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Shakeel

@shakeelhashim.com
3.6K followers 2.7K following 249 posts

Writing about AI policy at Transformer. Supporting AI journalism with grants at Tarbell. Prev: AI safety and EA comms; journalist at The Economist, Protocol, Finimize. London. transformernews.ai

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Reposted by Shakeel
Veronica 💫 @vronirwin.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
SCOOP: AI safety group Public First spent in the Manny Rutinel race. It just wasn’t disclosed to voters ahead of election day. Transformer has learned $2m was transferred from Public First Action to Latino Victory Fund, which says it exists to mobilize Latino voters and elect Latinos to office.
transformernews.ai
An AI safety group hid its election spending through a Latino-focused PAC
Public First Action routed $2m to support Colorado House candidate Manny Rutinel through Latino Victory Fund — and didn’t publicly announce it ahead of Rutinel’s victory
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Reposted by Shakeel
Veronica 💫 @vronirwin.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
OpenAI has been shifting its messaging in light of employee pushback on some of LTF and OpenAI’s own political tactics. More details in Transformer: www.transformernews.ai/p/openai-leh...
transformernews.ai
OpenAI isn’t being consistently candid about Leading the Future
OpenAI insists it doesn’t fund or direct LTF — but one of the super PAC’s operatives describes it as a “corporate funder” with “a say”
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Reposted by Shakeel
James Ball @jamesrball.com · 06/05/2026
"Palantir’s market capitalization was 103x its revenues, and 205x its profits. Compare that to Tesla, another much-hyped stock: even its market cap is “only” 15x its revenues and around 100x its operating profits." …is Palantir overvalued?
open.substack.com
Palantir’s controversy is the product
Palantir’s fiery rhetoric helps mystify its mostly mundane tech — propping up its share price and preserving its national security contracts
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 18/02/2026
Happily, you don’t need to do much to trace any of this as we’re extremely transparent about it! www.transformernews.ai/p/standards-...
transformernews.ai
Editorial standards and ethics
This document outlines Transformer’s aims, funding, ethics policies, and editorial standards.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 17/02/2026
AI discourse on Bluesky is abysmal. But it's not just here — the left writ large has failed to grapple with what's coming. In an excellent new essay for @transformernews.ai, Dan Kagan-Kans diagnoses the issue with the Cory Doctorow/Emily Bender worldview — and explains why it's so harmful.
transformernews.ai
The left is missing out on AI
As a movement, it has largely refused to engage seriously with AI, ceding debate about a threat and opportunity to the right
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 26/01/2026
AI workers are speaking out about the Minnesota shooting — even while their bosses remain silent. www.transformernews.ai/p/ai-workers...
transformernews.ai
AI workers are speaking out about the Minnesota killing
Employees of Google DeepMind, OpenAI and Anthropic are publicly criticizing the Trump administration after Saturday’s shooting — but their bosses are staying quiet.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 14/01/2026
@nabeelqu.bsky.social nails it.
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Jasper Jackson @jasperjackson.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
So much interesting in this (and good work on @caseynewton.bsky.social documenting it). One thing to note though, Google's watermarking identified the image of the badge as created by its AI tool. Other image generators haven't bothered implementing anything similar, why? (Looking at you, Sora.)
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‏ deepfates @deepfates.com.deepfates.com.deepfates.com.deepfates.com.deepfates.com · 28/12/2025
Rob, is it true you created an early language model trained on scraped data? "Mark V Shaney"? Is it also true that it pretended to be a human, sending unsolicited messages on Usenet forums for lonely singles? That's just what I'm seeing here on Wikipedia...
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Transformer @transformernews.ai · 20/11/2025
A leaked Trump executive order would create an "AI Litigation Task Force" to fight state AI regulations. Read the full EO here:
transformernews.ai
Exclusive: Here's the draft Trump executive order on AI preemption
The EO would establish an “AI Litigation Task Force" to challenge state AI laws
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Nathan Lambert @natolambert.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
I got the AI writing homies together to launch SAIL (readsail on socials): A team bundle to get access to the best content in AI all in one subscription. Otherwise, nothing in my mission is changing. Get the best content written to inform the public and shape the trajectory of AI. readsail.com
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Felix M. Simon @felixsimon.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
🗞️ 🤖 Weekend reading anyone? For the launch of @transformernews.ai as a standalone publication, they invited me to contribute a piece on what persuasive AI might mean for democracy and elections. Here’s the result… buff.ly/OJsNmpK
transformernews.ai
AI is persuasive, but that’s not the real problem for democracy
Opinion: Felix M Simon argues that AI is unlikely to significantly shape election results in the near future, but warns that it could damage democracy through a steady erosion of institutional trust.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 02/10/2025
Kanishka Narayan, the UK's new minister for AI, is a rare example of a politician who actually *gets* his brief. In a new profile for @transformernews.ai, @alys.bsky.social notes that he takes AI risks pretty seriously, too.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 01/10/2025
The Cambridge Analytica panic was basically nonsense. The AI-is-rigging-elections panic might be, too.
transformernews.ai
AI is persuasive, but that’s not the real problem for democracy
Opinion: Felix M Simon argues that AI is unlikely to significantly shape election results in the near future, but warns that it could damage democracy through a steady erosion of institutional trust.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 16/09/2025
Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares' new book — If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies — is out today. I am much more sympathetic to their views than most. Unfortunately, the book is littered with torturous sentence structures and smug, self-satisfied writing. I was not a fan.
transformernews.ai
Book Review: 'If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies'
Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares’ new book should be an AI wakeup call — shame it’s such a chore to read
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 10/09/2025
Thrilled to have @ruchowdh.bsky.social and Mala Kumar in @transformernews.ai today, writing alongside the launch of the new Humane Intelligence PBC. www.transformernews.ai/p/why-ai-eva...
transformernews.ai
Why AI evals need to reflect the real world
Opinion: Rumman Chowdhury and Mala Kumar argue that we need better AI evaluations — and the infrastructure and investment to do them
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Reposted by Shakeel
James Ball @jamesrball.com · 09/09/2025
Data centers use 2% of the world’s electricity. There’s a *huge* push to build more for AI. But even the most optimistic growth paths for AI predict it’ll drive less growth in energy demand than electric cars or aircon. It’s significant, but it’s not the biggest thing going on.
transformernews.ai
We’re getting the argument about AI's environmental impact all wrong
Individual ChatGPT queries are a rounding error — we need to think about the future
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 09/09/2025
When I launched Transformer a year ago, it was with a simple mission: provide decision-makers with the information and analysis needed to anticipate and steer the impacts of transformative AI. Today, we're announcing an exciting new effort to achieve that: Transformer 2.0.
transformernews.ai
Welcome to Transformer 2.0
We're now a team of reporters and editors dedicated to covering the power and politics of AI
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 27/08/2025
Last year, the crypto industry set up a network of super PACs. Its strategy? Throw huge amounts of money at politicians to discourage crypto regulation. Now many of those same people have launched a $100m campaign to do the same thing for AI. Read my full piece on Transformer:
transformernews.ai
AI embraces crypto’s dirty politics
A new super PAC network looks set to spend millions to influence AI regulation
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Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 21/08/2025
I am genuinely so frustrated with the state of the average journalist. Just nonstop dunking and in a way that makes people less informed. They're being very clear that it's not a calculator and should not be used that way! defector.com/it-took-many...
defector.com
It Took Many Years And Billions Of Dollars, But Microsoft Finally Invented A Calculator That Is Wrong Sometimes | Defector
It’s not AI winter just yet, though there is a distinct chill in the air. Meta is shaking up and downsizing its artificial intelligence division. A new report out of MIT finds that 95 percent of compa...
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 21/08/2025
Why assume Meta’s hiring freeze is for financial reasons, rather than logistical ones (which seems much more likely)? It makes a lot of sense to pause hiring shortly after a huge hiring surge and restructuring — you need time to get the new structure working before bringing more people in!
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Reposted by Shakeel
James Ball @jamesrball.com · 19/08/2025
“If Anthropic loses big,” the judge’s order concludes, “it will be because what it did wrong was also big.” www.transformernews.ai/p/anthropic-...
transformernews.ai
Anthropic’s piracy could make its copyright battle existential
Anthropic could have to pay billions in damages — and others may follow
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 25/07/2025
Hugging Face still has a ton of porn hosted on its website which can be accessed without logging in or verifying your age. Not entirely sure how that's compliant with the UK Online Safety Act ... which even 4Chan's taken action to comply with today!
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Jasper Jackson @jasperjackson.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
It's a bit dispiriting to see a company that talks so much about being "ethical" adopt the same old strategy of relying on journalists to find bad stuff on their platforms. I saw this for years covering Meta, and Hugging Face is following exactly the same playbook. bsky.app/profile/shak...
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 24/07/2025
Here's a story about Hugging Face, deepfake pornography, and irresponsible content moderation. Last week, 404 Media found that Hugging Face hosted 1000s of nonconsensual AI models of real people, many clearly intended to be used to create sexual content.
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Jasper Jackson @jasperjackson.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
It is pretty shameful that Hugging Face is still hosting these models for making deepfake porn of celebrities (and others), despite @404media.co's reporting a week ago.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 23/07/2025
Hugging Face portrays itself as the "ethical" AI company. So why is it hosting tools to make deepfake porn of teenage celebrities? Following on from @404media.co's report last week, Transformer found that the company hosts some *really* shocking stuff.
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Reposted by Shakeel
flyingrodent @flyingrodent.bsky.social · 05/07/2025
Hell of a time to publicly identify as a liberal, isn’t it.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 02/07/2025
Big news! Delighted to announce that @jasperjackson.bsky.social‬ is joining Transformer as managing editor. Jasper is an absolute rockstar, having previously run teams at ‪@tbij.bsky.social‬, ‪@newstatesman.com‬, and ‪@theguardian.com‬.
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Dustin Moskovitz @moskov.goodventures.org · 21/05/2025
AI safety researcher have long warned about a set of behaviors skeptics insisted were fantasies like deception (including during training) and reward hacking. These days, examples of those concerning patterns are showing up more and more often. www.transformernews.ai/p/ai-misalig...
transformernews.ai
Misaligned AI is no longer just theory
A host of new evidence shows that misalignment is possible — but it's unclear whether harm will follow
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 26/05/2025
It's your last week to apply to Tarbell Grants! We're offering $1,000-$15,000+ for original reporting on AI and its impacts. The first round has been a huge success — to inspire you to apply, here's a short 🧵 of pieces we're very excited to have supported so far...
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 28/04/2025
Tarbell Grants Round 2 is back! Learn more and apply:
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 01/04/2025
🚨 Transformer is hiring! We're looking for a managing editor and a reporter to help grow our coverage of transformative AI systems into the world’s leading publication for AI decision-makers.​ Details and links below 👇
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 19/01/2025
I've finally written a bunch of 2024 roundup stuff — best theatre, books, films, and everything else. Links in thread:
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 16/01/2025
arguably the best to ever do it. RIP.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 16/01/2025
Downloaded Xiaohongshu but it’s not letting me pose my questions 😔
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Saloni @scientificdiscovery.dev · 09/01/2025
Great post by @franksdavid.bsky.social on how to spot BS in biotech announcements
pharmagellan.com
Red flags in biotech press releases — Pharmagellan: Experts in Biotech R&D Strategy
Learn to spot spin and subterfuge in biotech clinical trials.
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Garrison Lovely @garrisonlovely.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
🚨 New piece in TIME: AI progress hasn't stalled — it's just become invisible to most people. 🚨 I used to think that AI slowed down a lot in 2024, but I now think I was wrong. Instead, there's a widening gap between AI's public face and its true capabilities. 🧵
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 07/01/2025
"I find myself wondering if the people consumed with talk of AI hype are paying enough attention to the technological leaps that took place just within the past few weeks." Couldn't agree more!
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 01/01/2025
happy new year to you all
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 30/12/2024
This paper was pretty widely misunderstood by almost everyone. Read @lynettebye.bsky.social on why model collapse fears are overrated: www.transformernews.ai/p/synthetic-...
transformernews.ai
Synthetic data is more useful than you think
Fears of ‘model collapse’ are overstated — at least for now
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 30/12/2024
I've made some predictions for AI progress in 2025 using Sage's excellent tool. I encourage everyone — especially sceptics of AI progress — to make your own predictions! You've got until tomorrow to do so. theaidigest.org/2025-ai-fore...
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 30/12/2024
Because everything has an AI angle: Samuel Butler, the first AI doomer, was also one of the first people to propose that the Odyssey had a female author. www.joh.cam.ac.uk/authoress-od...
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 28/12/2024
"people who are actually working with AI" who are worried about loss of control risks (a very incomplete list): Paul Christiano Jade Leung Marius Hobbhahn Alec Radford Victoria Krakovna Yoshua Bengio Dawn Song Yi Zeng Buck Shlegeris Stuart Russell Mira Murati Gillian Hadfield Anca Dragan
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 27/12/2024
Weirdly little H5N1 discussion over here. Over on the other platform, knowledgeable people are starting to ever so slightly freak out...
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 26/12/2024
DeepSeek just released a new open weights model that appears to be *very* good. And the training run cost only $5m! github.com/deepseek-ai/...
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 26/12/2024
Twitter is currently ripping itself apart, as the “tech right” realise they’ve got into bed with a bunch of racists who hate brown people. You absolutely love to see it.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 26/12/2024
I have spent much of today trying to switch from Roam to Logseq, as my Roam subscription expired. Logseq is a hot mess and all the other PKM apps seem awful, so I guess I'm renewing my Roam subscription!
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 25/12/2024
Whenever I’m at my parents’ house I end up watching a bunch of TV news (which I never do at home) and 90% of it is just drivel? An abysmal way to stay informed.
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Shakeel @shakeelhashim.com · 24/12/2024
Great new initiative:
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