Bill Thompson

Though I don't claim that politics is all pragmatism, I believe there is a strong pragmatic national interest in re-establishing EU freedom of movement to benefit other urgent policy concerns. The job of politics is not to suggest that important conversations should happen - it is to have them.

Third, automating science is not really possible in the way described. In the same way a machine cannot eat food for us because we'd starve: scientific understanding is for us to experience and share with others as a psychological state. It's a process and a cognitive state not an output.

free speech absolutist says what

Goodnight from Candle Row, where an impromptu party at Weychester Wax Records has summoned a crowd the police cannot shift. Goodnight from St. Mary-of-the-Woods; crypt, where certain teenagers are not finding the spider-veiled tombs conducive to pashing. Goodnight from Hookland

no matter how sure you are that these guys have broken a whole bunch of laws, you aren't nearly as certain as they are

Anyone going on BBC this month should order one of these beforehand and let them sweat www.poppyshop.org.uk/products/pri...

This is a perfect riposte to the total failure of the UK's broadcasting regulator Ofcom to actually regulate right-wing channel GB News. I'd certainly be happy to appear: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/media/75420/gb-news-promotes-reform-ofcom-setting-up-woke-tv

If only there had been some clue...

eBay users! Don't ignore today's email, even though it looks like a boring standard update to the User Privacy Notice. They want to use your data to train AI models. If you click the link over the words "the right to object", it takes you to a page with a toggle button letting you opt out.

For those unaware, John Cleese has fully endorsed Restore Britain

I see we're having a debate about whether it's okay to go back to "X," the site owned by a trillionaire fascist who is currently bankrolling the GOP's midterm, throttled Ukraine's war effort, and still winkingly allows vast amounts of CSAM on his service Answer: No, what the fuck is wrong with you

Just to raise awareness of how seriously academic debate is being censored by cowed institutions in the US right. The administration is winning, because important thinkers like @ruha9.bsky.social are not heard. Soon organisations in the UK will limit what is said for fear of losing US funding

The Oxford/Cambridge/London "Golden Triangle" has had enough of our tax money. It's time to invest in the Bay Area.

I did a podcast with the lovely Legal 4Tech people who mysteriously don't seem to be on BlueSky! If you can bear me being long and silly it's about the new book and a bunch of AI related topics. On LI lnkd.in/p/eENNAUjT or (eg) Spotify open.spotify.com/episode/3iOU...

I love this new feature we built for Roundabout. Our community members needed a way to message each-other with personal information, but no-one needed a new way for someone to slide into their DMs, or a new inbox to check.

Steve Reich is 90 this weekend. His music has accompanied me throughout my adult life. I will always remember seeing him perform 'clapping' at his 75th birthday prom in 2011. Such music, such a life.

As per my previous blogging about real history being age-gated, a folk song merely about the 1966 Aberfan disaster now requires age verification. Which is a fairly awful irony. Chapeau @cjforms.bsky.social

The BBC's reporting of these "rogue AI" stories has been credulous to the point of execrable. Where are their competent tech savvy staff?? @billt.bsky.social @zsk.bsky.social

I forgot to send my apologies to an event and then I got home to find it has been postponed so I win this week's game of event chicken.

I've just realised that the founders of OpenAI must have misread Google's original mission statement as "Can't Be Evil Enough"

Got 'em: The @thebulwark.com added an editor's note to the review, acknowledging that the author's direct affiliation with the Foundation for American Innovation ("the foundation shaping the tech right," according to Inc.) created a conflict that should have been forthrightly disclosed.

I want us to think about agentic swarms as being more like organs formed from cooperating cells than emerging intelligence. Otherwise our descent into anthroporphism will distract us, On LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/pulse/civili... and my blog astickadogandaboxwithsomethinginit.com/not-a-civili...

Huge congratulations to the US-based Wikimedia Foundation employees who voted with 92% support in favor of unionizing, and shoutout to the tireless work of the organizers.

Damn. Ted Lasso just got me. I'd been passive watching over my wife's shoulder and finding it mildly charming... but now I'm gone. I may have to start from S1E1...

The Tracey Emin show at Tate Modern has closed. I went five times and it's been an incredibly important touchpoint for me. Before that with Leigh Bowery, and before that Yoko Ono, Tate has in a very real sense, kept me together these last years. At @tate.bsky.social or wherever you get your feed

The British media: "We have learned nothing. We are not sorry. We will offend again."

This is the most fucked up and immediately harmful policy decision I think I've ever seen in adult trans healthcare in the UK, and that's saying something. The Welsh Gender Service is one of the best in the country. It is widely praised by the patients it helps. That is why it is being targeted.

I've had to respond to multiple OSS security issues recently and the wild thing is that agents can now generate exploits just on the *rumour* of a bug. This throws security embargoes out the window, as the fix is less important than the knowledge of its existence anil.recoil.org/notes/rumour...

And THIS Is why I really don't care

A nation state has always been a bit of a protection racket (give us your money and this army will keep you safe…) but it’s rare to see it done so blatantly.

I lazily ask an LLM (Gemini) for advice about a minor medical issue. It gives me a comforting explanation which I accept. If it said I was dying I'd question its accuracy - but of course I'm making the same mistake either way.

The problem with racists terrorising people seeking asylum is not wondering who they might come after next. The problem is that racists are terrorising people seeking asylum.

It’s really important that independent organisations can hold Government to account. I’m on the Board of @nao.org.uk which does this and we are looking for two new Board members. Could you help spread the word so we can get the best possible field of candidates roles.saxbam.com/advert-detai...

All I can say is I worked there a long time and you really do get involved in fascinating stuff. Quite often organisations actually want the NAO to give them a once over to improve how they work. Also loads of sharp but nice people to work with.

As Maya Angelou said, when people show you who they are, believe them. I'd rather have a klan member clearly articulating his views of how I should be eliminated than these garbage people dressing up their racism in intellectualism. You can fuck all the way off.

A good moment to recommend Angela Saini‘s Superior, which traces back the history of “race science” and shows the institutions that sustain this pseudo-research until today. These pursuits have nothing in common with the principles of academic inquiry www.angelasaini.co.uk/superior

Aftertaste, my trans-coming of age romance with teeth, is available now at pastitch.com and emoriaweidner.com Grab a copy, and see why "Aftertaste is a transformative achievement..." - @annlee14.bsky.social and "An incredibly important piece of trans literature." - @lolzygag.bsky.social

Hi, recently, someone put labels on my account of sharing AI art. They used the labeler @aimod(dot)social I spent hours in DMs trying to show my evidence that @imnobunnywhoareyou.bsky.social is a friend who draws by hand. At the end of this, they said "she's scamming you for money" 🧵

How on earth?!?! Re BBC News. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDx_... "The Global Story" "The cost of inclusion" !?!? 1/3 --->

Please send in a response to the consultation 😃

Reneging on open data would be an utter disaster. Don’t do this, government.

“I miss the old BierKeller. I know it’s mostly Nazis now and you get beaten up if you speak out, but if my friends and I sit together & whisper & don’t draw attention the beer and bratwurst are really good” Liberals deciding to ‘re-engage’ with X despite all they know about how Musk has debased it.

A colleague is doing a big data migration and a quote from the early days of Unix came to mind. “The first rule to keep in mind is that an addled disk should be treated gently...This is an area where experience and informed courage count for much.” Feels like lots of my life at the moment.

Nobody comes out of this looking good but it was particularly disgusting to watch media outlets like the (London) Times launder Cofnas as a scholar critical of the excesses of DEI rather than a notorious eugenicist