Almost every LLM that reaches a broad audience is quantized—compressed to run cheaply. USC's Emilio Ferrara argues this compression is treated as a safety nonevent, when it should be treated as a change to the deployed system. This has policy implications, he says.

The Model You Audit Is Not the Model You Ship

Almost every LLM that reaches a broad audience is quantized—with under-appreciated ramifications for AI safety, writes Emilio Ferrara.

techpolicy.press

We've gone from "AI will save you so much money cos you can replace everyone with cheap grads who don't even need to know anything to prompt" to "what you think tokens grow on trees pay up losers and also hire specialist AI babysitters or your critical processes die" www.rnz.co.nz/news/busines...

I noticed that the Natural Hazards Commission reworked their Privacy Policy recently and as part of it, they added a disclaimer about their use of LLMs www.naturalhazards.govt.nz/privacy-stat...

Research on the effects of AI in education simply does not reliably stack up, regardless of how it gets circulated on social media as if it's solid. We need *different* research on AI in education to inform policy and practice. 7/end codeactsineducation.wordpress.com/2026/06/26/t...

The problem with evidence production on AI in education

Photo by Camille Villanueva on Unsplash The research field of artificial intelligence in education (AIED) has a long history of investigating the effects of AI on learning and other educational out…

codeactsineducation.wordpress.com

The evidence about AI in education remains terrible as a basis for policy or practice. As schools in some places come back from summer next week (oh Scotland it's too early), here's a wee roundup on just how truly woefully AIED research has stood up and why educators shouldn't call on it 1/

Something I appreciate about this statement that I haven't seen well-articulated elsewhere is how the rest of us are paying for "single-use" code--in environmental costs, in hardware costs for small software communities, and in free/libre code pollution.

This statement from Codeberg maintainers, after their community voted to not use any code for LLM training and banned vibe-coded projects, is really good. blog.codeberg.org/protecting-o...

This clip from parliament yesterday is absolutely gobsmacking. Our minister of Science, Innovation, and Technology hopes she believes in science. Excellent speech by Reuben Davidson (L) yesterday. Full transcript in the video description. #NZPOL @nzscientists.bsky.social @savesciencenz.bsky.social

"Do you think the current Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology believes in science?"

YouTube video by Genomics for Aotearoa New Zealand

youtube.com

A sensible alternative referendum if someone was serious about looking at alternatives to our current electoral system would be to accept that the public have made their views clear on proportional representation and run MMP vs STV.

Summer Preprint Alert 🔥🚨 Breathing isn't just for oxygen; it’s a rhythmic pacemaker for the sleeping brain. Our new preprint shows that the respiratory cycle actually gates memory reactivation during NREM sleep! 🧠😴💨 👇🧵(1/8)

bioRxiv Neuroscience@biorxiv-neursci.bsky.social · 5d ago

The breathing cycle gates memory reactivation during human NREM sleep https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.07.29.741474v1

Breathing sets the timing for memory processing during sleep! In our new preprint, precisely shifting memory cues within the respiratory cycle changed oscillatory coordination, memory reactivation and next-morning recall. Fabulous work by @estebanbt.bsky.social, with @tobiasstaudigl.bsky.social!👇

Esteban@estebanbt.bsky.social · 4d ago

Summer Preprint Alert 🔥🚨 Breathing isn't just for oxygen; it’s a rhythmic pacemaker for the sleeping brain. Our new preprint shows that the respiratory cycle actually gates memory reactivation during NREM sleep! 🧠😴💨 👇🧵(1/8)

But the more interesting question is what happened downstream. Did talking to AI make people feel less lonely? Surprisingly, no! It did the opposite. It actually increased loneliness.

Forever our flag

Under a Binface government, anyone who doesn’t accept human-made climate change as fact will be sent back to school, from Year 1 right the way to A Levels, to see if anything goes in the second time round. #VoteBinface

In fact, modelling on contact and case data estimated that if schools had remained open during the final Jan-March 2021 lockdown, it would barely have brought R below 1. I've already written about that devastating wave in which 87,000 people died. 7/12 christinapagel.substack.com/p/the-uk-cov...

The UK Covid Inquiry has laid bare the avoidable horror of the second Covid wave

It is becoming ever clearer both how devastating the second wave of winter 2020/21 was, and how much of that devastation could have been avoided.

christinapagel.substack.com

I don't think people are ready for this kind of joke yet.

To vote in this years general election you need to be enrolled by midnight, 13 days before Election Day. Days left to enrol or update your details. Maori Roll: 3 days General Roll: 83 days Remind your Friends & Whanau #nzpol

I'm not sure folks have realized just how crazy the second half of 2026 and 2027 will be for global temperatures – on the back of a record-smashing El Niño event. Here is my latest estimate of where both years will end up compared to global temperatures since 1850.

As it stands, the farm near PN on the Tararua Ranges has 91 small turbines with generation capacity of 45.5 megawatts (MW). ...the repowering project will involve the construction of up to 40 new turbines, with generation capacity of up to 172MW. www.nzherald.co.nz/business/mar...

Meridian wins consent for wind farm rebuild with sevenfold power boost

New turbines could lift capacity from 45.5MW to up to 172MW.

nzherald.co.nz

📉 High AI use, lower scores 88 students used GPT-4o at different stages of learning. The most dependent scored lower on the test while reporting higher perceived learning and higher satisfaction. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2026.2676669 #AIinEducation #AILiteracy #EdTech 🧪

Stage-specific generative AI use and dependency in learning: associations with test performance, perceived learning, and learning satisfaction

Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) is increasingly used in education, but its role across learning stages remains unclear. This study examined whether GAI use during learning comprehension, t...

doi.org

Two years after the Prime Minister said he'd ban teens from social media, 80% of them are still on there. No policy is going to be perfect from the get go, but it's worth considering the time and effort put towards this instead of other reforms.

More than 80% of kids still using social media despite ban, new eSafety report finds

The report provides more evidence Australia’s world-leading social media ban isn’t going to plan.

theconversation.com

Mark Bregman's comment on this should be its own article @newsroom.co.nz @tmurphynz.bsky.social newsroom.co.nz/2026/07/31/g...

Govt science reform uproots the tree it needs to bear fruit

From Auckland University - Comment: Defunding basic research risks starving NZ's deep-tech startups before they begin, writes Dr Nicola Gaston.

newsroom.co.nz

Obviously nothing has pissed me off quite as much as them killing the Marsden Fund (👉 my 📌 post), but govt claiming that the Science Investment Plan does not cut funding when the plan itself says “core science and research funding is projected to decline in future years” was the icing on the cake.

Luxon wants to ‘brutally commercialise’ science, but cuts threaten its foundation

Comment from Auckland University: Decades of research funding cannot be replaced by funding the commercialisation of that science

newsroom.co.nz

Essential reading from @nicgaston.bsky.social Luxon wants to ‘brutally commercialise’ science, but cuts threaten its foundation newsroom.co.nz/2026/07/30/l...

Luxon wants to ‘brutally commercialise’ science, but cuts threaten its foundation

Comment from Auckland University: Decades of research funding cannot be replaced by funding the commercialisation of that science

newsroom.co.nz

Spot on commentary by @marcdaalder.bsky.social This especially - I made some of these points (less eloquently) in comments for @smcnz.bsky.social yesterday

Marc Daalder@marcdaalder.bsky.social · last wk.

Comment: In the collective obsession to avoid every little mistake from the Covid-19 response, we risk failing to learn from what went *right*. newsroom.co.nz/2026/07/30/b...

There's a lot going on in New Zealand, as this headline shows. www.rnz.co.nz/news/communi...

Rush to desex pigs rehomed after alleged murder as boars break in

An animal rescue charity is rushing to desex 42 female pigs due to frisky wild boars breaking through electric fencing and into their enclosure.

rnz.co.nz

I spent an hour the other day researching the so-called RSV 'vaccine' that isn't actually a vaccine (it's a preventative antibody dose which doesn't involve the immune system) and worded a story very, very carefully, only to just hear 1 News use the word 'vaccine' about two dozen times in 90 seconds

www.aimos2026.org AIMOS 2026 will be in Wellington this year on 30 Nov to 2 Dec. Abstracts due 15 Aug. This is a very fun and very interactive metascience conference. Come along and hang out!

AIMOS_2026 | Metascience Conference – Register Today

Join the AIMOS 2026 Conference n Wellington, New Zealand, for three days of interdisciplinary meta-research, keynote speakers, workshops, and networking to improve research practices.

aimos2026.org

Conspiracy theorists are flocking to H5N1 bird flu as a new topic ripe for misinformation about vaccines, conservation and viruses.

New conspiracy theories hatch following bird flu's arrival in NZ

newsroom.co.nz

Tuataras are NOT lizards. Genetically, they split from other reptiles about 190 million years ago and are technically called "rhinocephalians", although they're the only surviving member of their order