Reposted by Dan DaviesBrokenBanker @brokenbanker.bsky.social · 11hAI is nature's way of telling BBC bosses to put tired formats out of their misery 34312
Reposted by Dan Daviestweety fish @sifu.tweety.fish · 12hHOW do you leave a song this good in a vault for FIFTY YEARS actually what is happening music.youtube.com/watch?v=o3HZ...music.youtube.comI'm Into Livin'YouTube video by Stevie Wonder - Topic 2227
Reposted by Dan DaviesBen Recht @beenwrekt.bsky.social · 13hThe illusion and politics of objectivity in cost-benefit analysis, a decision-making institution so ingrained that Americans can’t imagine life without it.argmin.netPricing CommensurabilityOn the origins of cost-benefit analyses in governmental decision making 1207
Reposted by Dan DaviesDare Obasanjo @carnage4life.bsky.social · 15h80% of Anthropic’s half trillion in data center commitments is non-cancelable or payable regardless of usage. That’s an incredible bet on the continued dominance of Claude and exponential growth in AI usage. 117214
Reposted by Dan DaviesJo Michell @jomichell.bsky.social · 19hThe most sensible MPC member, by a margin. www.ft.com/content/4aa0... 1108
Reposted by Dan DaviesChris Dillow @chrisdillow.bsky.social · 21hThe problem of social care is largely one of a missing insurance market. The obvious solution is to pay for care via general taxes, treating these as if they were insurance premia. Cutting benefits or the triple lock are bad alternatives. 45823
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 21hIf you are building a house in a location where it cannot be insured, the problem is not really the lack of insurance 37523
Reposted by Dan DaviesKate Mackenzie @katemac.bsky.social · 22hRemember when we thought investors might mobilize in ways sufficient to protect the world from climate change 211236
Reposted by Dan Daviesae @aelkus.bsky.social · 29/09/2026well, looks like we are doing social media all over again 1745
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 28/09/2026That's nice, everyone who wanted to swallow batteries will be able to 81279
Reposted by Dan Daviestweety fish @sifu.tweety.fish · 28/09/2026this comes from a standpoint and arrives at a conclusion I don't precisely agree with, and skips some nuance I think is important about how reward is encoded in LLMs, but it's a very well done and clear explanation of where weird behavior can come from in agents trained with RLVR/RLHFyoshuabengio.orgYoshua Bengio | Why are AI agents lying, cheating and coordinating?A lot has been written about the incidents of the last few months in which AI agents misbehaved in serious ways. They took actions that would be considered as crimes if a human took them, escaped thei... 0364
Reposted by Dan DaviesMayfair Cynic @mayfaircynic.bsky.social · 28/09/2026"OpenAI tried to get data from a public website designed to provide data" 1276
Reposted by Dan Daviestweety fish @sifu.tweety.fish · 28/09/2026the thing about Jensen Huang is that he will never ever ever not fundamentally be a guy who runs a graphics card company. Like sure yeah whatever scientific computing AI ok ok he learned everything he needs to know selling VGA cards with badly photoshopped box art at E3 in 1996 1031541
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 28/09/2026the dollar system is "a global panopticon and choke point for everyone except criminals" 24618
Reposted by Dan DaviesHenry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 28/09/2026@dsquareddigest.bsky.social and I have a @britishacademy.bsky.social paper on how the US is now somehow managing to combine gross overuse of dollar power (e.g. upcoming ICC sanctions) with genial complaisance about the use of crypto to circumvent ordinary controlsthebritishacademy.ac.ukThe US dollar system as a source of international disorder 13515
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 28/09/2026As I keep saying, not repairing a bridge imposes a cost on future generations, just not the kind of cost that is immediately visible in the accounting system 610125
Reposted by Dan DaviesJamie K @crumpsalljamie.bsky.social · 27/09/2026farewell Mighty Sparrow, based Calypsonian www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOWu...youtube.comMighty Sparrow - Capitalism Gone MadYouTube video by Edward Spencer 2199
Reposted by Dan Davies⤵️ @bryce.lol · 27/09/2026If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber’d here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend; And, as I am an honest Puck, Show is over, off you fuck. 10597165
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 27/09/2026can I get a "are you one hundred per cent sure of that boss" 97618
Reposted by Dan DaviesBaroness Floella Benjamin @floellabenjamin.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Today it’s 50 years since I first presented Playschool wearing my blue beads and silver heart. I adore bringing joy into the lives of my Playschool Babies during the 12 years I was on the programme. ❤️ 611332164
Reposted by Dan DaviesHenry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 27/09/2026My first take (from work with @abenewman.bsky.social on the EU-US privacy wars) is that this is likely very stupid. ECJ judges are absolutely political, but are relatively insulated from electoral politics and raison d'etat. US interference makes a strong ruling vs Musk more politically attractive. 212343
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 27/09/2026I have no idea why this dog park has a knuckleduster for its logo 3281
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 27/09/2026(sees the Discourse, decides that you only get attention if you're the strangest case on the ward) ive never even heard of Texas 8598
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 27/09/2026"we didn't have anything like as many people claiming to have ADHD back in the days when everyone carried around a pack of inhalable stimulant drugs and took between 20 and 40 doses every day" 30714194
Reposted by Dan DaviesTony Tassell @tonytassell.bsky.social · 26/09/2026JPMorgan and the broking fetish for conviction calls - and why William Butler Yeats would not have done well as head of research at an investment bank -great column by @dsquareddigest.bsky.social as.ft.com/r/6862e493-c...as.ft.comJPMorgan and the broking fetish for conviction callsAn admission by some analysts at the bank of an inability to form a baseline view should be thanked rather than mocked 4309
Reposted by Dan Daviestweety fish @sifu.tweety.fish · 25/09/2026here is a succinct thing I can say: "alignment"-style AI safety risks DO NOT EXIST or need remediation with LLMs as such (there are lots of other problems) and OpenAI and Anthropic are in the business of TRYING TO MAKE THEM EXIST so that they can remediate them. 718348
Reposted by Dan DaviesTim Hurrell @myoldschool.bsky.social · 25/09/2026The Lance Armstrong stadium? 061
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Man City now playing home games at the Asterisk Stadium 2201
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 25/09/2026at the 'stack, I round off this week's series by arguing that the OBR is fundamentally incapable of the task assigned to it, and this isn't the fault of anyone except Claude Shannon. backofmind.substack.com/p/a-question...backofmind.substack.coma question of capacityoffice of budget irresponsibility, part 2 3162
Reposted by Dan DaviesMayfair Cynic @mayfaircynic.bsky.social · 25/09/2026xkcd.com/1494/xkcd.comInsurance 04913
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 25/09/2026I would like to see the prosecution drawing up a quite widely drafted application for a Criminal Behaviour Order 080
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 25/09/2026"anything which increases the productivity of the solution factory is also likely to increase the output of the problem factory" THE PROBLEM FACTORY, forthcoming from @profilebooks.bsky.social next year! 1438
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 25/09/2026JPM and Fargo also got a bit of 'splainin to do about how they missed an "IT services company" doing nine figures of payments business 2268
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 25/09/2026They just make great presents for everyone except @alanbeattie.bsky.social , and even he would get to love the fluffy darlings after a couple of weeks living with one 0101
Reposted by Dan DaviesJo Michell @jomichell.bsky.social · 25/09/2026If r* just means ‘the policy rate at which inflation will be on target, given everything else’ then it is conceptually unobjectionable. But then ‘bond rates are higher because r* is higher’ becomes almost indistinguishable from ‘bond rates are higher because the expected policy rate is higher’. 282
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 24/09/2026wtf went on here? Did somebody accidentally support a wind turbine 1112212
Reposted by Dan DaviesMark O’Neill 🐻 @radiobeartime.com · 24/09/2026Why, that’s the kind of lenient treatment they would give a tout and there is no way that the leader of the black shorts is a tout. 24616
Reposted by Dan DaviesRobin Wigglesworth @robinwigglesworth.ft.com · 24/09/2026Some people have actually already been getting their books, but happy UK publication day to me! 🥳 The US book isn’t published until next week, so let’s call this a small win for Europe over America. 0328
Reposted by Dan DaviesBeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 24/09/2026this is part of a wider project of unaccountability that dominates American life 17777120
Reposted by Dan Daviesae @aelkus.bsky.social · 24/09/2026People really need to go back to the original Jurassic Park and look at the rather disturbing ways in which InGen's management of it now looks prescient 330885
Reposted by Dan DaviesRachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 24/09/2026🍿 so, everything about this is the most interesting thing ever to me. If you think having to read other people's AI-generated documents is boring, at least you can skim those. What happens when someone gives a circuitous and overblown AI-generated speech? You just have to sit and listen. 89127
Reposted by Dan DaviesCaræsten 🇵🇸 @cara.city · 24/09/2026guys please stop falling for this, this is not “rogue AI” it’s “environments with lax cybersecurity controls” 431651427
Reposted by Dan Davieskate conger @kateconger.com · 24/09/2026The latest update in the rogue A.I. saga: OpenAI agents that were supposed to be performing mundane data requests for things like health data, historic photos and wait times at theme parks resorted to hacking attempts when they couldn't access the data they wanted www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/t...nytimes.comOpenAI’s A.I. Tried Breaching Four Other Targets, With No Prompting (Gift Article)In each incident, the technology appeared to be conducting mundane data collection and resorted to hacking techniques to get it, researchers said. 11308144
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Finally they're teaching the labour theory of value 2347
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Just struck me that the original non-aligned behaviour of AI agents would be "using loads and loads of tokens on an unmetered subscription" and somehow they managed to control that one just fine and without crying about it. 512621
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 23/09/2026"a more modest headroom target" listen to yourselves. bond investors actually think they're the intellectual ones. 382
Reposted by Dan DaviesColin @colin-fraser.net · 23/09/2026I think that Andon Labs' Vending-Bench is a nice illustration of the "just don't have that dog in them" theory of LLMs. This is a benchmark where an LLM agent is tasked with running a simulated vending machine, and scored on their earnings. GPT-6 Astra recently set the record at about $15k.andonlabs.comVending-Bench 2 | Andon LabsWe're releasing Vending-Bench 2, a benchmark for measuring AI model performance on running a business over long time horizons. Models are tasked with running a simulated vending machine business over ... 510817
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 23/09/2026I mean, we've apparently lifted the ban on right wing hooliganism so what's the point keeping the stable door bolted I guess 1024260
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 23/09/2026"absolutely nothing. jack all, zip zero. thank god we wasted the robot's time rather than our own" www.wsj.com/video/what-7...wsj.comWhat 70,000 Hours of Conservative Podcasts Tell Us About the MidtermsA new in-house AI tool lets WSJ reporters analyze trends in online conversation to help understand the political mood of the country ahead of the midterm elections. 3314
Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 23/09/2026I have been busy recording podcasts - here I am talking about great frauds through the ages with Gillian Tett and Robin Wigglesworth youtu.be/EngL2jk_O2Q?...youtu.beHistory’s wildest frauds | The Story of MoneyYouTube video by The Story of Money Podcast | Financial Times 4181