Stephen Boyle

Incredible letter in @thetimes

Chart of the year:

@dkennytcd @MatthewHolmesBL For reference chatgpt.com/s/t_68faab862a…

@dkennytcd @MatthewHolmesBL Interesting! I’m starting to find the search augmented retrieval / extended thinking models (eg GPT 5 Thinking) can get alright results (for the original question pulled back a TCD paper that directly states the number of referrals - though your colleagues may have been wrong 😉)

A great example for students for why you don’t use GenAI for legal research.

@donlav @StuartWelsh4 AI generated union flag as well... unless the video was taken pre 1801 when the St Patrick's cross was added...

@StuartWelsh4 Imagine being happy that no- one is found guilty of the murder of 14 civilians in their own city.

Soldier F not guilty Justice at last Happy & glorious

@nntaleb @IndianLatino This is why market orientation (exposed to competition or not) was predictive of post-soviet success for businesses while ownership (public or private) wasn’t.

@IndianLatino Incentives WITHOUT disincentives is free option.

Many believe that someone coming from the private sector will be business-minded & not bureaucratic. No, You get a salary (not a commission/cut) => you are a bureaucrat. CEOs are the most bureaucratic, even those on incentive, WORSE than government bureaucrats.

@doctorow Some good ideas here. However to say the new state lender could always get their money back because of repossession (foreclosure) seems a stretchin when combined with the price depreciation element of the PILL? Interest isn’t just profit for banks - it also covers default risk

Today's Twitter threads (a Twitter thread). NOTE: I DID NOT BUY A BLUE TICK. IT WAS NONCONSENSUALLY ADDED TO MY ACCOUNT. Inside: How to fix the UK housing crisis; and more! Archived at: pluralistic.net/2025/10/13/cas… #Pluralistic 1/

Ah yes. Reading comprehension in the age of LLMs. Who would need that?

@StartupArchive_ It’s so very Thiel that he’s confidently saying this about a book Gladwell didn’t write.

Peter Thiel: There is no wisdom of crowds Thiel suggests that the antithesis of his book Zero To One is Malcolm Gladwell’s The Wisdom of Crowds. “If you have to give credit to Malcolm Gladwell, the way the argument actually works in the wisdom of crowds is if you have a crowd of people and they independently make a judgement, you can average it out and you’ll get to a pretty good idea.” The classic example is asking a group of people to independently guess how many marbles are in a bag—the average answer will be pretty good. “But the problem is that in most cases, the decisions don’t end up getting made individually.” Thiel explains. “People are influenced by one another. And when you have a crowd dynamic in which people are drawing conclusions because they’re looking toward one another, that is where the crowd is untruth.” Thiel believes imitation is a deep part of human nature: “Kids learn language by copying their parents. It’s how culture is transmitted in our society. But it’s also how very many things go wrong.” Thiel believes you need to go against the crowd if you want to accomplish something truly great. He points out that many of the most successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley seem to be suffering from a mild form of Aspergers. Video source: @OxfordSBS (2015)

@SCP_Hughes There are also regular complaints about the farmers market. I gently ask neighbors to imagine a counter factual where 40-odd households were evicted to facilitate a weekly market. Changing the perspective is illustrative of where our priorities ought to be.

A fascinating list of pop stars, actors, TV presenters and other luminaries have petitioned against this completely innocuous development on an underused station car park in the extremely wealthy suburb of Blackheath. I quote some highlights below, which tell us much about modern British society: Nick Ferrari: 'monstrously out of scale... will irrevocably destroy [the] village' Jude Law: 'This plan [i.e., building houses] does not answer housing needs' Jeff Banks CBE PPCSD FRA: 'sense must prevail over greed' Chris Difford: 'heartbreaking - Blackheath has a skyline that is already suffocated by the horizon of Canary Wharf [4.3 km away]' Barney Ronay: 'This development as it stands will destroy the beautiful, fragile historic heart of Blackheath' Henry Macrory: 'Nothing could be more calculated to destroy its unique character than this development in the very heart of the village' All these quotations, and many more, may be found on the website 'Reject Blackheath Station'.

@TheStalwart This is the plot of ‘Where the axe is buried’… it didn’t end well!

Albania has appointed an AI-generated government minister who will avoid getting corrupted.

@emollick Might make an exception for copilots’ “agents” which is being used by a lot of enterprises.

I'll note again that it seems nuts that, despite every AI lab launching a half-dozen new products, nobody is doing anything with GPTs, including OpenAI When I talk to people at companies, this is still the way non-technical people share prompts on teams. No big change in 2 years

Medicine and public health have added three decades to the human lifespan. Vaccination alone produced 40% of the reduction in child deaths. And now a disturbed and unqualified man driven by crackpot theories is destroying the foundations of this work, including CDC.

@TheStalwart Yup. I’ve turned memory off for this reason. Kept getting it trying to explain things using Spider-Man analogies because one of its memories was that my son likes it!

Anyone else think that ChatGPT's familiarity with the user is a detriment to the quality with the output? I don't need *every* answer to be tailored back around to the things I usually probe about.

@JeremyKinsella Drogba was another great example like that. Totally changed my mind on him when I read how he tried to prevent conflict at home

@Stephen_Boyle 100% Does a lot of great social work too, I'm sure on the pitch he's wrecks oppositions heads but he's a great fella. I love him.

It's insane that people think this guy isn't a decent person! A great man! the charity work in Brazil! Campaigning against Bolsenaro! Top lad.

Can you tell us how he died, where, and why?

What a series. Two fantastic teams

Statement from Arne Slot: What to say? What can anyone say at a time like this when the shock and the pain is so incredibly raw? I wish I had the words but I know I do not. All I have are feelings that I know so many people will share about a person and a player we loved dearly and a family we care so much about. My first thoughts are not those of a football manager. They are of a father, a son, a brother and an uncle and they belong to the family of Diogo and Andre Silva who have experienced such an unimaginable loss. My message to them is very clear – you will never walk alone. The players, the staff, the supporters of Liverpool Football Club are all with you and from what I have seen today, the same can be said of the wider family of football. This is not solely a response to tragedy. It is also a reaction to the goodness of the people involved and the respect that so many have for the boys as individuals and for the family as a whole. For us as a club, the sense of shock is absolute. Diogo was not just our player. He was a loved one to all of us. He was a teammate, a colleague, a workmate and in all of those roles he was very special. I could say so much about what he brought to our team but the truth is everyone who watched Diogo play could see it. Hard work, desire, commitment, great quality, goals. The essence of what a Liverpool player should be. There were also the parts that not everyone got to see. The person who never sought popularity but found it anyway. Not a friend to two people, a friend to everyone. Someone who made others feel good about themselves just by being with them. A person who cared deeply for his family. The last time we spoke, I congratulated Diogo on winning the Nations League and wished him luck for his forthcoming wedding. In many ways, it was a dream summer for Diogo and his family, which makes it all the more heartbreaking that it should end like this. When I first came to the club, one of the first songs I got to know was the one that our fans sing for Diogo. I had not worked with him previously but I knew straight away that if the Liverpool supporters, who have seen so many great players over the years, had such a unique chant for Diogo, he must have special qualities. That we have lost those qualities in such terrible circumstances is something we have not yet come to terms with. For this reason, we need everyone at the club to stand together and to be there for one another. We owe this to Diogo, to Andre Silva, to their wider family and to ourselves. My condolences go to Diogo’s wife, Rute, their three beautiful children and to the parents of Diogo and Andre Silva. When the time is right, we will celebrate Diogo Jota, we will remember his goals and we will sing his song. For the time being, we will remember him as a unique human being and mourn his loss. He will never be forgotten. His name is Diogo.