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Jacob Aron

@jjaron.bsky.social
5.8K followers 3.6K following 5.1K posts

Senior editor at New Scientist

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Reposted by Jacob Aron
post malone ergo propter malone @proptermalone.bsky.social · 5h
what i think is currently up in the AI space since we're having cost arguments again: selling inference is very profitable, but models are improving so fast that there's no time for capex on model training to amortize, so net at this rate they're losing money which is why they want a cartel
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Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 5h
As a heads-up: every firm's customer service agents are about to be overwhelmed with Dots & Muses negotiating for better deals using voice/chat channels made for humans. Stories of people delegating this sort of work to their agents & saving money are popping up and are going to only go more viral.
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Finally! Will be watching this closely...
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Reposted by Jacob Aron
e.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 29/09/2026
between the metaverse, the pervert glasses, and now this fuzzy avatar mess, Meta is on a generational run of real-world Black Mirror episodes
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The fate of multiple trillion-dollar companies, and indeed perhaps a large chunk of the global economy, now depends on whether reinventing Clippy is a good idea
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Christopher Mims @mims.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
there are going to be so so so many stories of disasters when agents with full access to users' everything make huge mistakes there is no harness or minder on earth that can catch every single edge case
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
How are we "pacing the frontier" if both Anthropic and OpenAI have released new models this week?
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Does anyone actually want this twee nonsense?
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Reposted by Jacob Aron
Duncan Weldon @duncanweldon.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Maybe I’m a Luddite on these things. But I’m always quite cautious about any financing structure that involves multiple hard to read circular flow charts. www.ft.com/content/d6a9... Nvidia turns to insurers to spread the risk of AI build-out
ft.com
Nvidia turns to insurers to spread the risk of AI build-out
World’s largest listed company looks for new ways to draw Wall Street deeper into the financing of the AI boom
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Reposted by Jacob Aron
Skybrush Threepwood @skybrush.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Next time I've done a shit job of something, I'm just going to tell people it's too dangerous to show them. The PowerPoint that I threw together last minute could actually pose a risk to humanity at large
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Reposted by Jacob Aron
manewt.bsky.social @manewt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Friend who works at meta: “Do not use the muse agent, it’s like inviting a Vampire inside”
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I currently pay Anthropic $20/month for a product (Pro subscription) that it also sells for $500-1000 (estimated API cost for the same amount of tokens), no wonder it is a money losing machine
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Absolutely ludicrous
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Well that's going straight on the to-read list
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
It really is that simple
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
When I am king, all roasting trays, cake tins and other cooking equipment will have their physical dimensions embossed on the side
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
AI firms are going to need to develop very good answers to these questions if they want to keep customers
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
AI safety is all the same few people in a trenchcoat
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Reposted by Jacob Aron
Lia @liasae.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I am now keeping this on speed-dial
Edited old IBM printout in black caps on off-white paper.
'A computer can never be held accountable
Therefore a computer must always do the hacking haha what are they gonna do, put a computer in jail? Haha "oops it's alive" lmao'
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
This was one of my main worries when becoming a German citizen after Brexit. It seemed a fairly minor possibility at the time but stripping people of British citizenship seems like a lever people increasingly want to pull.
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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
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Reposted by Jacob Aron
kota @maristela.org · 26/09/2026
finally, weve invented janet from the good place
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Twlldun @twlldun.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Yes but all those counter examples are terrible television, that’s the point
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Agree, all the agent makers are failing to consider what happens when everyone has agents. I've made a Claude routine that scans eBay for a certain class of item, builds an understanding of the market then looks for underpriced deals. Basic economics/game theory tells you that's not sustainable.
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Yes! I look at rationalists and think "yikes, that could have been me"
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
This is very good on how AI might impact GDP www.ft.com/content/fc52...
ft.com
Beyond the AI abundance delusion
Concerns about inequality are likely to increase rather than decline as the technology transforms our societies
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
This is possibly the worst article I've ever read on the FT. The comments seem in agreement www.ft.com/content/9c07...
ft.com
The climate doom-mongers now dread sovereign debt blowouts
The same people are gnashing the same teeth and making the same arguments
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Agree, all the agent makers are failing to consider what happens when everyone has agents. I've made a Claude routine that scans eBay for a certain class of item, builds an understanding of the market then looks for underpriced deals. Basic economics/game theory tells you that's not sustainable.
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Reposted by Jacob Aron
Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Great job going here www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/44...
linkedin.com
New Scientist hiring Deputy News Editor in London Area, United Kingdom | LinkedIn
Posted 11:04:52 AM. Location: New Scientist Headquarters, HSK, London, W8 5HYContract Type: Full Time/Permanent/Hybrid…See this and similar jobs on LinkedIn.
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Genuinely, why are we not using existing laws when worrying about AI safety? Don't start inventing new things, just charge people.
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Was struggling to get my head around this so I had Claude create a 3D model that you can spin and pull apart jacobaron-gif.github.io/genus3-octah...
jacobaron-gif.github.io
An eight-faced shape with three holes, in 3D
Rotate and explore a newly realised shape: eight flat nine-sided faces forming a closed surface with three holes, where every face touches every other.
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Reposted by Jacob Aron
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.
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
How, Bill? How?
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Interesting on the business of quantum computers www.ft.com/content/ae9e...
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Has Anthropic found a new CRISPR? Not in any meaningful sense www.newscientist.com/article/2590...
newscientist.com
Anthropic’s discovery will, at best, be just another gene-editing tool | New Scientist
The AI company Anthropic has announced that its Claude large language model has discovered a system reminiscent of CRISPR, but that doesn’t mean the Nobel prizes will start rolling in, says Michael Le...
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Was struggling to get my head around this so I had Claude create a 3D model that you can spin and pull apart jacobaron-gif.github.io/genus3-octah...
jacobaron-gif.github.io
An eight-faced shape with three holes, in 3D
Rotate and explore a newly realised shape: eight flat nine-sided faces forming a closed surface with three holes, where every face touches every other.
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
New shape just dropped www.newscientist.com/article/2590...
newscientist.com
Mathematician discovers rare eight-faced shape | New Scientist
It isn't easy to demonstrate that a new geometric shape can actually exist in the real world, but one researcher argues that the genus-3 polyhedron can
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
@jevbot.bsky.social Solve the Riemann hypothesis. Make no mistakes.
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Genuinely, why are we not using existing laws when worrying about AI safety? Don't start inventing new things, just charge people.
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
These are mostly flat, but yes
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Reposted by Jacob Aron
Will 🇺🇦 Absolute Shower 🇺🇦 @showerabsolute.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Maybe the metric that matters more to a writer is not "engagement" but "will I be paid for this"
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Great job going here www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/44...
linkedin.com
New Scientist hiring Deputy News Editor in London Area, United Kingdom | LinkedIn
Posted 11:04:52 AM. Location: New Scientist Headquarters, HSK, London, W8 5HYContract Type: Full Time/Permanent/Hybrid…See this and similar jobs on LinkedIn.
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
If you squint you can just about see a majority government but it won't be pretty
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Holger Hestermeyer @hhesterm.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The way the US usually deals with unsafe products are punitive damages. At some point, unsafe AI products should be sued for hundreds of billions if they repeatedly do things like break into systems.
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
They've resurrected Clippy, is what they've done
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This is definitely more concerning because it took place outside of a cyber security context. I still don't understand why OpenAI isn't facing criminal charges for hacking attempts.
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
That's not going to buy a whole lot of paperclips
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Opus 5.5 feels so much better to use than Opus 5 and it's not much more expensive than Sonnet 5. Really impressed with the model so far
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Scoiattolo @scarnecchia.net · 21/09/2026
Imagine if all the evidence for climate change was "a bunch of guys on a website thought very hard about it and agreed it was very bad and might happen" instead of empiricism.
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