iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

My favorite comic book quote, even more relevant right now!

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Are WhatsApp groups are more powerful than political parties? From David Runciman: > ...the MPs talked about their WhatsApp group as their primary focus of loyalty...what the group could and couldn't bear, would the group move together...one of the things that is structuring loyalty in politics

010

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Now this is an amazing story begging for a @dsquareddigest.bsky.social post: www.thelettersfromleo.com/p/would-it-m...

120

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

A fascinating example of how disastrously wrong the establishment can be: www.nytimes.com/1963/09/28/a...

020

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

I did a chat with Tom last week. I might have been a little too excited but you’ll get a sense of why Princeton students are lucky to have him and why you should read it immediately rather than the next hot take... www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmwY...

020

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

I see lots of Bi Gan search queries in my future…at least until YouTube gets the hint!

000

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 17/01/2026

There’s a @dsquareddigest.bsky.social-style cybernetics information flow insight in Ezra Klein’s interview with Yuval Levin about one of the (many) problems with our media and governing ecosystem.

000

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

Software development trying to adjust to the new world...

150

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

You can see this happening even faster with open source software x.com/simonw/statu...

130

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

Just starting Nguyen’s book The Score and see that the kindle gave me a score for using the app four days in a row.

000

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

We should talk about standard deviations rather than rating 1 to 10 and I have made this handy table to provide intuition.

033

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 11/01/2026

if you turn on notifications for specific accounts (like I have with @vaughn.bsky.social) it is like you can have your own custom created WhatsApp group with people you like and admire!

010

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

I don’t know C Thi Nguyen and haven’t met him but found him very funny and clever in interviews and I’m looking forward to reading The Score. (And if you don’t like reading books you can always just read his very long and nuanced papers!)

000

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

From Arvid Narayanan, sounding a very @dsquareddigest.bsky.social note: >> The animating question becomes: “How should we design algorithmic bureaucracies?” www.cs.princeton.edu/~arvindn/pub...

130

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Now there is a very strong torment nexus-vibe here but feel like a few friends of mine are basically proto-Manfred Macx’s. Time to re-read Accelerando! “pronoiac meme-broker”, “automated their legal processes and are spawning subsidiaries”, “silicon rust belt victims”

010

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

Was reminded by a friend that air traffic controllers are working without pay right now.

914937

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

I worry that Kahneman was right about AI 7 years ago: “Yann LeCun said yesterday that humans would always prefer emotional contact with other humans. That strikes me as probably wrong. It is extremely easy to develop stimuli to which people will respond emotionally.”

1121

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

everything is a diffusion of knowledge problem! here's a nice reference to @dsquareddigest.bsky.social from one of the best ai investors -- tomtunguz.com/the-accounta...

052

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

This has very strong @dsquareddigest.bsky.social vibes! popcornagents.substack.com/p/the-laptop...

4599

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

what is the chance that the DNC runs out of money? from the nyt today--

000

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

Andor should have been called Lonni!

031

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

The Holy Spirit or eigenvalue centrality?

150

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

I want to invest in those trying to enable more Donoho-style fricitionless reproducible systems by: - building tools for data, code sharing, score keeping; OR - building entire closed-end ecosystems applying those tools. (📄 from @beenwrekt.bsky.social reflection on Donoho.)

131

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

I asked Lilach and @emollick.bsky.social why they were so good with AI and here’s what they said.

020

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 23/04/2025

From a terrific and terrifying piece by Mozilla’s Stephen Hood.

010

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

From a book about Frank Herbert by Tim O'Reilly, the case why this a time to be really conscious.

032

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Gemini wrote something very long but this table was indicative:

100

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

For the record, here is what Grok wrote:

100

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

Here my opening for Friday’s chat on The Unaccountability Machine. Sign up if interested!

150

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

Nicolas Colin asks the right question that a cybernetics view is well suited to answer: “As we enter the AI era, what trade-offs do we take for granted that might prove just as illusory?” www.linkedin.com/posts/nicola...

100

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

“Then you start seeing whether a decision-making system is going to remain well regulated, or whether *it’s leaking information and is about to spiral out of control*.” bit.ly/unaccountabi...

100

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

Henry Farrell: “There is a lot we could learn if we understood social, political and economic relations as really involving information flows” www.programmablemutter.com/p/cybernetic...

100

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Wrote up notes and will share on the forum. Now it is up the founder to pull it off…

131

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

I didn’t want to drop categories that were included in the original study. I’m think marks obscure terrorism ratio but it is a good point.

031

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

A slight revision based on feedback from @peteskomoroch.bsky.social. What should I change @infowetrust.com?

130

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

A reminder of how the media distorts how we think about causes of death. (Mostly because we read vivid articles more!)

34614

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

“Turn Henry Farrell’s The Management Singularity, a critical account of how AI might change big organizations, into corporate-friendly business opportunities.”

020

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

It is very possible that this post is a Liar’s Poker moment and unintentionally a roadmap for corporations.

020

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

How I wish politicians and policy makers would think about AI policy--

020

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

In the beginning of his first Stalin biography, Kotkin has this terrific sketch of Bismarck, key excerpts of which I’m sticking here as a bookmark for future reference.

110

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

Evidently I only interact with people whose names start with d or g on this platform!

010

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Feels like there is more reporting on a basketball trade than a bunch of important changes to the US government.

040

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

A fair corrective from Sendhil Mullainathan to AI prognosticators.

One way to look at the last few years: “All these innovations have been happening, now let’s look and see what the world will look like with them.” (That’s what everyone’s doing.)
A different way: “Oh my God, we're in a period where innovations just keep happening, there’s just so much going on.”

If you’re in that period, you should stop looking into the future trying to guess and get out there and start doing stuff.

There is so much to be done. I promise you, in three years, the most interesting stuff that happens in the next three years that we look back on will not be OpenAI or Deep Seek or Anthropic—it'll be something else.

And you can be part of that something else.

011

James Cham @jamescham.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

I am surprised by how normal the press is treating this and how the Democratic Party is crowing about how this as an “opportunity” rather than a real challenge to the way the country is run.

4272