The Devil's Castle is one of the most impressive books I've read this decade, both in content and in style. The subject matter is dark, but the author presents it in a manner that both fascinates and ...

The risks of AI aren’t what we think they are, as a recent security incident between China and the United States reveals

How the federal government built a massive database of license plate reader data through an anti-drug trafficking program.

The Interior secretary is quietly meeting with AI hyperscalers while seeking to accommodate them on his department’s land.

Jill Lepore’s The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State is the best book I’ve read this year. It is a history that helps us reframe our present crises and argues that there is still a way out.

This goes way, way further than keeping an eye on license plates.

Try this: write your own name on a scrap of paper.

It's good for the grocery, but is it good for the consumer?

I am trying to move beyond the ideas in my recent posts and looking at things we should consider as we move forward to try to reclaim our governments, cultures, societies, and economies. We must focus...

Despite the eight-fold growth of surveillance cameras directly accessible by Atlanta PD officers, crime clearance rates haven't increased.

Minneap

We measure AIs to see whether they can pass a bar exam, write working code, and use your computer interface. We test to see how good they are at completing complex tasks, or just impressing humans.

"The people out in rural America are anti-tech. AI is coming whether they like it or not." I see a lot of city-slickers writing this on social media today... people who've never lived outside of the tri-state area. They think the land vs. solar/wind/AI battle is a simple one, one in which the "country bumpkins" are pushing back on technology and progress. If you live in a city and have your whole life, I am asking you to read what I am about to write here. This debate isn't one about technology at all. As you can see, I use social media to its fullest every day. I film and edit videos. I manage an online reading publication. I even drive a hybrid vehicle. So many others in the country are using technology to its fullest to stay afloat as well, from robotics and drones in farming, to Venmo and QR code checkouts at farm stands. This debate isn't about technology at all. You need to listen to what these people are trying to tell you - and soon. Through data centers, big solar and wind, and battery storage, we are losing the land that feeds us. They are building these complexes on PRIME farmland - not just throwaway land. They are building them on top of designated habitats that are connected to multi hundred acre ecosystems. They are building them on wetlands, near rivers, and over unstable bedrock. They are puncturing aquifers trying to drill under rivers. Those living near data centers have their wells run dry. Battery storage, big solar and wind are leaching chemicals, PFAS, and glass shards into the soil below them. They are destroying sensitive land that's part of the food you eat. And NO ONE would be throwing a fit over this if they were building these monstrosities in already-zoned commercial/industrial parks where they belong. Instead, they are using it as a Trojan horse to gobble up productive farmland that's been feeding us since the inception of our country. The fencing is displacing wildlife in every direction. The herbicides to maintain the facility sites are killing the pollinators. The rural way of life in America is disintegrating - it's pitting neighbor v. neighbor because the money is "just that good." You may not see it now from the inside of a city. But you will feel it very, very soon when the food you're accustomed to triples in price, or declines in availability. You're only able to live your city life BECAUSE of the people in the country trying to tell all of you we have a massive problem on our hands. And it has nothing to do with technology.

Sam Altman wants intelligence to be a utility that you pay him for

I'm beginning to think that we have gone from a conservatism that just looked backward, transitioned to one that believed the present was a threat that had to be destroyed, to one in which there is no...

Oil is a ghost. It haunts our society in the form of the wars it has caused, it haunts our economy in the capitalist system it props up, it haunts our atmosphere in the form of greenhouse gases, it ha...

LLMs-gone-rogue dominated coverage, but had nothing to do with the targeting. Instead, it was choices made by human beings, over many years, that gave us this atrocity

At least not the one we need

AI is a structural threat to all existing political systems

Sen. Elizabeth Warren noted that Grok, xAI's controversial chatbot, has created harmful outputs for users and poses a potential national security risk.

It strikes me that there are strong parallels between the thinking in Silicon Valley (and elsewhere in American business), the Administration, and the Pentagon. For years, Silicon Valley types have ad...

This is from Quo Vadis Humanitas?, which was released by the Vatican in February. I've quoted the whole paragraph for context but would draw your attention to this sentence in particular: "But the gre...

Alex Karp's recent statements, the Pentagon/Anthropic mess, and the extensive military use of AI, I hope it is clear to everyone that AI has to be treated as a political issue and that how one uses it...