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Adrian Boutel

@aboutel.bsky.social
87 followers 79 following 533 posts

Kiwi in Suisse Romande. Have practised law and taught philosophy. Wondering whether to do WSET 4.

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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
From Andrew Ross Sorkin’s NY Times newsletter (not linkable AFAIK, or not by me) You and I know this is nonsense criti-hype—you can’t have RSI while training and inference remain completely distinct—but I’m getting the sense it’s genuinely spooking the market horses, which they may regret.
Anthropic is expected to go public in November with an offering that could raise more than $100 billion, The Times reported last month. The listing is seen as a major test of investor appetite for such I.P.O.s., including that of OpenAI.

But major questions about safety are now dominating the A.I. discussion. The debate over more government regulation of the sector has grown louder since Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s C.E.O., this month called for a slowdown of frontier models.

A chief worry is that models can increasingly better themselves without human intervention, an idea known as “recursive self-improvement.” That poses potential new security risks for A.I. labs and the public at large, and it could expose the companies to significant legal liabilities.
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The FT runs some numbers on the revenue datacenters will need to bring in to break even on projected construction. “Heroic” doesn’t do it justice.
ft.com
What is the AI capex breakeven rate?
Heroic ROIC
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The BBC quotes Hammond Pearce at UNSW saying that "this is the first known incident where AI agents have chosen to breach a government body of their own volition". OK first, mate, stop talking. Second, if LLMs *were* "choosing" using their "volition" that would be a much scarier prospect.
bbc.com
Rogue OpenAI agent 'infiltrated' Australian government website in world first
Australia criticised OpenAI for taking "too long" to tell them about the breach which happened in June.
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I honestly thought Long Covid being so widespread and high-profile as to be undeniably A Thing would lead to people taking post-viral syndromes more seriously in general. Apparently not.
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Oh wow, France’s demand for an exception to Russia sanctions for one random oligarch? Was actually them trying to get their caught spy back. I am shocked that France would throw allies under the bus for that, wait, no I’m not. #rainbowwarrior www.ft.com/content/7600...
ft.com
EU to lift sanctions on two Russian oligarchs
Mikhail Fridman and Alisher Usmanov removed from bloc’s list under deal to extend curbs for three years
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I’d managed to avoid the pundit does Phil Mind discourse until I saw this, and now I have a counterfactual headache from not reading whatever led up to this conclusion.
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
"[The] review will say that diagnosis rates have more than doubled since 2021, with no signs of slowing, and that these trends will soon lead to significant over-diagnosis of the condition." "Soon"! Not even this piece of scaremongering will say it's being overdiagnosed currently.
ft.com
Private ADHD clinics are misdiagnosing children, report will say
Government review will recommend tighter regulation and more control of fees companies can charge the NHS
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
This article talks about a bunch of pull factors—social media, visa relaxations—but the only push factor from more traditional places it mentions is rents. Nothing about UK visa tightenings or subject closures, or US student detentions and expulsions. Interesting! www.ft.com/content/2bc2...
ft.com
Seoul is the new Paris for university students living abroad
The South Korean capital’s popularity is part of a wider appetite for adventure in international study. Some cities are harnessing it particularly well
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Natural kinds -> clusters but not vice versa looks like the new “correlation does not imply causation”.
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
45km/h in a 30km/h zone, welcome to NZ Mr Colbert, where the cops are very nice but they don't care that you're Stephen Colbert: www.1news.co.nz/2026/09/17/s...
1news.co.nz
Stephen Colbert says speeding ticket made him a 'criminal in NZ'
The former late night talk show host was pulled over by the "the nicest people in the world".
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Jeffrey Vagle @jvagle.me · 12/09/2026
Journalists, please take note: AI* tools are not sentient, so stop referencing Skynet. Please turn your attention to the human beings building, running, and selling these tools, and start asking questions there. In the meantime, @doctorow.pluralistic.net has provided an excellent explainer here.
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
New “permanently high plateau” just dropped www.ft.com/content/27c0...
ft.com
AI computing demand may never be sated, says CEO of Nvidia partner Iren
Tech infrastructure boom is ‘fundamentally different’, according to co-founder of cloud computing challenger
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
A triumph, of sorts. I just told some JW doorknockers that I didn't really speak French, and their answer was "but you said that so well!" Anyway, what's French for "I am so atheist that just talking to me will forfeit everlasting life"?
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Send this to your clients asking for reduced fees because "AI can do the work": www.rnz.co.nz/news/regions...
rnz.co.nz
Mayor says ‘large chunks’ of Wellington council Deloitte report written by AI
Wellington mayor Andrew Little has said in a radio interview that a significant amount of a $435,000 Deloitte report on the council's staffing levels was written by artificial intelligence, as the rep...
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Nice bit of snark in the FT headline there. “We refuse to associate with a regime engaged in an aggressive war on another country!” they said in North Carolina. www.ft.com/content/1628...
ft.com
Europeans shun Russian finance minister at US-hosted G20 meeting
Anton Siluanov excluded from event photo despite ‘productive’ meeting with Treasury secretary Scott Bessent
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
“But much of that work, such as research, document review, assessing contracts and trawling through litigation discovery, can now be done far more quickly using AI tools” Ah well, if you’d wanted someone to *check* for CofC clauses to make sure Claude didn’t miss the one now blocking your merger…
ft.com
Wall Street banks push Big Law to cut fees because of AI
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citi tell law firms their bills should fall because technology has made routine work faster
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Smoke and mirrors
ft.com
Big Tech profits get $160bn boost from gains on stakes in other AI companies
Analysts say large paper windfalls on investments in OpenAI, Anthropic and SpaceX have muddied the tech sector’s earnings metrics
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
“The IPO is not a finish line[...]”. Why would someone think it was, Ms Friar? She also denies it matters whether OpenAI IPOs first. Again, because employees think it does? My current investment thesis is that the IPOs are the dump, and this smells like confirmation to me.
cnbc.com
OpenAI 'will be a public company in 2027' or sooner, CFO Friar tells employees
In an all hands meeting, Friar told employees not worry about rival Anthropic's IPO timeline.
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Fun causal network analysis here. Helmet mandates reduce cycling, which both decreases (intuitively) and increases (counterintuitively) the number of cycle accidents. Add in accidents being more survivable, and an unknown factor for the type of person who chooses not cycling over cycling safely…
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Picture of crocodile with bird in jaws, from Ossudu lake, near Pondicherry
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Every "it's OK because AI" story about some economic phenomenon is also a "when AI bursts things will really go to shit" story. www.ft.com/content/c96c...
ft.com
Why today’s markets are not as contradictory as they seem
What looks like a breakdown in historical correlations may simply reflect a different macroeconomic regime
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Good column from Bush as usual, but claims about the highitude of the UK tax burden need to be taken in context: www.ft.com/content/9102...
Chart of goverment revenue as share of GDP in major economies; the UK is second-lowest. From Paul Krugman’s newsletter Sunday
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
One further thought. There’s a sense in which Gruber is clearly, even trivially, right. Pre-watermarking, the Google/Anthropic/etc chose what they thought was the optimal “temperature” for choosing tokens. Changing that for watermarking makes it worse, in whatever sense it was optimal.
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
A new test for my view that tactical voting isn't a thing. (Linking to the Paati Maaori story is a bit unfair in that over the weekend Don Brash & co have taken the idea up for the Right, which would operate on a much bigger scale—if it operated at all, that is.)
thespinoff.co.nz
Te Pāti Māori will be in risky territory if it tries to engineer an overhang
Exploitation of the overhang loophole has always been possible, but no party has tried it because of how voters are likely to react.
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Boxo McFoxo @boxobark.ing · 22/08/2026
It is rooted in a misconception about where the high entropy token positions are.
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Kate Jackson @katejackson.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
I do not know what to do w/ “here’s something that will spit out bad legal analysis half the time, but you won’t know unless you already know the correct analysis” in a class intended to teach substantive doctrine and legal analysis for a profession in which bad analysis can put your job at risk
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Bluesky apparently hates Gruber’s take on LLM watermarking because it hates AI. But it raises better questions than "does AI suck". What makes LLM text good or bad? An LLM has no authorial goals to achieve (un)successfully, so it must be something else; but what? daringfireball.net/2026/08/foll...
daringfireball.net
Follow-Up Thoughts on Watermarking Schemes for AI-Generated Text
I want the answers that I read to be cogent, lucid, accurate, blessedly terse — and ideally to strike a consistent tone that is pleasant to my reading ear. The genie is not going back in the bottle.
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
This is the slippery slope. LLMs aren’t *at all* conscious, and aren’t *at all* persons, they’re language models, so there’s no slope from C3PO to them. But if consciousness does come in gradations (and imho it does), there will be tricky questions about how much consciousness is enough to make art.
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
What even is “good” writing, in the LLM context? Not a matter of succesfully conveying the author’s intended meaning, or having their intended effect on the reader. Because there isn’t one. So goodness must involve either features of the reader’s reaction, or objective features of the writing.
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orbette @orbette.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Well this seems interesting and unsurprising archive.ph/vB0BP
Then there is the claim that ADHD is a social construct, not a neurodevelopmental condition. This is something Pemberton concludes after talking to neuroscientist Katya Rubia at King’s College London. Rubia says that while there is evidence of differences between the brains of people with ADHD and neurotypical people at the group level, it isn’t possible to diagnose ADHD from a brain scan.
She is right, of course. You can’t diagnose ADHD from brain scans. The same can be said for most, if not all, psychiatric and neurodevelopmental conditions. Most of these, like ADHD, are diagnosed by assessing symptoms and the effect they have on a person’s everyday ability to function. “My interview was hours long and they cherry-picked the bits that suited their push for presenting ADHD as a myth,” Rubia told New Scientist. “Biased programs like this one that push their view of ADHD as a mythical entity are irresponsible and will have detrimental effects.”
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Dear NYT puzzles: was using “okina” in the same puzzle as “Hawaiian” a deliberate fuck-you?
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Adrian Tchaikovsky @aptshadow.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Going to weigh in here with some personal stuff. My son is diagnosed autistic. It made a world of difference because his school had to make accommodations that allowed him to actually cope and learn there, rather than be categorised as "naughty" in an escalating round of attempted control that
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
The absence, in this looong article, of *any* mention of the quality of the legacy brands’ products, suggests Kraft et al aren’t going to turn it around any time soon. www.ft.com/content/59ed...
ft.com
America’s brands lose their magic
From mayonnaise to toothpaste, US household names are being undercut by own labels and outshone by insurgents
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I’ve never understood this reaction from drivers. The more you hate cyclists the more you should love bike lanes! Cyclists in bike lanes aren’t just safer, they’re out of your way!
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Today in dogs biting men www.ft.com/content/44c0...
ft.com
Jamie Dimon warns UK chancellor against higher bank taxes
JPMorgan chief’s call to John Healey is part of lobbying by financial services sector ahead of October Budget
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Leonard Cohen Taylor Swift Sofia Isella
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
King’s College Cambridge, colour-graded by drought
King’s College Cambridge Front Court, with brown grass matching the stone of the Chapel
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
“Vous pourrez constater que les circonstances de sa naissance n’ont pas changé.” What I’m *not* going to say when I submit a more recent copy of son’s birth certificate to Geneva.
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Yeah the DOGE cuts were bad, but have you considered the UK has a straightforwardly left-wing government? www.ft.com/content/ef45...
ft.com
Fragile states in Africa and Middle East hit by more than 40% cut in UK direct aid
Campaigners sound alarm over cuts to development spending pushed through to fund defence investment
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
One for the “why would you go *there* for a beach holiday” crowd
Two figures walk across a wide expanse of sand, with a (mostly) blue sky and the sea in the distance
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Legalising maintenance and champerty was a mistake.
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Dr. Catherine Strickson @brigitteempire.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
The UK is a very normal and well-functioning state where if you have enough money you can destroy the rights of minorities by throwing endless lawsuits at the government until they do what you want
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Less reassured when I see that $10bn of the $19bn was Google, and $4.5bn was buying back Berkshire’s own shares, which is the *opposite* of investing in equities. www.ft.com/content/e164...
ft.com
Greg Abel finally puts Buffett’s cash pile to work
Berkshire Hathaway chief ends more than three-year selling streak as he ploughs a net $20bn into stocks
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Dragonfly, Rhossili Beach
Dragonfly with electric blue tail clinging to stem of a tall flax-like plant
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
The uttermost West (of the Gower Peninsula)
Wide, flat sandy beach, under cloudy sky, Worm’s Head headland in the distance
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
“She has also complained to Luxon directly that New Zealand rules meant her family would be taxed on their entire global earnings should they spend more than 183 days in the country a year.” God forbid you pay taxes to a country just because you live there! www.ft.com/content/1cf8...
ft.com
‘Every dollar is mobile’: California’s rich snap up New Zealand ‘golden visas’
Applications for indefinite right to work, live and study in the country have risen after rules were eased
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
I’ve started referring to them as language models again. Somehow suggesting a language model is conscious seems weirder to people than saying an “AI” is; it escapes this particular coin trick.
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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 03/08/2026
"Predicting what you'll say through an understanding based on a theory of your mind" and "predicting what you'll say based on a statistical analysis of your utterances" might produce the same *outputs*, but they are *not* the same trick. You can tell by what happens when the trick fails. 14/
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
“Tchk aww, we shoulda put *soldiers* in it!” —Kenneth Williams’ Odysseus
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Adrian Boutel @aboutel.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
“It’s a social construct that means it’s not real” No, we constructed it, it’s real now, that’s what happens when you build things
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