Compassion, not cruelty, is the answer to rough sleeping – we have the proof in Milton Keynes
Emily Darlington in The Guardian
Suella Braverman's claim that living in tents is "a lifestyle choice" shows something is "seriously wrong" with the home secretary's understanding of rough sleeping, says Milton Keynes councillor Emily Darlington in The Guardian. "Tents are a symptom, not the cause." Many homeless people have "missed the help they needed", owing to "devastating cuts" to mental health services and addiction treatment. In Milton Keynes, once labelled a "tent city", such services are operating together in a 19-bed shelter, and the difference made by joined-up working is "enormous".
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Matt Hancock's Celebrity SAS beasting beats the Covid inquiry
Suzanne Moore in The Telegraph
How can those who lost loved ones during the pandemic "stomach" what is being heard at the Covid inquiry, asks Suzanne Moore in The Telegraph. Much of what we knew has been "confirmed in the details": many died "unnecessarily and alone", and rules were "broken on a daily basis" by those who governed. Yet they are "without contrition". Former health secretary Matt Hancock was labelled a "liability" on "Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins". "The same is true for the rest of his sorry government."
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Will you marry me? (Warning: comes with a risk of social contagion)
Stephen Bush in the Financial Times
The so-called "wedding contagion" phenomenon is increasingly convincing, writes the Financial Times's Stephen Bush. Seeing members of a social circle tie the knot "forces the other couples in the group" to decide whether to do likewise. A "similar process" leads to babies. Divorce can also have "contagion-like effects in friendship groups". Such behaviour is worth bearing in mind when considering the post-pandemic workplace. A "good way to think about the future of work" is by accepting that, although our professional lives have changed, "we remain social animals".
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In regulating AI, we may be doing too much. And too little.
Tim Wu in The New York Times
The success of any government's effort to regulate artificial intelligence will "turn on its ability to stay focused on concrete problems like deep fakes", says law professor and former White House advisor Tim Wu in The New York Times, "as opposed to getting swept up in hypothetical risks like the arrival of our robot overlords". Joe Biden's executive order on AI considers "just about every potential risk one can imagine". But while "doing too little, too late" is a mistake, so too is "premature government action" that fails to address "actual harms".
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