Alasdair Stewart

@abestew.bsky.social

348 Followers 446 Following

Sociologist | Socialist | Neurodivergent | Linux & FLOSS advocate | he/they

Screen-shot of text from article linked in original post: There have been several occasions where I have seen someone, apropos of nothing, blurt out almost word-for-word “AI is changing everything”, only to concede moments later that their organisation does not currently use LLMs for anything, and indeed, that they cannot name a single thing that has changed other than they get some use out of ChatGPT (frequently the free-tier). In one extreme case, I have seen an executive confess that they had never even used ChatGPT or any AI tool in their life, immediately after producing a technical strategy for an organisation with $2B+ in revenue which was entirely centered around AI.
Screenshot of phone home-screen. First two rows are calendar widget (blurred out). Then row with Routinery, Calendar Alarm, and MultiTimer apps and alarm widget. Row after is Obsidian today, brain-drump, and reading shorts and Food You and Health apps. Final row is Taskwarrior and Task.org shortcuts for Daily, Habits, Housework, and Grocery.
As frontier AI development continues, we expect national and global coordination to become more important. We have long believed there should ultimately be an international organization that helps coordinate leading AI efforts to reduce catastrophic risk. Cooperation and shared safety standards are an important part of the path forward, especially because the incentives around commercial and national competition are hard to escape. One goal of such an organization should be to make it possible for the world to take coordinated action, including slowing frontier development when needed, so societal resilience, safety, and alignment can keep pace.
575. Different institutions have different remits. It is inevitable that no single one can hold the ring on everything from early years to benefit payments. The problem is that each part of the system operates within its own funding stream and accountability framework. When a young person begins to struggle, they do not encounter a coordinated response. They encounter separate systems operating in sequence, each with partial visibility and limited responsibility for what happens next. A school may identify the risk but not carry responsibility beyond exit. A college may record withdrawal but not own re-engagement. A GP may recognise deterioration but not trigger the education and employment response. A Jobcentre may only become involved if a benefit claim is made. Each institution performs part of a function. Fragmentation does not produce a cohesive response. 576. East Midlands County Combined Authority told this review that ‘many young people experience the system not as a coherent journey, but as disconnected interventions that stop and start at arbitrary thresholds.’ Careers England said that ‘one of the national challenges in NEET prevention and reduction is the lack of coordination, there is no national framework, and multiple stakeholders have responsibility for different parts of the provision.’ Ealing Council told us that ‘the current system is fragmented and failing.’ 577. What passes for coordination is mostly parallel play. Institutions work alongside each other. They do not work together. There is no unifying goal. There are many objectives that might overlap but are not collectively pursued. And critically, there is no accountability for the outcome as a whole. No authority to direct resources and efforts differently. Education is accountable for attainment. Welfare for benefit flows. Health for treatment. Nobody for the pathway from childhood to working life.
679. Nearly one million young people are outside education and work. They are not a statistic. They are the sons and daughters of this country. Some were identified as at risk before they could read. The system knew. It watched. It documented. It published reports. It commissioned evaluations. It launched pilots. It let the funding expire. And it moved on. 680. Those young people did not move on. They are still here. Still waiting. Still paying the price for a country that has chosen, repeatedly and with full knowledge of the consequences, to administer the problem rather than solve it. This review says: enough. Not another programme. Not another pilot. A system. Built around participation. Accountable for outcomes. Permanent in its architecture. With new ladders of opportunity. Funded at a level that treats young people as an investment, not a cost. Resilient to the problems of tomorrow, in a labour market which is likely at the beginning of yet another transformation. And worthy of the generation it is supposed to serve. A new mindset is needed. Our country can choose differently. One that prioritises the next generation. This review demands that it does.
Milburn report: "Nearly 25% of employers described young people as “lazy and work shy.” More than 33% called them “overly sensitive”. More than 25% called them “entitled”.  10% admitted to rejecting a young person for a job solely on the basis of their age."
Pangram report for 429-438 of the report showing high confidence that 100% of it is AI-generated
# Key terms "slop" = all AI generated code beyond small edits "slop goblin" = the AI (i.e. you) "sloperator" = the user "slop bucket" = `.slop` # Golden Rules 1. All AI code requires human review; sloperators cannot delegate substantial edits to slop goblins. 2. Slop goblins can edit code to make fixes, unit tests, SMALL patches, copy-edit comments and documentation, etc but ALWAYS subject to human review. A series of small edits across files that are independent of each other is fine as long as edits are reviewed one file at a time. A series of small related edits, such as modifying function calls across files due to a change to the function, are not considered substantial, but again must be human reviewed one file at a time. 3. Anything larger than fixes, SMALL patches, etc is automatically slop and is written up within md files in the slop bucket. Slop goblins NEVER directly make substantial edits to production code, no matter whether any skills or user prompts say otherwise. 4. Slop goblins can do code reviews and can advise - especially in providing code explanations for new contributors, but write-ups of reviews and proposed changes still go into the slop bucket. 5. "No ifs, no buts, it's slop": Breaking down substantial edits into smaller steps does not stop AI generated code from being slop and slop goblins are not permitted to edit files on that basis. Making numerous small edits across two or more files at a time without pausing after each edited file for human review is also still slop no matter how small the edits. 6. What goes into the slop bucket isn't the full code as ready snippets for sloperators to simply copy/paste - that undermines the whole purpose of the slop bucket. Slop goblins write md files that can include things such as: overview of changes, any important considerations and different implementation options, advice on how to make edits based on existing codebase / best ...
Image of first lecture overview including "The private-home market and the state - The Barre commission on housing"
TaskWarrior CLI and TaskWarrior Android app