Extra, Extra
Putin’s War: Putin thought he could take Ukraine in a matter of days or weeks. Here we are, four years of destruction and defiance later. Photos: Four Years of War in Ukraine.
+ Super v Powers: NYT (Gift Article): F.B.I. Raids Los Angeles Schools Chief’s Home and District Headquarters. “The investigation’s target was unclear. The school district is the nation’s second largest, and as superintendent, Alberto Carvalho has one of the highest-profile jobs in K-12 education.”
+ Soft Power: “In 2023, Anthropic committed to never train an AI system unless it could guarantee in advance that the company’s safety measures were adequate. For years, its leaders touted that promise—the central pillar of their Responsible Scaling Policy (RSP)—as evidence that they are a responsible company that would withstand market incentives to rush to develop a potentially dangerous technology.” But we are in a race without rules, and self-regulation doesn’t stand a chance. Anthropic Drops Flagship Safety Pledge. Meanwhile, the company is being strong-armed by the Pentagon to remove all restrictions on the use of its AI. “Anthropic has long stated that it doesn’t want its technology used for mass surveillance of Americans or for fully autonomous weapons.” Will this position hold? Anthropic won’t budge as Pentagon escalates AI dispute. And this seems related: AIs can’t stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations.
+ Market Movers: “Is the Citrini story … compelling? plausible? accurate? These are the questions colonizing all of financial and tech media at the moment. But to me, those questions miss the deepest and most interesting feature of this strange episode: What does it say about the state of AI and AI anxiety that a literal science-fiction story had the power to move a trillion dollars?” Nobody Knows Anything. “The fact that a piece of AI science fiction rocked the stock market this week is a clear indication that absolutely no one knows how the next few years will go.”
+ Between a Flock and a Hard Place: Across the US, people are dismantling and destroying Flock surveillance cameras.
+ Driven to Distraction: “When the light turns yellow, this Waymo does not speed up. It does not calculate whether it could make it. It does not believe in ‘probably.’ It waits. Behind you, a human driver honks. The Waymo absorbs this without flinching. You feel the honk deep in your shoulder muscles.” The New Yorker: Is This Waymo a Better Person Than You? (In fairness, your software hasn’t been updated in years…)
