Richie
@richie-phd.bsky.social
Lead Data and Generative AI consultant @ Greener by Default | Research Director @ Bryant Research | Building a better food system with data & AI. Effective Altruist. Follow for research on food, agriculture, sustainability, animal welfare & alt proteins.
I recently went on Chris Bryant's YouTube stream to talk about the amazing ways we're using AI for animal advocacy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KIcYZ1Qs04
How AI can turbocharge your advocacy (YouTube appearance)
I recently went on Chris Bryant's YouTube stream to talk about using AI for animal advocacy
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Claude Cowork: my learnings as they happen Me and the Bryant team have been using Cowork for two weeks now, and it's pretty clear that this is the future of work. We now have multiple instances where the team has managed to complete one or two weeks' worth of work in a single day. However, it also…
Claude Cowork: my learnings as they happen
Me and the Bryant team have been using Cowork for two weeks now, and it's pretty clear that this is the future of work. We now have multiple instances where the team has managed to complete one or two weeks' worth of work in a single day. However, it also has a few issues and rough edges. Lots of things don't work the way you think they would work.
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In the latest edition of "Richie writing blogs about why you shouldn't pay him for AI stuff." I talk about why building a custom AI workflow is not always the best thing to do.
When you should not create AI workflows
When Gemini or Claude doesn't work, the true AI Pros build custom workflows....or do they? This could be automations in Make.com or n8n, or it could be "skills" in Claude Code. It might involve jargon MCPs, or the sinister-sounding OpenClaw. It could be Python scripts or cron jobs. Btw, if that last paragraph made zero sense to you, don't worry! This post is still for you.
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I use Claude Code for all my research projects now, but it's built for programmers, not social scientists. Here's an ongoing log of learnings on how to use this hugely powerful tool for social science research. I'll update it weekly.
Using Claude Code and Codex CLI for social science research – my learnings as they happen
I divide my week between being the director of research at a social science research consultancy and being a data scientist at a climate NGO. Over the past three months I have pivoted to using Claude code and OpenAI's Codex CLI for nearly all of my research work. I have honestly never been this productive, and I think that eventually all scientists are going to be using these tools as their primary way of doing research.
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How to automate your Plaud AI notepin using N8N I have had my Plaud AI notepin for about three months now and I absolutely love it. I can record my thoughts or ideas with the press of a button. It makes taking notes on all sorts of things in my life totally frictionless. I'm going to be writing a…
How to automate your Plaud AI notepin using N8N
I have had my Plaud AI notepin for about three months now and I absolutely love it. I can record my thoughts or ideas with the press of a button. It makes taking notes on all sorts of things in my life totally frictionless. I'm going to be writing a blog post on how I use it in a few weeks, so stay tuned!
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Any academics out there who haven't played around with Claude code yet really gotta try it. I'd estimate recent past AI tools increased my research productivity by about 10-20%, Claude code feels like it will quickly reach 100-200%.
LLMs are exceptional programmers, but mediocre data scientists. In 2025, LLMs got terrifyingly good at software engineering. So why are they so unimpressive at data science? Data science doesn't really use tests that much LLMs are so powerful for software engineering is because of a 1-2 punch: As…
LLMs are exceptional programmers, but mediocre data scientists.
In 2025, LLMs got terrifyingly good at software engineering. So why are they so unimpressive at data science? Data science doesn't really use tests that much LLMs are so powerful for software engineering is because of a 1-2 punch: As long as software tests are good, and code passes those tests, you can be confident that LLM code is good. You can have LLMs quickly produce vast amounts of code, and you don't have to review it line by line.
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Get a Google sheet of your Oura data that updates every day Here's how you can automate pulling your latest Oura Ring data into a Google Sheet every day To do this we are going to use something that most people don't know about but is insanely powerful: Google Apps Script. Google Apps Script is a…
Get a Google sheet of your Oura data that updates every day
Here's how you can automate pulling your latest Oura Ring data into a Google Sheet every day To do this we are going to use something that most people don't know about but is insanely powerful: Google Apps Script. Google Apps Script is a way that you can create new features for Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets by writing JavaScript.
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AI Could Fix School Examinations What if we fundamentally recreated exams from the ground up, with AI at the core? I see the potential to make a radically better way to do school exams. What's more, most of the technology already exists. Before we begin: I'm going to use the term "LLM" a lot. That…
AI Could Fix School Examinations
What if we fundamentally recreated exams from the ground up, with AI at the core? I see the potential to make a radically better way to do school exams. What's more, most of the technology already exists. Before we begin: I'm going to use the term "LLM" a lot. That stands for "large language model". Examples include ChatGPT, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot.
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Offsetting meat consumption is likely to be more effective than offsetting carbon emissions The consensus is that overall, carbon offsetting hasn't worked at reducing or negating emissions. Does that mean offsetting meat consumption is a dead-end? I argue no. If we look at the 2 main reasons why…
Offsetting meat consumption is likely to be more effective than offsetting carbon emissions
The consensus is that overall, carbon offsetting hasn't worked at reducing or negating emissions. Does that mean offsetting meat consumption is a dead-end? I argue no. If we look at the 2 main reasons why carbon offsetting failed, we can see that meat offsetting does not have these problems. As a result, meat offsetting may be an effective strategy to reduce animal suffering.
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Is AI our secret weapon against factory farming? (podcast appearance) I was recently on "The Vegan Report" podcast talking about AI and the animal movement. We discuss AI tips, how advocates are using AI in their activism, fears and concerns people have over AI, and even AI consciousness!
Is AI our secret weapon against factory farming? (podcast appearance)
I was recently on "The Vegan Report" podcast talking about AI and the animal movement. We discuss AI tips, how advocates are using AI in their activism, fears and concerns people have over AI, and even AI consciousness!
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Where will the next generation of world changers come from? AI can do much of the work that used to be reserved for interns and juniors. For cash-strapped, burnt-out workers in the NGO space, AI assistants are a tempting alternative to managing early career employees. But how can we reap these…
Where will the next generation of world changers come from?
AI can do much of the work that used to be reserved for interns and juniors. For cash-strapped, burnt-out workers in the NGO space, AI assistants are a tempting alternative to managing early career employees. But how can we reap these benefits without shutting out the world changers of the future? Will AI automate all of our jobs? Or will it create tons of new ones?
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Be grateful for shit things Most people write gratitude journals about the good things in their life. I've done this, and while it feels good at first, it gets a bit repetitive. It cultivates a useful mindset, which is to just regularly be grateful for things in your life. However, I think we can…
Be grateful for shit things
Most people write gratitude journals about the good things in their life. I've done this, and while it feels good at first, it gets a bit repetitive. It cultivates a useful mindset, which is to just regularly be grateful for things in your life. However, I think we can cultivate a second, different mindset; A mindset of being grateful even for shit things.
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Finding the number of AI tools overwhelming? Don't know where to go beyond ChatGPT? Lots of people feel the same. This post is for you. No jargon, no advanced things, no list of 100 tools. Just 5. I am extremely confident that one of them will be useful to you.
There are an overwhelming number of AI tools. Ignore all of them until you’ve tried these 5
If you're an AI power user, this post isn't for you. It's for the large number of people who see the hundreds of AI tools out there and feel totally overwhelmed. I know this is how people feel, because I just taught a 12-week AI course and this was common feedback. So I thought I would cut through the noise and give you 5 things to try.
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This summer I gave 3 talks on food security which are all now on YouTube! I've collected them in this post. Enjoy!
I gave 3 talks on factory farming and food security this summer, watch them now on YouTube.
This summer was a busy one! I gave 3 talks on a topic I have accidentally became an expert on over the last 2 years: Food security! How factory farming actually undermines food security, and how alternative proteins and other plant-based foods are the true answer. CARE, Warsaw This summer I had the pleasure of speaking at the 2025 Conference on Animal Rights in Europe (CARE)
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Here I make the case that AI art is real and valid art.
AI art is real art
In 2023, I gave a talk on AI and art. In 2023! Feels like a lifetime ago. It was about how AI could affect the market for art and jobs for artists. Yet in the discussions after the talk, the question that generated the most discussion was: "Is AI art real art?" To me, the answer was a clear "yes".
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Are LLMs good at making charts and graphs? I distilled insights from several excellent data visualisation blogs.
Are LLMs good at making charts and graphs?
People often ask me if AI can help them with data analysis and making graphs. To be honest, this isn't something that I have a huge amount of experience in, because I'm a data scientist who makes all of his own graphs. BUT, I have been reading some very interesting pieces by other people who do know about this kind of thing, so I thought I would collect together my 3 favourite, recent blog posts on Using LLMs for charts and graphs, and summarise the common themes.
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I’m teaching a free 12 week-course on AI Myself and 3 other AI consultants are teaching a free 12-week practical course in generative AI. You'll go from beginner to confident user. It's open to anyone working on fixing our food system: promoting plant-forward diets, increasing animal welfare,…
I’m teaching a free 12 week-course on AI
Myself and 3 other AI consultants are teaching a free 12-week practical course in generative AI. You'll go from beginner to confident user. It's open to anyone working on fixing our food system: promoting plant-forward diets, increasing animal welfare, fighting factory farming or doing right by farmers. It's going well so far: We've had 1000 sign ups! We're actually about to start week 4, on how to spot and reduce AI hallucinations.
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How will AI developments affect the animal advocacy movement? I built a curated chatbot to find out, and you can use it too!
How will AI developments affect the animal advocacy movement? I built a curated chatbot to find out!
AI is transforming everything. How will it transform animal advocacy? Is it going to supercharge our campaigns, or render some of them totally obsolete? Will it help or hurt factory farming? These seem like pretty big abstract questions, but given the pace of AI development, we need to be talking about them. And increasingly, people are! Mostly on the Effective Altruism forum…
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Looking at AI conversations on socials you get the feeling that excitement and anger are the only two valid emotions to feel about AI. In this very short post, I want to talk about fear.
AI makes me excited and scared and that’s ok
Scroll through any thread about AI and you’ll see two loud camps: the cheerleaders and the haters. One side insists AI is pure excitement: innovation, breakthroughs, the future is here! The other insists it’s pure outrage: It's all hype, it ripped off artists, it's causing the climate crisis. Both act like their reaction is the only legitimate one, as if you have to pick a team: thrilled or furious.
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The only AI concept that actually helps you use ChatGPT better "Do I need to learn about neural networks to understand ChatGPT?" I hear this all the time, and have been asked this a few times. I also see people making videos, courses and blog posts breaking down the technical details of how large…
The only AI concept that actually helps you use ChatGPT better
"Do I need to learn about neural networks to understand ChatGPT?" I hear this all the time, and have been asked this a few times. I also see people making videos, courses and blog posts breaking down the technical details of how large language models (LLMs) work. People assume that by understanding the technical and theoretical concepts behind these models, they'll gain secret insight into how to use them better.
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"Will AI take jobs and should we protect jobs?" is the wrong framing for 2 reasons: - AI will automate *tasks* not whole jobs. All jobs will be impacted to some degree, but some way more than others - No one cares about jobs, they care about people (and maybe the economy). Protect people, not jobs.
New post from me! Combining 3 things I love: Latin dance, regressoin models, and my Oura Ring!
Does salsa dancing ruin my sleep? (Using my Oura ring and Python)
I'm obsessed with dancing. Specifically, Salsa, Bachata and Kizomba. Dance is obviously good for me in a bunch of ways; it's mild cardio, it's a creative outlet, is a large part of my social life, and of course it's a lot of fun. But it does result in late nights! Just how bad is it for my sleep? Let's find out.
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I tested the new ChatGPT agent on 11 use cases and it’s just ok ChatGPT agent has now come to people on the paid £20 a month plan. The shameless YouTube hype merchants are obviously impressed (must be hard having your mind BLOWN literally every few days...), others are disappointed, and others…
I tested the new ChatGPT agent on 11 use cases and it’s just ok
ChatGPT agent has now come to people on the paid £20 a month plan. The shameless YouTube hype merchants are obviously impressed (must be hard having your mind BLOWN literally every few days...), others are disappointed, and others have found some decent use cases. I thought I'd put it to the test myself! Here I share my tests, and most importantly, the…
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My new report with Good Growth and Faunalytics is out! Last year I completed a six month research contract with The Good Growth Co. They're a brilliant social science think tank that serves the animal advocacy movement and alternative protein sectors in East Asia. We analysed a ton of social media…
My new report with Good Growth and Faunalytics is out!
Last year I completed a six month research contract with The Good Growth Co. They're a brilliant social science think tank that serves the animal advocacy movement and alternative protein sectors in East Asia. We analysed a ton of social media data on how people across Southeast Asia are talking about meat, meat reduction and plant-based diets. To do this, we pioneered the use of…
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Concerns about AI’s energy use are reasonable I feel like every week I see the same debate play out again and again. "Is AI bad for the environment?" It a question on a lot of people's minds. I use AI for basically everything and so do many of my friends, so you can probably guess what my take is.…
Concerns about AI’s energy use are reasonable
I feel like every week I see the same debate play out again and again. "Is AI bad for the environment?" It a question on a lot of people's minds. I use AI for basically everything and so do many of my friends, so you can probably guess what my take is. But I've been a bit uncomfortable with how some people dismiss, or outright ridicule honest concerns about AI's environmental footprint.
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New Blog post from me! I propose some pretty sci-fi ideas for how AI could create exciting new opportunities for qualitative researcher and their work.
4 Bold New Frontiers for Qual Research in the Gen-AI Era
When ChatGPT can understand human language baffling well, qualitative research could be set for a revolution. In the last few years there has been a flood of papers investigating the potential for Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT to revolutionise qualitative research. It can help with a variety of steps, from thematic code generation, to code comparison and refinement. It can achieve agreement with human coders in a fraction of the time.
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The Deep Research Revolution: my talk at AI, Animals and Digital Minds London 2025 A few months ago I gave a talk at the AI, Animals and Digital Minds conference in London. It was on the exciting new possibilities that have been enabled by AI deep research tools (I've also written about them…
The Deep Research Revolution: my talk at AI, Animals and Digital Minds London 2025
A few months ago I gave a talk at the AI, Animals and Digital Minds conference in London. It was on the exciting new possibilities that have been enabled by AI deep research tools (I've also written about them here). The talk had an interactive workshop component where I had people generating deep research reports for themselves. We discussed tips, tricks and experiences.
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Why Scheduling meetings with ChatGPT can give you breakthrough ideas Some people schedule meetings in order to avoid thinking. They have a problem at work and they either don't want to or can't figure out themselves. By scheduling a meeting with a bunch of other people, they can hash through it…
Why Scheduling meetings with ChatGPT can give you breakthrough ideas
Some people schedule meetings in order to avoid thinking. They have a problem at work and they either don't want to or can't figure out themselves. By scheduling a meeting with a bunch of other people, they can hash through it together. It gives them a kick up the arse to get something solved, that they put off on their own.
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