onfocus

The DeepMind CEO is dead-set that advanced AI models will bring about a renaissance in human existence. The “golden era” is only five short years away. “AGI can solve what I call root-node problems in the world—curing terrible diseases, much healthier and longer lifespans, finding new energy sources,” Hassabis said.

Someone needs to check in on the standard tech CEO ketamine dosage. I feel like it's dialed too high at the moment.

While publishers contend with how AI is changing search, they are also seeking ways to protect their copyright material. The large language models that underpin the new generation of chatbots are trained on data hoovered up from the open web, including news articles.

This was always the central transaction of Google. It can display portions of your site (or maybe even a fully cached version) and in return site owners get traffic. The deal is off. Now it's all crawling/scraping but keeping most of the traffic for themselves.

The media has provided OpenAI with an aura of vast authority, with its executives publicly proclaiming that its tech is poised to profoundly change the world, restructuring the economy and perhaps one day achieving a superhuman "artificial general intelligence" — outsize claims that sound, on a certain level, not unlike many of the delusions we heard about while reporting this story.

Hadn't made this connection before. Yeah, if you claim your new technology is going reorder society—and media outlets credulously parrot it—you're going to trick people into thinking they're tapped into genius. Some healthy skepticism about new technology is important.

This inital use of federal troops in a blue city should be understood as an effort to build pressure to help pass the bill. It should also be used as an example of the danger of passing the bill — the kind of authoritarianism that Miller intends to wield if the bill does pass.

When your bill is losing traction in congress, it's time to invade a US city to rile up your base.

GOP leaders to the rank-and-file down to the libertarian-leaning Rand Paul offered no criticism Monday of Trump’s tactics over the weekend. And some said they wouldn’t put a timeline on the National Guard’s presence in the state given the uncertainty of future demonstrations.

Ah yes, the libertarian wing of the Republican party that famously wants to increase the scope and power of the federal government through invading states with military forces against the wishes of local leaders. Their supposed libertarian principles don’t hold up very well in the face of fascism.

Bessent continued: “I am certain most California businesses know that failing to pay taxes owed to the Treasury constitutes tax evasion and have no intention of following the dangerous path Governor Gavin Newsom is threatening.”

Now they’re concerned about collecting taxes? Maybe wasn’t such a good idea to fire thousands at the IRS?

“It’s important we respect the executive authority of our country’s governors to manage their National Guards — and we stand with Governor Newsom who has made it clear that violence is unacceptable and that local authorities should be able to do their jobs without the chaos of this federal interference and intimidation.”

State's rights, amirite? I know it's tiring to point out Republican hypocrisy but I'm tired.

“It’s the Constitution. James Madison wrote it that way, and it was very explicit,” Bacon said of Congress’ power over trade. “And I get the emergency powers, but I think it’s being abused. When you’re trying to do tariff policy for 80 countries, that’s policy, not emergency action.”

If everything is an unusual and extraordinary threat from abroad then that phrase isn't meaningful.

That being said, there's no excuse for how everybody covered this Jony Ive fiasco. Even if you think this device ships, it took very little time and energy to establish how little Jony Ive has done since leaving Apple, and only a little more time to work out exactly how ridiculous everything about it.

Righteous rant from Edward Zitron about fawning, credulous OpenAi coverage.

The reality is that there is no rational basis for this spate of actions. These guys just can’t help themselves. The urge to dominate people and institutions and make them conform to Trump’s will is just too strong for them to resist. Even when the result is that they will lose, and lose again, and lose again.

Yeah, even with the Project 2025 blueprint, authoritarian compulsion seems to explain some of their more inexplicable actions better than a comprehensive strategy.

Proving the superiority of some humans over others has repeatedly failed; what better way to continue the effort than the deployment of technology that makes proof of anything impossible, such that making something true requires only the right person to declare it so.

I think this article article helps bring many background assumptions of the AI mindset into the foreground. I've found thinking about AI as an ideology rather than a technology helps me process our current moment. Highly recommended.

"With today's decision, it seems as if the court has truly lost its moorings," she said. In the process, she added, the court is creating "grave privacy risks for millions of Americans."

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson raising the alarm about the Supreme Court enabling executive overreach.