Rachel Coldicutt

@rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social

14448 Followers 1340 Following

Hopeful technologist. Community tech, careful innovation, socially progressive tech policy. https://www.careful.industries https://hopeful.technology https://buttondown.email/justenoughinternet DMs don't work but hello@careful.industries will find me

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Inbox (6,239)
Careless Whisper: Speech-to-Text Hallucination Harms
Some of the AI company CEOs who have recently signed open letters expressing concern about the direction of AI development include: Demis Hassabis, CEO, Google DeepMind, January 2015, July 28, 2015, July 2018, and May 30, 2023; Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder, DeepMind, later CEO, Inflection AI and Microsoft AI, January 2015, August 2017, July 2018, and May 30, 2023; Shane Legg, co-founder, Google DeepMind, January 2015, July 2018, and May 30, 2023; Elon Musk, later founder and CEO, xAI, July 28, 2015, August 2017, July 2018, and March 22, 2023; Oren Etzioni, CEO, Allen Institute for AI, July 28, 2015; Sam Altman, CEO, OpenAI, May 30, 2023; Dario Amodei, CEO, Anthropic, May 30, 2023 and July 28, 2026; Emad Mostaque, CEO, Stability AI, March 22, 2023 and May 30, 2023; Adam D'Angelo, CEO, Quora, May 30, 2023; Connor Leahy, CEO, Conjecture, March 22, 2023.
A selection of tapas, including a very clearly demolished plate of anchovies
You're right—those aren't concentric circles at all. Let me create three actual concentric circles for you. Concentric Circles View on canvas I apologize—the diagram tool is creating a flowchart layout instead of actual concentric circles. The diagram format doesn't support true geometric concentric circles the way you need them for your paper.
A flow diagram showing 3 boxes that are labelled with, respectively, inner circle, middle circle, and outer circle
Third Fallacy: Expert Immunity There is a widely incorrect belief that experts are impartial and immune to biases. (17) However, the truth of the matter is that no one is immune to bias, not even experts. (18) In fact, in many ways, experts are more susceptible to certain biases. The very making of expertise creates and underpins many of the biases. (19) For example, experience and training make experts engage in more selective attention, use chunking and schemas (typical activities and their sequence), and rely on heuristics and expectations arising from past base rate experiences, utilizing a whole range of top-down cognitive processes which create a priori assumptions and expectations. These cognitive processes enable experts to often make quick and accurate decisions. However, these very mechanisms also create bias that can lead them in the wrong direction. Regardless of the utilities (and vulnerability) of such cognitive processing in experts, they do not immune experts from bias, and indeed, expertise and experience may actually increase (or even cause) certain biases. Experts across domains are subject to cognitive vulnerabilities. (20)
The PM in a safety orange vest saying Al might be able to write an essay,
Do not double-spend your redundancy - Me
A strengthened Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will bring together the current DCMS remit with responsibility for digital foundations, digital transformation, digital inclusion and skills, information resilience and online harms. This provides critical scale and recognises that culture and technology are inseparable drivers of our modern economy, while bringing coherence to the online safety agenda. It also emphasises our commitment that bringing together levers to support youth policy online and in real life will build a stronger package of support for young people.
A beta version reviewed by POLITICO allows users to choose between models operated securely within Parliament’s own infrastructure and more powerful services hosted externally. The locally operated options include Meta’s Llama, OpenAI’s GPT-OSS and Mistral Small. Users can also access externally hosted models including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet.
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The department this minister will be based from will be set out next week. Their role will be, first and foremost, to maximise the potential of the technology for the government and the British economy. Burnham has said he will scrap the previous government's digital ID scheme in a "reset of priorities", redirecting its funding to cost of living programmes.
"I was the ID cards minister under Blair, which is 20 years ago... I'm not kind of arguing against the principle. I was very pro, actually, I thought there was a real clear case for it," he said in September. "But... I think there's a risk of an opportunity-cost situation here where something can consume a huge amount of time and actually doesn't come through."
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As business secretary, he could be given greater responsibility for science policy at the expense of the existing Department for Science, Innovation and Technology set up three years ago. Some officials and party figures expect parts of DSIT will be moved to the business department with the rest shifted into the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. "It needs to be mainstreamed and there is the sense that DSIT has not been firing on all cylinders," said a senior Labour source.
Andy Burnham's T-shirt wearing brand is about to be tested. Britain's next prime minister is betting that his Manchester clothes and selfie videos will be a winning look for Labour, but experts warn there are risks
2. Eleven general principles to guide adoption of Al voice transcription 1. The Al output is always a draft. Outputs always require human review and validation, prior to use. This is especially critical in formal, legal, or safeguarding contexts. The outputs and skills of your team are supported, not replaced. 2. Establish organisational readiness before adopting. Resist pressure to adopt quickly. Before deploying any Al voice transcription tool, ensure governance frameworks, data policies and operational processes are in place and well understood. Adoption that outpaces readiness leads to inconsistent use and creates risk. 3. Define clear use cases and expected outcomes. The tool/s in use will depend on the specific use case and context. General productivity tools (like Microsoft Copilot) suit internal admin; specialist tools (like Beam Notes) are better suited to sensitive frontline contexts. A portfolio approach, using different tools for different purposes, is more effective than one-size-fits-all. 4. Meaningful consent is non-negotiable. Recording any conversation requires that the participants understand the purpose, and are able to give clear, explicit consent for all types of use, by all agencies, throughout the lifetime of the outputs. Depending on the context, it may be advisable to maintain and store a written record of consent. Guidance, in relation to meaningful and adequate consent, should be embedded in policy and practice. 5. Build governance that persists after deployment. Governance of Al transcription outputs tends to weaken once tools are in use. Build active, ongoing oversight so that you understand usage patterns and embed mechanisms to identify and escalate risks over time.
Claude We're extending Claude Fable 5 access on all paid plans through July 19. In case you missed it: Claude Fable 5 is our model tier above Opus, built for the hardest knowledge work and coding problems.
three jaunty yoghurt pots The best Greek-style yoghurts The best Greek-style yoghurts With delicious creamy textures and well-balanced flavours, three yoghurts impressed our testers enough to be named Best Buys. And the best part? Our joint-highest scorers were some of the cheapest our panel tried.
Founded Doteveryone think tank on responsible technology; shaped digital ethics frameworks for social impact and government policy rs a co-founder programme for UK C-suite execs building their first company, we're assembling a small mentor panel. Worth a 5-minute read? • • •
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The Society for Hopeful Technologists a solidarity network for everyone who wants technologies to work for people and planet
-ynesıde. "They needed a big announcement," said one.
Having compiled several years of census data from the University of Minnesota Population Centre, we filtered the sample to include only married heterosexual couples in which the husband reported an income. Next we sorted the couples into groups according to the husband's income, from the poorest to the richest, and calculated the average age gap in each group.
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"Dude lived Al," the sales strategist recalled of the founder and CEO of his former employer, a software-as-a-service cloud platform for manufacturers that had rebranded as an Al-powered, all-in-one business management tool. (The new platform was largely vibe-coded by the CEO, the strategist says he later found out.)
Badenoch said she did not approve of language policing "let's stop worrying about hurty words and look at the people who are hurting in the country" she said
TRANSFORMING OBESITY CARE in hot pink 3D writing
I am unreasonably interested in govt uses of social media and have long held the belief that whoever is running the DSIT linkedin page is highly invested in a very sophisticated comedy but with a long-term pay off, because what else can be the reason for this?
Your closest match Zohran Mamdani
And my theory is that there’s a more emotional, vibes based component to genAI adoption that wasn’t in the room when the C-suite signed off on Office 365. After all, there is a significant number of basic things generative AI can’t do – “You’re telling me this tool that can’t count the number of Rs in strawberry is going to obliterate the white collar job by the end of next year?” – but which don’t seem to stop people from buying huge numbers of enterprise licenses.
Do I remember his entrance interview? I think that I do. Smart clothes, a northwest (was it Liverpool?) accent, considerable verbal confidence. It must have been in December 1987. We discussed a Shakespeare sonnet that he had been given a few minutes before the interview. Perhaps it was Ruth’s favourite: “What is your substance, whereof are you made…?” What does “tend” mean in line 2? Or “foison” in line 9? No googling possible, of course. He must have been good at working the poetry out. Ruth thought he was terrific, I do remember that.
My other daughter is a bit more of a generalist. In the age of a new general purpose technology, AI, we need general purpose nerds, the GPN. The general purpose nerd is someone who can master the latest AI over the weekend. On Monday and Tuesday they can interview real people face to face and learn things. On Wednesday they can read a 50-year-old book that has not yet been digitised, make sense of it and figure out how you're going to use it. On Thursday they can run a podcast. On a Friday they prepare a one-page memo for the minister.
I think one way to think about it is if you're above a certain expertise threshold, Al is a force multiplier. But if you don't make it to that threshold, either objectively or in the eyes of the organisation you're working for, then you are being replaced by the AI.
SJ: One of the things I've had many conversations about in the UK, not only with people in London, is that if we figure stuff out for the UK on healthcare, on education, on advanced manufacturing, you can then create products and services that you can sell to the world.
UK politics live Keir Starmer expected to announce resignation timetable, paving the way for Burnham premiership (a screen grab from the Guardian)
THE MOUNTAIN (Anoushka Shankar) THE HAPPY DICTATOR (SPARKS) TRANZ dark pop int TOMORROW COMES TODAY 19/2000 RHINESTONE EYES SATURNZ BARZ - (Popcaan) THE MOON CAVE (Black Thought - Asha Puthli - Anoushka Shankar) EL MANANA EMPIRE ANTS - (Yukimi) WITH LOVE TO AN EX - (Moonchild Sanelly) THE EMPTY DREAM MACHINE (Black Thought - Johnny Marr Anoushka Shankar) CASABLANCA (Paul Simonon - Johnny Marr) DELIRIUM ANDROMEDA DESOLÉ (Fatoumata Diawara) STYLO (Yasiin Bey) DAMASCUS (Yasiin Bey - Omar Souleyman) intro DIRTY HARRY (Bootie Brown) GARAGE PALACE (Little Simz) WHITE FLAG - (KANO - BASHY-LAO) THE SHADOWY LIGHT (Gruff Rhys - Zanai Bhosle) THE SAD GOD (Black Thought - Anoushka Shankar) CLOUD OF UNKNOWING PLASTIC BEACH (Paul Simonon - Johnny Marr) intro madam ON MELANCHOLY HILL ORANGE COUNTY (Kara Jackson - Anoushka Shankar) THE MANIFESTO - (Trueno) intro DARE! - (Shaun Ryder - Roses Gabor) FEEL GOOD INC (Pos - De La Soul) CLINT EASTWOOD
iz Kendall • 3rd+ Member of Parliament for Leicester West at House of Commons 11h • Following UPDATE ON THE INFORMATION COMMISSIONER ▶️ John Edwards resigned from his post as the Information Commissioner and Chair of the Information Commission earlier today, following an independent investigation that upheld multiple allegations made against him. ▶️ I have seen evidence of the vulgar and highly sexualised language that was used in his interactions with his staff and am extremely concerned that he continues to describe these incidents as misplaced humour, including on his social media post announcing his resignation. Such conduct does not belong in the workplace, least of all exhibited by the leader of an organisation. ▶️ Multiple women shared testimony to the investigator on feeling offended, shocked and uncomfortable following interactions with Mr Edwards. I am deeply grateful to all who came forward to share their experiences as part of this investigation.
them off for everyone. America's government wields an awesome power: to decide who can use the world's most important technology. Even its closest allies
Robert Guest Deputy editor My former neighbour, a delightful, fiercely independent lady who died in her mid-nineties, often told me she hated computers. She didn't own one, didn't want one and bristled when her bank suggested she switch to an online account on the smartphone she didn't have. It would have been pointless to argue that banking apps are actually quite convenient. She didn't want to change.
We use Al & facial recognition to identify your face from the event photos & deliver them to you via WhatsApp.
The Home Office did not directly address these questions but said the UK's National Physical Laboratory has been commissioned to carry out an "independent review" of testing the systems and looking at results of its trials. It has also publicly discussed using a "threshold" age-such as configuring the system to identify if people are under 20-to reduce margins of area. It is unclear if this approach will be taken or what any thresholds may be.
GOV• UK V Menu Q Home › Local government Press release Al tool to slash planning decision times as government accelerates push to build 1.5 million homes Millions of homeowners could benefit from faster planning decisions, as 2 new Al tools are unveiled to modernise England's planning permission system.
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BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk S Korean crypto firm accidentally pays out $40bn... 7 Feb 2026 — A South Korean cryptocurrency exchange accidentally gave away more than $40bn (£32bn) worth of bitcoin to customers... FT Financial Times https://www.ft.com Iran war hits Americans with $40bn fuel bill 17 May 2026 — Americans have spent more than $40bn extra on fuel since the start of Donald Trump's war in Iran, according to ne...
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Email summaries on benefits and risks of children using social media Summary of responses: • Many stakeholders, across both civil society and industry, agreed being online can bring significant benefits for children, particularly in supporting social connection, access to information, creativity, learning and self-expression. At the same time, many respondents emphasised that these benefits sit alongside substantial harms and risks. • Respondents suggested that both benefits and harms are unevenly distributed. Several respondents therefore implied that children’s online experiences are shaped by age, vulnerability and personal circumstances, and that a more nuanced approach is needed than treating all children or all online risks as the same. • Some respondents argued that the relationship between children’s online activity and outcomes for wellbeing is complex and depends on the context and individual child. This was a common position among industry respondents, who cautioned against assuming that online engagement is inherently harmful or that the same activity will
The government plans to use the same model for a social media ban as Australia. This would capture user-to-user platforms, whose purpose is to enable social interaction and which allow users to post material, alongside algorithms. The ban will therefore include platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X. We do not intend for messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal to be included in the social media ban.
Ofcom will conduct a rapid study on what is effective age assurance for verifying whether someone is over 16. The Secretary of State has also written to the new Chair of Ofcom to ask for an urgent review of Ofcom's enforcement capabilities with a clear enforcement strategy to be published as soon as possible.
• In the weeks leading up to the launch of Fable, Anthropic worked with the US government, the UK AISI, multiple private third-party organizations and internal teams to red-team Fable's safeguards for thousands of hours in total.
The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees. The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance. Access to all other Anthropic models will not be affected.
domestic admin during the day. My "village" is a set of forms I fill out on my phone and none of them will notice if I look tired today, if deliveries pile up on the doorstep, or wonder what's happened to Dolly if we cancel the cat food.
Second, we will drive industry improvements by engaging with the largest and riskiest services via continuous regulatory supervision. ‘Supervision’ is a mode of engagement that has proven successful in several regulatory fields, particularly in financial services regulation. 9 Specifically, it involves regularly engaging with the services with the largest impact on UK internet users, including where necessary by making formal and enforceable requests for information, allowing the regulator to:
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Economics, which Lord Keynes had hoped would settle down as a modest occupation similar to dentistry, suddenly becomes the most important subject of all. Economic policies absorb almost the entire attention of government, and at the same time become ever more impotent. The simplest things, which only fifty years ago one could do without difficulty, cannot get done any more. The richer a society, the more impossible it becomes to do worthwhile things without immediate pay-off. Economics has become such a thraldom that it absorbs almost the whole of foreign policy. People say, 'Ah yes, we don't like to go with these people, but we depend on them economically so we must humour them.' It tends to absorb the whole of ethics and to take precedence over all other human considerations.
Ferrari diehards debate whether buying its first EV is test of loyalty
Department for Science,... 1w • Edited • O G7 talks have seen a renewed push to protect children online and unlock safe Al growth. ...more 00:11 G7 talks will help - PROTECT CHILDREN ONLINE and unlock SAFEA GROWTH DU 00