Alison Booth

This is excellent!

If an exponential increase in computing power is needed for an incremental increase in AI capability, it’s the unmistakable sign of a technology hitting the buffers.

Is there an opportunity to make more use of our rooftops and help nature thrive by itself? | Oak Bear

A wonderful story of cultural exchange.

Why has a company providing one of society's most basic services reached a position where so much needs to be spent putting the system right? | Mick Channon

Did Brexit make us better at communicating economics? Me in @cep-lse.bsky.social's Autumn 2026 #CentrePiece magazine, @lseimpactblog.bsky.social cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publica...

Looks like somebody just saw turnout numbers for the first two days of early voting in Dallas County

You can read more on our investigation into TFA in English rivers and groundwater here 👇 share.google/pK0YaRMUs6RJ...

10 days until Meta claims the right to scrape your website to develop its AI. Your consent? Apparently unnecessary. All it takes is someone sharing a link on Facebook or Instagram - or you using Meta's services. If you're a business or artist with intellectual property, watch the clock.

I hope your no girl in your life ever needs it, but if nudes end up online she can go to the page below to have them removed. This is for anyone under 18. It’s a crime to have indecent images of minors, even if the other party is also a minor. (Tell yr sons this) www.childline.org.uk/info-advice/...

Employers worldwide are pulling back on AI as they navigate a flood of errors and low-quality work that sap employee time, raise privacy and security risks, and drive up costs

Meta shut out Indivisible from Instagram on the No Kings Day meant to rally people to vote.

Truly different, and great times to be alive! 👏👏👏

Eco chamber: Visions of the future From the latest Private Eye, out now.

This should set off a siren in every defence ministry in Europe: there needs to be much more urgency about developing autonomous capabilities, not subject to US caprices, for early warning of attacks, countering ballistic missiles, communicating with forces or controlling offensive weapons.

Palantir didn't have to evade the UK's controls on lobbyists to get astonishing, unminuted access to government ministers and officials, or even to hire them to lobby their colleagues. Why not? Because there aren't any. My column. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I'm gobsmacked by ministers' failure to defend Burnham's claim about Russian interference in Brexit (and Tories' claim that he has no proof of it) when there were well-documented troll farms, funded by Russia, spewing out aggressive pro-Brexit attacks on social media at the time

This is quite extraordinary. I don't think I have heard a more coherent, articulate and accurate deconstruction & demolition of Nigel Farage's ReformUK, Tory & Restore policy than this. In under 85 seconds! @rafaelbehr.bsky.social is on here folks and worth a follow.

One day people will stop trying to work around what makes us human and work with it. One day…

Ofcom rules are clear: broadcasters cannot use politicians as newsreaders, interviewers or reporters in any news programmes. So why is Farage allowed to have his own show on GB News? Add your name to demand that Ofcom takes immediate action.

We need a permanent relationship with Europe rather than a tired and tenuous 'special' relationship with the US

The climate crisis in one sentence: We have enough food, technology, and money to save the planet. We just have a system where destroying it is more profitable. That's not a climate problem. That's a greed problem. #ClimateJustice

The stupid part: “Trump’s Russia deal is for 2.25 million barrels: the equivalent of about 16 hours’ worth of U.S. consumption, 10 hours’ worth of U.S. production, or 14 days’ worth of Canadian imports.”

Yesterday a caller explained how AI content is feeding off itself, hallucinating completely false information as it waters itself down by using itself as the sources by which it measures its own accuracy. Shortly afterwards a text came in that said ‘isn’t that kinda like how the Bible was written?’

Today in Russian Disinformation/AI Cringe, Russia's ongoing disinformation campaign is now using fake ChatGPT screenshots to "verify" the fake news clips it's distributing on X and TikTok.

In Austin, a 9-year-old watched ICE detain and drive away with his mother, leaving community members to scramble to find him care. Senate Republicans just blocked a bill that would bar ICE from making arrests at school bus stops. Their cruelty is endless.

The last time the Conservatives cut the 'Green Crap' it added an estimated £22bn directly to consumer energy bills between 2014 and 2024. I doubt the Conservatives will put that on a leaflet anytime soon. www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-cut...

Swiss glaciers losing over 5% of their total volume in 2026—wiping out nearly a fifth of their ice in just five years—is a terrifying warning signal. Rapid climate breakdown in the Alps directly threatens European freshwater security. Why stall on emissions targets? 🤔 #ClimateCrisis

Happy #WorldAnimalDay! Do you have a favourite in the Ashmolean? World Animal Day exists to celebrate animals but also to raise their status and improve welfare standards around the globe. The 4th of October is the feast day of St Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals.

Simon Clarke MP was born on 28 September 1984. That's all you need to know. #r4today

Under the guise of helping renewable energy, a new legislative package, cynically titled the "Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026," would give the fossil fuel industry massive long-term structural advantages and lock in thousands of fossil fuel projects.

Not exactly walking the talk, are they? That's 2 political parties we have now in the UK who are scared of scrutiny & being obliged to defend their policies to journalists whilst claiming to back freednom of speech. More than disappointed to see UK politicians copying the Trump playbook. Cowardly!

Projection, thy name is Trump 😴

We have something very cute to share with you today 🦉 This summer, a pair of barn owls successfully reared four owlets at Kedleston Hall, marking Kedleston's first known breeding success in over two decades.

'How about discipline/subject-based collaboration that researches, tests and implements viable learning, teaching and assessment policies for taught students in the AI age? Surely an area where instead of competing we should be collaborating for best practice not just regionally but across the UK.

Oh god yes. The naysaying on this… and in fact on anything hopeful… is beyond tedious. Where does anything start? With persuasion. Not the end product. We can’t know all the answers now but we can enthuse about the campaign, the idea, the hope… Why stamp so pedantically on that?

Yes

I’ve walked the fields at dawn for years. The air used to hum with bees. Now it’s quieter every season. What most people never see is the scale: over 3.7 million tonnes of pesticide active ingredients poured onto the planet every year — more than double what we used in 1990.

It really does feel like we are sleepwalking toward a cliff doesn’t it? We treat the natural world as something we can just use up and discard until one day it’s simply gone. And the scariest part is so few seem to notice or care until it’s too late. We can’t keep pretending this is sustainable.

Tweed is such a beautiful fabric to wear this time of year because it produces, in Dolly Parton's phrasing, a coat of many colors. Even a solid-colored brown is not just brown, but bits of red, blue, and yellow to produce something that looks lifted off the Scottish landscape.

Free social care is going to take at least a decade to get off the ground considering we already have 100,000 vacancies in the care sector and a ban on recruiting overseas workers. Many pensioners may not be around to see free social care but they will protest now about potentially losing money.

as a satire on so-called late stage capitalism how could one beat investors pouring a trillion into a company offering to wipe out humankind

Exactly. As he becomes more deranged and politically weaker, he will become more desperate and more dangerous.

They probably justify it because he’s NOT actually running the country - it’s more likely that people like Vought, Bessent, Carr, Vance, etc. are using Trump and his bullying, lawlessness, incompetence and unfitness as a screen to hide behind as they self-deal and destroy the democracy.