Very sad to learn that Radio 4's The World Tonight is to be killed off in the latest round of BBC cuts. It has a long and honourable history as one of the more thoughtful BBC news programmes and I am proud to have been associated with it for more than twenty years.

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness... The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance” ― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

UChicago announced today that it had partnered with AI company Anthropic to give students, faculty, and staff access to Claude Enterprise services on a rolling basis starting in July. All University community members will have access by fall quarter. Story to come.

It’s okay for the Tories/Times/Telegraph to pretend that taxes are up “because of welfare”. That’s politics. But if you care about policy you need to understand that is a long way from the truth - and wrestle with the consequences

Google CEO tries to tell University students to love AI. They tell him to BOO off. This is what most people think of the hated AI, we don't want it.

AI being booed in commencement addresses seems pretty natural to me. It's really, really unusual for the people building and selling a new technology to promise that it will destroy people's livelihoods. Whether you consider this to be "horrendous marketing," or "actually, a craven justification for VC investment" or "really, just honest communication" or "rationally over-emphasizing the probability of a long-tail catatrophic outcome" or whatever else, the point is ... it's very unusual. I think today's 22yos should probably familiarize themselves with Claude and ChatGPT, but I don't entirely blame them for booing a technology whose architects have said, this will destroy your jobs.

Hundreds of people have been lining up outside Swatch stores in London, Zurich, New York, Singapore, Bangkok, and Osaka, desperate to get their hands on the Audemars Piguet x Swatch collab. Retailing for around $400, it's going to sell out fast and then appear on eBay for thousands Welcome to the latest craze