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A Z Mackay

@azmackay.bsky.social
10K followers 7.1K following 86 posts

Author of Future Tense. Fiction, essays and speculative tech anthropology. Also Adam Mackay: Head of AI, QA-Systems; nonfiction writer and researcher. azmackay.com

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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I wonder how teams handle the awkward case where the evaluation fails but everyone is already committed to shipping... does somebody have an explicit veto? I’d be interested in examples of how that works in practice.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
For Safe Enough, I am exploring how AI evaluation evidence informs deployment decisions. Which public case studies show the reasoning and uncertainties? Project and contact: adammackay.com/writing
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Fiction and independent essays: azmackay.com I also write as Adam Mackay. Co-author of Embedded Software Testing; researching Safe Enough. Reporting, collaborative nonfiction and ghostwriting: adammackay.com/writing
azmackay.com
A Z Mackay — Literary Speculative Fiction & Essays
What happens when people build systems more powerful than the institutions meant to contain them. Novels, and the Future Tense essays.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
We're not trapped by ignorance. We're trapped by coordination dynamics we can see but can't escape. The machinery optimizes for hope because hope coordinates collective action. (article link in bio) #AI #HypeCycle #TechPredictions #FutureTense #CollectiveDelusion
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
Cambridge Dictionary's word of the year is "parasocial." 72% of American teens have used AI companions. A third find them as satisfying as real friendships. I wrote about what that reveals. (link in bio)
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
We all see the manipulation now. We correct less. We rage less. We just… scroll, exhausted. The machine doesn’t want you ignorant. It wants you exactly this aware. ft.azmackay.com/p/when-knowi...
ft.azmackay.com
When Knowing More Means Doing Less
The Algorithm Awareness Paradox
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
The rocks keep coming. Always just rocks. We keep looking, because accepting the silence means confronting what we're wired to deny. Read the full essay: ft.azmackay.com/p/the-third-...
ft.azmackay.com
The Third Visitor
What We Keep Seeing in Rocks That Won't Look Back
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
Social pain uses the same brain regions as physical pain. Cosmic loneliness isn't metaphor. It hurts. And we're designed for a world different from the one we inhabit: Paleolithic brains confronting potential cosmic emptiness.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
The machinery isn't broken... it's operating exactly as designed. Pattern-seeking evolved to find patterns that exist. Agency detection evolved to find agency that exists. But the optimization for African savanna creates pathology at astronomical scales.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
We've been performing this dance since 1977's Wow! Signal. Before that, Lowell's canals on Mars. The pattern predates telescopes. Something arrives from beyond our boundary. We need it to be a message.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
October 2025. A Harvard professor calculated the odds at one in ten quadrillion. NASA's scientists said "it looks like a comet." The gap between those two positions reveals more about human psychology than cometary composition.
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New_ Public @newpublic.org · 28/10/2025
Having worked on the other side of the screen at big social platforms, @azmackay.bsky.social exposes the engineering that keeps us tethered to our screens. “You’re not weak for checking your phone. You’re responding rationally to a system ... ensuring you’d respond that way.”
ft.azmackay.com
You're Not Addicted, You're Subscribed
What platforms actually sell when they sell connection.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
Every major AI lab pivoted to "reasoning models" that think for minutes before answering. Why does this feel like we're rebuilding the oracle economy but calling it progress? ft.azmackay.com/p/the-tortoi... #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #TechCriticism #OpenAI #Anthropic #ReasoningModels #FutureTense
ft.azmackay.com
The Tortoise Revolution
How AI Labs Are Rebuilding Expertise Around One Core Feature: You Can't See How It Works
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
Thinking is becoming expensive. Performance is becoming free. The two-tier system is being built in real time through "personalized learning." You have 18 months before this becomes obvious to everyone. ft.azmackay.com/p/the-sorting #futuretense
ft.azmackay.com
The Sorting
Some People Will Think. Everyone Else Will Perform Thinking. The Sort Is Happening Now.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
Putin said whoever leads in AI will rule the world. He didn't mention the subscription fees. Or that most nations would be reading the release notes instead of writing them. ft.azmackay.com/p/geopolitic...
ft.azmackay.com
Sovereignty as a Service
Nations don't get conquered anymore. They get deprecated.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
Next year your apps will answer for you. Your social graph will register as vibrant while you cook dinner. Your Presence Score will affect your career. This isn't sci-fi. It's already being built. (link in bio) #FutureTense #FutureTech #AI #DigitalLife
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
AI isn't a mind. It's an airport for human culture. We're arguing about the sentience of the terminal while a few companies buy all the land. ft.azmackay.com/p/the-wrong-... #ArtificialIntelligence #LLM #FutureTense #Tech
ft.azmackay.com
The Wrong Emergency
We're debating AI consciousness while knowledge infrastructure gets built
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Reposted by A Z Mackay
Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
why did this make me laugh
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Plot twist: Your biggest AI security threat isn't hackers. It's your own employees trying to be helpful. theaimonitor.substack.com/p/ai-governa... #AI #TechSecurity #Innovation
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
Willy nilly. Silly Billy's.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
Thanks Jenny!
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
Your employees are already using AI at work. Yes, even Brian from marketing. Stop fighting shadow AI. Start channeling it. open.substack.com/pub/theaimon...
open.substack.com
Shadow AI on the Rise
From Hidden Risk to Strategic Asset
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
Excited to share something we've been building at QA-Systems! Like many organizations, we struggled with AI adoption - scattered API keys, rising costs, and zero visibility into who was using what. So we built AI Controller to solve our own problem. www.linkedin.com/posts/adamma...
linkedin.com
#ai #enterpriseai #aigovernance #innovation #techlaunch | Adam Mackay
Excited to share something we've been building at QA-Systems! Like many organizations, we struggled with AI adoption - scattered API keys, rising costs, and zero visibility into who was using wha...
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
I hated typing on those rubber keys.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
Thinking is optional. But recommended.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
To much $$$ invested for it to 'die'. The only way is to push through the transition and hope there is life for humanity on the other side.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 03/06/2025
It's in the south of the UK 😃
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
Solar rays scatter through aerosols a smoke plume rises evidence etched in the atmosphere
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
Light filters through old trees, bluebells whisper in the hush, the forest forgets nothing.
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RSPB @rspb.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
Happy 99th birthday to the man who gave voice to the wild. 🎉 Sir David Attenborough, thank you for a lifetime dedicated to the natural world, and for sharing its story with wisdom, wonder, and grace. You've inspired generations to fall in love with nature.
This photograph captures Sir David Attenborough seated outdoors on the rugged terrain of Skomer Island. Behind him, the ocean and coastal cliffs form a scenic backdrop under a clear sky. Sir David, dressed in a khaki jacket and light trousers, looks towards the camera with a gentle expression, exuding a sense of warmth, calm, and wisdom. Around him, puffins can be seen flying and perched on the rocky ground, illuminated in rays of golden sunlight as the sun sets behind the cliffs.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 04/05/2025
Sorry. Dixon's loss, I'm sure.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
Astronomers just found a massive hydrogen cloud named Eos hiding 300 light-years away, "literally glowing in the dark" in ultraviolet light. A giant structure in our cosmic backyard, invisible until now. What else is lurking out there that we can't yet see? www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
A nearby dark molecular cloud in the Local Bubble revealed via H2 fluorescence - Nature Astronomy
Eos is a newly discovered molecular cloud sitting just 94 pc from the Sun. It was detected through the far-UV emission of its molecular hydrogen, having been missed in conventional molecular gas surve...
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 27/04/2025
Physical AI is here: Nvidia’s new Vera Rubin chips bring agentic AI & robotics to life. Straight from Terminator’s Skynet playbook. Are we ready? apnews.com/article/457e...
apnews.com
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unveils new Rubin AI chips at GTC 2025
Nvidia founder Jensen Huang kicked off the company’s artificial intelligence developer conference, on Tuesday by telling a crowd of thousands that AI is going through “an inflection point.”
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
In the quiet reflections of a forgotten pond, Earth's whispers linger... a timeless archive quietly resisting synthetic eternity. Past and future merge, awaiting humanity's rediscovery that purest technology lies in leaves and untainted waters.
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Homovictimus @homovictimus.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
Extraordinary!
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
Some horizons are drawn in shipping lanes, others in half‑finished paragraphs. He doesn’t care which one I’m chasing—just that the tide is here, the breeze is real, and we’re sharing it in this moment.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
When algorithms predict everything, imagination becomes revolutionary.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
The most powerful interface is still the space between imagination and possibility.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
This looks awesome!
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 11/04/2025
Realizing brain interfaces could soon be subtle enough to hide between hair follicles really hammers home how blurred the line between internal thought and external action might become. How invisible will the machine get? research.gatech.edu/new-wearable...
research.gatech.edu
New Wearable Brain-Computer Interface | Research
Micro-brain sensors placed between hair strands overcome traditional brain sensor limitations.Georgia Tech researchers have developed an almost imperceptible microstructure brain sensor to be inserted...
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
It seems pretty price competitive... I wonder why it wasn't more popular at the time. Maybe a software availability thing... Commodore had a huge library of software available soon after launch.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
Time moves differently in the garden... some say it waits, others say it watches.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
The far side of the moon—a natural radio silence zone—could become our gateway to the "dark ages" of the cosmos. www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
theguardian.com
British space company to design fleet of satellites that may help map early universe
Blue Skies Space – commissioned by Italian Space Agency – hopes faint signals from dawn of universe could be detected from far side of moon
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
In cosmic silence, stars awaken; in cosmic fury, stars proclaim... creation is both gentle whisper and wild storm.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
In the fleeting dash of paws on sand, the world remembered how to smile.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
Technology can automate tasks, but it cannot automate purpose.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
The Commodore 64: Proof that limitations spark creativity better than abundance.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
Ralphy is currently offline. Please leave treats after the beep.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
We don't fear machines thinking like humans; we fear humans thinking like machines.
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A Z Mackay @azmackay.bsky.social · 06/04/2025
Hi Sonora... from Ralphy 🙂
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