Hetan Shah
@hetanshah.bsky.social
Chief Executive, The British Academy Chair, Our World in Data Board, National Audit Office Visiting Professor in Practice, LSE Visiting Professor, Kings College London Fellow, Birkbeck College Views my own
Pretty scary piece on Old Oak Common with this quote from Tony Travers ‘Old Oak Common is a living metaphor for the whole HS2 project, in that it has massive ongoing cost, significant delays and no real certainty as to how it will be used’ www.ft.com/content/683d...
Interesting piece by ex-Spad and journalist Peter Cardwell. I'd agree it makes policy Spads look second class. It's a risk having non-specialist media Spads (only) explain complex policies. Burnham's ban on spads speaking to journalists is absurd and unworkable www.politicshome.com/opinion/arti...
Burnham's ban on spads speaking to journalists is absurd and unworkable
The tone of a new administration is set early.
politicshome.com
Well not to worry as OpenAI was created to protect us against this sort of thing
Cyber hygiene is one of those terms that sounds good but doesn’t work. Because we all have different ideas of what hygiene is. Some people wash daily, other people wash their towels and sheets once a year. There is no “standard” and so how do people keep tech “clean”? They don’t.
Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 10h agoTheir conclusion about what this all means is better cyber hygiene. I would suggest policymakers might also wish to come back to questions of agent liability and who is responsible when things go wrong
open weight models seem to have a trend of matching frontier models within about 6 months, and it's possible to remove the guardrails from them
Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 10h agoFairly sober testing report from the AI Security Institute: they gave internet access and removed some guardrails from latest AI models and found without them they were capable of potentially harmful activity directed at real people and organisations www.aisi.gov.uk/blog/inciden...
Fairly sober testing report from the AI Security Institute: they gave internet access and removed some guardrails from latest AI models and found without them they were capable of potentially harmful activity directed at real people and organisations www.aisi.gov.uk/blog/inciden...
Every night I tell my five year old he cannot stay up flipping through books, and every morning I find books in his bed. (The plan is working.)
Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 19h agoThe secret to gaining everything your heart desires
Good editorial from the FT saying our new PM must take a strategic approach to universities www.ft.com/content/1419...
Eugh ‘Lewis was finally arrested after traces of his DNA were found on a lamb’s remains… During an earlier court appearance, Lewis, of Totton, Southampton, answered “Count Dracula” when asked to identify himself.’ www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
Vampire-obsessed man detained after dumping animal corpses outside churches in New Forest
Benjamin Lewis, who believed drinking blood would prolong life, will be kept in hospital for treatment
theguardian.com
I’ve had a pack of Golden Wonder cheese and onion crisps for the first time in decades and it turns out it is not just nostalgia - they do taste better than Walkers!
‘In recent years, the fraternity has also put resources into a network of university lodges and freshers’ events’ www.ft.com/content/edf7...
Freemasons seek a new generation of members
Society known for secret handshakes tries to attract younger people as its membership ages
ft.com
"Understanding" and "statistical extrapolation" *can* often lead to the same place, but when they *don't*, "understanding" provides a way forward, while "extrapolation" founders. 18/
‘Since then it has served two purposes: where we buy things, and where we meet. The first paid for the second without anyone noticing they were separate.’ Good insight from @pollymackenzie.bsky.social on the different functions of the high street www.ft.com/content/f438...
How to save the British high street
Communities need help to tackle the blight of delinquent landlords who let empty properties decay
ft.com
End your weekend with this lovely story of a formative summer - the kind we might all wish for www.ft.com/content/d529...
Climate change is contributing to screwing things up in big ways and small. Here the puffer fish has come to Greek waters as the sea has warmed. It likes to eat squid, octopus, cuttlefish and young fish, as well as tearing up fishing nets, and fishing livelihoods www.ft.com/content/f00a...
Greece’s toxic puffer fish invasion
A fish that can bite drinks cans in half is tearing through nets and livelihoods
ft.com
Excellent thought provoking piece by @smellosopher.bsky.social which highlights (again) the processes by which we forget brilliant women scholars
Philip Ball@philipcball.bsky.social · 3d ago"For Hesse, metaphors were not passive representations of things but constituted conceptual tools actively shaping scientific thought." This is precisely why I've cited Hesse in my (much less profound) writing on scientific metaphor. aeon.co/essays/why-a...
If you’ve seen the counter intuitive argument that Europe is having a low wildfire year, you may find this explainer of the data from @hannahritchie.bsky.social of interest. In short the Balkans and Southern Europe are below their normal average hannahritchie.substack.com/p/europe-wil...
Is Europe having a bad wildfire year?
Several countries in Europe are having a very large wildfire year; this is offset by lower burn in the Balkans
hannahritchie.substack.com
1/3 The ONS has suggested 53% of households are currently net recipients of the state. This piece shows the number is rather nebulous as various things from roads to Govt debt interest payments are excluded, and of course the balance shifts over time… www.ft.com/content/9f81...
What percentage of UK households are net contributors?
Despite attempts, the figure is virtually impossible to calculate
ft.com
I did not know that Godwin of Godwin’s Law (that all internet discussion eventually leads to someone being compared to Hitler) had written one of the early essays on meme theory, and had deliberately propagated his Law as a meme. (Via this @elainemoore.bsky.social piece) www.ft.com/content/7a2a...
![conversations. "I had been reading a lot about information theory and the idea of information as something that is integrated into the physical world," he says. "I knew I couldn't say something earnest about [the arguments] - that would lead to ridicule - so I came up with this idea, this joke, and let it propagate."
In his essay "Meme, Counter-meme", published in Wired in 1994, Godwin described what he did as "memetic engineering".
". He drew on the idea of memes
that British biologist Richard Dawkins introduced in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene - "units of cultural transmission" that
could spread and evolve culture by non-genetic means. While Dawkins was talking about fashion or recipes, Godwin's online meme was a phrase designed to stop bad-faith arguments.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:yhbp52uzo4vsn5hlkbrfvxoq/bafkreihx35an7xhnb62qdyhmcwnj4btwsgjvdhqxkjieqwrwuy4uiagtbe)
Very good @samfr.bsky.social post on the risks around technical specialisation at 14 and why the focus should be on employer behaviour and stopping free riding samf.substack.com/p/burnhams-f...
‘When a cleaner came out at half-time during a netball match to wipe down the court before the restart, everything appeared normal. But as the cleaner swept, and the first bars of Queen… rang out in the venue, he went from sweeping to a standing split.’ 👏 www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/j...
‘It’s OK to mess around’: how ‘mop man’ stole the show at Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games
CJ Miller from West Lothian has delighted global audiences with ‘sheer stupidity’ of his half-time routines
theguardian.com
Some thoughts on the government's devo announcement today: Overall, this is a great start on the govt's flagship agenda 1/
Rewiring the State – Cabinet Statement (HTML)
gov.uk
It's really quite disorientating when something you've spent 30 years arguing for comes to pass. Extremely thoughtful to commemorate the 12th anniversary of my retirement in this way.
This is more than the NSF social sciences division - now on the chopping block - awarded in grants last year. Think about that: a single AI company has the money to fund more social science research than the US govt.
Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 5d agoAnthropic AI research fund offers $5m - $30m for social science research on themes of AI impact on workers; transition initiatives; income support; building worker stakes; and wider evidence on public investments. Total fund of $200m available www.anthropic.com/news/economi...
Very good from @jenwilliamsft.bsky.social on how devolution of power also needs a local press with capability of scrutiny. Will this rebuild over time in conjunction with devolution (same as eg skills in local government) or is it on an entirely separate rhythm? www.ft.com/content/26da...
Mayoral scrutiny is a pressing issue
As Burnham devolves power, remember much of the country lacks Manchester’s media ecosystem
ft.com
Anthropic AI research fund offers $5m - $30m for social science research on themes of AI impact on workers; transition initiatives; income support; building worker stakes; and wider evidence on public investments. Total fund of $200m available www.anthropic.com/news/economi...
Supporting ambitious external research through the Anthropic Economic Futures Research Fund
We’re committing $200 million to the Anthropic Economic Futures Research Fund to support ambitious external research.
anthropic.com
When the copyright of Peter Pan ran out, Great Ormond Street hospital was given a perpetual right to future royalties. What if we started doing this for other works? Artists could agree to opt into this. It could be a great income stream for the arts. Worth a think www.thetimes.com/article/28cf...
Why I’m backing this plan that could save the arts (and not cost us a penny)
Taking its lead from Peter Pan, an audacious proposal to extend the copyrights of composers and writers could generate millions to support UK culture
thetimes.com
