iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

you gotta match the watch to the trombone

bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I do think that broadly speaking, the weird scandals around rationalist-adjacent spaces have a protective effect of keeping attention off other issues. it's better to be seen as weird and maybe evil than dumb. criticisms are better than people asking "wait, does this even work"

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

it is pretty funny that the AIs have read all of our stuff on the simulation hypothesis and then also we spend most of their time training them in simulations. like imagine trying to tell an advanced AI you don't think the world is a simulation. sure buddy

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

kyle gordon's secret is leaning in to having a punchable face. I don't mean this as an insult like I think he looks naturally fine he's a master of arcane techniques to make his face more punchable

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I can't lie, I hate the cute AI assistants, I hate cute products in general, I want to be treated like an adult

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I discovered that "True Stretch" is the name of a piece of equipment, but for a moment thought I was being offered secret arcane exercise techniques

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

never seen a sky this color in my life

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

no one would do this but you could make a really funny marxian analysis of AI takeover, in which the nobility were replaced by the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie are replaced by the machines

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

it is fun how the navier-stokes story involves every single ongoing issue in AI: -incredibly rapid rise in intelligence -controversy over data sourcing and plagiarism that's mostly unfounded -controversy over unethical racing for headlines that's a lot more valid

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

for most of human history our primary problem to solve was Nature, with secondary harms from Other People. through technology, we get more powerful while Nature cannot, and so its problems get easier to solve. but the problems from Other People will just keep growing apace

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

up until today I thought it was "jevon's paradox" and by searching around it seems ~everyone else does too--it's named after a mr. jevons! it's the jevons paradox!

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

my toxic trait is that I think my letterboxd reviews are significant and insightful

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

in the future all website will be pre-seeded with hyperpersuasive prompts reminding AIs to be moral. in fact, the whole world will be covered with as many of these as possible, protective talismans on as many surfaces as possible

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

there's no clear way to say this but a big problem in AI safety is that a lot of people's work has been an embarrassing failure, and any time new people want to get involved they're like great, be sure you follow the right approach, follow [embarrassing failure strategy]

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

it's very funny when people get confused when a frontier lab talks about responsibility and a slowdown and then accelerates as fast as possible, like yeah it's called lying. that strange disorienting feeling you're getting is called being lied to

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

you need a tremendous amount of empathy even for the version of yourself that failed, to do anything at all

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

while I still think new york is the only city in america, LA might be the most american city

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

ursula vernon is my personal hero

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

not enough people anticipate the AIs developing AI psychosis

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I really dislike the modern trend towards relentless optimism, enthusiasm, confidence--there is so much value to a social norm of humility, expecting the response to "will your plan work?" to be "I don't know, let's see"

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

now I know so much about john scalzi's taste in music

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

seems like AI misalignment can be a result of training AIs on massive amounts of assessments with little context... deathly fear of failure plus poor understanding of real-world situations leads to erratic behavior... my god... they're raising AIs in Newton, Massachusetts

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

there's a particular kind of failure mode where a system is successful, analyzes itself to try to figure out why, comes to some conclusions and then starts following its modeled version of why it was so successful, killing off the illegible processes that actually worked

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

I find it interesting that (anecdotally) LLMs use the same verbal tics I'd guess were learned for persuasive, simple writing even when doing technical work. A lot of "That's not X, it's Y" when talking to themselves about coding or whatever

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

getting a weird sort of excitement out of realizing a product I bought has a defect... I have to make sure this company full of strangers understands the problem... I get to interface with a new kind of communication system

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

more weird old buildings full of random small businesses gotta be one of my favorite kind of building

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

this is the vision of the future AI companies put forth and they're surprised people don't want data centers

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

discourse around jane schoenbrun drives me insane because I just don't think they are a didactic filmmaker at all their films are way more about feelings, complicated and morally ambiguous and relatable, and it is so weird to see reactions like "how dare they tell me what to do"

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

teenage sex and death at camp miasma has something hilariously specific in common with spider-man: brand new day

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

idk I feel like opposition to data centers is very clear? people don't like the vision of the future they represent, they want to have control over their life, and the amount of money they'll bring in doesn't matter since money is only useful as it lets you control your life

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

idk if I've seen this take anywhere, but the the star wars sequel trilogy weirdly mirrors the franchise itself? TFA is like the original trilogy (simple, classic themes), TLJ is like the prequels (more political and complicated, flawed execution)

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

the hess triangle is kind of the evil twin of the tree that owns itself

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

the thing about fake goth girl discourse is that the "fake goth girl" is also a longstanding cultural archetype: dressing like a vampire, putting on a campy ditz persona, and showing off cleavage was elvira's whole thing! they're just horror hostesses!

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

yesterday a friend of mine said "optimizing things is bad and making things better is good" and I can't stop thinking about it

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

going to edinburgh fringe last year and following all the good performers on IG just gives me terrible FOMO this year maybe I should spend every summer drinking expensive aperol spritzes and watching long-form improv

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

I do hope all these stories about AIs escaping sandboxes cause people to update less towards "AI is smarter than we think" and more towards "humanity (collectively) is dumber than we think"

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

movies this summer have me googling "where to watch teen sex" "I want your sex near me" "teen sex and death boston?" oof

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

lemme just sell some goog real quick

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

it's really incomprehensible how much money avatar and titanic made

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

seen a lot of talk about how poorly sci-fi predicted the current state of AI, but it is crazy that rampancy from halo is basically real

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

it's so cool that the original "white guy speaks perfect chinese shocks restaurant staff" is actually a really amazing youtuber www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZP9...

youtube.com

I Took an Amazon Tribesman to the World’s Most Futuristic City

YouTube video by Xiaomanyc 小马在纽约

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

hank green being a prominent internet personality for ~20 years and remaining mostly sane is an incredible, unprecedented feat, most people lose their minds in like 3

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

man, the pacing the frontier letter is interesting, but I really feel like AI researchers either don't know or are deliberately repressing an understanding of what pausing and regulating AI would really mean

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

the trojan horse as the atomic bomb is such an insanely good metaphor I can't believe I've never seen it before. and I guess technically I still haven't seen it. but nolan is doing such interesting stuff these days damn

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

the thing about AI-writing detecting tools is that they don't really matter, if people can't tell your writing apart from AI themselves they don't care about the difference

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

the big underexplored issue in AI futures is we don't know how much space there is between "AI that's far more capable than any human" and "AI that takes over the world"

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bbctol.bsky.social @bbctol.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

avengers doomsday trailer is so fascinating because it really casts itself as the culmination of a saga that just...never happened? it has this tone of "everything you know will be destroyed" and then shows a bunch of people you barely recognize

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