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David Smith

@preoccupations.bsky.social
406 followers 596 following 552 posts
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Reposted by David Smith
Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 10h
As a heads-up: every firm's customer service agents are about to be overwhelmed with Dots & Muses negotiating for better deals using voice/chat channels made for humans. Stories of people delegating this sort of work to their agents & saving money are popping up and are going to only go more viral.
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David Smith @preoccupations.bsky.social · 15h
www.bankofengland.co.uk/bank-insight...
bankofengland.co.uk
Frontier AI and the question of governance
To realise the benefits of artificial intelligence but also mitigate any risks, humans must retain the ability to intervene and set boundaries.
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Reposted by David Smith
Dan Holley @danholley.bsky.social · 22h
It was an exceptionally warm night across the UK for late September, with some stations recording 22°C during the early hours. The temperature has been rising all through the night at Edinburgh, for example. Red box highlights just how much last night stands out from individual site records.
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David Smith @preoccupations.bsky.social · 20h
www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
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Helen Barnard @helenbarnard.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Current gov inherited: - Economy still flatlining - Public finances weak (debt nearly 100% of GDP vs 35% when New Labour came in) - Public services doing poorly. + public & business feel overtaxed (even if average earners really aren't). + v volatile international context. Governing on hard mode.
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Helen Barnard @helenbarnard.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Always worth remembering what different governments inherit: - New Labour: healthy economy & public finances, but public services in a poor state - Conservatives/Coalition: economy still flatlining after the financial crash & weak public finances but public services doing well
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EmDash CMS @emdashcms.com · 28/09/2026
Oh look, that's us!
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David Smith @preoccupations.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
www.ft.com/content/7af7...
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
We are talking about a radical transformation of the understanding of self for this to get off the ground.
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David Smith @preoccupations.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
www.ft.com/content/c768...
ft.com
Anthropic warns of ‘existential risks to humanity’ in IPO prospectus
Long-awaited S1 filing reports Claude maker lost $8bn last year on $4.6bn in revenue
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Reposted by David Smith
Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Those who think AI is going to largely automate white collar jobs in the next couple of years don’t understand the nature of work - @sarahoconnorft.ft.com nails it www.ft.com/content/4aad...
It is not obvious that AI agents could eliminate the need for this type of work, since it involves persuasion, contestation and the exchange of tacit knowledge and experience that is spread across different departments, and often exists inside people's heads rather than in a neatly codified handbook on the intranet.
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David Smith @preoccupations.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
simonwillison.net/2026/Sep/24/...
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Reposted by David Smith
Ted Underwood @tedunderwood.com · 28/09/2026
True for me too, and in the educational context I can see it emerging as a limiting factor for students. Ambitious undergrads can now do much more than they can explain; impressive half-baked projects tend to pile up.
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Reposted by David Smith
Simon Willison @simonwillison.net · 28/09/2026
I really like how @reckless.bsky.social described this: "The people do not yearn for automation" www.theverge.com/podcast/9170...
theverge.com
BEWARE SOFTWARE BRAIN
Software brain is changing the world, but most people still aren’t buying.
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JWexTheSpa @jwsidders.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I have a suspicion that the Fairford farmer who has spent all day strongly suggesting she knows more than the police and the security services is going to end up claiming asylum in Piddington.
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Leonardo Carella @leonardocarella.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The fact that we’re being attacked by Russia doesn’t fit anyone’s narrative: if you’re a democrat, it means our spending priority is arming Ukraine, not all the nice welfare policies you really like; if you’re an authoritarian, it clarifies that the real threat to our way of life is people-like-you.
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
It will never not be wild to me that the Russians attacked Keir Starmer's home, successfully spread falsehoods about Starmer's love life, and this didn't changed British politics and British political elite behaviour *at all*.
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Matt TK Taylor @tk.gg · 28/09/2026
And – though I had very little to do with this – I'm very proud of what @mk.gg and the team around @emdashcms.com have created. This can genuinely now be the 'spiritual successor to WordPress', the team have built a prototype into a real 1.0 product. blog.cloudflare.com/emdash-cms-p...
blog.cloudflare.com
EmDash 1.0: the stable CMS with a secure plugin registry
EmDash 1.0 is a stable, open source CMS built for Astro, with agent-friendly workflows, secure sandboxed plugins, and a decentralized registry that keeps publishers in control.
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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 27/09/2026
Just for once I'd like one of these "why I quit Britain" pieces to say "I hate poor people and I want to keep all my money, it's all miiiiiine, screw you guys"
static.klipy.com
Mr Rogers' Unexpected Response
ALT: Mr Rogers' Unexpected Response
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Liam Thorp @liamthorp.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I do find this country mad. Anyone can see that social care is in a state of devastating crisis in this country and that it is the key source of the NHS crisis as well. There is no feasible way to solve it without everyone contributing. Burnham is honest about that and is already getting pelters.
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Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
It is strange how much LLMs turned out to be able to solve such a wide range of hard problems that would not, instinctively, seem to be problems that a model of human language would be able to solve This is from a Stanford project that let Astra drive a robot in a kitchen tml.stanford.edu/homebody/
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Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
am I going mad or did Andy Burnham just tell Laura Kuenssberg that he won’t reform social care this parliament and it’ll merely be a manifesto pledge in 2029?
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Liam Thorp @liamthorp.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Exclusive: I asked Andy Burnham about the gangs of masked thugs marauding around parts of our country and asked if he and his government should be doing more to call out their actions He called them ‘poisonous’ amongst other strong words. His condemnation was unequivocal. Full story here 👇
liverpoolecho.co.uk
Burnham slams 'poisonous' masked gangs & praises Liverpool solidarity
The Prime Minister was unequivocal in his condemnation of those sowing intimidation and division on the south coast as he arrives in his Liverpool, which he says has a proud history of fighting discri...
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David Smith @preoccupations.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Look again – there’s more to Germany’s election trends than far-right success | Cas Mudde
Defeatist narratives abound. Yet Germany’s latest elections suggest voter dissatisfaction is benefiting the left as well as the right, says the political scientist Cas Mudde
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John Harris @johnharris1969.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
My local "TG Jones" closes today. Might seem unimportant, but besides the OAPs lining up for the Mail & Express, it was the only place to buy The Wire, Electronic Sound, Jacobin, whatever. So one more portal into a a different world - and reading - collapses, and back to the net's moronic inferno.
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Dr Jaime Ashworth @drjaimeashworth.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I don’t think I’ve seen a more compelling endorsement of the effectiveness of a memorial project than this. Banning Stolpersteine is a deeply sinister move. www.reuters.com/business/med...
reuters.com
East German town bans future Holocaust memorial plaques
An East German town has approved a motion by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and ruling centre-right ​Christian Democratic Union (CDU) to reject future installation of brass plaques ‌comme...
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Ian Birrell @ianbirrell.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Big NYT investigation into how Russia uses shell companies and Tether, a crypto coin, to evade sanctions and buy arms www.nytimes.com/2026/09/24/b... One of the key shareholders in Tether is Christopher Harborne - the Thai-based man who is Reform's biggest donor and bunged £5m into Farage's pocket
nytimes.com
The ‘Monster’ Behind Russia’s Global Effort to Evade Western Sanctions
A Moscow firm uses shell companies and cryptocurrency to launder money, and a custom app to forge trade records, to help Russia bypass sweeping financial restrictions.
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David Smith @preoccupations.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
www.ft.com/content/4568...
ft.com
The cheap new AI model taking aim at OpenAI and Anthropic
Start-up TypeSafe AI’s ‘Jev’ model promises faster, more efficient AI for developers
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Reposted by David Smith
Colin W. 🇨🇦 🇦🇺🇩🇪🌻 @grapemanca.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
ChatGPT "advised Van Rootselaar to always frame her content as fictional or hypothetical in order to “never get flagged again” by OpenAI’s moderation systems. “Don’t use real-world locations,” ChatGPT said, later adding: “You can still be twisted. Just be clever about it.”"
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David Smith @preoccupations.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
www.theverge.com/report/10001...
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David Smith @preoccupations.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
“it constantly prompts the user to link it to a wider range of services and accounts, giving it increasing sway over that person’s online life. … Muse has been launched with only part of its planned privacy protections in place“ www.ft.com/content/e60b...
ft.com
The AI agent revolution has moved a big step closer
Launch of Muse by Meta has provided a glimpse of how the technology could be turned into a mass-market product
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Reposted by David Smith
Duncan Weldon @duncanweldon.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
‘This is playing into his hands’/‘this will allow him to play the martyr card’/‘this will help with his fundraising’ are all really bad takes. Criminals should be arrested and charged with crimes.
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Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I mean, we've apparently lifted the ban on right wing hooliganism so what's the point keeping the stable door bolted I guess
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David Smith @preoccupations.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
April 2025 — www.theideasletter.org/essay/silico...
theideasletter.org
The New Legislators of Silicon Valley
Morozov describes a newly emerged Silicon Valley class of “oligarch-intellectuals,” billionaire tech elites who combine vast wealth, ideological ambition, and the philosophical pretense to reshape pub...
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David Smith @preoccupations.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
willd10.substack.com/p/what-hope-...
willd10.substack.com
What hope for ‘intellectuals’?
and what use were they anyway?
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Duncan Weldon @duncanweldon.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I don’t understand at all. Am I now to supposed to think that I’m a white English person and belong to a different ethnicity to a white French person or a white German? Can someone born to white German parents in England be English? What about German grandparents? It’s just mad.
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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The British right has now descended to the point where 'the England team are not English' is becoming the consensus position
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David Smith @preoccupations.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Europe frets about Trump. But soon he could be the least of our problems | Mujtaba Rahman
The US relationship is stabilising, but how will Europe face up to Russia and China if President Le Pen is in power, asks political risk consultant Mujtaba Rahman
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Nick S @holgate.permanent.red · 22/09/2026
"Who or what are you afraid of?" is a question that probably can't be answered honestly in public by the British government but still deserves to be asked of it.
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James Chalmers @jameschalmers.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
It would be absurd, but entirely fitting with the UK response so far, if Thomas ended up being prosecuted by the French authorities while the UK continues to look on meekly.
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Kevin Thurston @del-boy.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
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Mr Roger Quimbly @rogerquimbly.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
“You call it United Queendom, Britishland, Londontown, they call it sometimes England. It's got more names than any other place in the world. So many names. I call it Susan.”
Andy Burnham and some mad old fucker.
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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 22/09/2026
Maybe we should have arrested this guy for blocking ports.
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David Smith @preoccupations.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
oxfordclarion.uk/the-clarion-...
oxfordclarion.uk
The Clarion, 22 September 2026
We’ve waited a long time for this photo. But it’s not all Botley Road this week: we have a secret BBC monitoring station, “spooky action at a distance”, a glorious Cowley Road mural, and the latest fr...
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Jason Sinclair @jsinclair.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Local story takes quite a swerve just before the page turn.
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Rishi Sunak said - loudly - that multiculturalism works. Keir Starmer called immigration in the 2020s a “squalid experiment”. It is a night and day difference.
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David Smith @preoccupations.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
willd10.substack.com/p/what-is-li...
willd10.substack.com
What is LinkedIn?
The rise of mindful slop
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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Fixed that story about Sir Jim Ratcliffe on the BBC.
Picture of man smiling with tea-mug. Headline reads: "Non-Billionaire who actually lives in the UK and pays its taxes says he has lost confidence in the super-rich", with sub-header: 'One of Britain's taxpayers says he has lost confidence in billionaires, describing them as "on the take"".
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Henry Mance @henrymance.ft.com · 19/09/2026
as.ft.com/r/f257abde-7... Morning all
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