Antonio F. Pardiñas @AFPopgen

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are”- Machiavelli said, referring, in part, to how statesmen project virtue publicly, even when private behaviour diverges from it. Imperfect as that is, it also raises an uncomfortable question: if leaders stop attempting to project restraint, dignity or moral seriousness in public… what does that say about the standards of political culture underneath? One example:

Channel 4 News @Channel4News

3 weeks ago

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has released video footage on social media of himself berating detained activists from the Gaza flotilla. The video has prompted international outrage, while the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Ben Gvir’s actions

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Démodé (2013) nature.com/articles/nphys…. This short story imagines a future where AI systems designed to read and write scientific papers begin evolving on their own. At first, they help, running massive meta-analyses and accelerating discovery. Then they stop writing for us. 1/🧵

No, the white collar jobs are not going away in 18 months! I was furious with the populist-baiting language (in line with @DarioAmodei 's and @sama's also preferred apocalyptic usage) that Microsoft's @mustafasuleyman used in his FT interview, threatening everyone's jobs: “White-collar work, where you’re sitting down at a computer, either being a lawyer or an accountant or a project manager or a marketing person — most of those tasks will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months.” Not only do I not see the point of this backlash inducing language, I also believe it shows no understanding of the way the labour market and organizations actually works and what people do all day. (My book on this with Jin Li and Yanhui Wu will be out soon.). Don't get me wrong: I believe AI is a huge deal, and will radically change the world. But many white collar jobs are Messy jobs, as our book (and the post linked below) will explain: automating the automatable tasks within them is not near to automating the job. Let me make the point with the attached @jburnmurdoch graph on London. London needs 88,000 new homes per year. In the first nine months of 2025, just 3,248 private homes started construction. Twenty-three of London's thirty-three boroughs recorded zero new housing starts in the first quarter of 2025. Planning permissions have fallen to their lowest level since records began in 2006. Construction of new rental homes fell by 80 percent in a single year. All this is after Starmer declared his government wants to "build, baby, build." Does anyone think AI will fix this? All the technology to design a building exists, and existed pre-AI. The bottleneck in London housing is human. What stops homes from being built in London are environmental and land use regulations and neighbors that weponize them. AI can draft the review, but that is a trivial bit. It cannot convince the environmental group to drop its lawsuit or persuade politicians or negotiate with the neighbors. These obstacles employ people. Suleyman and Amodei imagine that project managers spend their days doing Gantt charts, call their job "sitting down at a computer" and dream of automating them. But the job of the planning guys is not to fill in forms, but to negotiate and coordinate developers, residents, environmental groups, heritage bodies, and elected politicians who all have incompatible interests. At other levels and in other jobs the same is true- radiologists spend only 1/3 of their time reading scans (see this great piece worksinprogress.co/issue/the-algo…). Their job was supposed to be gone in 2017; in fact, the demand for radiologists is booming (employment and wages are sharply up). Many consultants try to elicit the tacit, local, knowledge of what is actually going on in a firm in order to make a recommendation. Yes, if you spend your day just doing PPTs, you will be replaced. But how many people do just that? Organisations/managers resolve conflicts and deal with exceptions. Making a decision stick requires authority: being a person who can be blamed, sued, or fired. The manager resolves disputes about the rules, not just within them. Think of your last renovation in your house. The contractor trying to to get the guy installing the windows and the guys from the floor to show up and do a good job, a mess right? No algorithm does that. AI will make white-collar workers more productive. Some single-task, automatable roles will shrink (doing taxes is an expert system, drafting contracts too), many tasks will be automated. Also, the disruption of career ladders is a real concern. But "most tasks fully automated in 18 months" is not a prediction. It is marketing, designed to sell enterprise subscriptions and justify capital expenditure. The real world is messy. The mess is not a bug. It is what happens when human beings with competing interests try to get things done together. For more on "Messy Jobs", here is my New Years post: siliconcontinent.com/p/a-new-years-…. A book out soon.

Academia is just a job rdcu.be/e1DWH. I've been in academia, industry, & back again. Laurel's essay lands with me: boundaries, sane hours, and less martyrdom can actually improve creativity and science. I’m not 100% sold though, for many it’s also identity and mission.

Missed our launch event yesterday? No problem. Here is everything you need to know about the Brain and Genomics Hub ⬇️ youtube.com/watch?v=TjA9IU…

What a day! Thank you to everyone who joined us for our launch ✨💙 @BipolarUK @Adferiad_ @ncmh_wales @CNGGcardiff @GW4Alliance @neurosciencecu @UniofBath @SwanseaUni @UniofExeter @BristolUniversi @UKRI_News @MHPlatform✨

There and back again... A few months ago I wrote an essay on moving from academia to biotech. Today I published a follow-up: moving from biotech to academia. doi.org/10.59350/004z9…

Here's some educational content

other artists: yeah i'll draw saint anthony being ripped apart by demons, beset by fearsome beasts and lascivious shebas bosch: he try to get water but little guys

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This is a remarkable feat on so many levels. *Massive* congrats to @kiranmusunuru (former @Circ_Gen EiC & @skathire lab co-alum) @Sarah_Grand @AhrensNicklas & team! nejm.org/doi/full/10.10… @NEJM (coverage nytimes.com/2025/05/15/hea… @nytimes by @ginakolata)

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@errorrelativo @Ricardo_Cd_Oliv Muy interesante, gracias por todos estos detalles!

@gerclouds No puedo evitar recordar goodreads.com/quotes/352737-…

📢✨ We’re delighted to announce that the National Centre for Mental Health has been awarded £2,999,894 of sustainability funding from @ResearchWales to deliver high quality mental health research over the next five years. 🧵 (1/2)

En 2020 el gobierno checo adjudicó un contrato millonario para desarrollar una plataforma digital. La comunidad tecnológica puso el grito en el cielo: «el precio está inflado: es corrupción». Para demostrarlo, lanzaron un reto: «organicémonos y lo desarrollamos en un fin de semana». Participaron casi 200 programadores. En 48 horas tenían una alternativa funcional. Ante el escándalo, el gobierno tuvo que cancelar el contrato. Y cesar al ministro. España no puede seguir contratando metaversos y ciudades «smart» mientras los trámites y servicios públicos digitales languidecen abandonados. España necesita este tipo de contestación civil organizada. Difunde.

"Go with grace into the great beyond..." We at Red Hook are heartbroken to confirm the passing of our beloved voice actor, Wayne June.

Congratulations on winning this year’s Research Rising Star Award, @ChawnerSamuel 👏👏👏 We’re excited to be partnering with Sam to recruit for his upcoming ARFID research! #ResearchWales24

@AJLynham @ncmh_wales Congratulations Amy! I spoke of you (appropriately highly) to @CUDigiTransform yesterday and I'm linking them here directly 🙂

I'm very pleased to announce that I've been awarded a HCRW Advanced Fellowship to conduct testing of our online tool (CONCA) that could help clinical staff monitor cognitive function in patients with psychosis @ncmh_wales healthandcareresearchwales.org/about/news/lat…

I feel very mature citing papers by a person that absolutely, positively refuses to cite me, but still

and then he came for evo psych… 💀

derek guy @dieworkwear

2 years ago

@PaulaGhete just seems like you've made your argument untestable. which is the problem i have with a lot of evolutionary psychology. the causal methods are dubious because the person has built their argument around a definition (it is so bc it is so).

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