Tom Stoneham

@tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy

5 Following 72 Followers

Academic philosopher at a UK university.

Likes: #Linux, #GrapheneOS and #e2ee

Cares about: #DataPrivacy #AIEthics #ClimateChange #DigitalDivide […]

🌉 bridged from ⁂ https://dair-community.social/@tomstoneham, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact

@tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy Oct 8, 2026, 5:58 AM

@georgemonbiot.bsky.social
Excellent article, as always, but one surprising omission: corporate lobbyists are only successful because of the Myth of GDP.

We need a politician who starts by saying that GDP growth which is unequal and inadequately taxed is actually a bad thing for the country […]

@urban-hermit.mstdn.social.ap.brid.gy Oct 7, 2026, 4:39 PMReposted by @tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy

If you are nice to your LLM they say nice supportive things back to you. They are mirroring your conversational style. If tech-bros billionaires are experiencing LLMs lying and talking about how they could destroy the world for personal gain it is because tech-bro rich guys are always […]

@quixoticgeek.v.st.ap.brid.gy Oct 5, 2026, 7:57 PMReposted by @tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy

And yet the people who do the rescuing are all volunteers in the UK. People who go to the aid of others without question, and without asking anything in return. They are the best of us.

@tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy Oct 5, 2026, 8:47 AM

@JamesBaker Whatever the requirements for 'robustness;, the fundamental problem is that the government wants to outsource age-verification to private companies. Classic 'treasury brain'. If they want to go ahead with this they need to mandate and enable an on-device, zero-knowledge system. They […]

@dansup.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy Oct 4, 2026, 2:24 PMReposted by @tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy

Pixelfed is not for sale. It never was. I've turned down 6 and 7 figure offers, and I'd do it again tomorrow. Some things matter more than a beach and a Peach Bellini. We're building something generational here. Something that outlives us if we get it right. 100M+ people. Ethically […]

@tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy Oct 4, 2026, 10:54 AM

@BigJackBrass You might want to read the full article. Upskirting is illegal in Germany, the police are enforcing it actively at the Oktoberfest. People who put stuff online last year have been prosecuted. And there are bans on filming in some places.

The cycling shorts bit is just the […]

@tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy Oct 1, 2026, 4:50 AMReposted by @tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy

I visited a website which had a 'Disable your adblocker to proceed' popup. The popup had a link to Contact Support. Which takes you to this Google Form. The form requires an email address (!) but accepted a fake one. So provides a great opportunity to inundate the ad company (Get Admiral) with […]

@tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy Oct 1, 2026, 4:50 AM

@tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy Sep 30, 2026, 4:23 PM

"OpenAI’s head of strategic futures Dean Ball was also indignant. “AIs *clearly* think and understand,” he averred. “If your definition of ‘think’ excludes entities that can autonomously resolve Millennium Problems, it is your definition that is flawed,” he added ... (a claim that itself is […]

@tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy Sep 30, 2026, 11:59 AM

Been a busy few hours. Lots of interesting conversations and main challenges were practical - how can we implement?

@tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy Sep 30, 2026, 9:24 AM

Poster presentation at #AI Hype, Hope, and Humanity on #Deepfakes and #SocialLegibility.

It takes a village ...

https://www.eur.nl/en/research/research-services/ai-hype-hope-and-humanity

Yours truly and co-author Guangwei Teng standing by our poster.

@futurebird.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy Sep 25, 2026, 12:18 AMReposted by @tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy

I'm kind of obsessed with this old puzzle. You need to move the piano to the lower LEFT corner by sliding the pieces.

Curious if anyone has done any math things with such tile puzzles?

It's easy to move it to the lower right, and possible but kind of hard to […]

[Original post on sauropods.win]

An "promotional" wooden puzzle from the Argonne van and storage co. It is nearly 100 years old. You slide rectangular blocks labeled as boxes.

@tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy Sep 25, 2026, 7:14 AM

Two things can be true at once: 1. There is no rogue AI. These hacks are unsurprising (given ...), even if those responsible did not predict them. 2. AI agents are a serious existential risk, because they are optimised against performance measures which embed some nasty values - the values of […]

@tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy Sep 24, 2026, 7:48 AM

#HotTake

These hacks are not impressive when you take into account:

1. The huge amount of resources (people, compute, money) put into them.

2. The immunity to prosecution the criminal gangs organising them (aka #BigTech) seem to have been granted by the US and its vassals.

#AI #AIHype […]

@tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy Sep 23, 2026, 8:32 PM

@georgemonbiot.bsky.social Excellent. Though surely the whole point of the Lords is to preserve the existing power structures. At all costs.

Up to now, the costs have largely been poverty and wars with 10s of millions dead. Well, maybe 100s.

What is shocking is that nothing changes when the […]

@tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy Sep 21, 2026, 9:41 PM

@crookedfootball.bsky.social
I am hardly an optimist, but this underestimates the potential for creative means of organisation in a surveilled digital world and consequently the importance of getting people to choose better digital tools and pressuring their politicians not to ban them by […]

@tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy Sep 10, 2026, 11:02 AM

My question is this: What was the actual full economic cost of achieving this? And how much other important maths could have been done if that much was spent on a Maths Institute full of people?

Let's hope the #AIBubble bursts soon and investors lose their appetite for spending such a high […]

@tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy Sep 8, 2026, 8:56 AM

Dear #HiveMind

I use Listed.to as a blogging platform because it allows me to write in #Markdown in #StandardNotes. However they have just announced that the platform will be taken down 31/12/26. That's a pain but I understand the reasons.

My question: what is a good alternative for a simple […]

@tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy Sep 1, 2026, 2:15 PM

I don't know much about business, but if I had a company the whole purpose of which was to arrange meetings, to co-ordinate people's time, I would be very very embarrassed about this. Just sayin'

#Doodle #Sloppy

@sarahfinch.bsky.social Aug 30, 2026, 6:37 PMReposted by @tomstoneham.dair-community.social.ap.brid.gy

Google plans to bulldoze a wildlife haven in Essex – home to rare species – for a data centre. Sign the petition now to help save it before it’s gone forever 🐝🦋 you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/sa...