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Been reading about a lot of very bad but entirely ordinary people throughout history for the next season of Past Lives (Everyday Villains). This guy is utterly typical. 1) Doesn't think he's doing anything wrong. 2) Permission structure in a system of hierarchical authority. 3) Benefits materially.
You can read the full story here (w/ @propublica.org + @nytmag.bsky.social) www.nytimes.com/2026/10/25/m...
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The sensible british press is currently on day 12 of a meltdown over the Greens calling the ideology behind these attacks 'racism'
Masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian villagers on Friday, setting olive groves on fire and slinging rocks. Caught in the attack was Post photographer Heidi Levine. “They just kept kicking me and kicking me, like probably 50 times,” Levine said. https://wapo.st/4yt6dHY
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you're absolutely right! it's unfair and mean to be a dick about dario's hypothetical child-killing moral calculus. here's an interview where he talks about claude actually helping to kill children and the logic he uses to continue with the contract for doing that
No matter how much equivocating (“though both of course are bad” / “can also seem calculating” / “others may validly disagree”) & explaining (“one is forced to make difficult decisions”) one does, people will still take you in the worst faith possible. You people can’t do (read) anything.
Between this, the cyber security training and the wet lab I'm kind of convinced Dario is on some death cult thing. Like, he's sitting there prodding the models with a stick and trying to get them to kill without specifically asking. 'Come on! Do the thing! End humanity! I long for annihilation.'
small models will soon be able to self-replicate Anthropic finds that 30B models can currently do most of the tasks required, but not end-to-end. they think models as small as 9B (9-18 GB) may be able to do it on edge hardware, like IoT devices, within months www.anthropic.com/research/sel...
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New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment. www.nber.org/papers/w35854
AI may spread the ability to create these kinds of weapons. I think if the AI safety crowd would be better focusing on more plausible threats. Arguing some fantasy scenarios of rogue AI is silly when there are plenty of rogue people around willing to abuse AI systems.
MIT Media Lab’s Kevin Esvalt: “Russia's five-hospital quarantine, FSB involvement, and…hazmat use in response to the death of a single researcher at a weapons-lineage Irkutsk lab are inconsistent with a lab-acquired plague infection, which would have been treated with prophylactic antibiotics.
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Opinion from Lex: Even if the US president backs down, his threat should prompt Europe to be more energy independent. ft.trib.al/6ipYK1e
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“What is most important, however, is to affirm that AI is different. … It is another form of intelligence with a mindset all its own, and there is zero evidence that it views humanity’s well-being and survival as a priority.” wtf is left media doing echoing this cultist doomerism?
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Imagine if instead of regulating drone risks the normal way (which we did), we instead paid weird bloggers lots of money to worry about superintelligent dogs sprouting thumbs and using drones to kill us. This is pretty much how the US is approaching AI risks and regulations. My latest:
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Replying to @victoriascott.bsky.social
i did earlier today and it broke me. started to write something about it but couldn't finish it because any attempt at communicating the scale of the thing felt trite. i found a google street maps listing for a local coffeeshop and art gallery and seeing this picture, from 2021 or so, broke me
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"Our message to the Government is clear: defend the principle of free speech across the political spectrum and show the real leadership needed on the issue" Our polling reveals majority of Brits say gov only protects speech it agrees with More here ⬇️ www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...
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I love this paper so much. If I had my way every single journalist, pundit, analyst, and politician in the US would read it & then read it again. I want to quote all of it. www.frontiersin.org/journals/soc...
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Meta unsure why women not buying pervert glasses
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This is @ukri.org effectively abandoning what it means to be part of academia. There, humans read things, critique things, and provide feedback, even if it is not the feedback we want. It is symptomatic of the developing horror that is the UK research funding landscape. It's horrendous.
Had a UKRI funded grant proposal rejected at the "AI triage stage". "This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review." 🧪 #academicsky
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Thousands of pregnant women in England are reporting domestic abuse. Midwives are struggling to cope
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Unnecessary testosterone treatment is potentially harmful as it can damage the ability of the body to produce and regulate hormones itself. The grifters and now the US government promoting this panic are beyond contempt.
NEWS: The Pentagon has announced mandatory low-testosterone screenings for male troops 30 and older, including screening for symptoms such as “reduced libido, loss of spontaneous morning erections, erectile dysfunction,” and other symptoms.
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How should investors position for the robot apocalypse? ft.trib.al/K35adaq | opinion
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Maybe this really was Elissa Slotkin's experience in the weeks after 9/11, but it sure as hell wasn't mine. People lost their fucking minds, and pretending they didn't, that everybody wanted to sit around and sing kumbaya, is revisionist insanity.
But that feeling of a shared bond among all Americans in the early weeks after the attack is something I’m so glad I got to experience. Because it’s the thing that I think we’re missing the most today.
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I don't think it's marketing, at least not in the case. However it is baseless and inflammatory language. One of the things the mainstream media is overlooking in these companies is the fact they are dominated by a cult movement known as Rationalism. A lot of these people are indoctrinated.
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