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The UK chancellor Rachel Reeves talks a lot about achieving better growth. And the latest figure – economic expansion in the last quarter of just 0.1% – suggests plenty of room for improvement.

The evening before that gloomy figure was announced, Reeves revealed her latest plan to get things moving – pension reform. And while there was some mention of potential benefits for actual pensioners, it’s clear that the main incentive for change is to channel more of their pension fund money into UK investment.

This will be done through two main sets of reforms. The first concerns the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) for England and Wales, which has 6.7 million members and assets worth around £392 billion. Its members are mostly current and retired council employees – and mostly women.

The LGPS is essentially a cluster of 86 different schemes, which have already been combining to form eight “asset pools” for the purpose of investing their pension funds and creating cost savings. The chancellor wants to ramp up consolidation through those eight asset pools, and also see a greater proportion of the funds’ assets (currently 5%) being invested in local and regional projects.

The hope is that this will boost the growth of local economies. The LGPS is a “defined benefit” scheme, meaning that it promises members a pension in retirement worked out according to a formula based on their pay while they were working and length of time in the scheme. The way its assets are invested does not affect the amount of pension people get.

The second set of reforms apply to workplace “defined contribution” schemes. These are the sort arranged by (and contributed to) by an employer whereby employees build up a pot of savings to provide an income during retirement.

Usually, employees can choose how they want to invest their pension pot, though schemes must offer at least one default strategy. The vast majority of members go with the default. Four out of five employees choose not to review their investments at all.

Workplace defined contribution schemes are either run by a board of trustees, or by a pension company with whom the employee has a contract. The sector is highly fragmented, with thousands of different schemes, many of them very small. However, over the past 12 years, there has been a move towards consolidation.

Again, the government wants to accelerate this consolidation to encourage the emergence of much larger pension investment funds, similar to those seen in Australia and Canada. Controversially, it is also proposing to make it easier for the assets of contract-based schemes to be transferred to other schemes without the consent of members.

One claimed advantage of larger funds is lower costs. However, the Pensions Policy Institute has found that cost savings tail off once a fund reaches around £500 million. But again, the key driver for the government is to create funds that are large enough to take on additional investment risks – without jeopardising their ability to provide people with financial security in retirement.

Larger funds would free up some pension money to invest in areas such as infrastructure and private equity, with potentially high growth prospects. Such investments tend to be “illiquid” (difficult or impossible to convert into cash at short notice) so are suitable only for long-term investment.

More money, more investment?

The government claims that including such higher-risk investments in the mix can “deliver better returns for savers”. This is likely to be broadly correct, since it is a fundamental investment principle that higher-risk investments need to offer higher returns in order to attract investors. However, evidence suggests that the extra return from investing in illiquid assets could be as low as 1% a year over the long term.

Reeves wants to encourage investment opportunities.
Miha Creative/Shutterstock

Nevertheless, Reeves is hoping that an additional flow of funding from larger pension schemes (“megafunds”) will boost investment in the UK economy.

But it’s not as simple as that. The idea that simply increasing the amount of savings in an economy will inevitably cause investment to rise was debunked nearly a century ago.

Back in 1936, the influential economist, John Maynard Keynes showed that the most important factor when it comes to investment is what he referred to as businesses’ “animal spirits”. In other words, it all boils down to a feeling of confidence about whether or not investments will lead to a good return. And that will depend on how the other elements of Labour’s growth strategy play out.

Similarly, pension fund managers and savers need to be confident that the UK – and in particular sectors such as private equity and infrastructure – are the best home for some of their pension pot. The general advice for any investor is to diversify savings not just across different assets (equities, bonds, cash, property) and sectors (manufacturing, services, large companies, smaller ones), but also different geographical regions.

So as these new policies for pension schemes unfold, anyone with a pension may want to have a careful look at where the default fund is investing the money they will rely on in the future. They may even consider choosing their own investment strategy instead. Läs mer…

If you were to think about the key to getting fit, you’d probably imagine you need to spend plenty of time in the gym. But many fitness influencers claim that taking time away from the gym every six to eight weeks – known as a “deload week” – is actually the key to improving fitness gains.

Deload weeks mostly involve toning down the intensity of your workouts. These are typically done during periods of heavy training. The express aim of a deload week is to give the body time to recover from the fatigue and damage that can be caused by periods of intense training.

Intense training or high volumes of training cause us to accumulate damage in our muscle tissues. While this damage is an essential part of the process in improving fitness gains, these improvements can only happen if the body has time to recover.

During exercise, muscles can develop tiny tears and their fibres can become disorganised after intense training. This causes an inflammatory response in muscle tissues which requires time in an “unloaded state” (resting or doing low-intensity exercise) to resolve. This inflammation is actually important for promoting positive changes in our muscles – leading to improvements in fitness.

But if we train without adequate rest we can cause the muscle to be in a semi-permanent state of being slightly damaged. The inflammation doesn’t go away – leading to negative changes – such as our muscles being less able to use oxygen efficiently and poor performance.

By allowing our muscles the opportunity to recover we set them up for success.

Risk of overtraining

Many avid gymgoers may be afraid to take time off from the gym for fear it will cause them to lose their gains. But research actually shows that the genes in our muscles contain a memory imprint – effectively holding genes responsible for muscle growth in a semi-prepared state. This means that our muscles are ready to respond quicker and better to training in the future and promote growth after a period of rest.

Even after long periods of time in a deloaded state (up to seven weeks), your muscular fitness can be restored to prime condition – and even beyond, in some cases. This is true even if you’ve lost some muscular strength during this period. Not only that, but your condition can be restored to its prime twice as fast as it took to get to that level in the first place.

Another reason it’s so important to take time off from intense training is because without rest we may develop muscle soreness – and potentially even overtraining syndrome. Overtraining syndrome is a prolonged period of malaise and deconditioning caused by training too much or too intensely without adequate rest. It can take several weeks to months (and in some cases years) to overcome.

The symptoms of overtraining syndrome are fatigue, poorer performance and mood disturbances. These symptoms occur gradually – meaning overtraining syndrome only becomes apparent when you are in its throes. This is why taking care to rest adequately is a vital part of training.

Training too intensely without enough rest periods can lead to overtraining syndrome.
wavebreakmedia/ Shutterstock

It’s hard to say how common overtraining syndrome is because the symptoms are so vague. Some studies indicate the rate of overtraining syndrome could affect as few as 10% of elite athletes – but the incidence could also be as as high as 60% in the most competitive athletes.

Rest days or deload weeks?

It’s clear that recovery time is important for both fitness and overall health. Any time you are doing a lot of work in the gym, you should make sure you’re scheduling plenty of time to recover in your workout plan.

Deload weeks differ from rest days in that rest days generally incorporate no exercise (or only extremely light exercise) once or twice a week. Deload weeks tend to involve some training, but at a substantially lower intensity than you’re used to – usually doing around 50% fewer workouts than you normally would, or reducing the intensity of your workout by about 20%.

Both rest days and deload weeks help the body to recover from training, which is important for improving your fitness. It is not a case of either/or. For example, if you are undertaking an intense training regime for a marathon, ironman or crossfit competition, you should be scheduling weekly rest days. On top of that, you should also be implementing deload weeks. If you are a recreational gym goer who works out less strenuously around one to three times per week, then the rest you get from this kind of workout schedule will probably be adequate.

Read more:
Rest days are important for fitness – here’s why, according to science

Fitness influencers suggest that deload weeks should be included in training schedules every four to eight weeks. This broadly aligns with the expert view of four to six weeks. But, you should schedule in your deload weeks as you need them. If you begin to notice your performance is no longer improving – and maybe even getting worse – it might be time for a deload week.

No training plan should be so strict that you cannot take a step back when you need to. Deload weeks will not only benefit your performance, but also your health. Läs mer…

Prisons and the justice system often make headlines for issues like overcrowding or sentencing, but there’s a quieter, more transformative side to life behind bars that rarely gets attention.

While offending behaviour programmes are well established in prisons, research from my colleagues and I has focused on the rehabilitative potential of a very different aspect of prison life – prison dairy farm work.

At HMP Prescoed, an open prison near Usk in south-east Wales, prisoners are getting their hands dirty at Cilgwri Farm, a fully functioning dairy operation. Here, prisoners help manage a large herd of dairy cows and their calves, learning not only essential farming skills but, perhaps more importantly, how to care and connect in ways many may have never experienced before.

Our interviews with prison staff suggested that working with a dairy herd could help the men move away from crime.

Working with cows isn’t just about milking and feeding. It’s also about teamwork, trust and care. We found that the relationships between the farm staff and the prisoners was an important part of the positive experience of those working on the farm.

Members of staff showed the prisoners how to care for the cows. For some of the men, this was the first time they had been shown how to care for something and how to deal with their feelings when cows got sick or died.

Staff noticed that off the farm and away from work, prisoners started to support each other with other activities like reading and writing. Like any other “family”, this group of people had to learn how to communicate effectively with each other. This seemed to be made easier because of their shared interest and care for the cows. It was a sense of community that many hadn’t experienced before.

Cow companions

There has been a lot of research about companion animals, such as dogs, with people in prison. Much of this work has been based on understanding the effects and benefits of a human-companion animal bond.

But prison farm animal work had not been looked into in depth. This raised questions about whether prisoners working with farm animals could develop care and empathy for them in a similar way to that seen with prison companion animals.

Despite their size and potential danger, the prisoners formed strong bonds with the dairy cows. Cows were treated like pets in being named, fussed and cared for. Some prisoners even asked for photos of their favourite cow to take with them upon being released.

Read more:
Football can improve wellbeing of people in prison – and could help stop reoffending

Work started at 5.30am and continued late into the evening. Prisoners were also happy to help staff deliver a calf in the middle of the night, for example, or to do extra work looking after sick animals.

All of the participants in our study described their observations of the therapeutic impact of the prison dairy work. Stressed cows produce less milk, so the men had to learn, with staff support, how to behave calmly around them.

But it wasn’t just the cows who benefited. Being in daily contact with the cows seemed to relax and calm the men. It helped them deal with angry and sad feelings – lessons crucial for rehabilitation.

How may this help reduce crime?

Regardless of the different views on crime, punishment and sentencing, the prison dairy workers will be released back into the community at some stage. The farm could therefore be more than just a good employment opportunity. It could be a space for the prisoners to learn how to receive and give compassion.

Caring for the cows may help reactivate a part of them that had long been suppressed. The sense of being valued, not just as prisoners but as farm workers, also may help to shift their identity away from crime. Learning to control behaviour and emotions and to communicate better is also crucial to successful rehabilitation.

Our research in this sphere continues, though our initial findings are promising. Perhaps the key to reducing re-offending lies not just in programmes behind bars, but also in connecting with something beyond oneself – whether it’s another person or a herd of cows. Läs mer…

Beliefs are convictions of reality that we accept as true. They provide us with the basic mental scaffolding to understand and engage meaningfully in our world. Beliefs remain fundamental to our behaviour and identity, but are not well understood.

Delusions, on the other hand, are fixed, usually false, beliefs that are strongly held, but not widely shared. In previous work, we proposed that studying delusions provides unique insights into the cognitive nature of belief and its dysfunction.

Based on evidence from delusions and other psychological disciplines, we offered a tentative five-stage cognitive model of belief formation.

When faced with an unexpected sensory input or social communication, we seek to account for this based on existing beliefs, memories, and other social information. We then evaluate our account in terms of how well this explains our experiences and how consistent it is with our prior beliefs. If it passes these criteria, the belief is accepted. It then guides what we pay attention to and what other ideas we may consider.

We propose that delusions can arise at different stages in this model. Our approach highlights the importance of the individual’s search for meaning and social context in shaping delusions. It also draws attention to the impact of a delusion, once formed, on subsequent perceptions and thinking.

This model linking delusions and beliefs differs from earlier accounts that suggested delusions were distinct from belief or arise as a largely passive response to anomalous sensory input such as a hallucination. Previous research, for example, has found that some people who believed that family members were replaced by impostors (known as Capgras delusion) had deficits in processing familiar faces, which could have generated this idea.

Based on this, some have suggested that other delusions arise in a similar way, but in combination with an as yet undiscovered deficit in the cognitive process of evaluating our beliefs.

But these accounts didn’t fully consider other contributing factors, such as the individual’s prior beliefs, social context and their personal attempts to explain their experiences.

Informative case study

The study of delusions has been informed by select informative case studies. Unlike large group studies, case studies allow researchers a more detailed exploration of the origins and course of clinical features not explained by current theories.

We recently published a paper in the international journal Cortex that describes a unique case study of a woman who temporally experienced compelling delusions during a brief hospital admission for postpartum psychosis, which can give rise to hallucinations, delusions, mood swings and confusion. This is a rare complication of pregnancy, affecting around 1-2 in 1,000 women, thought to be due to hormonal changes or immunological factors.

Natalie (a pseudonym) had no previous medical or psychiatric history. She developed postpartum psychosis while in hospital after the birth of her second child.

As part of her condition, Natalie reported several delusions, including the belief that strangers were her parents-in-law in disguise (known as Fregoli delusion). Natalie recovered quickly with treatment. The combination of interviews and observations while she was experiencing the delusions and her later retrospective account offered a unique window into the onset and experience of her delusions.

Following a full recovery, Natalie confirmed that she considered her delusions to be strongly held beliefs. She likened them to her conviction that her husband was her husband. This is contrary to some views that suggested that delusions are different from normal beliefs.

Natalie was able to identify specific features that contributed to her delusions. In the case of believing that strangers were her in-laws, Natalie identified mannerisms, behaviours and speech patterns of the strangers that reminded her of her in-laws. This suggested that the delusion could have arisen from inappropriate activation of memory representations of familiar people based on these cues and other factors.

Natalie also recalled other beliefs, including that she was dead (known as Cotard delusion), which she did not share with clinicians at the time. She noted that she entertained this idea due to the failure of other explanations to account for her strange experiences and an idea from a television show.

Rational thought can be involved in delusional thinking.
Pormezz/Shutterstock

Natalie said she eventually dismissed this idea as implausible, while still holding other delusional ideas. This suggests that belief evaluation may involve different thresholds for different delusions. It also highlights the private nature of some delusions.

Across all of her delusions, Natalie described her active involvement in trying to explain and manage her experiences. She reported considering different explanations and testing these by seeking further information. For example, she asked questions of the people she thought were her in-laws. This suggests a surprisingly similar approach to how we typically form beliefs.

Natalie recalled the influence of television and movies on her ideas. She also recalled how she elaborated on her delusions, once formed, based on information in her surroundings.

These features challenge theories that delusions simply arise from anomalous sensory data. They instead highlight the role of the individual’s search for meaning and social context, as well as the subsequent impact of delusions on perception and thinking.

Implications

As a case study, Natalie’s experiences are not necessarily representative of all people who experience delusions or postpartum psychosis. However, Natalie’s case presents informative features that theories of delusions need to account for.

In particular, Natalie’s personalised insights highlight the critical role of the individual in actively trying to understand their experiences and bestow meaning. This is opposed to just passively accepting beliefs in response to anomalous sensory data or neuropsychological deficits. This suggests psychological therapies may be useful in treating psychosis, in combination with other treatments, in some cases.

More generally, Natalie’s account reveals commonalities between delusions and ordinary beliefs and supports the view that delusions can be understood in terms of cognitive processes across the stages of normal belief formation that we identified.

While there remain challenges in investigating delusions, further study may offer insights into the underpinnings of everyday belief and, in turn, of ourselves. Läs mer…

At Shrewsbury train station, there is a poster advertising The Cure’s new album, Songs of a Lost World. The confident, monochrome minimalism of the art is at odds with the rambling Victorian brickwork, yet there is a kind of sympathy there also.

At ten on a November morning, the station isn’t the most joyful of locations and so is a suitable home for a record praised for its wintery desolation. The poster helps here.

The cover art features a sculpture called Bagatelle from 1975 by the Slovenian artist Janez Pirna, which the cover’s designer chose because he pictured it “floating in space, almost as a distant relic from a forgotten time”. It also includes a new custom font, called Cureation, which is distressed and austere, and references the font used originally by the band. Like the station, these choices call upon a previous age – a lost world.

Songs of a Lost World is The Cure’s first album in 16 years. Reaching number one in the UK and now the US, some might argue it casts a pall of darkness over the pop charts; others might say it glitters a little in their reflected light. This has always been the way with The Cure.

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On one side of their catalogue, we have what is known as the “unholy trinity” of early albums Seventeen Seconds, Faith and Pornography: alienated, austere, thematically dark. On the other, the shambling psychedelia of The Top and Kiss Me, the latter also featuring the blissed-out pop that helped this quintessentially English band find success in America.

In his recent book Goth: A History, the band’s former drummer Lol Tolhurst charts the genre from its 18th-century literary beginnings to its modern musical incarnation. In it, he describes how The Cure’s sound sits within this history through its unexpected influences, which range from record producer Phil Spector’s “wall of sound”, the production technique behind pop hits for The Ronettes and The Supremes, to the poetry of TS Eliot.

While Tolhurst locates the band’s sound within the gothic, frontman Robert Smith has consistently rejected the label. The difficulty in framing the band and this new album as gothic is that, like The Cure, the gothic has always been made up of contradictions.

Although nostalgic for medievalism, the gothic employs imagery that was called on by the theorist Karl Marx when discussing the alienating effects of modernity, from the “spectre … haunting Europe” in The Communist Manifesto to the “vampire life” of capital in Das Kapital.

Developed in part as a reactionary response to the revolution in France in 1789, it can be politically radical. Patriarchal, yet polymorphously perverse, pared down and baroque, glamorous and gauche, the gothic is an aesthetic devised of opposing forces.

Songs of a Lost World could be seen as a return to the darkness of The Cure’s early material. Take the lead single Alone. The lyrics turn, thematically, on death and isolation. The music has the intensity and sense of glacial doom that speaks to the fatalism and claustrophobia common to novels such as Frankenstein and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, as much as classics from the “unholy trinity” including 100 Years and A Forest.

Sinking by The Cure.

The song most clearly echoed in Alone, however, is Sinking, from The Cure’s shuffling, electronic masterpiece, The Head on the Door (1985). Both songs are lengthy and stately. They let the listener wait for most of their length before introducing Smith’s brief and despairing vocals. Despite the pared-down instrumentation of both tracks, the sound created has a density that calls upon the “wall of sound” production technique that defined The Cure’s most psychedelic and joyful recordings.

But this pulling between brightness and darkness, “the unholy trinity” and the pop excess of the other half of their catalogue, represents the band’s gothic heart. This is what makes Songs of a Lost World goth and the Cure goth too, whether Smith likes it or not. Läs mer…

When Donald Trump claimed victory in the 2024 US election, he and his inner circle gathered on stage at the Palm Beach County Convention Center to thank and praise his faithful supporters: the voters, Melania Trump, his campaign staff and various other backers. But a more surprising group was singled out by Trump’s longtime friend Dana White: “I want to thank the Nelk Boys, Adin Ross, Theo Von, Bussin’ With The Boys, and last but not least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan.”

The moment was a testament to the success of Trump’s campaign media strategy. The president-elect effectively sidelined mainstream outlets in favour of alternative channels like celebrity podcasts and the livestreaming platform Twitch. His 2024 campaign pioneered podcasts as a major communication format in the same way he had with Twitter in 2016.

The influencers who host these shows are public personalities with sway over large audiences. Many of them are sympathetic to Trump’s political message. By appearing on their shows, Trump effectively secured their personal endorsement and a direct line to their loyal fan bases.

Trump appeared on 14 major podcasts or streams during the campaign. This included The Joe Rogan Experience, Logan Paul’s Impaulsive and Theo Von’s This Past Weekend – all shows with predominantly male audiences. Combined, these appearances amassed 68.7 million YouTube views, and many more on other social media platforms.

To a lesser degree, Kamala Harris employed a similar strategy. She appeared on the podcasts Call Her Daddy with Alex Cooper (the second biggest podcast on Spotify after Rogan), Club Shay Shay with NFL legend Shannon Sharpe and All The Smoke with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. These shows are all popular with two of her main target demographics: young women and black men. They supplemented her appearances on mainstream broadcast programmes.

Harris turned down an offer to appear on Rogan’s podcast a fortnight out from the election, and it has been reported that the campaign’s fears of a progressive backlash formed part of the reason.

While Rogan’s audience is mostly young and male (a prime audience for Trump’s campaign), the host’s allegiance to one party or the other is not a foregone conclusion. In 2020, he endorsed Bernie Sanders for president after Sanders appeared on the podcast. This year, Rogan endorsed Trump the day before the election.

Partisan interviews

Podcasts have a very different character from traditional news interviews. They are often partisan interviews that breach journalistic norms of neutrality and objectivity.

Podcast hosts often display their own readings of politics, and commonly draw on their personal and emotional responses to politicians in a way that a dispassionate journalistic interviewer is not permitted to.

They tend to opt for more of a friendly chat than aggressive questioning, using what research calls supportive interactional behaviour: expressing agreement, displaying active listening (hm, umm, yeah, go on), and laughing and nodding along with politicians. This “softball” questioning can result in the host becoming an accomplice to the politicians’ positive self-presentation rather than an interrogator.

These interviews also have a long and relatively uncontrolled format in which nearly anything can be discussed. This is well-suited to Trump’s rambling, often unfocused, says-whatever-he’s-thinking conversational style.

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Podcasts appeal to candidates as a lower-risk, more feel-good alternative to news interviews. Hosts are more likely to ask them about their childhood pets or the leadership lessons their parents taught them, than use aggressive accountability questioning designed to provide close scrutiny of their policy agenda. Their guests become personal storytellers whose thoughts, emotions and personalities are brought to the fore above issues of current affairs.

On Call Her Daddy, Harris discussed her relationship with her single mother and the values she had instilled in her growing up. When the interview did focus on policy, notably reproductive rights and abortion, Harris received little pushback from Cooper about how she would achieve her goal of reversing the effects of the overturning of Roe v Wade in policy terms.

In Harris’s own words, the podcast allowed her “to be real, you know, and to talk about the things that people really care about”.

Trump was very comfortable in this setting, appearing as one of the “bros”. In his conversation with Theo Von, Trump turned the tables and started asking Von questions about his experience of addiction, coming across as genuinely curious and emotionally attuned to Von’s struggles.

A side effect of this friendly demeanour and overall lack of adversarialism was that hosts did not call Trump out when he brazenly lied on issues such as vaccinations and electoral fraud. For instance, when Trump told Rogan, “I didn’t lose”, referring to the 2020 election result, Rogan just laughed and smiled. Trump left these interviews completely unscathed, having ridden out a series of softball, feel-good conversations that played well with his base.

Are podcasts a problem?

Traditional candidate interviews are meant to be combat zones, where journalists and politicians spar over key issues. They are democracy in action – and should be serious and focused on policy, political record and suitability for office – everything these podcasts are not.

There is value in getting to know politicians better as everyday people outside of politics. But this can become a problem when podcasts flood the media landscape or fully replace meaningful media scrutiny (as was the case in this election).

Outside of the debates, Trump’s only appearances on broadcast news were on Fox, a network favourable to him. Harris participated more in traditional interviews, including CBS’s long-running 60 Minutes, a programme Trump initially agreed to take part in before dropping out. But she was still criticised for not doing enough media interviews.

Candidates must meet voters where they are. By avoiding podcasts like Rogan’s and not addressing audiences beyond her immediate political base, Harris and the Democrats failed to do that. This allowed Trump to take full advantage of Rogan’s platform without any resistance.

It is likely that podcasts will start to play more of a role in future campaigns. Candidates should not be afraid to open themselves up to questioning from podcast hosts who don’t necessarily share their views. Imagine a world where Harris appeared on Joe Rogan and Trump appeared on Call Her Daddy. That could add some spice to electoral processing and re-enliven the political conversation.

It is certainly more appealing than the alternative – where political conversations become increasingly insular, with groups talking among themselves and no one reaching across the political aisle, further entrenching the divides of a highly partisan alternative media landscape. Läs mer…

Yahya Sinwar, the former leader of the Hamas militant organisation, was killed by the Israeli military in the south Gazan city of Rafah in October 2024. Given the role Sinwar played in the planning and execution of the October 7 terrorist attack, as well as his role in the development of Hamas’s military wing, his killing was seen as a possibly game-changing victory for the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

But, for all sides in the conflict, debate quickly turned to the consequences of his death. Would it change the political possibilities for a resolution to the war in Gaza? And would it transform him into a powerfully symbolic martyr inspiring new generations of militants?

My research and teaching at Lancaster University develops what could be described as “war futurism”. It explores the possible futures ahead of us in times that might be shaped in dramatic and unpredictable ways by AI, climate emergencies, space wars and the technological transformation of the “cyborg” body.

In 2023, I wrote a book titled Theorising Future Conflict: War Out to 2049. It included a fictional scenario involving a leader in a terrorist organisation who was rumoured to have been generated by AI as a means of producing a powerful figurehead for a group that was losing leaders to drone strikes.

Sinwar’s death prompted me to again think about what the age of generative AI tools might mean for strategic thinking and planning within organisations losing key figures.

Will there soon be a situation in real life whereby dead leaders are replaced by AI tools that could produce virtual figures that circulate through deepfake videos and online interactions? And could they be used by members of the organisation for strategic and political guidance?

People look at paintings depicting two late Hamas leaders, Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, and the now dead military commander of Hezbollah, Ibrahim Aqil, in Sana’a, Yemen.
Yahya Arhab / EPA

American cyberpunk author Rudy Rucker has written before about the possibility of producing what he calls a “lifebox”, where a person could be simulated in digital worlds. Movies like the 2014 US science fiction thriller Transcendence have also explored the possibility of people being able to “upload” their consciousness into digital worlds.

Rucker’s idea is not so much about uploading consciousness. It is instead about creating the simulation of a person based on a large database on what they’ve written, done and said.

In his 2021 novel, Juicy Ghosts, Rucker explores the ethical and economic problems that could result from people producing lifeboxes to live on after their deaths. These range from how you might pay for your digital “life” after death, and whether you would you be able to control how your lifebox might be used.

The era of digital immortality

The possibility of an AI-assisted lifebox in the future isn’t so far-fetched. Technological change is happening at a rapid pace and tools already exist that use AI for strategic planning and guidance.

We already get a sense of the ethical, legal and strategic challenges that might be ahead of us in the concern surrounding the Israeli military’s use of AI tools in the war in Gaza. In November, for example, the military claimed it was using an AI-based system called Habsora – meaning “the Gospel” in English – to “produce targets at a fast pace”.

It goes without saying that using AI to identify and track targets is vastly different to using it to create a digital leader. But, given the current speed of technological innovation, it’s not implausible to imagine a leader generating a post-death AI identity in the future based on the history books that influenced them, the events they lived through, or the strategies and missions they were involved in. Emails and social media posts might also be used to train the AI as the simulation of the leader is being created.

If the AI simulation works usefully and convincingly, we could arrive at a situation where it even becomes the leader of the organisation. In some cases, deferring to the AI leader would make political sense given the way the non-human, virtual leader can be blamed for strategic or tactical mistakes.

It could also be the case that the AI leader can think in ways that exceed the human origin and will have greatly enhanced strategic, organisational and technical capacities and capabilities. This is a field that is already being considered by scientists. The Nobel Turing challenge initiative, for example, is working to develop an autonomous AI system that can carry out research worthy of winning the Nobel prize and beyond by 2050.

A virtual political or terrorist leader is, of course, currently only a scenario from a cyberpunk film or novel. But how long will it be before we begin to see leaders experiment with the emerging possibilities of digital immortality?

It may be the case that somewhere in the Kremlin one of the many projects being developed by Putin in preparation for his death is the exploration of an AI lifebox that could be used to guide Russian leaders that follow him. He could also be exploring technologies that will enable him to be “uploaded” into a new body at the time of his demise.

How long will it be before we begin to see leaders experiment with the emerging possibilities of digital immortality?
Marzufello / Shutterstock

This is probably not the case. But, notwithstanding, strategic AI tools are likely to be used in the future – the question will be who gets to design and shape (and possibly inhabit) them. There are also likely to be limits on the political and organisational significance of dead leaders.

Concerns may arise that hackers could manipulate and sabotage the AI leader. There will be a sense of uncertainty that the AI will be manipulated through operations to influence and subvert in a way that erases all trust in the digital “minds” that exist after death. There could be a concern that the AI is developing its own political and strategic desires.

And it may well be the case that these attempts at AI immortality will be seen as an unnecessary and unhelpful obstruction by whoever replaces figures like Sinwar and Putin. The immortal leader might remain simply a technological fantasy of narcissistic politicians who want to live forever. Läs mer…

For the first time since 2021, a pill used to help people quit smoking – varenicline – will again be available on the NHS.

Varenicline is one of the most effective ways to quit smoking and is deemed an “essential medicine” by the World Health Organization.

What is this “new” smoking cessation pill?

Varenicline, is a once-a-day pill that was first available in 2007. It was withdrawn in 2021 after testing revealed higher-than-permitted impurities in certain batches.

These impurities are called nitrosamines and are in food, drink and medicines, but are not allowed to be over a certain level in these products. This is because animal testing has indicated that nitrosamines could be linked to cancer in humans if they are exposed above certain levels over long periods.

Now, a new version of varenicline has been approved for use by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), and it will be available once again through the NHS.

How does it work?

Varenicline belongs to a group of drugs known as “nicotine receptor partial agonists”. It works by blocking the addictive nicotine in cigarettes from binding to receptors in the brain, reducing the pleasurable effects of smoking.

At the same time, it acts on these brain receptors to ease withdrawal symptoms and lower cravings to smoke. This makes quitting more manageable. By reducing cravings and the rewarding effects of nicotine, varenicline increases the chances of successfully quitting smoking.

How effective is it?

For every 100 people using varenicline, about 12 to 16 successfully quit, compared with around six in 100 who manage to quit without any aids. This means that varenicline can double, or even triple, a person’s chances of quitting.

How does it compare with other smoking cessation treatments?

Varenicline isn’t the only option to help people stop smoking in the UK. Evidence suggests that nicotine vapes help about ten to 19 people per 100 quit. Using two types of nicotine replacement therapy together, such as a patch with gum, also gives similar results.

Using a single type of nicotine replacement therapy, such as patches or gum on their own, and another medication called bupropion, are a bit less effective, helping around eight to nine people per 100 quit.

Are there any side-effects?

As with all drugs, varenicline can have side-effects. Common non-serious side-effects include nausea, trouble sleeping, vivid dreams and changes in mood. Previously, there were concerns that varenicline could cause thoughts of suicide or suicidal behaviour. However, a large, well-conducted study found no evidence of this.

Like all drugs, varenicline has side-effects, but they are mostly mild.
Antwon McMullen/Alamy Stock Photo

How many lives might it save?

Having access to varenicline for quitting smoking could have a huge effect on the health of the public. Smoking is uniquely deadly, with at least one in every two people who smoke dying of smoking-related disease.

NHS England estimates that varenicline could help more than 85,000 people quit smoking each year, potentially preventing up to 9,500 smoking-related deaths annually.

The benefits of quitting start almost immediately: within minutes heart rate can drop to healthier levels and within just a few years of quitting, the risk of heart disease is cut in half. Overall health continues to improve beyond this.

There are more ways to quit smoking than ever before, from nicotine vapes to pill-based medications. All of these quitting aids work best when combined with counselling.

While it can take several attempts to quit, many people who have tried unsuccessfully eventually manage to stop smoking for good.

In the UK, support to stop smoking is available at www.nhs.uk/better-health/quit-smoking/. Accessing these services can make quitting easier and more successful. Läs mer…

Sugar addiction is on the rise. Globally, sugar intake has quadrupled over the last 60 years, and it now makes up around 8% of all our calories.

This sounds like sugar’s keeping us fed, but added sugars are actually empty calories – they are bereft of any nutrients like vitamins or fibres. The result is massive health costs, with sugars linked to obesity around the world. Some estimates suggest that half the global population could be obese by 2035.

A limited 20% reduction in sugar is estimated to save US$10.3 billion (£8.1 billion) of health costs in the US alone. Yet, sugar’s impacts go far beyond just health and money.

There are also many environmental problems from growing the sugar, like habitat and biodiversity loss and water pollution from fertilisers and mills. But overall, sugar hasn’t received a lot of attention from the scientific community despite being the largest cultivated crop by mass on the planet.

In a recent article, we evaluated sugar’s environmental impacts and explored avenues for reducing sugar in the diet to recommended levels either through reducing production or using the saved sugar in environmentally beneficial ways.

By phasing out sugar, we could spare land that could be rewilded and stock up on carbon. This is especially important in biodiverse tropical regions where sugar production is concentrated such as Brazil and India. But a different, more politically palatable option might be redirecting sugar away from diets to other environmentally-beneficial uses such as bioplastics or biofuels.

Sugar consumption is rising and that’s an environmental issue as well as a public health concern.
hxdbzxy/Shutterstock

Our study shows that the biggest opportunity is using sugar to feed microbes that make protein. Using saved sugar for this microbial protein could produce enough plant-based, protein-rich food products to regularly feed 521 million people. And if this replaced animal protein it could also have huge emission and water benefits.

We estimate that if this protein replaced chicken, it could reduce emissions by almost 250 million tonnes, and we’d see even bigger savings for replacing beef (for reference, the UK’s national fossil fuel emissions are around 300 million tonnes). Given sugar has a far lower climate impact than meat, this makes a lot of sense.

Another alternative is to use the redirected sugar to produce bioplastics, which would replace around 20% of the total market for polyethelyne, one of the most common forms of plastic and used to produce anything from packaging to pipes. Or to produce biofuels, producing around 198 million barrels of ethanol for transportation.

Brazil already produces around 85% of the world’s ethanol and they produce it from sugar, but instead of having to grow more sugar for ethanol we could redirect the sugar from diets instead. This estimation is based on a world where we reduce dietary sugar to the maximum in dietary recommendations (5% of daily calories). The benefits would be even larger if we reduced sugar consumption even further.

Supply chain challenges

This sounds like a big win-win: cut sugar to reduce obesity and help the environment. But these changes present a huge challenge in a sugar supply chain spanning more than 100 countries and the millions of people that depend on sugar’s income.

National policies like sugar taxes are vital, but having international coordination is also important in such a sprawling supply chain. Sustainable agriculture is being discussed at the UN’s climate summit, Cop29, in Azerbaijan this week. Sustainable sugar production should factor into these global talks given the many environmental problems and opportunities from changing the way we grow and consume sugar.

We also suggest that groups of countries could come together in sugar transition partnerships between producers and consumers that encourage a diversion of sugar away from peoples’ diets to more beneficial uses. This could be coordinated by the World Health Organization which has called for a reduction in sugar consumption. Some of the money to fund these efforts could even come from part of the health savings in national budgets.

We can’t hope to transition the way we produce and eat sugar overnight. But by exploring other uses of sugar, we can highlight what environmental benefits we are missing out on and help policymakers map a resource-efficient path forward to the industry while improving public health.

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Interpol Secretary General Jürgen Stock recently warned that artificial intelligence (AI) is facilitating crime on an “industrial scale” using deepfakes, voice simulation and phony documents.

Police around the world are also turning to AI tools such as facial recognition, automated licence plate readers, gunshot detection systems, social media analysis and even police robots. AI use by lawyers is similarly “skyrocketing” as judges adopt new guidelines for using AI.

While AI promises to transform criminal justice by increasing operational efficiency and improving public safety, it also comes with risks related to privacy, accountability, fairness and human rights.

Concerns about AI bias and discrimination are well documented. Without safeguards, AI risks undermining the very principles of truth, fairness, and accountability that our justice system depends on.

In a recent report from the University of British Columbia’s School of Law, Artificial Intelligence & Criminal Justice: A Primer, we highlighted the myriad ways AI is already impacting people in the criminal justice system. Here are a few examples that reveal the significance of this evolving phenomenon.

The promises and perils of police using AI

In 2020, an investigation by The New York Times exposed the sweeping reach of Clearview AI, an American company that had built a facial recognition database using more than three billion images scraped from the internet, including social media, without users’ consent.

Policing agencies worldwide that used the program, including several in Canada, faced public backlash. Regulators in multiple countries found the company had violated privacy laws. It was asked to cease operations in Canada.

Clearview AI continues to operate, citing success stories of helping to exonerate a wrongfully convicted person by identifying a witness at a crime scene; identifying someone who exploited a child, which led to their rescue; and even detecting potential Russian soldiers seeking to infiltrate Ukrainian checkpoints.

A notice by the Metropolitan Police in London, England on police facial recognition activities in May 2023.
(Shutterstock)

There are longstanding and persistent concerns, however, that facial recognition is prone to false positives and other errors, particularly when it comes to identifying Black and other racialized people, exacerbating systemic racism, bias and discrimination.

Some law enforcement agencies in Canada that were caught up in the Clearview AI controversy have since responded with new measures, such as the Toronto Police Service’s policies on AI use and the RCMP’s transparency program.

Others, however, like the Vancouver Police Department, promised to develop policies but haven’t, while at the same time seeking access to city traffic camera footage.

The regulation of police uses of AI is a pressing concern if we are to safely navigate the promise and perils of AI use.

Deepfake evidence in court

Another area where AI is presenting challenges in the criminal justice system is deepfake evidence, including AI-generated documents, audio, photos, and videos.

The phenomenon has already led to cases where one party alleges that the other party’s evidence is a deepfake, casting doubt on it, even if it’s legitimate. This has been dubbed the “liar’s dividend.”

A high-profile example of allegations involving deepfake evidence arose in the case of Joshua Doolin, who faced charges related to the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol for which he was ultimately convicted. Doolin’s attorney contended that prosecutors should be required to authenticate video evidence sourced from YouTube, raising concerns about the potential use of deepfakes.

Jurors could be especially prone to doubts about potential deepfakes given high-profile deepfake incidents involving celebrities or their own use of AI technologies.

Judges are also sounding the alarm about the challenges of detecting increasingly sophisticated deepfake evidence admitted in court. There are concerns that a wrongful conviction or acquittal could result.

I’ve personally heard from a number of legal practitioners, including judges and lawyers, that they are struggling to address this issue. It is a frequent subject at legal seminars and judicial training events. Until we have a clear statement from appellate courts on the matter, legal uncertainty will remain.

Risk assessment algorithms

Imagine an AI algorithm that you couldn’t understand deemed you a flight risk or at high risk to re-offend, and that information was used by a judge or parole board to deny your release from custody. This dystopian reality isn’t a fiction but a reality in many parts of the world.

Automated algorithmic decision-making is already being used in various countries for decisions on access to government benefits and housing, assessing domestic violence risk, making immigration determinations and a host of criminal justice applications from bail decisions to sentencing to prison classification to parole outcomes.

People impacted by these algorithms typically fail to gain access to their underlying proprietary software. Even if they could, they are often “black boxes” that are impossible to penetrate.

Even worse, research into some algorithms has found serious concerns about racial bias. A key reason for this problem is that AI models are trained on data from societies that are already embedded with systemic racism. “Garbage in, garbage out” is a commonly used adage to explain this.

Research into some algorithms has found serious concerns about [racial bias.
(Shutterstock)

Fostering innovation while safeguarding justice

The need for legal and ethical AI in high-risk situations pertaining to criminal justice is paramount. There is undoubtedly a need for new laws, regulations and policies specifically designed to address these challenges.

The European Union’s AI Act bans AI for uses such as untargeted scraping images off the internet or CCTV, real-time remote biometric identification in public (with limited exceptions), and assessing recidivism risk based solely on profiling or personality traits.

Canada’s laws have not kept pace, and those that have been proposed have challenges. At the federal level, Bill C-27 (which includes an Artificial Intelligence and Data Act) has been stuck in committee for over a year, and it is unlikely to be adopted by this Parliament.

Ontario’s proposed AI legislation, Bill 194, would exempt police from its application and fails to include provisions on ensuring respect for human rights.

Canada should vigorously enforce existing laws and policies that already apply to AI use by public authorities. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms includes numerous fundamental freedoms, legal rights and equality protections that bear directly on these issues. Likewise, privacy legislation, human rights legislation, consumer protection legislation and tort law all set important standards for AI use.

The potential impact of AI on people in the criminal justice system is immense. Without thoughtful and rigorous oversight, it risks undermining public confidence in the justice system and perpetuating existing problems with real human consequences.

Fortunately, Canada has not yet gone as far down the road of widespread AI adoption in criminal justice as other countries. We still have time to get ahead of it. Policymakers, courts and civil society must act swiftly to ensure that AI serves justice rather than undermines it. Läs mer…