Sebastian recently graduated from the University of St Andrews where, in quiet moments between surf trips, he studied the philosophy of technology.
Sebastian Hervas-Jones
Researcher

“By the sounds of it, it’s quite rare to truly enjoy going to work every day… I’m doing my best to really savour every moment here at Tortoise.”
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Wednesday 1 February 2023
Meta: Back from the brink
Meta is using AI to boost its ad-targeting systems. This helped it bounce back from the impact of Apple’s privacy changes, but uncertainties remain
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Wednesday 25 January 2023
Code Red
ChatGPT presents a significant threat to Alphabet’s Google. It’s caused it to issue the first “code red” warning to a single product in a decade.
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Wednesday 18 January 2023
Should tech bosses be sent to jail?
A new proposed amendment in the Online Safety Bill could mean tech executives responsible for the harms of children could face jail time. Will it work?
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Friday 13 January 2023
Boris Johnson tops MP donations after receiving £1 million donation
Although his predecessor, Theresa May, still tops the leaderboard for total outside earnings declared by MPs
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Wednesday 11 January 2023
Sensemaker: Party on
What just happened
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Wednesday 11 January 2023
Big Tech job cuts: a silver lining?
The tech states misread demand during the pandemic and hired hundreds of thousands of staff. Now, as the pandemic is replaced by a recession, over 150,000 tech jobs are at risk. The question is, where will all the tech workers go?
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Wednesday 11 January 2023
Caymans carry-on
A Caribbean tax haven has made some influential friends
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Tuesday 10 January 2023
Hancock’s crypto hankering
The former health secretary is institutionally into digital currencies
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Wednesday 4 January 2023
Meta’s Trump card
Trump’s suspension from Meta platforms expires this Saturday. The company must rule on whether to extend or lift the suspension. Here’s why that decision is so important.
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Friday 16 December 2022
Gambolling in the Metaverse
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Wednesday 23 November 2022
Post-Twitter
Is Elon Musk’s Twitter dying or just getting started?
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Wednesday 16 November 2022
Trial by recession
Amazon and others have joined Meta in announcing thousands of job cuts as they shrink to fit a new set of economic norms.
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Friday 11 November 2022
Living in a heating world: lessons from the global South
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Friday 11 November 2022
Plastic: can Africa avoid making the West’s mistakes?
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Wednesday 26 October 2022
Defeat in Coventry
Amazon has narrowly avoided a reckoning.
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Wednesday 12 October 2022
The bot issue
Should all platforms have to measure and disclose data on how many of their users aren’t real? None of them do.
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Wednesday 28 September 2022
Why big tech is breaking into healthcare
Since the pandemic began, the tech states have accelerated their investment in healthcare – developing wearables, driving breakthroughs and acquiring whole businesses.
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Friday 23 September 2022
Big little budget
What’s in Kwasi Kwarteng’s “mini budget”? And will it have the impact it’s meant to? The experts are sceptical.
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Wednesday 21 September 2022
The endless scrolls and the battle for short-form video
Last week Facebook reassigned its “product experimentation” division to focus exclusively on one thing: short-form video.
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Wednesday 14 September 2022
Non-fungible abuse material – the “disaster situation” for NFTs
The NFT space is rife with harmful and explicit content, which – as per the function of NFTs – can never be deleted. While Microsoft bans them, Meta embraces them.
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Wednesday 17 August 2022
Is Meta collapsing?
It’s not looking good for Mark Zuckerberg’s company
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Wednesday 3 August 2022
A decade in the shade?
For the first time ever, the combined revenue of major technology companies is falling. Could this be the beginning of the end for some of the tech states?
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Wednesday 27 July 2022
The beauty and the waste
The beauty of Apple’s design is at risk – it has lost a legendary designer and is locked in battle over unsightly charging cables
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Wednesday 8 June 2022
The Big Tech Short: for how long can investors win on big losses?
Some bold investors have bet against Big Tech. Are they in for a windfall?
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Wednesday 20 April 2022
Battle in Staten Island
Amazon is trying to stop its workers unionising. Why?
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Wednesday 13 April 2022
Banning big money
In the US, politicians are big on investing in big tech. That might be about to change
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Wednesday 6 April 2022
Meta “astroturfed” TikTok
Is Meta’s campaign to disparage TikTok a legitimate public affairs strategy? Or an unethical smear campaign, typical of Meta’s playbook for dealing with rivals?
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Tuesday 8 February 2022
10 minute readSensemaker: Billion-dollar bet
What just happened
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Thursday 22 July 2021
Colombia’s AI Strategy
Alexandra Mousavizadeh and Sebastian Hervas-Jones spoke to Victor Munoz, Director of the Administrative Department of the Presidency of Colombia, and Armando Guio, IADB consultant in AI policy. Here is a summary of what was discussed
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Monday 10 October 2022
Britannia unhinged
What happened in the 17 days between Kwasi Kwarteng becoming chancellor, sacking the Treasury’s top civil servant and his fiscal event which crashed the British economy?
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Wednesday 23 February 2022
Nearly bitcoin billionaires
The case of a couple accused of attempting to launder $4.5 billion worth of bitcoin teaches us a lot about cryptocurrency and its place in the economy.