Louise Amoore
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amoorelouise.bsky.social
Louise Amoore
@amoorelouise.bsky.social

Professor of Political Geography & Director of the Leverhulme Centre for Algorithmic Life @leverhulmecal.bsky.social
Algorithms, politics, technology, biometrics, AI, ethics
Author Cloud Ethics http://dukeupress.edu/cloud-ethics .. more

Louise Jane Amoore, is a British geographer and academic, who specialises in geopolitics, biometrics, state security and the ethics of machine learning. She is Professor of Political Geography at Durham University. From 2017 to 2023, she was a member of the Biometrics and Forensics Ethics Group (BFEG), a non-departmental advisory body which is the "only formally accountable ethics committee" within the UK Government's Home Office. .. more

Political science 45%
Sociology 26%

“..in a disorderly way”..
💥 New publication out on the alignment of AI & authoritarianism 💥

We argue that AI is not simply extending, but actively modulating, key dynamics of authoritarianism, and present a flexible analytical framework to account for these changes.

rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Thanks so much @eryk.bsky.social & for making this connection. The question of what generative AI does to politics - and how the prompt comes to define and circumscribe the political. We are planning an event @leverhulmecal.bsky.social 2026 on this, would be great if you can join us.

Reposted by Louise Amoore

Just now reading this from @amoorelouise.bsky.social et al, a great complement to the points in my "Anatomy of an AI Coup," emphasizing the constraints of prompting that transform the relationship between government workers & governance: durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4663100
Politics of the prompt: Government in the age of generative AI
This paper addresses the politics of the technique of prompting in machine learning, at a time when bureaucratic and democratic government is undergoing tr...
durham-repository.worktribe.com

Reposted by Louise Amoore

Just Published: For the latest @jcmsjournal.bsky.social issue, Mal Ahern and I co-edited an In Focus dossier on 'Images and (Infra)structures,' which originally emerged from a lively @scmstudies.bsky.social roundtable in 2022. What, we ask, do images and infrastructure have to say to each other?

In one sense LLMs are involved - to the extent that it is assumed that because LLMs are trained to predict the next probable token in a sequence, they are aligned with the sequential nature of DNA. So generating sequences not present in nature by sampling from an underlying probability distribution?

Could be broad bean crop? In Lincolnshire still see vast fields of beans & their white flowers look like this…

Sybil is overjoyed that I had surgery & am not at work for 6 weeks…

Sybil, 14 weeks old… anyone would think there is a pattern in whippet behaviour… (the lovely Ed)

Current view…

5 days in from spine surgery & I’m at the “sounding off on Bluesky” stage of recovery

& one of the reasons that matters is that critical response requires more than “but your rule one way travel is benefit fraud risk is stupid/inaccurate”. The hackathon DeepMind/Faculty/OpenAI logic is indifferent to accuracy. Everything is a use-case.

HMRC’s Connect system uses ML algorithms. I agree that rules-based data mining also historically had association rules (if, then, else stupidity). These don’t disappear but they find entirely new commercial extractive stupidity.. & it’s not rules based.

www.tandfonline.com

Or, worse, these are not mistakes from the perspective of machine learning politics of austerity… (errors as productive for targeting, even when it’s a “wrong” target)

Or, government in the age of generative AI.. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com

2/ run machine learning on unlabelled data in “task agnostic” way; 3/ indifferent to situated human meaning (e.g. two autistic children experience flying); 4) embedded LLMs on AWS cloud, generate plausible outputs even if wildly inaccurate; 5) zero shot ML = zero shot politics

Travel data has historically been a correlative proxy. Early 2000s data mining used one way flights (*purchased third party) in terror algorithms. These apparent “errors” by HMRC illuminate machine learning logics: 1/ combine gov cloud data
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
HMRC cuts child benefit for 35,000 families based on incomplete travel data
UK tax agency apologises after flagging people as having emigrated, often when they return via different routes
www.theguardian.com

I’m sorry that you will miss Eamonn’s talk for your dialysis. He would audio record it for you I’m sure…

Reposted by Louise Amoore

Fuming here. I *really* wanted to go to this event on Thursday, about the history of CD ripping. But I can't, because I have to do dialysis. So frustrating. www.bbk.ac.uk/events/event...
Toward a more perfect rip: Lessons learned in the digital history of "secure" digital audio extraction (DAE) from CD media
Dr Eamonn Bell (Durham, UK) reflects on ripping, digital audio formats and the CD-ripping software ecosystem.
www.bbk.ac.uk

& not far from one of the best pubs (& walking in Forest of Bowland).. parkersarms.co.uk
The Parkers Arms
Parkersarms was taken over by Kathy and Stosie in January 2007, a derelict abandoned landmark pub brought back to life.
parkersarms.co.uk

Perhaps the best vintage clothing anywhere in the UK revivalaccrington.wixsite.com/revivalaccri...
Revival Vintage Clothing
We are one of a kind which sell a range of vintage clothing.
revivalaccrington.wixsite.com

Congratulations Dr Sydney Calkin on your Leverhulme Prize @leverhulme.ac.uk such crucial work

Reposted by Louise Amoore

Next Friday (10/31 10AM), ORG will discuss @amoorelouise.bsky.social et al's recent article, "Politics of the Prompt", addressing "the politics of prompting in machine learn­ing, at a time when bureaucratic & democratic government is undergoing trans­formation."

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com

Reposted by Louise Amoore

Thank you

Want to know more about #syntheticdata #assetization, #blockchain and #cloudinfrastructures in #finance? In this paper for @financeandspace.bsky.social , I talk about those topics, plus how synthetic data might be reworking financial #subjectivities! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Want to know more about #syntheticdata #assetization, #blockchain and #cloudinfrastructures in #finance? In this paper for @financeandspace.bsky.social , I talk about those topics, plus how synthetic data might be reworking financial #subjectivities! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Reposted by Louise Amoore

What are the ethical responsibility of algorithms?
How might we think about forms of power, order, and rationality beyond the story of alliances between big tech and the state?

Join @amoorelouise.bsky.social and Audrey Borowski
Mon. Oct. 20 ~ 2pm ET / 7pm UK
www.tickettailor.com/events/theph...
Select tickets – "On Cloud Ethics and Beyond": Louise Amoore in conversation with Audrey Borowski – Zoom
"On Cloud Ethics and Beyond": Louise Amoore in conversation with Audrey Borowski – Zoom, Mon 20 Oct 2025 - Machine learning algorithms are transforming the ethics and politics of contemporary society....
www.tickettailor.com