Just heard about Robert Skidelsky's death.
I never had the privilege to meet the him, but his work on Keynes taught me so much, not the least, the beauty of deep scholarship. His later work on economic philosophy retained subtle and subversive ideas that are sadly missing in so much economics.
They make EVERYTHING worse. Ban, tax, whatever, but acknowledge it already
Starmer doing a Starmerism of broadly identifying the problem, and then addressing it with vague platitudes. A dash of populist rhetoric, too.
It won't work. Managerialism =/= Leadership.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” -Trump
Article III
The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
if Wikipedia, an org with a shoestring budget and volunteer workforce can ban use of llms, what excuse do large orgs and universities have
Quite stark hearing how Bloomberg question @meadwaj.bsky.social when talking about wealth taxes and institutional reform, versus how they question hedge fund managers, central bankers, and investment bankers.
Class interests are a powerful thing.
Just finished teaching my last policy economics class of the year. We had a brilliant guest lecture from Professor Ben Clift on the OBR, and he even signed my copy of his book!
Key takeaways: crisis is the new normal. Economics needs to keep up. An easy win: invest in renewables, keep bills down.
> 17,400 businesses raided by UK ICE
> car wash owner raided every three months, despite no illegal workers being found.
> based on anonymous online tip-offs
> former ICE officer says it’s often “competitors within the local area” filling out the forms
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
It's very convenient to have a 5-day pause at the start of the 5-day trading week.
You know how in a library no one’s trying to sell you anything?
That’s how the internet was.
Overall, our results suggest that sustained human development did not begin suddenly in the 19th century. Instead, it emerged earlier and gradually, across several civilizations, over many centuries. Industrialization appears as a late acceleration of longer processes.
“The ‘privatisation premium’, according to an analysis by the Common Wealth thinktank, sees almost a quarter of the average household energy bill – roughly £450 – flow today into corporate profits.”
Our latest briefing covered in @theguardian.com 👇
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
There is definitely a strategic play here for China and Russia to exploit the fuel starved Asian tigers and weaken America's position in the Pacific. Russia must surely be mulling over how to exert pain on Europe and strengthen their Ukraine position, too.
The long twentieth century is over.
The UK's permission for the US to use its bases in attacking Iran amounts to complicity in the crime of aggression. It drags us into what could be an endless war, without democratic or even parliamentary consent.
Allowing British bases to be used in an illegal war of aggression is a catastrophic and historic mistake.
Britain has been dragged into another war because our Prime Minister would rather appease Donald Trump than stand up for international law.
Why is everything now gambling? Because alternative ways of 'getting ahead' no longer exist.
Why are public holidays now such big deals? Because there are fewer opportunities to achieve (and celebrate) personal successes.
And yes, why do (some) people obsess about the gym? Well...
Besides the obvious, horrible, systemic risk that embedding AI into critical systems demonstrates...
...dude, is organisaing your desktop really something you need AI to do? Really?
Higher house prices not only add to household debt but also increase the need to work for longer. We can’t imagine a future of less work while housing costs keep on rising www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Ivan Illich's radical monopoly: You can buy the product from many different vendors, but you must buy it from someone.
For those I've been discussing this with earlier - a new version of the AI/AGI and the social contract paper. Feedback very much appreciated. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
Thrilled to share a new paper with @stuartmills.bsky.social &
@casssunstein.bsky.social. The paper discusses ManipulationDetect (previously NudgeDetect), a tool I launched a few months ago that uses LLMs to highlight 'manipulative' practices online.
ideas.repec.org/p/not/notcdx...
New podcast episode: AI Bubble Economics 101! (W/Stuart Mills)
A word that is increasingly being discussed is "bubble". But what is a bubble really, are we in an AI bubble now, and if we are: what’s next?
Have a listen, share widely!
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a...
2025 is coming to end and some people who claim not to be fascists are still associating themselves with fascist outlets like X.
I claim, perhaps charitably, that it's because they don't understand how the internet works. Either way, this needs to change.
berjon.com/fascintern-m...
I've been thinking about three categories of what I'm calling AI Epistemicide. Basically, how AI destroys human ways of knowing. I'll check out the book, and I think the idea of epistemia is interesting, too. Thanks!
The worse one I've had was a reviewer asking for additions because 'in the future, so and so difficult problem with AI might be solved.'
In the past couple of years, both editors and reviewers have been pushing for 'bothsides' additions to my papers which are critical of AI. For editors, I get it's a hedging strategy. I think reviewers should be more attentive of when they're doing it, though.
Interesting! We are getting better at doing the wrong things! Drucker would have a few few things to say.... "There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all."
I have a new paper in the BMJ Open. We find 71% of GP surgeries do not follow NHS guidance around patient registration. The guidance says patients do not need documents like photo ID, but many surgeries demand them. This will reduce people's access to care.
bmjopen.bmj.com/content/15/1...
"One feature of capitalism is its ability to create work for people to do. A world without work is incompatible with capitalism," says me in this piece on AI and job loss - heartening to see a link to my book here www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture...
Average percentage of US firms using any kind of AI to produce goods and services, plotted against average percentage of US firms anticipating they will use AI to produce goods and services in the next six months. Expectations are consistently higher than reality. Data from the US Census Bureau Trends and Outlooks Survey. Calculations my own.
Something I'm working on:
1) On average, only 9% of US firms were using any form of AI to produce products in September
2) US firms are consistently overestimate the rates of AI adoption (dotted line)
3) Expectations are maybe(?) starting to outpace reality...