nytimes.com
In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own?
A decade ago, I made a decision about my daughter’s education that I hoped would challenge New York City’s separate and unequal school system. Now 16, she thinks I made the wrong choice.
![I am not writing this on the behalf of any interest group. Historically, much of OpenAI-adjacent shenanigans has been blamed on groups with weaker PR teams, like Effective Altruism and rationalists. I actually feel bad for the latter two groups for taking so many undeserved hits. There are good and bad apples in every faction. There are so many brilliant, kind, amazing people at OpenAI, and there are so many brilliant, kind, and amazing people in Anthropic/EA/Google/[insert whatever group]. I’m agnostic. My one loyalty is to the respect and dignity of human life.
I'm not under an NDA. I never worked for OpenAI. I just observed the surrounding AI culture through the community house scene in SF, as a fly-on-the-wall, hearing insider information and backroom deals, befriending dozens of women and allies and well-meaning parties, and watching many them get burned. It’s likely these problems are not really on OpenAI but symptomatic of a much deeper rot in the Valley. I wish I could say more, but probably shouldn’t.
I will not pretend that my time among these circles didn’t do damage. I wish that 55% of my brain was not devoted to strategizing about the survival of me and of my friends. I would like to devote my brain completely and totally to AI research— finding the first principles of visual circuits, and collecting maximally activating images of CLIP SAEs to send to my collaborators for publication.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:kdc4cspp6gfoxl6rwme6m2aw/bafkreigzahgi7hmevt2zmaj3it7xs6hoerosna5zbfx5ptaqkqnqju54ga)
![I had missed this when I wrote my Clemente Award nominee post yesterday, but I really cannot believe that reliever Jason Adam is the Padres nominee. The same Jason Adam who along with several teammates refused to wear rainbow caps and sleeve logos on Pride Night while with the Tampa Bay Rays four years ago. And he didn't just refuse. He defaced his official uniform by tearing off the patches. His justification was his religion:
“A lot of it comes down to faith, to like a faith-based decision. So it’s a hard decision. Because ultimately we all said what we want is them to know that all are welcome and loved here. But when we put it on our bodies I think a lot of guys decided that it’s just a lifestyle that maybe — not that they look down on anybody or think differently — it’s just that maybe we don’t want to encourage it if we believe in Jesus, who’s encouraged us to live a lifestyle that would abstain from that behavior, just like [Jesus] encourages me as a heterosexual male to abstain from sex outside the confines of marriage. It’s no different.”
As most actual Christians and most people who have actually read and studied the Bible know, there isn't a single sentence in it where Jesus condemns gay people or, to use Adam's words, "encouraged us to live a lifestyle tat would abstain from that behavior." But go on with your bullshit justifications, bro.
As I said at the time that all went down, imagine if someone tore off the American flag patch on Veterans Day because their religion caused them to be opposed to warfare. Or if they tore off a sponsor patch that players wear on their uniform sleeves now because the company in question did things which were offensive to the players' deeply held values. I know exactly what would happen: the player would be roundly condemned and ostracized. They'd be front-page news for weeks or longer and they might very well see their career come to a premature end because people would be outraged.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vevk6lgrt6o4wncrbp7joij3/bafkreieglh7kjl7sf3yoannguzlyy74gb6wskh6kovmsrca5pd7t2hwizu)
