Jack Hardinges
@jackhardinges.bsky.social
Data optimist.
Interested in: data infrastructures, governance, platforms, AI, the commons, etc.
Working with: Foresight (1m eye scans), Icebreaker One (data for net zero), Creative Commons (preference signals) + OpenMined (federated data networks).
Interested in: data infrastructures, governance, platforms, AI, the commons, etc.
Working with: Foresight (1m eye scans), Icebreaker One (data for net zero), Creative Commons (preference signals) + OpenMined (federated data networks).
"Of course, we’re also hoping to eventually offset risk by diversifying into galoots, simpletons, and outright morons. But the important thing now is to get many, many more idiots confused enough to believe they have any chance in hell of making money off this grift”
Crypto Leaders Call For Infusion Of 20 Million Dopes To Stabilize Market
Crypto Leaders Call For Infusion Of 20 Million Dopes To Stabilize Market
BOSTON—Stressing that the move would help keep digital currencies liquid through the coming year, crypto leaders called for an infusion of 20 million dopes Thursday to stabilize the market. “We’re cal...
theonion.com
December 11, 2025 at 5:07 PM
"Of course, we’re also hoping to eventually offset risk by diversifying into galoots, simpletons, and outright morons. But the important thing now is to get many, many more idiots confused enough to believe they have any chance in hell of making money off this grift”
just watched a brilliant talk by Paul Keller @openfuture.bsky.social. it includes a case for *conditional openness*, building on OF's longstanding argument that the open movement must better account for concentrations of power www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROig...
December 11, 2025 at 12:59 PM
just watched a brilliant talk by Paul Keller @openfuture.bsky.social. it includes a case for *conditional openness*, building on OF's longstanding argument that the open movement must better account for concentrations of power www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROig...
a job posting for 'Public Sector Data Markets Lead' for the National Data Library. responsible for "interventions to test the potential commercial market for public sector data. They will identify promising opportunities for data commercialisation" www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi...
Quick Check Needed
www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk
December 10, 2025 at 12:51 PM
a job posting for 'Public Sector Data Markets Lead' for the National Data Library. responsible for "interventions to test the potential commercial market for public sector data. They will identify promising opportunities for data commercialisation" www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi...
"Today, OpenAI is co-founding the Agentic AI Foundation under the Linux Foundation, alongside Anthropic and Block, and with the support of Google, Microsoft, AWS, Bloomberg, and Cloudflare" openai.com/index/agenti...
OpenAI co-founds the Agentic AI Foundation under the Linux Foundation
AAIF aims to advance open-source agentic AI with the donation of standards including OpenAI’s AGENTS.md
openai.com
December 10, 2025 at 9:47 AM
"Today, OpenAI is co-founding the Agentic AI Foundation under the Linux Foundation, alongside Anthropic and Block, and with the support of Google, Microsoft, AWS, Bloomberg, and Cloudflare" openai.com/index/agenti...
I've written up some thoughts on large AI models’ evolving relationship with data (with my new @openmined.bsky.social hat on): openmined.org/blog/ai-hasn...
No, AI Hasn't Run Out of Data... Here's What's Really Happening
Elon Musk says AI exhausted all human data. He's wrong. 99.99% of the world's data is private and untapped. Here's how AI's relationship with data is really evolving—and what's at stake.
openmined.org
December 3, 2025 at 9:27 AM
I've written up some thoughts on large AI models’ evolving relationship with data (with my new @openmined.bsky.social hat on): openmined.org/blog/ai-hasn...
"Data spaces as meta-organisations" www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Data spaces as meta-organisations
Sharing and reusing data across organisations is central to the European data strategy and its transformation towards creating a data-driven economy. Currently, data sharing, when it occurs, is typ...
www.tandfonline.com
December 2, 2025 at 11:11 AM
"Data spaces as meta-organisations" www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
“This commoditization will start to bifurcate the market into a spectrum with extremes at either end: a smaller premium market at one end, and a larger commodity market at the other. A classic barbell effect where the middle disappears" radicallyinformed.substack.com/p/beyond-the...
Beyond the Artifact: The Brutal Economics of Liquid Content
Value is migrating away from content, and creating surprising new opportunities
radicallyinformed.substack.com
December 2, 2025 at 11:11 AM
“This commoditization will start to bifurcate the market into a spectrum with extremes at either end: a smaller premium market at one end, and a larger commodity market at the other. A classic barbell effect where the middle disappears" radicallyinformed.substack.com/p/beyond-the...
"Conditional openness means that datasets are freely accessible for non-commercial, public-interest uses, while commercial access may be subject to additional conditions— such as registration, purpose declaration, and payment where appropriate" openfuture.eu/wp-content/u...
openfuture.eu
December 2, 2025 at 11:05 AM
"Conditional openness means that datasets are freely accessible for non-commercial, public-interest uses, while commercial access may be subject to additional conditions— such as registration, purpose declaration, and payment where appropriate" openfuture.eu/wp-content/u...
I've written up a briefing note for @creativecommons.bsky.social on pay-to-crawl: new systems being used by websites to automate compensation for when their content is accessed by AI bots and other machines
Pay-to-crawl systems have emerged as a possible way to help sustain the creation of content online in the wake of AI. However, overbroad use of pay-to-crawl could represent a shift towards a more tightly controlled and monetised content ecosystem.
Read the full brief for more!
buff.ly/h0wdhXS
Read the full brief for more!
buff.ly/h0wdhXS
November 27, 2025 at 1:32 PM
I've written up a briefing note for @creativecommons.bsky.social on pay-to-crawl: new systems being used by websites to automate compensation for when their content is accessed by AI bots and other machines
'The Most Boring Dataset in the World' foresight.org/resource/gre...
November 27, 2025 at 10:02 AM
'The Most Boring Dataset in the World' foresight.org/resource/gre...
Wikimedia's paid-for APIs now generating £8m+ revenues, presumably fuelled by AI users diff.wikimedia.org/2025/11/24/w...
Wikimedia Enterprise Financial Report: Fiscal Year 2024 – 2025
Summary This is the fourth annual financial report for Wikimedia Enterprise – for the fiscal year 2024-25. We are pleased to share that not only does this report show the first complete year of pro…
diff.wikimedia.org
November 27, 2025 at 9:54 AM
Wikimedia's paid-for APIs now generating £8m+ revenues, presumably fuelled by AI users diff.wikimedia.org/2025/11/24/w...
"It’s incoherent to claim that data is extremely valuable and that it should somehow also be free. This doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons to subsidize data access to make it available at no cost, but it means we need to acknowledge the costs" radiant.earth/blog/2025/11...
Great Data Products
The language we use to talk about data is keeping us from realizing its full potential.
radiant.earth
November 13, 2025 at 12:59 PM
"It’s incoherent to claim that data is extremely valuable and that it should somehow also be free. This doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons to subsidize data access to make it available at no cost, but it means we need to acknowledge the costs" radiant.earth/blog/2025/11...
"The question isn’t whether we can add integrity to AI but whether the architecture permits integrity at all. Today’s AI agents observe the Internet, orient via statistics, decide probabilistically, and act without verification" (via @peterkwells.com) www.schneier.com/blog/archive...
Agentic AI’s OODA Loop Problem - Schneier on Security
The OODA loop—for observe, orient, decide, act—is a framework to understand decision-making in adversarial situations. We apply the same framework to artificial intelligence agents, who have to make t...
www.schneier.com
November 7, 2025 at 2:32 PM
"The question isn’t whether we can add integrity to AI but whether the architecture permits integrity at all. Today’s AI agents observe the Internet, orient via statistics, decide probabilistically, and act without verification" (via @peterkwells.com) www.schneier.com/blog/archive...
'How AGI became the most consequential conspiracy theory of our time' www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/30/1...
How AGI became the most consequential conspiracy theory of our time
The idea that machines will be as smart as—or smarter than—humans has hijacked an entire industry. But look closely and you’ll see it’s a myth that persists for many of the same reasons conspiracies d...
www.technologyreview.com
November 7, 2025 at 9:00 AM
'How AGI became the most consequential conspiracy theory of our time' www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/30/1...
the Smart Data Group has published a proposal for what the 'Future Entity' for Open Banking + all Smart Data Schemes should look like. Special Purpose Vehicles for each Scheme.. www.linkedin.com/posts/smart-...
November 3, 2025 at 8:48 AM
the Smart Data Group has published a proposal for what the 'Future Entity' for Open Banking + all Smart Data Schemes should look like. Special Purpose Vehicles for each Scheme.. www.linkedin.com/posts/smart-...
'Welcome to the Post-Naive Internet Era' www.mozillafoundation.org/en/nothing-p...
Welcome to the Post-Naive Internet Era
The grand idealism of the free and open internet might be over for now, but in its place falls a more practical mindset. Just like Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs are entering their “Hard Tech” era, th...
www.mozillafoundation.org
October 31, 2025 at 4:20 PM
'Welcome to the Post-Naive Internet Era' www.mozillafoundation.org/en/nothing-p...
"The open movement must likewise evolve from the libertarian ethos of the early internet toward a civic ethos fit for the age of AI. We must design infrastructures.. that preserve the spirit of accessibility while protecting against its weaponisation" sverhulst.medium.com/the-weaponis...
The Weaponisation of Openness? Toward a New Social Contract for Data in the AI Era
By Stefaan G. Verhulst
sverhulst.medium.com
October 30, 2025 at 6:02 PM
"The open movement must likewise evolve from the libertarian ethos of the early internet toward a civic ethos fit for the age of AI. We must design infrastructures.. that preserve the spirit of accessibility while protecting against its weaponisation" sverhulst.medium.com/the-weaponis...
new UK Gov study on the value of public sector data. apparently the public sector invests £30bn in data assets per year, which have an 'expected potential value' to the economy of £15bn-200bn www.gov.uk/government/p...
Value of Public Sector Data Estimate
www.gov.uk
October 30, 2025 at 8:44 AM
new UK Gov study on the value of public sector data. apparently the public sector invests £30bn in data assets per year, which have an 'expected potential value' to the economy of £15bn-200bn www.gov.uk/government/p...
"Requiring copyright licenses for training data would.. (1) create new barriers to market entry and competition in new technologies.. while (2) entrenching large copyright holders and (3) not significantly benefiting creators." www.lawfaremedia.org/article/worr...
Worried About AI Monopoly? Embrace Copyright’s Limits
Copyright’s limits play essential antimonopoly functions. Undermining them in the context of AI is likely to strengthen Big Tech.
www.lawfaremedia.org
October 28, 2025 at 8:33 AM
"Requiring copyright licenses for training data would.. (1) create new barriers to market entry and competition in new technologies.. while (2) entrenching large copyright holders and (3) not significantly benefiting creators." www.lawfaremedia.org/article/worr...
"AI companies are locked in an arms race for quality human content - and that pressure has fueled an industrial-scale 'data laundering' economy" www.reuters.com/world/reddit...
www.reuters.com
October 24, 2025 at 9:44 AM
"AI companies are locked in an arms race for quality human content - and that pressure has fueled an industrial-scale 'data laundering' economy" www.reuters.com/world/reddit...
"It’s already clear that the Internet’s discovery system for the next 15 years will be something different: Answer Engines.. Whether you like it or not, the future will increasingly be answers not searches" blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-2...
Cloudflare’s 2025 Annual Founders’ Letter
Cloudflare launched 15 years ago this week. We like to celebrate our birthday by launching new products that give back to the Internet, which will do a lot of this week. But on this occasion we've als...
blog.cloudflare.com
October 22, 2025 at 8:39 AM
"It’s already clear that the Internet’s discovery system for the next 15 years will be something different: Answer Engines.. Whether you like it or not, the future will increasingly be answers not searches" blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-2...
Reposted by Jack Hardinges
This remains the funniest way to hear about an internet outage, though.
October 20, 2025 at 8:41 AM
This remains the funniest way to hear about an internet outage, though.
Reposted by Jack Hardinges
wikipedia's data shows that AI is siphoning traffic away from the site, which is a danger to its sustainability. ironically Wikipedia is more important than ever to users who want reliable information instead of slop, and to AI companies that need it for training data www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...
Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors
“With fewer visits to Wikipedia, fewer volunteers may grow and enrich the content, and fewer individual donors may support this work.”
www.404media.co
October 17, 2025 at 1:15 AM
wikipedia's data shows that AI is siphoning traffic away from the site, which is a danger to its sustainability. ironically Wikipedia is more important than ever to users who want reliable information instead of slop, and to AI companies that need it for training data www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...
"Humanity AI, a $500 million five-year initiative.. will drive new investments toward establishing a people-driven future where AI delivers for humanity, strengthens communities, and enhances human creativity" www.macfound.org/press/press-...
Humanity AI Commits $500 Million to Build a People-Centered Future for AI
www.macfound.org
October 16, 2025 at 10:13 AM
"Humanity AI, a $500 million five-year initiative.. will drive new investments toward establishing a people-driven future where AI delivers for humanity, strengthens communities, and enhances human creativity" www.macfound.org/press/press-...
I see this in the same family of data sharing as financial reporting, Smart Data, researcher access to platform data, retailers sharing their plastic bag sales, etc etc: www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Vets could be made to cap prescription prices after UK watchdog investigation
Market ‘not fit’ for purpose, CMA says, as it proposes shake-up including publishing treatment costs
www.theguardian.com
October 15, 2025 at 8:32 AM
I see this in the same family of data sharing as financial reporting, Smart Data, researcher access to platform data, retailers sharing their plastic bag sales, etc etc: www.theguardian.com/business/202...