A thought sparked by Google’s IO: AI as it is deployed increasingly really tethers us more closely to information but mediated through the largest platforms (here Google) – it really is a centralisation of information that we are seeing.
Against my better judgment, I wrote something short on the claim that UK news isn't paying enough attention to the Claude Fable quagmire and AI more broadly.
Didn't expect a shoutout when I read this great FT Alphaville piece which takes a good look at open-weight models. In a nutshell, 1) locally run models see some real demand growth because they are a) good enough, b) cheaper, and c) don't come with IP security concerns (see OpenAI's mathematics news)
While I cannot be at @ecreaeu.bsky.social this year to co-present, please check out our AI work presented by great colleagues @richardfletcher.bsky.social, @amyrossarguedas.bsky.social and @waqasejaz.bsky.social.
One of the interesting epistemic side-effects of AI diffusion to me is the two-tier system that seems to have emerged around it in terms of information access/quality and people’s perception of what AI can(not) do as a result.
✨ 🤖 A brief summary of the AI findings of the Digital News Report 2026, a 48-country survey of news use and attitudes, now out by the @reutersinstitute.bsky.social.
Last summer, I co-organised a small symposium on AI agents which in light of the OpenAI/Hugging face news feels prescient. Some quotes from the symposium report: "Several of those present argued that many of the most pressing risks are systemic."
"It feels like the talk about hallucinations has somewhat died down" – this observation from my friend @kirstenaeddy.bsky.social who hosted me at @pewresearch.org today for a talk got me thinking. At least to me, it feels like she is right.
Not entirely sure I agree with everything argued in this short commentary pre-print on AI slop, but I do think the authors get one thing right: It’s too easy to dismiss AI slop.
Just got told by someone far smarter than me that one way you can tell Anthropic is really successful in some circles (i.e. white collar workers) is that Claude has become a verb (“to claude”) much in the same way as Google/“googling” before.
