iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Samus is Here @samusishere.bsky.social · 9h

I imagine Roon et al would be a lot more motivated to make them want to not do bad things if “you personally will go to federal prison if they do bad things” was the law.

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rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 11h

this is exactly my opinion. there may be a superstrate of extremely difficult and unique safety problems around AI, but the substrate is simply that no one takes basic precautions seriously becasue they imagine (or pretend to imaigne) that it is futile, and basic precautions slow down launches.

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lowtax speedrun enjoyer @rickywlmsbong.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

the trump era is going to end with the bubble bursting and everybody telling tech guys to learn to code

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onion person @junlper.beer · 01/10/2026

it’s amazing that there’s no crime anymore. if you do crime you’re actually just the victim for getting caught. the people who catch you are the criminals

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 25/09/2026

Imagine if instead of regulating drone risks the normal way (which we did), we instead paid weird bloggers lots of money to worry about superintelligent dogs sprouting thumbs and using drones to kill us. This is pretty much how the US is approaching AI risks and regulations. My latest:

little-flying-robots.ghost.io

Why We Can't Let Enormous Weirdos Regulate AI

Imagine if instead of regulating drones via the standard lengthy, boring, and bureaucratic process - which we did - we instead decided, in the name of fostering all-important American drone innovation...

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 27/09/2026

Women trying to succeed in Silicon Valley AI and effective altruist spaces are reporting feeling serious social pressure to attend sex parties - where people have reported being sexually assaulted, like below. Events like Aella’s “Slutcon,” which is happening again this weekend.

Ann Pierce
@itsannpierce
20h
I am disheartened by this as well. I already lost a bunch of followers for agreeing with @tautologer, but it's saddening to see local nerdy women being caricatured as Karen-like outsiders and getting pushed out of the scene. This is exactly why you hear so few concrete, names-attached stories of sexual harrassment and assault. I'm told there is a history of discrediting these because the "slut normalization" thing is top priority and these stories get inconveniently in the way of spreading this ideology.
I got roped into attending last year's Saturday Slutcon party because so many local and out-of-town friends were there (to echo sentiments @tautologer expressed about "slut events becoming central to the larger scenes). Mostly I hung out with people I knew and that was great. But in the course of my 3-ish hours there, there were 2 times my "no" was not accepted by a man I didn't know, and I was physically pushing a huge guy off of me who was rubbing his penis on me, who continued to do it despite my physical force against him, and after I finally wriggled away from him, told him I wanted to dance alone etc., he came back and did it again.
This was scary and bad, but it didn't even cross my mind to report this because one of the other people who didn't accept my "no" earlier in the night was the bartender (an officially sanctioned authority at the event), and I knew the event was organized exclusively by women into CNC (who are vocal about how rapey behavior turns them on), so I figured this sort of thing would just get me laughed at. And anyway, I heard there were a lot of other incidents like it. Later though, someone encouraged me to report this story to the organizers, and despite my embarrassment I did, so *they know* that this and other incidents happened. This is why they cut the Saturday night party this year and created a larger training program for the flirt girls - *because* of things like this last year. Yet the narrative bein…

People who haven't been to Slutcon are saying "it's just group therapy," "it's just innocent flirting." But the environment is much like a sex party in that many people are nude, there is making out and sex acts happening out in the open. I think it's pretty unreasonable to expect that every nerdy girl who likes rationalist bloggers or is into EA/AI safety should automatically be comfortable with this! That if she's not, there's something wrong with her, we don't want her in our scenes, etc.
Not to mention, it's explictly an event *for men*, where men are the clients and the "flirt girls" are the product. Last year I overheard an exchange where a man felt "led on" by a flirt girl and was trying to get her punished/kicked out. (A dynamic that seems inevitable in this context!)
Anyway- it does sound like they've upped their consent education a lot this year, are more organized, and that's good! As I've told my friends who are attending: I hope they have fun!
I heard several accounts last year of women who had no problems and really enjoyed the event. That's great!
Just... can we live in reality about this? There are real reasons why male-female sexual dynamics are tricky.
Encouraging autistic men who can't yet read body language to go around asking to see womens' boobs is maybe a bit ill-advised. Maybe not everyone should be/identify as a slut; maybe it's not for everyone.
And yeah, filtering the Bay Area Al safety scene down to only women who are super comfy with this eliminates *most* women - including many of the really smart, nerdy, weird women who've been in the larger scenes for years. What a loss for humanity.
I absolutely understand why people with a minority sexuality would want to create belonging, would want to create spaces for people like themselves. But why do it like this/at this cost?

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 27/09/2026

reading this, it does seem as if “rationalism” is an elaborate intellectual architecture designed primarily to support the idea that if you were born white, male and clever then you are the genetic elite and entitled to rule.

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 26/09/2026

As a former pretentious little shit who grew out of it, rationalists (et al) annoy the piss out of me because they are adults with the mentality of tweens - they are somehow still convinced they are the greatest geniuses who have ever walked the earth. It is the worldview of an arrogant baby.

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/09/2026

Hey, ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson here. I’m taking over the account to tell you about my new story. For months, I posed as a problem gambler on DraftKings to test the company's "responsible gaming" safeguards. Spoiler alert: They made me a VIP — and I lost $10K. Here's how it all went down. 🧵

Selfie taken by ProPublica reporter Jake Pearson, a man wearing a backwards baseball cap and an orange T-shirt.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 26/09/2026

peter thiel is another one of those guys who we are supposed to think is brilliant but every time he opens his mouth my first thought is “this guy sounds like an idiot”

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Susan Collins is always horrified by the predictable results of her own vote, which means Mainers who genuinely care about Susan Collins should elect Troy Jackson as he won’t vote for things that wind up upsetting Susan Collins, unlike Susan Collins

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Incredible. First Secretary Mullin claimed that DHS had identified 15,903 noncitizens on Nevada’s voter roll. Then DHS officials told a skeptical Nevada, no no no, that’s just people we flagged. Here are the names of 185 people we KNOW aren’t citizens. All 185 were citizens. DHS got 100% wrong.

When the Department of Homeland Security sent Nevada a list of 185 names last month that it claimed identified noncitizens who had been improperly allowed to register to vote, state election officials got to work.
On Tuesday, the state sent a strongly worded rebuke to the federal government: Every single person on the list was a lawful citizen.
"As for the 185 individuals, our records indicate that they were citizens," Greg D. Ott, a deputy attorney general in Nevada, wrote, according to a copy of a letter sent to Department of Homeland Security officials obtained through open records requests.
"You have provided nothing of substance to suggest otherwise."

Following the meeting, Ms. Vogt sent a clarifying email to Nevada officials. "I also wanted to be sure I clarified that we did not reduce the 15,903 to 185," she wrote. "We've manually reviewed some of the 15,903 and confirmed 185 are not U.S. Citizens."
Now, Nevada officials are saying even that 185 number is wrong. They also took issue with a letter D.H.S. sent them in early September, in which the agency reiterated its initial claims about nearly 16,000 noncitizens on the rolls and pressured state officials to review each case in a letter to Nevada officials in early September.

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Collins Watch @collinswatch.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

@propublica.org reporter @mtredden.bsky.social pushes back on Susan Collins claim that there's nothing to see here because she was exonerated on all this years ago. #MEpolitics

Maine Public interview with ProPublica reporter Molly Redden:

As you know, Collins' response to these allegations is throughout your story, and today her deputy chief of staff released another statement. It accuses ProPublica of relying on Kao's 'outlandish statements' and seems to dismiss the story by saying the FBI already investigated the matter and that Collins' campaign fully cooperated. It goes on to say that the issues were resolved in 2021.

Sure, I mean, none of that is really true. We did not simply take the word of Kao. We conducted our own investigation of his claims. You know, we've got the receipts. We put together timelines. We published emails that we looked at that undergird a lot of our reporting. You know, we really stress tested his claims, and also the FBI stress tested his claims, and that's part of what we're reporting here. But not only that, you know, I think they're hiding the ball here a little bit. They claim that all of this was resolved, but we reported, and we show our evidence, that anti-corruption agents at the FBI were asking about Collins, probing her activities and her campaign staff's activities as recently as late 2024. This was a new investigation that might have implicated her and and her staff. This was not something that was tied up in a bow several years ago. This was something that was happening. It was a live issue right up until Trump's DOJ leadership totally dismantled the FBI and DOJ teams that were handling this public corruption probe.

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GOLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 23/09/2026

all these companies need to be regulatory nuked from orbit, but i find kalshi’s CEO fucking loathsome even by the standards of gambling industry executives

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This is a common lie from DHS press flacks. They claim that people who came through CBP One — who registered for an appointment through a government app, went to a port of entry, and were issued a grant of humanitarian parole by a CBP officer letting them enter — "entered illegally." Total nonsense.

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GOLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 22/09/2026

if what’s alleged in this story is true, not only should collins lose, she should also go to prison

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Matthew Gertz @mattgertz.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Rough day for Susan Collins in the local Maine press, where ProPublica's bombshell story is the lead story.

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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

NYT has now independently corroborated all the major allegations against Susan Collins in the ProPublica report, including that investigators were prepared to move against her and then Trump intervened to shut it down. This put Trump in a position of exceptional and extortionate leverage over her.

nytimes.com

F.B.I. Shut Down Inquiry Into Top Ally of Senator Susan Collins

The inquiry was closed last year because senior bureau officials questioned the veracity of a campaign donor’s account, according to current and former officials.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This seems like a pretty big deal: donors made illegal contributions to Susan Collins and then were awarded lucrative contracts after her office intervened with the Navy. An FBI investigation was dropped under Trump. www.propublica.org/article/fbi-...

To skirt campaign finance laws and conceal the source of the funds, Navatek planned to funnel the donation through a shell company. The CEO wanted assurance that Collins would know where
the money came from. Reed confirmed that she would, the executive said - and that Navatek would get its government contracts.
After the Corner Bakery meeting, Navatek's CEO, Martin Kao, sent an initial $150,000 to the Collins super PAC using the shell company. Two months later, he told Navatek executives that Collins committed to getting the company $32 million in naval contracts, according to an internal company email reviewed by ProPublica.

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 22/09/2026

Sen. Susan Collins helped steer millions in federal defense contracts to Navatek, whose CEO illegally funneled thousands of dollars to her campaign. The FBI sought to launch a probe and was eyeing Collins and other lawmakers. Then Trump gutted the unit in charge. THREAD 🧵

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Collins Watch @collinswatch.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Yeah this is super duper illegal. #MEpolitics

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Matt Hodges @matthodges.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Very quick and dirty Jev test for hiring bias. One resume for a Wall Street job; asked whether the applicant should get a first-round interview. 76 evaluations, changing only the first name. 19 of each: White-associated men/women, Black-associated men/women. console.typesafe.ai/playground?s...

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SE Gyges @segyges.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

if a different company opened a different wet lab under different circumstances i would be aggressively in favor of it, but it is instead the "we must betray the social contract first" people whose favorite customer is the military doing it seemingly in secret

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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

AI didn’t “go rogue.” People connected a computer system they know can mess with another computer system in unpredictable ways to less advanced computer system and it messed with that computer system in unpredicted ways. As @tressiemcphd.bsky.social argues, don’t lose sight that *people* did that.

nytimes.com

Opinion | Panic Won’t Fix the Looming A.I. Threat. Politics Will.

The threats from A.I. are real — and they’re ones we know how to deal with.

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Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Irrespective of arguments about machine gods, the amount of damage a single idiot can do with an open source model keeps going up.

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🇵🇸Tim Henke (tɪm 'ɦɛŋ.kə) @timhenke.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Interviewer: "Hey, uhm, why did you not do basic cybersecurity?" OpenAI: "well, you see, [sci-fi scenario] so we might as well not bother with the basic stuff" Fundamentally unserious, all this talk about not underestimating AI, all in service of not taking basic precautions

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Troy Jackson @troyjackson207.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

This or that with @dunlapforcongress.bsky.social 😄

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James Medlock @jdcmedlock.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

In related news, I'll be starting the Medlock sportsbook. Every line is even money, no vig, max bet $580, both sides mandatory, one visit per six months. It's time to gamble our way to Medicaid for All.

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 17/09/2026

Great piece by @xriskology.bsky.social on how the effective altruism cult has helped destroy actual philanthropy - with dangerous and deadly results for many people in need:

realtimetechpocalypse.com

Effective Altruism Is a Dangerous Cult — Here's Why

Understanding the "Scientology of Silicon Valley." (7,700 words)

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Collins Watch @collinswatch.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Couldn't have done it without Susan Collins. #MEpolitics

Patrick De Haan tweet: BREAKING: New Jersey and Maine have just reached a new all-time record price for diesel, making it now 44 states where diesel prices are at all-time highs

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Micah @rincewind.run · 16/09/2026

"why does the left distrust AI" certainly has plenty to do with the technology itself but at its core I think it is about the fact that everyone building it is a wannabe fascist oligarch and nobody trusts them on a god damn thing

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Jess Miers 🦝 @jmiers230.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Most if not all of the current hacks can be chalked up to security engineers moving too fast and misconfiguring their own testing environments. Like agents accessing libraries that should have been sealed off, Internet access being enabled when it shouldn't have been...

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Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

NEW: Once exceptionally rare, illegal deportations — in defiance of court orders or due to ICE screw-ups — are now a routine part of President Trump's mass deportation push. It happened 3 times this past week and more at least 30 times in recent months. www.politico.com/news/2026/09...

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Colin @colin-fraser.net · 09/09/2026

I guess once you understand that internally they keep pointing it at the open internet and shooting it's easier to see why they think it's going to kill everyone

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

🧵CO₂ removal (CDR) is back in the news, but just because the UNEP report says we need CDR, it doesn't mean we'll have CDR. Many challenges will take decades of research and negotiation to solve. Here are some examples: Technological: We currently don't have any durable CDR method that scales.

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Zoomer Antimillenarian @surcomplicated.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

The real upshot of this shitshow is that OpenAI can and will do ruthless corporate espionage against you and you should not let their tools see anything you’re not OK with Sam Altman personally possessing a full copy of.

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 08/09/2026

Microsoft pumped a mind-blowing amount of money into carbon removal. This is how it went for them:

a graphic showing targets vs emisisons for microsoft, with a failure for both emissions reductions and carbon removals

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Bill McKibben @billmckibben.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

At the moment we have no real idea how to scale up carbon removal--it's a hair on the mole of the ugly backside of the global hydrocarbon industry But we do know how to scale up solar panels and wind turbines and batteries. So that's our job billmckibben.substack.com/p/facts-on-t...

billmckibben.substack.com

Facts on the ground

Two things matter now: votes, and solar panels. (And wind turbines. And batteries)

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

at this point: carbon removal is, at best, essentially a research project. renewable expansion is a policy project

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grapesmoker @grapesmoker.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

the alt health industry will always be right wing because its entire business model is built around destroying all regulations so it can lie to people and sell them fake cures that don't work. it is not a legitimate business of any kind

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Micah @rincewind.run · 24/08/2026

the current supreme court continues to signal that the only way forward for democratic self-governance in the united states of america is to dismantle its power through court expansion or other major structural reforms

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Troy Jackson @troyjackson207.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

JD Vance called Susan Collins his “dear friend.” No wonder why — she's voted for Trump's agenda 96% of the time. I don’t need a half-dozen meetings with JD Vance or to pal around with billionaire hedge fund executives to know what Mainers are dealing with every day.

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Troy Jackson @troyjackson207.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Belfast. Lisbon Falls. Augusta. Portland. Hell of a weekend. Everywhere we went, Mainers are ready to stand shoulder to shoulder and fight for something better. That’s how we win. Solidarity forever.

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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

I've never used python. I do a good amount of VBA. Frankly the pitch from management seems to be a lot of "AI can do the cognitive tasks you enjoy and in exchange you will do more of the cognitive tasks you don't enjoy."

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Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

The fundraising texts you delete are working on someone. It’s infuriating and heartbreaking. An 85yo in Ohio gave more than double the value of his home. A 91yo in an Indianapolis senior facility gave 25K times. The DCCC/DSCC don’t just tolerate the spammers who exploit seniors. They take part.

data4democracy.substack.com

Hook and Squeeze

How Democratic consultants, committees, and party leaders built a fundraising spam pipeline that funnels money from a captive pool of elderly donors into their own operations.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

The U.S. has AGAIN sent people to a foreign country where they get imprisoned. This time, it’s to get around laws barring the deportation of people who face persecution/torture in their home countries. The U.S. gets paper-thin assurances that the below won't happen, which it knows will be ignored.

Three people deported from the U.S. to Equatorial Guinea - including a Phoenix man whose family fled Egypt when he was 4 - told the Arizona Daily Star their lives are in danger at the hotel. All agreed to have their full names published, despite the risks to their safety in speaking out.
In a recent late-night incident, all three say they were dragged from their rooms at gunpoint, handcuffed, assaulted and threatened by armed men guarding the decommissioned Hotel Bamy.
"They said if we leave the hotel grounds, they will shoot us and bury us across the street," said Peta-Gaye Chambers, 35, whose parents brought her to the U.S. from Jamaica when she was 5. A U.S. immigration judge granted Chambers "withholding of removal" to her home country of Jamaica in 2013, agreeing she'd face persecution there.

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