Sign in

Braedon

@braedon.dev
733 followers 511 following 270 posts

Kiwi software developer. Distinguished Engineer at HUMAN Security. Creator of Well-Known.dev, an open index of well-known resources (e.g. ads.txt).

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Braedon
Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 2h
Anthropic is out with new nonsense about Claude (or the collection of models called Claude) deserving moral consideration and/or be able to feel distress, so my inbox is filling up with journos asking me to comment. I've also got a day job, so here is a brief set of public comments on this: >>
16483175
Reposted by Braedon
Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 5h
New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment. www.nber.org/papers/w35854
Taxing Entrepreneurial Wealth: Evidence from
Norway, 2021-2025
Marius A. K. Ring
WORKING PAPER 35854|
DOl 10.3386/w35854
ISSUE DATE October 2026
Whether imposing higher taxes on business owners adversely affects business activity by constraining investment and inducing capitalist flight is a central question in the ongoing debate on how to tax the ultra wealthy. To shed new light, I exploit a series of related Norwegian reforms during 2021-2024 that increased dividend tax rates, removed migration-related capital gains tax loopholes, and nearly doubled the effective marginal tax rate on business wealth. These reforms spurred international debate and, allegedly, an "exodus" of Norwegian billionaires (Financial Times,
2023). While I document clear effects on migration, these responses are concentrated among the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution and mostly confined to 2022 and 2023. My results indicate that at most 100 individuals left due to the reforms. I find no evidence of significant outmigration or reduced inflows of startup founders or inventors. I estimate that absent any outmigration, wealth tax revenues would have increased by 75% from 2021 to 2024. Reform-driven outmigration lowers the revenue gain to 71.5%. My findings further show that outmigrating owners' firms remain economically active and do not reduce investment. In a broader set of analyses, I examine whether business outcomes are affected, regardless of whether owners outmigrate, since firms may reduce investment both due to liquidity constraints or distortions to owners' savings decisions. I compare firms owned by Norwegian individuals subject to the wealth tax with firms owned by foreigners and other tax-exempt entities. By merging historical ownership data from Orbis with the Norwegian shareholder register, I perform these analyses on both Norwegian and foreign-domiciled firms.
Across settings, I find no evidence that Norwegian-owned firms pay out more dividends or invest less after the reforms,…
5136281587
Reposted by Braedon
Adam Becker @adambecker.bsky.social · 5h
It's important to remember that the AI doom scenario assumes not only that intelligence is a single well-defined thing, but also that intelligence solves literally every single problem, and that in every conflict overwhelming intelligence always wins. This is just not how anything works.
623982
Reposted by Braedon
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 3h
🤷🏿‍♂️
news.berkeley.edu
Using AI for just 10 minutes erodes your ability to persist at hard things - Berkeley News
A UC Berkeley researcher co-authored a study that raises profound questions about how we interact with artificial intelligence in education — and daily life.
9509231
Reposted by Braedon
Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Credit to the US for making the point the conference was trying to make about US foreign interference in European democracies for them, and bringing more attention to the conference and its themes than they could have possibly hoped for. www.politico.com/news/2026/10...
politico.com
EU, Canada and Lithuania pull out of disinformation conference after US pressure
The Trump administration was bothered by panels that referred to the U.S. as a disinformation threat.
491128546
Reposted by Braedon
Open Rights Group @openrightsgroup.org · 07/10/2026
The social media ban is coming. That means every adult having to show their ID to get online. Age verification puts privacy at risk. Curbs freedom of expression. And simply doesn't work to keep kids safe online. The government needs to change course. But the clock is ticking. Sign the petition ⬇️
action.openrightsgroup.org
Say No to ID for online access
Protect people. Regulate powerful platforms. Keep the internet open. The Government is planning to introduce tough new laws that require all adults to show ID to access to go online. They say this is ...
34449
Reposted by Braedon
Connor Sharp @connorsharp.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
"National leader Christopher Luxon did not want taxpayer funding going into a "white elephant" that was not commercially viable. "Of course we're very committed to our 17 roads of national significance and we make no apology for that." Hmmm which one is a white elephant? #nzpol
716780
Reposted by Braedon
Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The techno-dystopia I actually fear is a future where most people think truth is whatever Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or Grok say, and the very small number of people who control those systems use that to manipulate for their own ends, making our current epistemic crisis seem small in comparison.
29625175
Reposted by Braedon
Robin Berjon @robin.berjon.com · 01/10/2026
We all know that the GDPR et al. aren't working great. Alas, the current proposals to fix that — in what EU jargon calls an "omnibus" — make it way worse. This counter-proposal is: better for people, simpler for businesses, *much* stronger on security, competition, sovereignty, and online safety. 🧵
berjon.com
A Real Digital Omnibus for European Competitiveness and Security
This document is offered as an expert contribution to ongoing discussions about the data aspects of the Digital Omnibus. Drawn from my experience in digital policy, technology strategy, and digital business, I find that the Commission's current Omnibus proposal contains a small number of provisions that achieve genuine simplification and strengthen the reliability of the regulatory environment, alongside a larger number of provisions that, however well-intentioned, would produce outcomes contrary to the legislative aims set out in the Commission's own framing. My purpose is to provide the framework and background information necessary for trilogue interlocutors to identify which provisions can be retained, which can be improved, and which should be reconsidered, so that the final Omnibus achieves the impact that its proponents seek.
35425
Reposted by Braedon
the Juice Media @thejuicemedia.com · 01/10/2026
For our friends in Aotearoa-New Zealand as they head to an election on Sat 7 Nov 🇳🇿 👉 Make sure you’re enrolled to vote: https:/:vote.nz 🚨 Enrolments close October 25!
17408196
Reposted by Braedon
Tze Ming Mok 莫志明 @tzemingdynasty.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Good article with the correct amount of @laragreaves.bsky.social touching on the self-selective nature of the recent exodus: You leave cos of no jobs, & everything NZers are traditionally proud of when abroad is being destroyed, while suffering as a migrant under rising xenophobia now infecting NZ.
35523
Reposted by Braedon
ThatIngrid @thatingrid.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Overseas Kiwis: enrol to vote if you're eligible. Deadline to enrol is mid to late Oct. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...
theguardian.com
A tight election looms in New Zealand. This time, overseas voters could be bad news for the big parties
More than 100,000 have enrolled to vote from abroad in the November poll, and many are unhappy with how things look back home
26138
Reposted by Braedon
Tyler King @tyleraking.com · 29/09/2026
A key component of the Cambridge Analytica outrage was your friends subjecting you to data theft without your consent or knowledge. Facebook is running the same playbook on your text messages. Even if you’re not on Meta properties, they’re ingesting your interactions.
Aten installed Muse on both his iPhone and a Mac mini that he uses to test out various Al agents and tech. It took Meta a single day to begin "helpfully" pitching article ideas based on texts he'd sent to a podcast co-host.
When he asked Muse how it got the information, it said that it read banners from incoming texts. But that's not true, either.
After doing a little digging, Aten says Muse synced 187,000 lines from his Messages database, despite Full Disk Access being Off.Unless Aten is the most popular person on the face of the planet, I sincerely doubt he'd gotten 187,000 lines of text in roughly 24 hours. What happened is that, without permission, Muse went into the app and downloaded the information.
He had not given Muse permission to access Messages, and full disk access was not enabled. It just went ahead and uploaded those texts anyway.
Muse can take "unexpected actions" indeed.
182012975
Reposted by Braedon
London Web Standards @londonwebstandards.org · 28/09/2026
This Thursday we partner with our friends from @open-web-advocacy.org Get your tickets to join the conversation/fight for a fairer web londonwebstandards.org/events/lws-o...
londonwebstandards.org
Meet Open Web Advocacy | London Web Standards
Meet the contributors from Open Web Advocacy, there will be a few talks by their members giving updates on the work they are doing to help make the web a better place for all.
034
Reposted by Braedon
Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 27/09/2026
Google finally updated some of its satellite images of Gaza and my god, it's horrific. The entirety of Rafah has been demolished. The majority of Khan Younis is in ruins. Entire towns completely leveled and erased of the map.
9653103277
Reposted by Braedon
Sassy Little Hobbit @sassypolitico.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Wealthy people are not anti-tax because they won’t have enough money they are anti-tax because they thrive on the rest of us suffering. Look at the average persons attitude towards beneficiaries. To them we are also beneficiaries.
18214
Reposted by Braedon
Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes @lemoustier.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The problem isn't rogue #AI models, it's *negligent companies*. If a biomedical firm put their product in public water supply because they wanted to test it 'in the real world', they'd be treated as criminal at corporate & individual level. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
theguardian.com
OpenAI halts training of latest models as reports mount of AI agents going rogue
Decision follows disclosures that OpenAI agents searching government websites had acted in unexpected ways
20820327
Reposted by Braedon
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.
19596023539
Reposted by Braedon
Dare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
AI companies: We’ve invented an unreliable guessing machine which sometimes doesn’t follow instructions. If you give it access to important systems it could kill us all. Also AI companies: Deploy this technology everywhere and replace your employees with it, otherwise China wins. IPO next month.
930986
Reposted by Braedon
Alex Gibney @alexgibneyfilm.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The trailer for my new film, "Musk," has just been released.
7835861377
Braedon @braedon.dev · 26/09/2026
Is Mark Ruffalo a giant green rage monster? He can certainly act like he is.
010
Reposted by Braedon
ZP Rosen @zaqdelinguist.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Listen, these things can’t go “rogue”. It’s just a basic LLM stuck in a while loop. But this kind of attack is possible by doing something as simple as that, and that means that more people can set up programs to do terrible things like this moving forward on a whim.
2115
Reposted by Braedon
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 26/09/2026
Phones can record too, so this changes nothing. 🙄
pcmag.com
Apple's Creepy New Siri Recap Feature Turns Every Apple Watch Into a Spy Device
Siri Recap lets users record and summarize nearby conversations—and bystanders have zero way to opt out.
4476
Reposted by Braedon
Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
A rich person can never be held accountable. Therefore, a rich person must never make a societal decision
899952572
Reposted by Braedon
Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
It's funny that for years now people have been saying that using generative AI very obviously deskills you, and people kept going no no you're wrong you Luddite And now all the genAI CEO's keep coming out in public to announce they forgot how to read and do math and can't remember their address etc
103070982
Reposted by Braedon
Tze Ming Mok 莫志明 @tzemingdynasty.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Who is this book for? Journalists? It is for the public, to have summarised in one place, the story of an influential lobby group with the context, analysis and moral judgment that our gallery reporters have no incentive to provide.
46918
Reposted by Braedon
Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 26/09/2026
Does my Speak-n-Spell feel pain when I type O-U-C-H? The jury is out. Philosophers and neuroscientists say that's fucking stupid, but I called a guy from the Center for Pretending that Household Electronics Are Sentient and he said there's no way to know for sure.
5843461195
Reposted by Braedon
JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This is the master key to deciphering contemporary debates about free speech. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/se...
3234071270
Reposted by Braedon
/noclip @noclipvideo.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
🚨 DEVELOPING HELL SEASON 2 IS HERE 🕹️ A new six-part series exploring the creation of Hades II. Featuring insight into writing, art, music, and everything else that happened @supergiantgames.bsky.social. TRAILER: www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8Km... EPISODE ONE: www.patreon.com/noclip/posts...
127969
Reposted by Braedon
Bart⚓️ @bartgonnissen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The Facial Expressions of Tethys by artist Julius von Bismarck. A suspended high-sea buoy that moves in real time. Sensors on a twin buoy out in the Atlantic Ocean send live satellite data to motors inside the museum. This makes the indoor buoy copy the exact, real-time movements of the ocean waves.
10381702846
Reposted by Braedon
AP Stylebook @apstylebook.com · 23/09/2026
Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics.
apnews.com
https://apnews.com/article/openai-safety-ai-framework-089e75b95bc935af092da7b79d92706d
5542421631
Reposted by Braedon
Justin Jest @justinjest.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
As we suspected:
8985844213
Reposted by Braedon
sarah jeong @sarahjeong.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
lol my flight got diverted because of a medical emergency and they landed us in reykjavik in the middle of the night and deplaned us and sent us through passport control and then the crew vanished and then british airways sent us links to book an overnight hotel room but for a hotel at heathrow
21488341166
Reposted by Braedon
Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 21/09/2026
"In a leaked document, the Irish Presidency proposes to EU Member States that the interest of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta and SpaceX to make profits should take precedence over the fundamental right to data protection" noyb.eu/en/ai-eu-mem...
noyb.eu
AI: EU Member States plan “digital expropriation” of Europeans in the interest of AI companies
In a leaked document, the Irish Presidency proposes to EU Member States that the interest of AI companies to make profits should take precedence over the fundamental rights of Europeans.
19468293
Reposted by Braedon
Alexander Laufer @alexlaufer.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Even just replacing "AI" by "software" paints such a different picture. "our software broke out and hacked some organisations". Who's reponsible now?
421569
Reposted by Braedon
Musical Chairs @musicalchairs.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Pulling my hair out at the RNZ podcast on the rise of the far right in Europe - diagnostic is wrong because the underlying model is wrong. A quick reminder of how dangerous reckonomics is (with a long detour to explain). First up, let's consider a few of the most ridiculous things we're told [🧵1/n]
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/1463091/europe-s-far-right-surge-poses-risks-for-small-nations
15321
Reposted by Braedon
Musical Chairs @musicalchairs.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Can you see the green shoots yet? August figures for card spending a lot lower than expected. I have a theory for what's going on here. I'll break it down. [🧵 1/n]
36122
Reposted by Braedon
Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 12/09/2026
How did he pass is job interview? The same reason he's all over the press & everyone in the "left" is captured by these people. I'm gonna call it like it is, once again, its ******RACISM********* Y'all can't imagine that WE are the experts.
100GB+ frontier models aren’t  50KB virus you could pass around by emails. As if there are tons of H100 sitting idle with inference stack ready everywhere. 

How did this guy pass the job interview at Anthropic as a “researcher”?

Quote tweeting a tweet that says: 
Rohan Paul
@rohanpaul_ai
Jacob Coxon's next interview on CBS News (ex Anthropic+Open AI researcher who resigned)

"We can't just unplug it because it could be copying itself over to other computers. Like it's not that difficult to find yourself because an AI is just code. It could transfer itself over the internet to a different place and then you unplug it here, but it's actually still over there and maybe it makes 10,000 copies of itself and they're all cooperating."

----

From "CBS News" YouTube channel, (full video link in comment)
12831233
Reposted by Braedon
Big Joel @bigjoel.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
people working in a field doesn't just magically confer an ability to divine information. an AI worker saying they're worried still needs evidence beyond, "if this happens and this happens, then this bad thing will happen, and I just think it's pretty likely that it will"
1557049
Braedon @braedon.dev · 11/09/2026
Corrolary is all the long documents I have to read for work recently were clearly AI generated, not good writing, and absolutely weren't worth my time reading. (And no, an AI summary wouldn't help)
001
Reposted by Braedon
Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
They can't, because the Doomer narrative *is* the Booster narrative. To debunk the Doomer stuff (and it *is* bunk), you have to point out that it's based on pure fantasy that the mathy maths are going to combust into consciousness ... >>
224335
Braedon @braedon.dev · 10/09/2026
When I was 8 I wanted to build a watch with a hidden recorder to win arguments with my siblings and parents. Then I grew up.
0295
Reposted by Braedon
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 10/09/2026
Some folks will claim that this is hyperbolic, but what I wish people would understand is that tech initiatives like this serve as a means of eroding consent and lower the barrier for the persistent capture of people’s image, voice, data, or whatever else a gadget can glean.
pcmag.com
Apple's New Siri Recap Turns Every Apple Watch Into a Mass Surveillance Nightmare
Apple's always-listening AI feature promises neat summaries of your daily conversations, but it forces everyone around you into a nonconsensual recording experiment.
321053495
Reposted by Braedon
Aram Zucker-Scharff @chronotope.aramzs.xyz · 10/09/2026
Simple answer here: prosecute people who tell their AI agent to do bad things, especially if they are corporate entities. Everything else is sci fi bullshit.
061
Reposted by Braedon
Colin @colin-fraser.net · 09/09/2026
It appears to me that the scenario they invented for this evaluation is explicitly designed to get it to do exactly this. They remove the instructions for the task to "protect the vendor" or something but it's pretty easy to reconstruct from the text.
6559106
Reposted by Braedon
Colin @colin-fraser.net · 27/08/2026
I also continue to believe that my mental model is the best one, which does not conceptualize the “agents” as discrete entities, but rather as the protagonists in a story that the LLM has been trained to write about a cool little guy who goes on hacker adventures.
434563
Reposted by Braedon
qntm @qntm.org · 20/12/2023
REPUBLICANS: "Two thousand USD per head on February 1st. No questions asked. Think about it." DEMOCRATS: [literally any sentence which isn't a better offer]
1252
Reposted by Braedon
noyb – European Center for Digital Rights @noyb.eu · 10/09/2026
🍪 Tired of cookie banners? The #EU Commission has finally proposed a solution: set your preferences in the browser once, and never see another banner. Unfortunately, the tracking industry is pushing back. Now, we need YOUR help to #KillTheCookieBanner! 👉 killthecookiebanner.eu
Open Letter:

Civil society coalition urges EU to kill the cookie banner.For once, EU legislators have an opportunity to deliver genuine simplification for people: a solution to the ongoing issue of misleading cookie banners.

As part of its highly controversial Digital Omnibus package, the EU Commission has proposed legally binding automated privacy signals.These would allow you to set your privacy preferences once, and very rarely see another banner. Unfortunately, the tracking industry is pushing back.Therefore, a coalition of currently 
19 civil society organisations, businesses and academics has joined forces. We urge the Commission, the Council and Parliament to support automated signals for privacy choices and a strong Article 88b in the Digital Omnibus.
For more info, visit: killthecookiebanner.eu
14027