UCL
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Urban Futures - UCL's 16th RDR Conference
A heatwave outside, a conference inside asking what cities must become to survive the next one.
Risk
Latest
Wildfire
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Qstat be thy name
This week, between Cambridge Tech Week, the Centre for Risk Studies Symposium, and agreeing to help run a UCL STEM day for teenagers — made newly urgent by a Scientific American piece on US science — I also wrestled my dissertation's quantitative core through UCL's HPC cluster.
Society
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A week of awards
The Nobel Prize’s integrity is a reminder that excellence still prevails over politics. Amid funding cuts and cynicism, the MacArthur Fellows highlight America’s diversity and brilliance - an antidote to the relentless noise and despair of the news cycle.
AI
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Meta, Do Better
Reuters’ investigation into Meta’s 200-page AI chatbot guidelines revealed egregious oversights approved by Meta's Chief Ethicist. The case underscores how Meta’s rapid AI expansion is outpacing ethical safeguards and creating substantial societal risk.
Misinformation Vulnerability
Public discussion continues to be dominated by lab leak narratives and political agendas - discourse that is often conspiratorial or speculative. Misinformation actively hinders our ability to prepare, detect, and respond to the next pandemic threat.