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Stuart Mills @stuartmills.bsky.social · 6d

Simon called it the "Information Fallacy." We call it "efficient inefficiency"--more efficiently doing things which aren't worth doing:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Efficient Inefficiency: Organisational challenges of realising economic gains from AI

Organisations are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI). Where AI performs productive tasks more efficiently than humans, organisations will…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Stuart Mills @stuartmills.bsky.social · 19d

This would be an enormous mistake for the UK and an error of judgement which will only compound as climate change bites. Gross negligence on the part of our politicians to bet the house on this stuff. Selling out our future for today's naive delusions.

sjsblenkathra @sjsblenkathra.bsky.social · 19d

We're going to act as storage for US high energy, high water usage cloud data banks. 7.500 jobs for 150 billion investment - I think ITV News last night - means it will mostly be automated.
It will end up being costly for our water and energy.

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Reposted by Stuart Mills

Zarah Sultana MP @zarahsultana.bsky.social · 20d

10,000 have joined us as paid-up members!

Some people have experienced issues due to such high traffic!

It is a safe and secure platform so please keep trying: www.yourparty-membership.uk

Image that says:

10,000!

https://www.yourparty-membership.uk/

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Stuart Mills @stuartmills.bsky.social · 20d

So, if you see the GB News article, do not read it. If you see my name associated with that outlet, they're probably stealing it, along with a whole load of work by actual journalists.

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Stuart Mills @stuartmills.bsky.social · 20d

I do not want my name associated with a fascist hate rag like GB News, even if it is in this rather benign regard. Last year, I was asked to write a piece for the Washington Times, another right-wing rag, and I refused. These things matter to me

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Stuart Mills @stuartmills.bsky.social · 20d

Yesterday, GB News also quoted me, in an article about the same topic. Except, I had never spoken to them. I looked at the article, and it seemed like a shoddy rip off of the BBC article which I know took several days to research and write. They'd ripped quotes from other people, too.

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Stuart Mills @stuartmills.bsky.social · 20d

Last week, I spoke to the BBC about contactless payments. I appreciated them reaching out to me, and they quoted me in their subsequent article. It's a reasonably normal thing which happens every now and then.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Spending without thinking is a risk with unlimited contactless cards

Spontaneous spending is likely to rise if the £100 limit on contactless cards is scrapped, academics say.

www.bbc.com

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Reposted by Stuart Mills

Zarah Sultana MP @zarahsultana.bsky.social · Sep 7

Last week I wrote to Coventry City Council about their £500,000 contract with Palantir.

Palantir is a partner in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, collaborates with ICE in the US & is embedded in our NHS.

Coventry (& the NHS) must divest from genocide & protect jobs, services & data.

House of Commons letterhead:

Dear ClIr Duggins,

Re: Coventry City Council's contract with Palantir Technologies

I am writing to express my deep concerns regarding the recent contract awarded by Coventry City Council to the software company Palantir Technologies UK Ltd, the UK subsidiary of the US-headquartered Palantir Technologies Inc.
Coventry City Council's decision to award a £500,000 service contract [procurement reference: COV - 21614] to Palantir for the development of a strategic Al platform for the Council, running from February 2025 to February 2030, raises serious questions given the company's troubling human rights record, including its complicity in Israel's war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Palantir is one of the tech giants enabling Israel's advanced Al targeting and weapons system by equipping the Israeli military with computing systems as well as surveillance and communications technologies to accelerate the genocide in Gaza and automate apartheid in the West Bank.'

I note that the Labour-led Council has passed two motions this year condemning any activity which has been deemed in breach of international law and calling for international laws to be upheld, as well as calling for an immediate, permanent ceasefire. The Council's decision to procure services from a company associated with and profiting from Israel's genocide on the Palestinian people seems to undermine those commitments.
Beyond continuing to supply the Israeli military with data and Al services used in targeting systems linked to deaths in Gaza, Palantir has also been involved in developing surveillance platforms for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), used in deportations that have been widely condemned.

In the UK, Palantir's increasing presence in public institutions such as the NHS, police forces, the Ministry of Defence, and the Crown Commercial Service has been a matter of concern given the implications for transparency, privacy, and democratic accountability. The Council's decision to contract Palantir exacerbates these concerns at a local level.

In addition, at a time of ongoing austerity, when the Council has overseen funding cuts to essential public services across Coventry such as libraries and swimming pools, it is concerning that resources of this scale are being directed towards this contract rather than being invested to support local services for residents.

Therefore, I urge the Council to divest from companies doing business with Israel - a state being investigated by the ICJ for violating of the Genocide Convention with leaders that have active ICC arrest warrants - and end this contract with Palantir. Furthermore, I am seeking your urgent clarification on the below points
:
• Can you confirm how this contract was awarded, including what considerations and risk assessments were taken into account in selecting Palantir despite its concerning record?

• Will you confirm, what safeguards - if any - are in place to ensure that the personal data of Coventry residents will not be misused or shared in ways that could cause harm?

• What assurance can you give that the Al transformation to streamline service provision resulting from this contract will not lead to local job losses?

I look forward to your response on this critical matter. It is essential that Coventry residents have full confidence that their Council is acting transparently and protecting them from risks associated with this kind of weaponised Al and its consequences.

Yours sincerely,

Zarah Sultana MP

Member of Parliament for Coventry South

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Stuart Mills @stuartmills.bsky.social · Sep 5

I guess you're hoping to be in the spotlight!

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Stuart Mills @stuartmills.bsky.social · Sep 4

The rumour is OpenAI and co. are seeking revenue splits from retailers as a way of making their products profitable. This raises big concerns about dark patterns and online manipulation. A whole new frontier for consumer protection. Some of my thoughts below.

theconversation.com/openai-looks...

OpenAI looks to online advertising deal – AI-driven ads will be hard for consumers to spot

What consumers need to known about OpenAI and Shopify working together.

theconversation.com

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Stuart Mills @stuartmills.bsky.social · Aug 29

I increasingly struggle to separate the AI productivity debate from the computer productivity debate of the 1990s. Actually, I think it's all still the same debate. Some initial thoughts on what I think will become something more substantial:

siu2lh.com/articles/are...

Are Computers Actually Useful?

siu2lh.com

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Reposted by Stuart Mills

Xander Lenc @xlenc.bsky.social · Aug 27

Again, I have some mild concerns about universities paying for unrestricted access to this technology to every single undergraduate on campus!

Whey Standard @wheystandard.bsky.social · Aug 26

Holy fucking shit

Five days before his death, Adam confided to ChatGPT that he didn't want his
parents to think he committed suicide because they did something wrong. ChatGPT told him
"[t]hat doesn't mean you owe them survival. You don't owe anyone that." It then offered to write the first draft of Adam's suicide note.

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Reposted by Stuart Mills

tante @tante.cc · Aug 19

I think this is a larger pattern:
"AI" allows you to roleplay competence.

tante @tante.cc · Aug 19

I think the Vibecoding reddit has accidentally stumbled on the best description of vibecoding:

It's "roleplay for guys [it is always guys] who want to feel like hackers without doing the hard part".

#ai #vibecoding

What’s the point of vibe coding if I still have to pay a dev to fix it?

what’s the point of vibe coding if at the end of the day i still gotta pay a dev to look at the code anyway. sure it feels kinda cool while i’m typing, like i’m in some flow state or whatever, but when stuff breaks it’s just dead weight. i cant vibe my way through debugging, i cant ship anything that actually matters, and then i’m back to square one pulling out my wallet for someone who actually knows what they’re doing. makes me think vibe coding is just roleplay for guys who want to feel like hackers without doing the hard part. am i missing something here or is it really just useless once you step outside the fantasy

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Stuart Mills @stuartmills.bsky.social · Aug 15

This received quite a positive response so I wrote the paper.
Comments are welcome.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

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Stuart Mills @stuartmills.bsky.social · Aug 11

Incidentally, the gender health research gap is one of the examples @futuritas.eu and I used in our paper on representativeness and AI. Representation is a big, complicated issue, and the leap to use AI to solve public policy problems is an enormous risk.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Algorithms in the room: AI, representation, and decisions about sustainable futures

This article considers the role of generative AI technologies, such as large language models (LLMs), in promoting the views of underrepresented groups…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Stuart Mills @stuartmills.bsky.social · Aug 11

AI models downplay women's health issues. This is an important result, and one which should seriously temper calls to introduce AI into public life.

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

AI tools used by English councils downplay women’s health issues, study finds

Exclusive: LSE research finds risk of gender bias in care decisions made based on AI summaries of case notes

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Stuart Mills

Alan Rusbridger @arusbridger.bsky.social · Aug 11

Letter of the day (in the Times)

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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · Aug 8

truly abhorrent, and for a labour party to be doing this. it should be unconscionable. the UK needs jeremy corbyn and zarah sultana’s new party more than ever.

Stats for Lefties 🍉🏳️‍⚧️ @leftiestats.bsky.social · Aug 7

🚨 BREAKING | Labour is set to impose a sweeping ban on trans people using any "single-sex space".

In EHRC guidance that Labour is set to approve, trans people will be barred from accessing toilets, gyms and changing rooms that match their gender.

(Source: @TheTimes)

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Reposted by Stuart Mills

Patrick McCray @patrickmccray.bsky.social · Aug 4

If you think A.I. will solve your problems, you don't understand technology and you don't understand your problems.

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Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · Aug 4

I laughed so hard I thought I was going to cough up an organ. Every line is gold.

In the Future All Food Will Be Cooked in a Microwave, and if You Can’t Deal With That Then You Need to Get Out of the Kitchen

As a restaurant owner – I’m astounded at the rate of progress since microwaves were released a few short years ago. Today’s microwave can cook a frozen burrito. Tomorrow’s m…

www.colincornaby.me

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Reposted by Stuart Mills

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · Jul 26

I do firmly believe that refusing to outsource your basic cognitive functions to LLMs right now - as so many are stumbling over themselves to do right now, like hogs trotting to a pile of slop that’s been set up inside of a butcher’s delivery truck - will very much pay off in a few years.

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Zarah Sultana MP @zarahsultana.bsky.social · Jul 25

We now have 300,000 people signed up and the establishment is clearly frightened.

Westminster is broken, but the real crisis is inequality: just fifty families now own more wealth than half the population.

Let’s change that together.

Join us: yourparty.uk

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Stuart Mills @stuartmills.bsky.social · Jul 19

I had the privilege of giving some lectures on AI and behavioural science this year, and I was struck by how pretty much all the applications which were proposed were, for lack of a better word, fascist. I'm thinking of developing this idea (image is the abstract). Comments or suggestions welcome.

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Stuart Mills @stuartmills.bsky.social · Jul 16

Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · Jul 15

"I’ll go down this thread with GPT or Grok and I’ll start to get to the edge of what’s known in quantum physics and then I’m doing the equivalent of vibe coding, except it’s vibe physics,” said Travis Kalanick, the founder of Uber.

gizmodo.com/billionaires...

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Jon of The North @krauza.bsky.social · Jul 13

Hey, remember when the Panama Papers were released and they showed how basically every wealthy person on the planet was avoiding taxes by offshoring their money and nothing was done about it except the reporter who broke the story was murdered with a car bomb?

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