsky.social 🤟

It’s almost as if the media had learnt nothing about how Brexit and Trump came to be. It’s almost as if they didn’t care.

Most mainstream media platforming Farage as if his win was inevitable, with little fact-checking or evidence of his lies’ effects on the UK, shows a carelessness or worse, negligence over how his baseless claims are re-packaged as social media clips fed to algorithms on loop.

Ngl not loving the idea of coming back to the UK after a while away today to painted roundabouts, Farage hype & pensioners under arrest for peaceful protests. Hating this entirely spin-stoked xenophobic vibes & forgetfulness of Brexit lies. This isn’t the country I moved to in 2011 🥲

@weareccsn.bsky.social

Bc of this, considering the experiences, hopes & fears of all workers – incl creative workers – remains paramount towards the development and future governance of responsible and trusted AI, but also the development of tools and services that add to rather than detract from the human experience

If the fast-paced, de-regulated growth of the internet and social media platforms leading to almost ungovernable spaces is anything to go by, a laissez-fair approach to GenAI that does not properly count the human costs and benefits will likely lead to further harm and inequalities.

The rush towards GenAI gold seems to be solely an industry affair, showing that tech companies do not seem to know who they are creating these products for beyond themselves and their earnings.

While people with a limited understanding of AI shared more dystopian views than others, it is striking that even our 400 participants’ most positive expectations did not reflect the kinds of utopian GenAI scenarios espoused by #BigTech companies pushing for industry growth.

Based on existing tech inequalities, participants shared fears of censorship, targeted advertising, unfair decision-making, copyright infringement and the non-consensual sharing of private data, as well as AI’s potential threats to democracy with deepfakes & misinformation;

When recruiting, we found that posting survey links on X & including keywords like “AI” resulted in spam, multiple & (ironically) AI-generated responses, which meant we had to select less contributions than those submitted. This shows AI can be a threat to the production of knowledge & research;

Our creators saw #GenAI more as an opportunity to lighten their workload than as a creative aid, reflecting existing precarity and overwhelm with workload that are typical of the creator economy;

A key fear our participants reported was the previously under-researched idea of “loss”: a loss of enjoyment arising from learning a new skill or craft, which was central to creative workers’ motivation to work in their field and which they feared to lose if AI could perform tasks for them;

Some of our key points ⤵️ #Contentcreators and creative workers are too often overlooked in future imaginaries and/or industry predictions about #AI. No one tends to ask them what they need from the industry, or to focus on how they’ll be affected;

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

Just in time before I take a break: my paper with @pamogranite.bsky.social and Richard Brown focusing on content creators’ hopes and fears about #artificialintelligence is out, open access, in Convergence: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

I'll still be open to consulting and freelancing so if you wanna team up, you know where to find me :)

As mentioned previously, my email will be working for a while but feel free to keep in touch via various platforms. I’m excited about the next few months of resting, travelling - esp to Tuscany + Rio for AoIR- writing without being on the clock, dancing & plotting what’s next 🤘🏻

As scary as the academic market is right now, I am finding solace in the fact that it took me time and effort to find the CDC, so I hope that the next (and hopefully permanent) role will be as amazing ❤️‍🔥

I’m so grateful to have worked in such an inspiring, welcoming and uplifting place, and for everyone I worked with and met in this role, and I am so grateful to everyone who cited or shared my work :)