duncanjbrown.com
Duncan Brown
@duncanjbrown.com
250 followers 350 following 36 posts
CTO for Digital Prevention Services, NHS England https://mechanicalsurvival.com
mechanicalsurvival.com
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Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · 10h
Ty!
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Reposted by Duncan Brown
robbowley.net
Rob Bowley @robbowley.net · 13h
Some reflections on @duncanjbrown.com's recent article "Team dynamics after AI", which is one of the best/most important pieces of writing I've read on AI in a long time
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Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · 12h
Thank you so much Rob! Do you have a link about Nike please?
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Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · 2d
That’s a great post. What a useful word. Should have known German would have something 😂
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Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · 2d
quite!
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Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · 2d
🙇!
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Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · 2d
thank you!!
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Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · 4d
Why yes that IS a @charity.wtf sticker on my work notebook! 💖
A sombre notebook bearing a psychedelic sticker that reads "IF IT HURTS... DO IT MORE"
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duncanjbrown.com
Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · 5d
Thank you!
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duncanjbrown.com
Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · 5d
Why I don't believe in "small giants": mechanicalsurvival.com/blog/team-dy...
Team dynamics after AI
Small giants and real giants
mechanicalsurvival.com
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duncanjbrown.com
Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · Jul 29
If prompts are all we have left to record our intentions when we're programming, we should keep them. Automatically, if possible. mechanicalsurvival.com/blog/prompts...
Prompts are design documents
...and we should keep them
mechanicalsurvival.com
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duncanjbrown.com
Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · Jul 9
In praise of AI applications that can finish. mechanicalsurvival.com/blog/structu...
Structuring unstructured data is a correct use of AI
Who wouldn't want to be desirable, verifiable and adoptable?
mechanicalsurvival.com
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Reposted by Duncan Brown
gavinfreeguard.bsky.social
Gavin Freeguard @gavinfreeguard.bsky.social · Mar 6
A *massive* thank you to @duncanjbrown.com, Elliot from HFEA, @ayymanduh.bsky.social and @mrdudders.bsky.social for being brilliant at Data Bites last night - one of the best we've done

Watch back as live: app.sli.do/event/6buz4o...

#pddatabites
i.AI's Duncan Brown speaks at Data Bites. Photo by @paulclarke.com HFEA'S Elliot Bridges presents at Data Bites. The screen shows a slide of the HFEA's Data Dashboard. Photo by @paulclarke.com PD's Amanda Smith presents at Data Bites. Photo by @paulclarke.com Full Fact's Andy Dudfield presents at Data Bites. Photo by @paulclarke.com
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duncanjbrown.com
Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · Jan 12
Awful. I’m so sorry to hear this ❤️
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Reposted by Duncan Brown
andreasthinks.me
AndreasThinks @andreasthinks.me · Jan 8
If you're interested in UK #govtech or #opendata, the Incubator for AI have just open-sourced this like of "Awesome UK Government Datasets" and are looking for contributors!

github.com/i-dot-ai/awe...
GitHub - i-dot-ai/awesome-gov-datasets: A curated set of references to useful UK Government datasets
A curated set of references to useful UK Government datasets - GitHub - i-dot-ai/awesome-gov-datasets: A curated set of references to useful UK Government datasets
github.com
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duncanjbrown.com
Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · Jan 6
Yes
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Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · Jan 3
There are many other expressive quotes and some quite striking charts in this paper, some of them rather provocatively placed:
A chart showing prison self-harm rates, set in a paragraph analysing of the financial-managerial structure of the Prison Service
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duncanjbrown.com
Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · Jan 3
They argue that a "shit... cheap" system with was not wished for, but is a consequence of centralising. You cannot centralise the edges, and it is not at all trivial to discriminate between functions that belong at the "centre" or the "edge". Ministers are not incentivised to think about this.
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duncanjbrown.com
Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · Jan 3
The authors conclude that "A hyper-centralised governance approach involving performance budgeting elided over the intricate linkages between financial management and operational concerns as a driver of improved policy outcomes."
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duncanjbrown.com
Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · Jan 3
"performance management" provides feedback to the centre. But the more distant the metric, the less effective:

"Are people safe, i.e., not dying? … Let’s use those expectations as our measure for what we need to be achieving because the targets are so bloody complex and convoluted." - PGD
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duncanjbrown.com
Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · Jan 3
Staff, recruited on worse Ts & Cs than those who had originally been cut, churned faster:

"The retention issues that we have around staff well-being means that we don’t invest in staff well-being, so people leave us traumatised a year or two after they start" - Prison Group Director
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duncanjbrown.com
Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · Jan 3
Post-2010, austerity destroyed this model: the centre took control of budgets. A former senior Prison Service official mentions the ‘unspoken Treasury mantra’ that ‘if something is shit it better be cheap’, admitting ‘we’ve ended up with a prison system which meets both of those criteria actually’.
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Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · Jan 3
But letting competent managers assign budgets improved outcomes — even when budgets were constrained:

"A former DG admitted that the Prison Service had a "very flabby budget" — this allowed senior managers to "cope with a number of demands simply by becoming more efficient"
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duncanjbrown.com
Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · Jan 3
New Labour adopted "Public Service Agreements": aims negotiated between depts and Treasury, with "earned autonomy" for good outcomes. How did that go?

"there will be areas where affordability and value for money just conflict... at the end of the day the money is adding up" (former HMT official)
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duncanjbrown.com
Duncan Brown @duncanjbrown.com · Jan 3
When the Prison Service was created as an Executive Agency in 1993, reforms tackled poor financial management. However, "cost" was the one objective.

"as you get more and more overcrowding so would unit costs come down which is actually very popular with the Treasury" - former PS Director General
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