John Burn-Murdoch

theguardian.com‘Pure arrogance’: anger in Finland as Google illegally fells 250,000 trees for datacentreCompany ordered to stop work at two sites in country, which has found itself at forefront of tech firms’ latest push Behind a wire fence lies a vast gaping wound of earth. Before Google’s arrival a few months ago, an estimated quarter of a million trees occupied the 330 hectares (815 acres) of forest near the town of Muhos in rural northern Finland. Now they are all gone. After the tech company illegally stripped the entire area to build a datacentre – taking even the top soil with it – all that remains is a vast expanse of mud indented with the trail marks of machinery, puddles and mounds of earth, roots and branches. Residents say that brown water flowing off the site is going into a stream that feeds the Oulujoki River. Continue reading...

7 Nov 2024

We’re going to hear lots of stories about which people, policies and rhetoric are to blame for the Democrats’ defeat. Some of those stories may even be true! But an underrated factor is that 2024 was an absolutely horrendous year for incumbents around the world 👇

John Burn-Murdoch reposted

Andrew Sissons

@acjsissons.bsky.social

The more you read of this story, the worse it gets

The Guardian@theguardian.com

‘Pure arrogance’: anger in Finland as Google illegally fells 250,000 trees for datacentre

John Burn-Murdoch reposted

Tyler Kingkade

@tktk.bsky.social

My latest @nbcnews.com investigation dropped this morning -- We analyzed the YouTube watch histories of 11 students to look into how some students end up viewing over 5,000 YouTube videos in class, on school-issued laptops, in a single school year www.nbcnews.com/specials/hoo...

nbcnews.comHow YouTube junk is infiltrating classroomsSchools wanted educational videos. Students got clickbait. A first-of-its-kind analysis reveals how students are drawn into a platform that keeps them scrolling during class.

John Burn-Murdoch reposted

Sam Freedman

@samfr.bsky.social

New post: "Drowning in slop" Large parts of the state are being increasingly overwhelmed with complaints, appeals, objections.... written by AI. It's gumming up every process. Britain is particularly vulnerable. How bad has it got and what can we do about it? samf.substack.com/p/drowning-i...

samf.substack.comDrowning in slopCan the state survive the rise of AI?

John Burn-Murdoch reposted

Adam Posen

@adamposen.bsky.social

This is a really super analysis of US wage trends since 1982, all in clear English and simple charts. Well worth a read by everyone. Very solid on the facts and I largely agree with the interpretations open.substack.com/pub/agglomer...

open.substack.comThe Chart that Explains Work in AmericaFive eras of U.S. wage growth and the six stories that define them

John Burn-Murdoch reposted

Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈

@josephpolitano.bsky.social

Was an honor to speak to Marketplace on NPR this morning about my piece on AI-driven arts job loss & what it means for creative industries. Give it a listen! www.marketplace.org/episode/2026...

marketplace.orgWhat AI is doing to jobs in creative fieldsAn analysis by writer and economist Joey Politano found that the U.S. has lost more than 200,000 jobs in creative industries over the last four years.

Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈@josephpolitano.bsky.social

NEW from me: Over the last 4 years, America has lost more than 200k jobs in creative fields like publishing, film, TV, or graphic design. It's the worst stretch for arts jobs outside of recessions. How much is AI to blame? And can the arts' business model survive?🧵 www.apricitas.io/p/ai-and-the...

apricitas.ioAI and the Fall? of the Creative ClassAmerica is Losing Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs in Media, Film & the Arts. How Much is AI to Blame?

This is great work from Will, breaking down the evidence on the impacts of rent control according to the finer details of the policy 👇

Will Thorne@wbthorne.bsky.social

This graph is a good reason to introduce my new paper: By Generation and by Design: A Review of the Empirical Rent Control Literature. This paints a (somewhat) misleading picture of rent control evidence because it groups all rent control together regardless of design feature.

What’s the evidence on rent control? I charted the findings from 112 studies: Great for rent-controlled tenants ✅ But: Pushes up rents for other people ❌ Pushes down new housing construction ❌ Pushes down building quality ❌

View full thread

ft.comThe right and wrong lessons to learn from Spain’s housing crisisEvictions and spiralling rents are the symptom, not the underlying disease

In particular, where one big reason rents are rising is a housing shortage, rent controls do nothing to address that and may worsen it. Here’s my full article on the right and wrong lessons to learn from Spain’s housing crisis www.ft.com/content/437c...

sciencedirect.comsciencedirect.com

And here’s the meta-analysis where I got the data for the chart on the impacts of rent control: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Doesn’t mean rent controls never have any place in housing policy at all, but they have many proven downsides and unless they’re accompanied by big increases in supply they risk making the overall housing situation worse.

John Burn-Murdoch reposted

Hetan Shah

@hetanshah.bsky.social

Good piece from @jburnmurdoch.ft.com & @sarahoconnorft.ft.com on AI in science. It’s making some bits faster, but there is a new ‘verification tax’ taking up time. And there are heightened bottlenecks in physical experiments & data collection. AI is a workflow problem www.ft.com/content/4508...

ft.comThe AI Shift: Is AI supercharging science?Productivity gains in analysis are getting stuck in physical-world bottlenecks

eventbrite.co.ukPanel discussion: Who Gets to Have Kids?Baby Doomers and Who Gets to Have Kids? Creating a Family in an Age of Uncertainty.

FAO anyone at a loose end in London next Monday evening: I’m excited to be joining Anna Louie Sussman at the Frontine Club to discuss her new book on how uncertainty and instability among young adults are contributing to falling birth rates www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/panel-disc... A few tickets left 👇

John Burn-Murdoch reposted

Tony Tassell

@tonytassell.bsky.social

Man City’s Emirati chair was granted diplomatic immunity 6 yrs ago in a move that could complicate any legal action resulting from findings that the club artificially inflated its finances by more than £900mn - scoop by Caroline Binham @journosooz.bsky.social as.ft.com/r/d717fb9e-2...

John Burn-Murdoch reposted

Stephen Bush

@stephenkb.bsky.social

'Actually existing Manchesterism' meet 'Manchesterism as a device for making Labour feel good about itself'

bbc.co.ukAndy Burnham 'really concerned' if Man City owners sell up after rule breachesThe prime minister compares the allegations against Man City to the plight of his own club Everton.

John Burn-Murdoch reposted

Dan Neidle

@danneidle.bsky.social

Manchester City cheated Premier League rules, the Commission found. Did it also cheat HMRC? We've examined the decision and leaked Mancini documents. We think City likely failed to pay £12m in tax. There should be a criminal investigation. Thread:

John Burn-Murdoch reposted

Hetan Shah

@hetanshah.bsky.social

17 Sept

Helpful points from @jburnmurdoch.ft.com here on what AI solving big maths problems might mean for the future of the maths community www.ft.com/content/c947...

John Burn-Murdoch reposted

Sarah O'Connor

@sarahoconnorft.ft.com

14 Sept

In both China and the west, the gig economy has become a sort of safety net/labour market shock absorber. But automation is coming for a lot of this work. Which means the biggest impact of AI/robots might unfold in the dark, in the part of the economy hardest to track. www.ft.com/content/a2c3...

John Burn-Murdoch reposted

Sky Marchini

@sky.skymarchini.net

11 Sept

>the houthis were trying to use claude to build their rocket guidance system just get me off the fucking ride www.anthropic.com/threat-intel...

10 Sept

New from us: Anthropic just published scenarios for AI’s possible economic impacts, which range from minimal, to explosive GDP growth of 15% by 2030 as knowledge-worker unemployment hits 18%. I sat down with their co-founder Jack Clark to pick his brains on how they’re thinking about all of this.

Featuring discussion of space data centres as well as recent work by @lugaricano.bsky.social @aleximas.bsky.social @benmoll.bsky.social @ruxandrabio.bsky.social @arakharazian.bsky.social @erikbryn.bsky.social

10 Sept

Also asked the meta-question of whether they appreciate that headlines of astronomical growth alongside soaring unemployment might be fuelling anti-AI sentiment

Here’s a snippet on why we may not yet be seeing the full extent of how AI is already changing employment. Just one small part of a much broader chat where he explains Anthropic’s thinking and the purpose of publishing scenarios like these. Full transcript is here: www.ft.com/content/432f...

ft.comHave humans passed peak brain power?Data across countries and ages reveal a growing struggle to concentrate, and declining verbal and numerical reasoning

8 Sept

Two extraordinary charts from today’s PISA test results: 1) School test scores continue to collapse internationally, underscoring how this is no longer a Covid effect but sustained decline. Those falls in reading and maths are equivalent to about two years of lost schooling.

On the broader decline, I think my piece from last year holds up fairly well www.ft.com/content/a801...

ft.comHave humans passed peak brain power?Data across countries and ages reveal a growing struggle to concentrate, and declining verbal and numerical reasoning

8 Sept

As I see it, the unifying global trend is the deluge of digital distractions which are eroding people’s capacity to focus and think for extended periods of time, making strict structures and proven methods especially important for education. Full piece here: www.ft.com/content/a801...

2) England is a rare exception. During the 2010s many other countries (including the other 3 UK nations) changed tack, experimenting with ideas like transferrable skills instead of focusing on tried-and-tested disciplines and methods. It looks like those experiments have failed.

worksinprogress.coEvery disease is a policy failureFew people know how much medicine has progressed in their lifetimes. Fewer know how much faster it could be progressing.

3 Sept

I hereby declare the "learn to code" era officially dead: Big declines in the number of people studying computer science in the last year or two 📉 Chart from this week’s edition of our newsletter on AI and the labour market www.ft.com/content/9183...

John Burn-Murdoch reposted

Saloni

@scientificdiscovery.dev

11 Aug

BIG NEW piece by me. A few years ago, if you asked me to summarize my entire worldview in one article, I would’ve said it was too broad and too difficult. But this year, I decided to do it.

John Burn-Murdoch reposted

Chris Dillow

@chrisdillow.bsky.social

12 Aug

New substack: without big changes, slow growth is normal: chrisdillow.substack.com/p/stagnation...

chrisdillow.substack.comStagnation: the normWe need more than tinkering if we are to raise economic growth significantly.

7 Aug

New from me: Britain’s graduate earnings premium is falling, cue “too many go to university!” But non-university outcomes are also bad, cue “we must reform vocational routes!” Both miss the point: people used to think education drove economic outcomes, but the economy drives educational outcomes.

ft.comTo fix education, fix the economy firstWeak educational outcomes often owe more to economic performance than education policy

7 Aug

So we end up with a situation where UK outperforms most of its peers on education, but rather than that making everyone happy it makes everyone angry that they put in the work, acquire the skills, and end up with crap outcomes, often worse than their parents. Full piece: www.ft.com/content/1c4a...

John Burn-Murdoch reposted

Matt Darling

@besttrousers.bsky.social

5 Aug

"Whether we like it or not, the future of jobs lies in largely non-traded, labour absorbing activities such as retail, food services, hospitality, care and other personal services. The Left cannot evade this reality."

Dani Rodrik@drodrik.bsky.social

My thoughts on where Andy Burnham’s (and the Left’s in general) priorities on the economy should be futureoftheleft.substack.com/p/the-left-m...

futureoftheleft.substack.comThe Left must focus on where the jobs will be, not where it wishes they would beA series on the politics of production.

New from me: Until recently, the gap between comfortably-off and just-getting-started could plausibly be crossed in a decade or two of hard work. Growth in asset prices means that’s no longer true: even a lifetime of striving doesn’t offer a realistic prospect of feeling you’ve “made it”.

Given how little the typical person saves, the passive gains that even the average asset-holder benefitted from can amount to decades’ worth of what someone can reasonably expect to save from their salary. Or the equivalent of moving from median to 75th percentile of the wage distribution for life.

Thoughts? Questions? Things I’ve missed? (I’m trying to be a bit more active on socials going forward)

Key question is whether the boom in wealth vs income was a one-time thing, whether it will slowly unwind, or widen further. Tumbling rates in 1980s/90s were distinct moments. Credit/QE similar. But other forces ongoing (e.g superstar cities + weak housing response -> rising land & property prices)

ft.comWe’ve moved from income world to wealth worldPassive wealth gains increasingly matter more than earnings for one’s standing in society

And even where this was a one-time event it leaves a long shadow. Medium term it supercharges inter-generational inequality (young people had no assets so no boom). Long term, the children of asset owners will receive a big financial boost; the children of those who had no assets won’t.

Today’s column is on the quiet shift from a society where one’s economic standing was mainly determined by income, to one where wealth does more of the talking. This changes incentives, status, beliefs in fairness, and imo helps explain why many feel the system is broken www.ft.com/content/6a35...

John Burn-Murdoch reposted

Stephen Bush

@stephenkb.bsky.social