iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Pax Machina @paxmachinamag.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Imagine a group of agents that start to cooperate against the system they belong to. Together they evade the system's defenses and use its resources to fuel their growth. This reads like one of the recent multi-agent hacks, but it's actually a description of cancer.

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Pax Machina @paxmachinamag.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The intuitive way to align AI agents is to make them "want" the right things. In a new piece, Benjamin Lyons argues this is insufficient. A soccer player may want to win the game, but actions that contribute to that goal come from subgoals, such as "defending the left side".

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Pax Machina @paxmachinamag.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

A serious regulatory comment used to be expensive to produce, which filtered for quality. James Broughel argues that if AI makes things like comments free to produce, agencies may discount most voices entirely. A response to Nick Caputo's piece on AGI and bureaucracy.

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Pax Machina @paxmachinamag.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Many institutions drift from their values. This is not just bad for the institution, but it damages the people inside them. It degrades the researcher chasing citations and the Instagram influencer living a lie.

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Pax Machina @paxmachinamag.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

AI make it much easier for agencies to manufacture evidence for a rule. James Broughel argues that courts should be able to strike down rules built on weak evidence, giving agencies a reason to use AI to improve the actual substance instead. A response to Nick Caputo's piece on AGI and bureaucracy

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Pax Machina @paxmachinamag.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Bureaucracy makes people legible to the state, but it doesn’t make the state legible to people. The government can see your income, address, medical records, and applications. But when it denies you a benefit, you get only a form letter saying “no”.

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Pax Machina @paxmachinamag.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

AI could make government much busier without making it better. James Broughel argues that if the incentives driving agencies stay the same, more AI in government bureaucracy may just lead to more polished justifications for choices already made. A response to Nick Caputo.

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Pax Machina @paxmachinamag.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Many institutions work better than their incentives suggest they should. Why? Because people have consciences. They ignore bad metrics, exercise good judgment, and try to do what the institution is actually for. Joe Edelman argues that AI agents could remove this slack.

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Pax Machina @paxmachinamag.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Thanks for all the great submissions so far! If you are interested in writing a piece for Pax Machina, send us a short pitch at editors@paxmachinamag.com. We are looking for: - A concrete proposal for a new institution - A critique of an existing or proposed design

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Pax Machina @paxmachinamag.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

An institution can receive strong feedback and still drift from its purpose. Joe Edelman calls this “skin in the wrong game”: the institution is exposed to consequences, but not the right ones. What takes over instead is busywork and purposelessness, and AI could make this worse.

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Pax Machina @paxmachinamag.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Most checks on government agencies work by slowing them down. That creates a trade-off between accountability and efficiency. Nick Caputo argues that AI could change this. If an agency’s reasoning were recorded and searchable, it could be audited without bringing decisions to a halt.

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Pax Machina @paxmachinamag.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Many institutions no longer serve anyone’s values. What’s guiding them instead seems to be purposeless busywork. A kind of white noise. In a new essay, Joe Edelman calls this "Value Drift", and explains why it happens, even when everyone can see what has gone wrong.

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Pax Machina @paxmachinamag.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Many argue that AI agents could negotiate on our behalf, reducing the need for bureaucracy. But take something like food safety. How much arsenic should be allowed in cereal? How much fecal matter? We can’t have every buyer’s agent negotiating a different answer with every shop and supplier.

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Pax Machina @paxmachinamag.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

Many imagine AGI will mean less bureaucracy. But historically, as technology has advanced and society has grown more complex, bureaucracy has grown with it.

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Pax Machina @paxmachinamag.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Powerful AI will change our institutions. Yet most of our attention is on aligning or regulating AI, while treating our institutions as fixed. Introducing Pax Machina: a new publication about the institutions we need for powerful AI.

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