davidmurdoch.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Inside Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning is a good 2-hour movie that's been overstuffed by pointless call-backs and "revelations". Briggs is Jim Phelps' son. Simultaneously implausible and pointless. A pity Chris McQuarrie clings to time-sucking plot strands like Cruise to the bottom of a biplane

submitted 3 hours ago • 0 comments

Interesting summary by Forbes of the current state of AI coding agents. Confess I got hungup on reference to "workload modernisation" as just "marketing spin frosting". I like the metaphor, but if you spin something, won't the frosting fly off? www.forbes.com/sites/adrian...

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

NHS Education for Scotland awards £27 million ‘digital front door’ contract to BJSS. Tech company appointed to develop national system for people to access their health and social care records online ⬇️ futurescot.com/nhs-educatio...

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Interesting finding by AI team at Bloomberg: given entirely safe RAG context an LLM can break out of its safeguarding (e.g. give advice on commiting crimes). Doesn't mean RAG shouldn't be used, too essential, but model providers must find ways to make safeguards stronger. twimlai.com/podcast/twim...

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Sad at the passing of George Wendt, Norm from Cheers. For me Norm and Cliff were the heart of the show. The whole will-they won't-they with Sam (played as a predator?! before Me-Too) and Diane passed me by. But the genuine-seeming chalk and cheese friendship of Norm & Cliff felt far more authentic.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

A quote from IBM in 1979: "a computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision." Hence all AI vendors emphasise its output must be checked. The risk is checking-the-AI becomes equivalent to "reading the terms and conditions" before clicking "I accept"

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Someone told me Waymo's success shows AI has achieved full autonomy. And yet in this podcast their Head of AI says they contunue to struggle with freeways because of the speed and the car can't just randomly stop if it becomes uncertain, like they can do on urban streets. twimlai.com/podcast/twim...

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

I empathise with the Kidron amendment. I had Dall-E generate 4 images of a dragon on a golden hoard for a slide deck. One looked a lot like Smaug from LOTR. How original would such an image ever be? We all have cultural influences in what we imagine, #AI does too. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Interesting divergence between OpenAI's ChatGPT which allows subject-specific custom GPTs to be created and shared, whereas MS Copilot, although its based on the same foundation model, is far less customiseable. MS bets value is in MS365 tenancy/content integration. www.local.gov.uk/case-studies...

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Impressive turnaround in performance from only 43% of reports produced within 20 weeks to 83% with use of AI. Includes human-in-the-loop safeguards: "a case worker [who knows the child] went through each individual report to check for any misunderstandings by the AI." www.bbc.com/news/article...

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

Interesting idea with merit where EBSA is harming pupil attainment. But as with adult WFH, one wonders if the attractions of this remote learning model may see a sudden rise in pupils with EBSA support needs. Waiting lists for the kit, new budget pressures, etc. www.localgov.co.uk/Local-author...

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

If Trump was right about toy companies being countries then UK's Airfix would defo have the best equipped armed forces. But I'd have to visit Tonka land for the nostalgia. I assumed Tonka was Swedish meaning "child who's lost a finger" but turns out it's a US brand named after a native American lake

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

Potential tension here between "trained using [data] stripped of personal information" sounds like full anonymisation, versus the individualised interventions which require re-identification. That said, could be real health benefit public happy to opt in for. www.independent.co.uk/news/health/...

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

Interesting: "The system will not be able to propose relevant case law, which is a high-risk area for LLMs." Hallucination remains AI's Achilles Heel. If any model builder cracks that they'll have a huge advantage over the competition. Looking to reasoning models www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/sra-app...

submitted 18 days ago • 0 comments

3 key data points: 1: "Alien", made in UK. 2: "Aliens", made in UK. 3: Adam Sandler's "Jack & Jill", 100% made in California. Don't know about tariffs barriers but there ought to be some sort of cultural exclusion zone thrown around number 3. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

Fusion Fest to headline Glasgow Tech Week at the end of May. The event, in its second year, brings together key tech ecosystem players for the city-region to boost economic growth and spotlight Scotland’s growing reputation as a global innovation hub ⬇️ futurescot.com/fusion-fest-...

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

Maybe an interesting PhD to be written on why this gender split occurs "a survey of 1,500 jobseekers found that 31 per cent of men were using a paid-for AI tool [in hiring assessments] compared with 18 per cent of women." More emphasis on playing fair, ethical use perhaps? www.ft.com/content/43cd...

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

OpenAI has had to tone down ChatGPT's agreeableness. Reminded of Douglas Adams and the annoying talking doors on Zaphod's ship, Heart of Gold. Let's hope they don't turn the dial all the way to Marvin-level misanthropy! #UnhappyMedium openai.com/index/sycoph...

submitted 22 days ago • 0 comments

If Marco Rubio asks Microsoft Copilot to organise his newly expanded work calendars, the Azure datacentre serving Wahington DC may have to sequestrate the entire energy output of the US east coast.

submitted 23 days ago • 0 comments

Looking out at the rain, and down at the BBC weather app on my phone, saying there's a 0% probability of rain where I am at this time. The thing about probabilities is the wiggle room is built in. Not sure, no problem, say there's a 1% probablity. In Scotland a 0% chance of rain is a bold move BBC!

submitted 24 days ago • 0 comments

Analogy by @gottschlich.bsky.social that AI coding assistants are like Flintstone's cars, only going as fast as human legs allow. Implies though the human is the throttle to be eliminated. By extension are doctors slowing the practice of medicine? Is AI ready to diagnose illness as well as software?

submitted 25 days ago • 0 comments

At 12.33pm 15 gigawatts of energy "suddenly disappeared" from Spain and Portugal's power grid. Not unrelated at 12:32pm Juan Martinez, a Media Studies student from Madrid, asked ChatGPT to write a 500 word essay explaining the popularity of Piers Morgan. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

submitted 26 days ago • 0 comments

Users of the CursorAI code writing tool were having difficulty getting it to work on multiple devices. When asked the AI support assistant said it was due to a new security policy. There was no such policy. LLMs still struggle to say "I don't know". #hallucination www.theregister.com/2025/04/18/c...

submitted 27 days ago • 0 comments

#MetaAI in WhatsApp has a dilemma. You could ask it to teach you German. But it retains no memory between chat sessions, so evey day you restart at "Wie geht's?" A memory would make it significantly more useful. But has Meta already burned all its trust bridges? www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

submitted 29 days ago • 0 comments

Interesting discussion with @fryrsquared.bsky.social on how #AI is now well beyond the Turing Test into ExMachina's "Garland Test": you know it's artificial, but do you believe it's conscious? Which depends on how you define consciousness. Philosophy may have a resurgence! youtu.be/v1Py_hWcmkU?...

submitted 30 days ago • 0 comments

Unusual use of term "jackpot": maybe suggests a gamble on, in this case, untested AI? "the Technology Secretary revealed a £45 billion jackpot of productivity savings, if the public sector makes good use of technology to improve services and make processes more efficient." www.gov.uk/government/n...

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

How do privacy-enhancing technologies work in practice? This explainer looks at how secure multi-party computation can be used to enable pay gap analysis without revealing the underlying #data itself

submitted 33 days ago • 0 comments

Last chance to book our FREE hands-on workshop on 24 April 2025, and dive deep into using Generative AI to support learners. Explore the SAGE-Responsible AI (RAI) project and discover how task-specific AI tutors can enhance education. Book now

submitted 32 days ago • 0 comments

Big news: The Dispatch has acquired @scotus-blog.bsky.social, and we're thrilled to welcome cofounder Amy Howe—widely respected as one of the nation's leading legal journalists—to our team.

submitted 32 days ago • 6 comments

The Guardian's ad serving network seems to think I'm in the market for some military-grade drone tech. The US maker of the "MQ-9 Reaper" advertising in the Grauniad?! I guess if everyone with a paid-for Guardian subscription buys one then their sales could easily reach double digits.

submitted 32 days ago • 0 comments

We need ‘strategic interventions’ to arrest decline, says computing science teaching campaigner. Toni Scullion says latest teacher census numbers are "alarming" for the subject, but recruitment issues can be solved with the right policies ⬇️ futurescot.com/we-need-stra...

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments

Somewhat counterintuitive: using #AI to predict road accident "hotspots" where there's no history of accidents. I could see this being useful if the council's considering adding bikelanes or other changes, but AI may struggle with absence of incidents www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/2506573...

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments

"AI my dog as a human" is trending, the AI that converts a dog photo into a vaguely similar looking human. A short hop away from AI telling us what they're thinking. Won't need an extensive vocabulary: I'm hungry; are you gonna eat that? Walk time. You're great! But why are you collecting my poo?

submitted 39 days ago • 0 comments

A/B testing data science slogans: A) I logistically regress, therefore I am. B) Paraphrasing Homer Simpson's musings on beer: To data, the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems!

submitted 40 days ago • 0 comments

Seeing Copilot Recall in headlines I always think of car defects which seems a suboptimal brand association. Concerns about it screen-grabbing will take time to settle. It only runs on Copilot+ PCs, which need NPUs (N=Neural) so it won't suddenly appear on your device, unless you bought one of those

submitted 41 days ago • 0 comments

#AI coding support is good and improving. But we face a dilemma. It's seldom 100% accurate, which is fine, a human coder will clean the code. But for junior coders starting their career now how do they build their intuitive feel for fixes if opportunity to learn from their own trial & error is lost?

submitted 43 days ago • 1 comment

World’s largest AI chip installed at supercomputing centre in Edinburgh. New Cerebras CS-3 systems will bring 'uniquely powerful AI resource' to city region ⬇️ futurescot.com/worlds-large...

submitted 47 days ago • 0 comments

University of Glasgow startups join semiconductor incubator programme. RX Watt Ltd, Kelvin Quantum and AIDE to join ChipStart programme to develop new computer chip-based products that are vital components for the tech industry ⬇️ futurescot.com/university-o...

submitted 45 days ago • 0 comments

No issue with this. WofO's innovative use of Technicolor was cutting edge in 1939. Wonder what happens when a character walks beyond old frame? Do they now stand like ignored NPCs in a video game, or does the #AI show them checking their Google Pixel phones? www.androidauthority.com/google-wizar...

submitted 45 days ago • 0 comments

Interesting pilot. Of course Teams, Zoom, etc can all do something along these lines natively, but it's worth evaluating if a domain-specific model might produce output thst's more tailored, context-aware based on understanding specialised terminology/language. www.westberks.gov.uk/article/4439...

submitted 46 days ago • 0 comments

I like Stewart Lee so I have to blame his editor for this. The UK's tariffs from the US are not "10% lower" than the EU. They are in fact 50%, or 10 "percentage points", lower. The tariffs themselves are of course delusional but the UK's liability is 10%, not 18% www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

submitted 47 days ago • 0 comments

Speech #AI, beyond text-only chatbots, is where we're headed. There's a risk. We anthropomorphise voices to a far greater extent. And at least initially they'll have all the AI failings plus new ones; understanding accents etc. Will frustrating human-seeming interactions erode intersocial patience?

submitted 48 days ago • 0 comments

Claim is if you use their new BuyForMe Agentic #AI for online shopping then "Amazon can’t see what you’re ordering from outside its platform." Really? So if user complains the #AI made an erroneous purchase there's no transaction log to refer to for dispute resolution? techcrunch.com/2025/04/03/a...

submitted 51 days ago • 0 comments

McDonald and Heard Islands. In case you were wondering. No, they don't have any exports.

submitted 52 days ago • 8 comments

Financial regulation innovation lab (FRIL) in Glasgow to take share of UK-wide £30m funding extension. Accelerator one of 11 city-region projects to benefit from fresh round of UK Government investment ⬇️ futurescot.com/financial-re...

submitted 52 days ago • 0 comments

Surprise as Norfolk & Christmas Islands both hit by Trump Tariffs. Mistaken identity perhaps? Aiming for UK's "big poultry" Bernard Matthews Norfolk turkeys? Although as should be clear by now one thing the USA has no shortage of it's turkeys voting for Christmas. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

submitted 52 days ago • 0 comments

Some say the EU AI Act is unnecessary: existing laws against libel, fraud, etc. Misses a key point: if I build an underwriting app that charges left-handed customers extra - that's discriminatory. But an AI model might do it through unintentional bias in training data. Hence need for #AI safeguards

submitted 53 days ago • 0 comments

Entertaining discussion on A/B Testing pitfalls. Anecdotes from the bad old days of Facebook Gaming. All the chat about: "virality, monetisation and spamming users with pop-ups" - a lesson in how a marketplace was burned down through excessive customer comoditisation www.datacamp.com/podcast/how-...

submitted 54 days ago • 0 comments