Dr Nicola Millard

Using AI Made Doctors Worse at Spotting Cancer Without Assistance A new study offers the latest evidence of potential “deskilling” effects on AI users.

A new study has found that doctors who regularly used AI became less skilled at spotting cancer. Just like our ability to read physical maps, overreliance on automation could make us forget basic skills - time.com/7309274/ai-l...

A few dazzling days at LFF - red carpets, fab films & even a Spielberg sighting. Hamnet was outstanding — I seriously dehydrated 😭; Frankenstein — sumptuous but too long; Sentimental Value — Skarsgård & Reinsve shine; H is for Hawk — Claire Foy + hawk = charm; Train Dreams — lovely trees, slow story

A beautiful harvest moon over Stratford Upon Avon after a gorgeous Cyrano de Bergerac at the RST - by a nose one of the best productions I’ve seen at the RSC for a while

It is always fab to see Blade Runner on a big screen, but even better to have Ridley Scott do an intro Q&A at the BFI. It’s still so relevant in an era of AI, climate change & billionaire led mega-corporations (despite the 2019 tag & lack of mobile phones). Plus that Vangelis soundtrack is a banger!

Are We Offloading Critical Thinking to Chatbots? Research, much if it by companies with deep investment in AI, suggests that chatbot interactions alter how users think.

Are we offloading critical thinking to chatbots? Research suggests that chatbot interactions alter how users think undark.org/2025/09/12/c...

Janeites unite: Austen festival in Bath celebrates 250th anniversary of author’s birth The annual festival, now the largest and longest-running of its kind, first took place in 2001 and has since grown to a 10-day programme drawing thousands of visitors from around the world

“One cannot have too large a party” - Jane Austen fans gather in Bath to celebrate the author’s 250th birthday at the city’s annual festival www.theguardian.com/books/2025/s...

Film festival premieres promise a history-making Oscars showdown Ryan Coogler’s Sinners could make him the first Black best director, Kathryn Bigelow could be the first woman to win best director twice – and there are more record-breaking contenders to come

The race to the best director Oscar is getting interesting this years as a more diverse, and potentially history making, field emerges www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...

Hybrid Work in Retreat? Barely. Use of the hybrid work model has leveled off. Its success depends less on company mandates and more on how teams coordinate schedules and build trust.

Hybrid Work in Retreat? Barely. Work location trends have remained stable since 2022, reflecting the durability of the hybrid work model. www.gallup.com/workplace/69...

Remote Staff Hours Fall, but Productivity Steady (For Now) Remote workers are working fewer hours, but that doesn't mean productivity is falling. Here's how remote work is reshaping output and leadership.

Remote workers are spending less time working, but the relationship between remote work and productivity is more nuanced www.gallup.com/workplace/69...

A new look at how automation changes the value of labor | MIT Sloan Automation replaces experts in some occupations while augmenting expertise in others, according to a new MIT study.

How automation alters roles and wages: “If the thing that gets automated is the easiest task, that leads to a narrowing of the pool of people that do it. But they are paid more” mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-t...

In a first, Google has released data on how much energy an AI prompt uses It’s the most transparent estimate yet from one of the big AI companies, and a long-awaited peek behind the curtain for researchers.

One second in a microwave and 5 drops of water - Google releases data on the energy & water consumption associated with AI usage www.technologyreview.com/2025/08/21/1...

The future of physical retail: 5 actions to elevate customer experience | MIT Sloan Physical retailers should combine data-driven insights with human touch to create a seamless hybrid shopping experience, these B2B experts say.

Physical retail isn't dead - but it needs a better customer experience in order to thrive mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-t...

Fully Remote Work Least Popular With Gen Z Gen Z prefers hybrid work over fully remote and is more likely than older generations to want employees in the office more often.

Gallup's generational research shows that younger workers have a preference for in-person work, with the older cohorts swinging more towards remote flexibility. Caring responsibilities often shape the latter, whilst the former crave more connection to prevent isolation www.gallup.com/workplace/69...

When AIs bargain, a less advanced agent could cost you New research shows that in AI-to-AI price negotiations, weaker models often lose out—costing users real money and raising concerns about growing digital inequality.

My agent will talk to your agent – but the best agent may win. New research shows that in AI-to-AI price negotiations, weaker models often lose out—costing users real money and raising concerns about growing digital inequality www.technologyreview.com/2025/06/17/1...

A new study explores how AI agents are reshaping the workforce. But instead of just asking what AI CAN do, it asks what workers WANT it to do. This includes an equal partnership with AI, not full automation, & a better alignment between AI investments & worker preferences arxiv.org/pdf/2506.06576

Since getting AI and humans to work together effectively is essential for business productivity, does it make sense to merge IT and HR functions? This company thinks so…https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-moderna-merged-its-tech-and-hr-departments-95318c2a

Archived version:
archive.ph/0qWXw

Measuring the Impact of Early-2025 AI on Experienced Open-Source Developer Productivity We conduct a randomized controlled trial to understand how early-2025 AI tools affect the productivity of experienced open-source developers working on their own repositories. Surprisingly, we find th...

"When developers use AI tools, they take 19% longer than without—AI makes them slower" - another study showing that AI decreases the productivity of experts.The big question is how we develop and nurture expertise in the first place, or are generalists + AI the future? metr.org/blog/2025-07...

Play the Long Game With Human-AI Collaboration Decades of economic research show that technology initiatives that marginalize the human element frequently fall short and sometimes backfire.

AI + Human - AI works best when it complements human effort, not when it replaces it. “Pursuing AI without equal focus on people often leads to underwhelming results and added organisational risks” www.gallup.com/workplace/66...

ChatGPT's Impact On Our Brains According to an MIT Study The study, from MIT Lab scholars, measured the brain activity of subjects writing SAT essays with and without ChatGPT.

ChatGPT may erode critical thinking skills - “users had the lowest brain engagement & consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic & behavioral levels.” This research is based on a small sample but it does reinforce the concern that AI could increase cognitive laziness time.com/7295195/ai-c...

Companies That Replaced Humans With AI Are Realizing Their Mistake As AI agents have yet to pay for themselves, more and more executives are waking up to the sloppy reality of AI hype.

Companies That Replaced Humans With AI Are Realising Their Mistake: “The human touch remains irreplaceable in many interactions” futurism.com/companies-re...

Crowd waving at a bus

Two open top buses filled with rugby players

Stage full of rugby players shrouded in smoke

Bath rugby captain with the league cup

The whole of Bath seemingly turned out to celebrate Bath Rugby’s treble victories today. Johann van Graan and the lads had an open top bus parade & a ceremony at the Rec after winning the league cup yesterday - on top of the Premiership and European Challenge Cup this season 🏆

Are we ready to hand AI agents the keys? We’re starting to give AI agents real autonomy, and we’re not prepared for what could happen next.

Are we ready to hand AI agents the keys? “We’re just not really sure about the extent to which AI agents will both understand and care about human instructions" www.technologyreview.com/2025/06/12/1...

Research: The Future Contact Centre - ECCA The future is arriving faster than anyone expected. In this groundbreaking research from the European Customer Contact Alliance (ECCA), senior industry leaders and experts outline the forces reshaping...

From AI-driven transformation and the rise of digital colleagues to the evolution of human roles & proactive customer care, explore the future of the contact centre in our new research in partnership with ECCA & Genesys europeancustomercontactalliance.com/2025/06/08/r...

How can companies capitalise on the unretirement trend? - Raconteur More than 2.8 million British retirees have returned to the labour force since retiring. These workers can be a valuable source of skills and experience for UK plc

Unretirement: more than 2.8 million British retirees have returned to the labour force - but they might want different work arrangements such as soft/micro retirement opportunities, increased flexibility, and apprenticeships www.raconteur.net/talent-cultu...

Global research shows that people in the UK are working from home more than almost any other country in the world (except Canada) siepr.stanford.edu/publications...

Three takeaways about AI’s energy use and climate impacts We spent six months reporting an unprecedented look at AI’s energy demand . Here are a few things I learned.

Three takeaways about AI’s energy use and climate impacts - insights from MIT Tech Review's fascinating study on AI and energy consumption (with links to a deeper dive on the findings) www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/22/1...

AI chatbots yet to prove their worth A new study has found that AI chatbots are having a surprisingly minor impact on employee earnings and work hours.

A new study has found that AI chatbots are (so far) having very little impact on employee work hours or earnings www.computing.co.uk/news/2025/ai...

Overwork and changes in brain structure: a pilot study Objectives To investigate the effects of overwork on brain structure to better understand its impact on workers’ cognitive and emotional health. The goal was to provide evidence for the potential neur...

Study finds that working more than 52 hours per week produces physical changes in the brain. Overworked individuals exhibited significant changes in brain regions associated with executive function and emotional regulation oem.bmj.com/content/earl...

The Workplace Psychological Contract Is Broken. Here’s How to Fix It. It’s easy to view the debates between company leaders and employees over return-to-office mandates as overreaction on both sides: out-of-touch senior executives who don’t understand that the world has...

The Workplace Psychological Contract Is Broken. Here’s How to Fix It. What the RTO debate reveals about the gulf between employers and employees
hbr.org/2025/05/the-...

What Will Remain for People to Do?

What will remain for human beings to do, if machines can do everything?
knightcolumbia.org/content/what...