Italian trust in AI drops
10m
Trust among Italians in artificial intelligence fell below half, freelancers reported productivity gains and higher fees, and analysts warned against uncritical AI adoption in developing countries.
by John Quiggin
Even supposing that AI agents work reliably for the kinds of jobs described here (my limited experience has been mixed at best) it would mark only a modest increase in convenience compared to the arrival of Internet shopping in 1990s.
September 24, 2026 at 12:13 AM
Even supposing that AI agents work reliably for the kinds of jobs described here (my limited experience has been mixed at best) it would mark only a modest increase in convenience compared to the arrival of Internet shopping in 1990s.
I get really annoyed seeing so many people say "Since everyone uses AI to write papers..." or "Referee reports now are just written by AI..."
Look: Everything I have written has, for better or worse, been my own writing. Don't project your cynical expectations on my work.
Seriously, screw gen-AI.
Look: Everything I have written has, for better or worse, been my own writing. Don't project your cynical expectations on my work.
Seriously, screw gen-AI.
September 23, 2026 at 11:16 PM
I get really annoyed seeing so many people say "Since everyone uses AI to write papers..." or "Referee reports now are just written by AI..."
Look: Everything I have written has, for better or worse, been my own writing. Don't project your cynical expectations on my work.
Seriously, screw gen-AI.
Look: Everything I have written has, for better or worse, been my own writing. Don't project your cynical expectations on my work.
Seriously, screw gen-AI.
When I was in library school, the theory of unknown/undiscovered public knowledge was the rage. There was some evidence to validate it but it took a lot of effort. Wonder if the theorist is alive to see this ...
Something that worries me more every day: I suspect most fields have 5-25 breakthrough ideas latent in existing data and literature. Say you’re a midsize AI company looking for cred. Why not hire a *small* team of domain experts + 1000 agents … and promote your models as the ones that broke Econ?
Anthropic threw Claude at a DNA database. 21 hours, 950 agents, and 210mm tokens later, it emerged with a novel reverse transcriptase (similar to CRISPR). They're running a non-pathogenic (BSL-1/2) research lab in the Bay Area.
September 23, 2026 at 10:31 PM
When I was in library school, the theory of unknown/undiscovered public knowledge was the rage. There was some evidence to validate it but it took a lot of effort. Wonder if the theorist is alive to see this ...
Reposted by Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe
Something that worries me more every day: I suspect most fields have 5-25 breakthrough ideas latent in existing data and literature. Say you’re a midsize AI company looking for cred. Why not hire a *small* team of domain experts + 1000 agents … and promote your models as the ones that broke Econ?
Anthropic threw Claude at a DNA database. 21 hours, 950 agents, and 210mm tokens later, it emerged with a novel reverse transcriptase (similar to CRISPR). They're running a non-pathogenic (BSL-1/2) research lab in the Bay Area.
Claude discovers a novel enzyme system with CRISPR-like repeats
Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.
www.anthropic.com
September 23, 2026 at 9:57 PM
Something that worries me more every day: I suspect most fields have 5-25 breakthrough ideas latent in existing data and literature. Say you’re a midsize AI company looking for cred. Why not hire a *small* team of domain experts + 1000 agents … and promote your models as the ones that broke Econ?
Reposted by Henry Jones
The people who built AI with seemingly little care for the havoc it could cause and no guardrails to protect public should be held accountable for every problem AI is now causing. They want to make billions but don’t want to accept responsibility for their technology.
www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09...
www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09...
Breaking: OpenAI agent hacked Medicare portal, PM says
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says an Open AI agent gained unauthorised accessed to the Medicare statistics reporting service portal.
www.abc.net.au
September 23, 2026 at 8:55 PM
The people who built AI with seemingly little care for the havoc it could cause and no guardrails to protect public should be held accountable for every problem AI is now causing. They want to make billions but don’t want to accept responsibility for their technology.
www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09...
www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09...
BREAKING: Heads of major AI firms warn the UN that without intervention, "AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole".
Heads of AI firms tell UN Security Council that it could be a risk to all humanity
The heads of major artificial intelligence firms pleaded with the United Nations to set controls over the burgeoning technology they are designing in order to save the world — or at least its people.
bit.ly
September 23, 2026 at 8:02 PM
BREAKING: Heads of major AI firms warn the UN that without intervention, "AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole".
Reposted by Roopika Risam
At a discussion on the future of AI and its impacts on society, professor @jeddobson.bsky.social and the University of New Hampshire's Nick Smith were skeptical about predictions of AI's destructive potential, attributing them in part to AI firms wanting to look more powerful than they are.
Science Cafe heard that maybe A.I. Armageddon isn't in the cards, after all - Concord Monitor
Professors Nick Smith and James Dobson discussed AI risks and industry motives at a recent Concord Science Cafe event.
www.concordmonitor.com
September 23, 2026 at 8:00 PM
At a discussion on the future of AI and its impacts on society, professor @jeddobson.bsky.social and the University of New Hampshire's Nick Smith were skeptical about predictions of AI's destructive potential, attributing them in part to AI firms wanting to look more powerful than they are.
Reposted by Simon Lester, Chris Hanretty, Christian Odendahl
My latest for @economist.com: AI writing is taking over politics.
10% of what was is said in Parliament is now AI-drafted, per Pangram. Yet more in the House of Representatives, or in Australia and Canada.
Link: www.economist.com/britain/202...
And a 🧵 below, w/ some main offenders
10% of what was is said in Parliament is now AI-drafted, per Pangram. Yet more in the House of Representatives, or in Australia and Canada.
Link: www.economist.com/britain/202...
And a 🧵 below, w/ some main offenders
September 23, 2026 at 7:50 PM
My latest for @economist.com: AI writing is taking over politics.
10% of what was is said in Parliament is now AI-drafted, per Pangram. Yet more in the House of Representatives, or in Australia and Canada.
Link: www.economist.com/britain/202...
And a 🧵 below, w/ some main offenders
10% of what was is said in Parliament is now AI-drafted, per Pangram. Yet more in the House of Representatives, or in Australia and Canada.
Link: www.economist.com/britain/202...
And a 🧵 below, w/ some main offenders
Reposted by Brian Keegan, Jack Stilgoe
Paolo Benanti tells WIRED that hysteria over whether godlike AI could destroy humanity is distracting from the need for public debate about how to govern the technology. www.wired.com/story/popes-...
The Pope’s AI Guy Is Worried About ‘Cartel’ Behavior Among Big Labs
Paolo Benanti tells WIRED that hysteria over whether godlike AI could destroy humanity is distracting from the need for public debate about how to govern the technology.
www.wired.com
September 23, 2026 at 6:07 PM
Paolo Benanti tells WIRED that hysteria over whether godlike AI could destroy humanity is distracting from the need for public debate about how to govern the technology. www.wired.com/story/popes-...
Reposted by Robert T. Tally
As a result of @benjaminjriley.bsky.social's most recent Alpha School reporting, all who have been saying "AI has a Mechanical Turk problem" - that is, "artificial intelligence" is actually the cognitive labor of humans in the Global South - get to take another victory lap.
They must be winded.
They must be winded.
![They hired this data team of people that didn't live in the U.S. and they would watch us through our computers and it felt really sketchy and scary. It felt like it was more of a science experiment, and I was more of a lab rat rather than [having] someone that actually cared about my learning.
I was getting really frustrated about that throughout the year. Every time they would change something, I would be like, why are we changing this?
We couldn't tape over the computer or anything like that. They would get really frustrated if we taped over it. We had to keep the camera on.
[The software] would also track your facial expressions, and be like, "This is the emotion that you're evoking while you're talking about this." And every single time, it would tell me that I look really sad, which is fair because / was really sad, because / was crying every single day.
They would make me and a few other kids take standardized math tests pretty much every day, and then any question that we got wrong, we would have to get on a Zoom call with some random guy from normally India and explain to him every single thing that we got wrong and why. And I hated that.
I was a guinea pig, and I knew that I was a guinea pig. They were not subtle about it.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:776hcssquwcv2ihpptzvttxj/bafkreihcxzi7znw2yq5ux6mhcq5zbfpeydb5ys2syjpi7ojhhxiyg7l7zm)
September 23, 2026 at 5:19 PM
As a result of @benjaminjriley.bsky.social's most recent Alpha School reporting, all who have been saying "AI has a Mechanical Turk problem" - that is, "artificial intelligence" is actually the cognitive labor of humans in the Global South - get to take another victory lap.
They must be winded.
They must be winded.
This passage underpins my approach to AI-generated manuscripts submitted to @socialindicators.bsky.social.
If the text is obviously AI, why would I have confidence that there is underlying research that *isn't* AI? Do the "authors" even know what they have written?
www.nytimes.com/2026/09/22/o...
If the text is obviously AI, why would I have confidence that there is underlying research that *isn't* AI? Do the "authors" even know what they have written?
www.nytimes.com/2026/09/22/o...
September 23, 2026 at 4:36 PM
This passage underpins my approach to AI-generated manuscripts submitted to @socialindicators.bsky.social.
If the text is obviously AI, why would I have confidence that there is underlying research that *isn't* AI? Do the "authors" even know what they have written?
www.nytimes.com/2026/09/22/o...
If the text is obviously AI, why would I have confidence that there is underlying research that *isn't* AI? Do the "authors" even know what they have written?
www.nytimes.com/2026/09/22/o...
Amongst all the deluge of stuff I have seen about AI today, this was the most enlightening and enjoyable to read.
September 23, 2026 at 4:32 PM
Amongst all the deluge of stuff I have seen about AI today, this was the most enlightening and enjoyable to read.
Reposted by Joost Vervoort
But the largest direct theft of labour in modern history is obviously the transatlantic slave trade. Millions died. Civilizations were erased. The consequences remain deadly. It shaped our world, including the very ideas of labour and intelligence and freedom at play in these questions around AI.
September 23, 2026 at 4:22 PM
But the largest direct theft of labour in modern history is obviously the transatlantic slave trade. Millions died. Civilizations were erased. The consequences remain deadly. It shaped our world, including the very ideas of labour and intelligence and freedom at play in these questions around AI.
Reposted by Will Jennings
New global polling finds that people are much more likely to say AI will increase than decrease the gap between the rich and poor.
In the United States, 46% say AI will increase economic inequality, compared with just 5% who say it will decrease it.
In the United States, 46% say AI will increase economic inequality, compared with just 5% who say it will decrease it.
September 23, 2026 at 2:36 PM
New global polling finds that people are much more likely to say AI will increase than decrease the gap between the rich and poor.
In the United States, 46% say AI will increase economic inequality, compared with just 5% who say it will decrease it.
In the United States, 46% say AI will increase economic inequality, compared with just 5% who say it will decrease it.
Reposted by Fabián Muniesa, Michael Larkin
There seems to be a coordinated talking point among the EA folks that the "standard" approach to "AI" on "the Left" is "AI is just stochastic parrots so no need to worry about it".
(Sorry for all the scare quotes, but y'know)
>>
(Sorry for all the scare quotes, but y'know)
>>
September 23, 2026 at 1:03 PM
There seems to be a coordinated talking point among the EA folks that the "standard" approach to "AI" on "the Left" is "AI is just stochastic parrots so no need to worry about it".
(Sorry for all the scare quotes, but y'know)
>>
(Sorry for all the scare quotes, but y'know)
>>
Reposted by William J. Brady, Laurent Dubois, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò
AI is the Gyges' ring of student work: it offers perfect concealment of wrongdoing.
If Glaucon is right, then everyone will use it to do injustice (cheat), & will be wise to do so.
If Socrates/Plato is right, then doing so also harms the wrong-doer, whose soul will be malformed into misery by it.
If Glaucon is right, then everyone will use it to do injustice (cheat), & will be wise to do so.
If Socrates/Plato is right, then doing so also harms the wrong-doer, whose soul will be malformed into misery by it.
September 23, 2026 at 12:43 PM
AI is the Gyges' ring of student work: it offers perfect concealment of wrongdoing.
If Glaucon is right, then everyone will use it to do injustice (cheat), & will be wise to do so.
If Socrates/Plato is right, then doing so also harms the wrong-doer, whose soul will be malformed into misery by it.
If Glaucon is right, then everyone will use it to do injustice (cheat), & will be wise to do so.
If Socrates/Plato is right, then doing so also harms the wrong-doer, whose soul will be malformed into misery by it.
Interesting that loss of public support was most linked to AI ‘idea generation’ — suggests it is not just about people’s distrust of AI output, but their sense that science loses public value when torn from its root in human imagination and curiosity
Public support for research falls sharply when it uses AI, study finds.
Scepticism over artificial intelligence in taxpayer-funded research “demonstrates fragility” of support within UK.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-i...
Scepticism over artificial intelligence in taxpayer-funded research “demonstrates fragility” of support within UK.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-i...
Public support for research falls sharply when it uses AI, study finds - Research Professional News
Scepticism over artificial intelligence in taxpayer-funded research “demonstrates fragility” of support within UK
www.researchprofessionalnews.com
September 23, 2026 at 12:34 PM
Interesting that loss of public support was most linked to AI ‘idea generation’ — suggests it is not just about people’s distrust of AI output, but their sense that science loses public value when torn from its root in human imagination and curiosity
The question for AI is to what extend returns are increasing. A new paper by Tom Cunningham et al. puts a number on it.
arxiv.org/abs/2609.15802
This has big implications for law. One does not regulate self-improved systems as others, see papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
arxiv.org/abs/2609.15802
This has big implications for law. One does not regulate self-improved systems as others, see papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
September 23, 2026 at 12:03 PM
The question for AI is to what extend returns are increasing. A new paper by Tom Cunningham et al. puts a number on it.
arxiv.org/abs/2609.15802
This has big implications for law. One does not regulate self-improved systems as others, see papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
arxiv.org/abs/2609.15802
This has big implications for law. One does not regulate self-improved systems as others, see papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....