Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Lara Groves

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 1d

NVIDIA and OpenAi:

Concerns that their “increasingly complex and interconnected web of business transactions is artificially propping up the trillion-dollar AI boom.“

@bloomberg.com $NVDA 👀
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

140 750 2.1K

Reposted by Lara Groves

michael veale @michae.lv · 8d

Either real-time bidding data or app SDK data is being bought and used by ICE to seize people from the streets. If you didn’t believe that the adtech stack is a human rights concern, I’m not sure what more evidence you need. www.404media.co/ice-to-buy-t...

ICE to Buy Tool that Tracks Locations of Hundreds of Millions of Phones Every Day

Documents show that ICE has gone back on its decision to not use location data remotely harvested from peoples' phones. The database is updated every day with billions of pieces of location data.

www.404media.co

6 190 320

Reposted by Lara Groves

Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 16d

It would be good if the only political pushback against Nigel Farage's plans to mass deport hundreds of thousands of our neighbours, friends, family and colleagues didn't just come from a handful of backbench MPs and one regional mayor

54 510 1.9K

Reposted by Lara Groves

Matt Davies @halcyene.bsky.social · 20d

The headlines — £31bn in investment, new jobs, faster medical treatments — sound almost too good to be true. What are we giving up in return?

Me in @theguardian.com on today's US-UK Tech Deal:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The UK’s £31bn tech deal with the US might sound great – but the government has to answer these questions | Matt Davies

The big firms making these pledges are not charities. We know there will be a quid pro quo; we just don’t know what it is yet, says Matt Davies of the Ada Lovelace Institute

www.theguardian.com

1 16 24

Reposted by Lara Groves

Rob 🏳️‍🌈 @rotster.bsky.social · 25d

Met Police’s policy on when they use oppressive facial recognition technology is made pretty clear here…

✅ Black community celebration / event

❌ White supremacist rally

From BBC live news ticker:

Police are not using live facial recognition in its policing of the 'Unite the Kingdom' demonstration which is beginning on London's south bank, reports the PA news agency.
It said:
• We're using a mobile CCTV van to help monitor the build up of crowds.
Officers have been asked if it's using 'live facial recognition' - we can confirm it is not.
The live facial recognition technology - which captures people's faces in real-time CCTV cameras - was used in the policing operation at the Notting
Hill carnival.

2 79 160

Reposted by Lara Groves

Kendra Albert @kendraserra.bsky.social · 27d

Very glad to see that someone is doing the important work of aligning AI alignment. alignmentalignment.ai

Center for the Alignment of AI Alignment Centers

We align the aligners

alignmentalignment.ai

22 110 410

Reposted by Lara Groves

good hyuck, babe! @markpopham.bsky.social · Sep 9

hey im putting something together for my boss for his birthday. yeah can you write a letter or better yet an insane poem or horrifying drawing about the unspeakable crimes you all have committed together

20 850 5.3K

Reposted by Lara Groves

Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte @turnbulldugarte.com · Sep 5

Radical right accommodation really does not work.

New paper out with this exceptionally talented team
@katharinalawall.bsky.social @robjohns75.bsky.social @drjennings.bsky.social @sarahobolt.bsky.social @zachdickson.bsky.social @danjdevine.bsky.social & @jack-bailey.co.uk

doi.org/10.31235/osf...

58 990 2.2K

Reposted by Lara Groves

Jeni Tennison @jenitennison.com · Sep 4

Please apply for / pass on this vacancy with @tuc.org.uk!

You'll be working with the brilliant @adamc-c.bsky.social and with us @connectedbydata.org to ensure workers' voices are an effective countervailing force that shape the adoption of AI.

tuc.current-vacancies.com/Jobs/Advert/...

Policy and Campaigns Officer - London

Policy & Campaigns Officer, Technology and Artificial Intelligence Grade 6 £44,228 per annum (pro rata), plus London Weighting £6,154 per annum (pro rata) Temporary – 18 months, Four days (28 hours)...

tuc.current-vacancies.com

12 4

Reposted by Lara Groves

Ian Betteridge @ianbetteridge.com · Sep 3

1. Incitement to violence is a serious offence, carrying a sentence of up to six months in prison.

2. What's it got to do with the health secretary?

3. I'm sure if I posted that Wes Streeting needed a good kicking, he would be very eager to send the cops round.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Police should focus on ‘streets not tweets’, says Wes Streeting after Graham Linehan arrest

Health secretary criticises Tory policing record after Father Ted co-creator arrested over posts on transgender issues

www.theguardian.com

37 180 540

Lara Groves @laragroves.bsky.social · Sep 2

Keir Starmer: cut me and I bleed union j

Lara Groves @laragroves.bsky.social · Aug 21

the level of disorder on show in the UK right now in terms of kneejerk conspirational thinking against every possible intervention or source of authority is quite the concern!!

Mollie Goodfellow @hansmollman.bsky.social · Aug 21

Incredible comment on a story about building a new school

1

Reposted by Lara Groves

Christopher Mims @mims.bsky.social · Aug 19

Spending on AI data centers is now so great that it’s crowding out investment in housing and other critical parts of the real economy, through higher energy costs and by propping up interest rates, argues The Economist

economist.com/finance-and-...

The trouble is that the very sector powering so much of America’s economic growth is squeezing the rest of its output. Housebuilders, for instance, cannot afford to be blithe about higher borrowing costs. Data centres have also constrained the rest of the economy by keeping energy prices high. Average American electricity bills have risen by 7% so far in 2025, at least in part because of the extra strain data centres have put on the grid.

Chart showing investment in AI infrastructure shooting up as investment in other parts of the economy declines

9 86 170

Reposted by Lara Groves

David Wearing @davidwearing.bsky.social · Aug 20

Far right demagoguery - thanks to crucial, repeated validation from the political mainstream - has painted a target on the back of every man of colour in this country.

Everyone knows what is likely to happen next.

Musa Okwonga @okwonga.bsky.social · Aug 20

Family in fear after Tommy Robinson shares video of black man with white granddaughters.

Exclusive: Olajuwon Ayeni racially abused and falsely labelled a paedophile as far right weaponises clip of family in park

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Family in fear after Tommy Robinson shares video of black man with white granddaughters

Exclusive: Olajuwon Ayeni racially abused and falsely labelled a paedophile as far right weaponises clip of family in park

www.theguardian.com

3 67 140

Reposted by Lara Groves

Matt Davies @halcyene.bsky.social · Aug 13

Interesting work from Turing, adding to the growing evidence that significant performance gains — and possibly real-world utility — can still be gleaned from smaller and previous-generation foundation models

www.turing.ac.uk/blog/why-we-...

Why we still need small language models – even in the age of frontier AI

Lean, locally run models can unlock huge benefits for public sector and compute-constrained environments

www.turing.ac.uk

1 18 30

Lara Groves @laragroves.bsky.social · Aug 11

resonates with what we're finding in forthcoming Ada research on transcription tools in social work.

these tools are being rolled out without systematic evaluation, often with a singular theory of change -'productivity gains' - which risks obscuring other important impacts on work & care

1 5

Reposted by Lara Groves

Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · Aug 10

Last month, Anas al-Sharif sounded the alarm on starvation in Gaza. Israel accused him of terrorism.

"We warned this felt like a precursor to justify assassination," said Jodie Ginsberg of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Today he was killed in a targeted strike on a tent housing reporters.

Israel murders five Al Jazeera staff in Gaza, including Anas al-Sharif

Al-Sharif was killed along with Mohammed Qreiqeh two cameramen and an assistant in an Israeli attack on Gaza City.

www.aljazeera.com

13 400 680

Reposted by Lara Groves

David Henig @davidheniguk.bsky.social · Aug 10

Arresting 400+ people for the "terrorist" offence of protesting against mass murder while large segments of the right are openly encouraging riots against immigrants is a tale of a very unhappy country and government.

110 1.2K 4K

Reposted by Lara Groves

Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · Aug 2

'It is less that AI is the cause of degradation in reading and thinking, and more that the creation of a culture that views knowledge primarily in an instrumental manner has made it easier to misuse AI.'

AI thrives where education has been devalued | The Observer

A culture that views knowledge as a means to an end invites the misuse of new technology

observer.co.uk

2 110 260

Lara Groves @laragroves.bsky.social · Jul 31

fascinating paper on 'character training' LLMs - models fine-tuned to be 'warmer' are significantly more likely to promote conspiracy theories or validate incorrect facts, particularly when users express sadness 🤯 arxiv.org/abs/2507.21919

Training language models to be warm and empathetic makes them less reliable and more sycophantic

Artificial intelligence (AI) developers are increasingly building language models with warm and empathetic personas that millions of people now use for advice, therapy, and companionship. Here, we sho...

arxiv.org

1 1 5

Reposted by Lara Groves

Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · Feb 19

Stand by this: www.politico.com/newsletters/...

What’s a technology that you think is overhyped?

I’m going to give a sideways answer to this, which is that the venture capital business model needs to be understood as requiring hype. You can go back to the Netscape IPO, and that was the proof point that made venture capital the financial lifeblood of the tech industry.

Venture capital looks at valuations and growth, not necessarily at profit or revenue. So you don’t actually have to invest in technology that works, or that even makes a profit, you simply have to have a narrative that is compelling enough to float those valuations. So you see this repetitive and exhausting hype cycle as a feature in this industry. A couple of years ago, you would have been asking me about the metaverse, then last year, you would have asked me about Web3 and crypto, and for each of these inflection points there’s an Andreessen Horowitz manifesto.

It’s not simply that one piece of technology is overhyped, it’s that hype is a necessary ingredient of the current business ecosystem of the tech industry. We should examine how often the financial incentive for hype is rewarded without any real social returns, without any meaningful progress in technology, without these tools and services and worlds ever actually manifesting. That’s key to understanding the growing chasm between the narrative of techno-optimists and the reality of our tech-encumbered world.

160 3.2K 9.8K

Reposted by Lara Groves

michael veale @michae.lv · Jul 31

The Online Safety Act assumes that all tech, social networks, etc, are run by big tech, raking in profit from illegal advertising. Community-run and funded networks/sites — real non-Big Tech alternatives — are left in the dirt. I have never seen OSA proponents consider their needs or their value.

Online Safety Act Network @osanetwork.bsky.social · Jul 31

Amid all the noise of the last week, this is a vital reminder from Chris Sherwood @nspcc.bsky.social as to why we have the #onlinesafetyact, why parents and campaigners backed it and why it had broad cross-party support in Parliament when it passed. ⬇️ www.politicshome.com/opinion/arti...

If anything, the Online Safety Act doesn't go far enough

It’s deeply concerning to see the rhetoric around the Online Safety Act shift toward loss of free expression, writes the NSPCC chief executive

www.politicshome.com

3 46 110

Reposted by Lara Groves

Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · Jul 24

This, and it doesn't work.

Now, it is possible to address the harms of mass engagement-driven platforms. But doing so requires pushing back on the core biz models of the platforms, not tinkering on the edges w surveillant 'solutions' that increase surveillance w/o addressing the root cause.

Eerke Boiten @eerkeboiten.bsky.social · Jul 24

It is my opinion that introducing age verification now is irresponsible, mainly because we have now reached the point where Western governments *are* using "the database state" and exploiting online surveillance to be repressive - just as privacy activists warned for decades. This applies to UK & US

13 290 770

Reposted by Lara Groves

Kobi Hackenburg @kobihackenburg.bsky.social · Jul 21

Today (w/ @ox.ac.uk @stanford @MIT @LSE) we’re sharing the results of the largest AI persuasion experiments to date: 76k participants, 19  LLMs, 707 political issues.

We examine “levers” of AI persuasion: model scale, post-training, prompting, personalization, & more!

🧵:

10 56 110