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Matt Davies

@halcyene.bsky.social

4.3K followers 894 following 131 posts

Data/AI policy @adalovelaceinst.bsky.social (Political) philosophy of tech @lsegovernment.bsky.social @lsepoltheory.bsky.social Views my own 🔮✨ 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Posts Replies Media

Matt Davies @halcyene.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

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Matt Davies @halcyene.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

The line from ministers (and the companies themselves) is that these agreements are non-binding and exploratory, simply about identifying "opportunities". As @imogen-parker.bsky.social has recently highlighted, though, it's difficult to square this with government ambitions on AI sovereignty...

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Matt Davies @halcyene.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

We'd like to see more light shone on existing relationships between UK government and AI companies, and on measures that could reduce dependence by providing alternative, genuinely independent sources of expertise

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Matt Davies @halcyene.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Their analysis finds widely-held public concerns about about the power and profits of technology companies involved in public services — suggesting that ministers ought to be cautious about the risk of growing technological dependence on private industry

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Matt Davies @halcyene.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

Wonderful commemoration of Irish Chartist and radical Bronterre O'Brien at Abney Park Trust's annual memorial lecture — feat. @lsepoltheory.bsky.social's very own @brunoleipold.com

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Matt Davies @halcyene.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Also worth noting this — absolutely wild — quote from TBI policy guru Benedict Macon-Cooney:

Screenshot of text from an article reading: "Macon-Cooney says Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” in the US proves the public is “ ready for a radical modernisation agenda of the state”."

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Matt Davies @halcyene.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

Wonderful passage from Suzuki, which Feenberg uses to illustrate the difference between reification ("addressing the world in technical terms") and de-reification ("transforming the terms in which the world is addressed")

Screenshot reading: "Masamune flourished in the latter part of the Kamakura era, and his works are uniformly prized by all the sword connoisseurs for their excellent qualities. As far as the edge of the blade is concerned, Masamune may not exceed Muramasa, one of his ablest disciplines, but Masamune is said to have something morally inspiring that comes from his personality. The legend goes thus: When someone was trying to test the sharpness of a Muramasa, he placed it in a current of water and watched how it acted against the dead leaves flowing downstream. He saw that every leaf that met the blade was cut in twain. He then placed a Masamune, and he was surprised to find that the leaves avoided the blade. The Masamune was not bent on killing, it was more than a cutting implement, whereas the Muramasa could not go beyond cutting, there was nothing divinely inspiring in it. The Muramasa is terrible, the Masamune is humane. One is despotic and imperialistic, the other is superhuman, if we may use this form of expression."

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Matt Davies @halcyene.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Buzzed for Abney Park's Radical Writers events programme, talking place over the course of 2025 — super varied lineup feat. @hackneyabbott.bsky.social, Iain Sinclair, @sarahsteinlubrano.bsky.social and @brunoleipold.com, among others. Details and ticket links below 🤩✒️✊ abneypark.org/radicalwriters

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Matt Davies @halcyene.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

Great to be at @lsehealthpolicy.bsky.social earlier today to hear from the brilliant @mbarber.bsky.social on access to medicines, the "real" cost of making drugs, and the range of tools policymakers have to reduce prices — from antitrust enforcement to pricing regulation and public production 💉💊

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Matt Davies @halcyene.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

To make sense of this complex picture, we group initiatives into four broad families with their own strengths and drawbacks. We hope this high-level typology will bring some clarity to the public compute debate, and help policymakers to consider which approach is appropriate for their aims 3/5

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Matt Davies @halcyene.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

We map public compute initiatives globally, surveying their varied aims, delivery models and hardware architectures. Not all public compute projects are equally "public": they range from direct state provision to subsidies and voucher schemes, which afford fewer levers for public control 2/5

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Matt Davies @halcyene.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

Including a pretty good resolution for AI policymakers and commentators to take into 2025:

Screenshot of text reading: In light of this, our suggestion — to everyone, but especially journalists, policymakers, and the AI community — is to end the deference to insiders' views when they predict the future of technology, especially its societal impacts. This will take effort, as there is a pervasive unconscious bias in the U.S., in the form of a “distinctly American disease that seems to equate extreme wealth, and the power that comes with it, with virtue and intelligence.” (from Bryan Gardiner’s review of Marietje Schake’s The Tech Coup.)

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Matt Davies @halcyene.bsky.social · 25/12/2023

Happy Christmas! 🎄🐶

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