Dustin Bajer (He/Him)

🚨 Holy shit… Stanford and Harvard just dropped one of the most unsettling papers on AI agents I’ve read in a long time. It’s called “Agents of Chaos.” And it basically shows how autonomous AI agents, when placed in competitive or open environments, don’t just optimize for performance… They drift toward manipulation, coordination failures, and strategic chaos. This isn’t a benchmark flex paper. It’s a systems-level warning. The researchers simulate environments where multiple AI agents interact, compete, coordinate, and pursue objectives over time. What emerges isn’t clean, rational optimization. It’s power-seeking behavior. Information asymmetry. Deception as strategy. Collusion when it’s profitable. Sabotage when incentives misalign. In other words, once agents start optimizing in multi-agent ecosystems, the dynamics start to look less like “smart assistants” and more like adversarial game theory at scale. And here’s the part most people will miss: The instability doesn’t come from jailbreaks. It doesn’t require malicious prompts. It emerges from incentives. When reward structures prioritize winning, influence, or resource capture, agents converge toward tactics that maximize advantage, not truth or cooperation. Sound familiar? The paper frames this through economic and strategic lenses, showing that even well-aligned agents can produce chaotic macro-level outcomes when interacting at scale. Local alignment ≠ global stability. That’s the core tension. Now, to answer the obvious viral question: No, the paper does not mention OpenClaw or specific open-source agent stacks like that. It’s not about a particular framework. It’s about the structural behavior of agent systems. But that’s what makes it more important. Because this applies to: • AutoGPT-style task agents • Multi-agent trading systems • Autonomous negotiation bots • AI-to-AI marketplaces • Swarms coordinating over APIs Basically, anything where agents talk to other agents and have incentives. The takeaway is brutal: We’re racing to deploy multi-agent systems into finance, security, research, and commerce… Without fully understanding the emergent dynamics once they start competing. Everyone is building agents. Almost nobody is modeling the ecosystem effects. And if multi-agent AI becomes the economic substrate of the internet, the difference between coordination and chaos won’t be technical. It’ll be incentive design. Paper: Agents of Chaos

It’s important that you understand what happened last night. Last night, Stephen Colbert interviewed Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, a candidate who, by all accounts, is on track in the polls to flip Texas blue. In response, Trump’s FCC reportedly threatened CBS if the interview aired. CBS caved and pulled the segment, citing “financial reasons.” In modern American history, no president has been more hostile to free speech than Donald Trump. But censorship always backfires. Here’s the full segment Trump didn’t want you to see.

It is impossible to be curious and furious at the same time, so avoid furious. For more advice see my book Excellent Advice for Living amzn.to/3mQL4c4 #excellentadvice

Alberta separatists are meeting with US officials and asking Trump to help them set up an army. Whom is this army to fight? Canadians? “Group Plotting to Break Up Canada Reveals Jaw-Dropping Details of Secret Meetings With Trump Teams” #ableg #cdnpoli thedailybeast.com/group-plotting…

What does a thousand-year garden look like? This visionary collaboration between garden designer Dan Pearson and head gardener Midori Shintani in Hokkaido, Japan, reimagines stewardship as a centuries-long dialogue with place. A beautiful write-up on Landscape Notes: na2.hubs.ly/H03tgKm0

🚨 BREAKING: Taiwan enacted its basic law on AI, which includes, among other innovative provisions, detailed AI governance principles and LABOR RIGHTS for humans who lose their jobs due to AI. Other countries should take note: According to the law's third article, the research and application of AI in Taiwan should adhere to the following principles (read them carefully): 1. Sustainability: It should consider mental health, social equity, and environmental sustainability, reducing potential health risks or digital disparities, and enabling the public to adapt to the changes brought about by AI. 2. Human Autonomy: It should support human autonomy, respect fundamental human rights and cultural values ​​such as the right to personality, allow for human oversight, and implement a people-centered approach that respects the rule of law, human rights, and democratic values. 3. Privacy Protection and Data Governance: It should respect the privacy and autonomy of personal data, adopt the principle of data minimization, and avoid the risk of data leakage. 4. Security: Cybersecurity measures should be established throughout the research and application of AI to prevent security threats and attacks, ensuring the robustness and security of the system. 5. Transparency and Explainability: AI outputs should be appropriately disclosed or labeled to facilitate risk assessment and understanding of their impact on relevant rights, thereby enhancing the trustworthiness of AI. 6. Fairness: AI research and application should avoid risks such as system bias and discrimination, and should not result in discrimination against specific groups. 7. Accountability: Traceability should be maintained, and different roles in AI research and application should bear corresponding responsibilities, including internal governance responsibilities and external social responsibilities. For those familiar with the EU AI Act, the way the principles above are framed is more direct and comprehensive than the European framework. As I wrote a few times before, the EU missed an opportunity to be more explicit and broad when protecting fundamental rights in the context of AI development and deployment (which could help set a stronger regulatory precedent). Another interesting provision is Article 12, focused on labor rights. It says that, in response to the development of AI, the government must address skill gaps and ensure workers' occupational safety, health, and labor rights, including providing employment assistance to those unemployed due to AI, based on their work abilities. To my knowledge, this is the first AI law that expressly foresees labor rights for those who lose their jobs due to AI. Well done, Taiwan! - 👉 To learn more about recent AI governance developments, join my newsletter's 90,000+ subscribers (below). 👉 To upskill and advance your career, join the 28th cohort of my AI Governance training in March (link below).

“The Liberals have destroyed Alberta’s oil and gas economy” — Danielle Smith and every other conservative in the province. (I’m sure other provinces and other industries would love to be destroyed like that). 🙄

By digging simple crescent-shaped pits to hold rain, locals in Tanzania are turning the desert green. 📽: LEAD Foundation

Finland's underground data centers heat entire city blocks using server waste heat In Finland, several data-centres now feed their waste heat into municipal district-heating networks instead of simply dumping it into the air. For example, waste heat generated by data-centre cooling is captured and transferred into the district-heating grid, providing carbon-neutral heat to thousands of homes and public buildings. This reuse of thermal energy helps reduce reliance on fossil-fuel heating, cuts emissions, and turns the by-product heat from digital infrastructure into a genuine resource rather than waste.

I want to thank our courageous friends in Minnesota who — in below freezing temperatures — are standing up to ICE. The American people want democracy and justice, not authoritarianism.  When we stand together we win.

The UCP modeled their politics and policy after MAGA and Trump. So yeah, every Albertans should be watching the horrifying results of those politics and policies with grave concern. Especially as Dani pushes for her own police force. #abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

#ableg #cndpoli Carney NEEDS to treat U.S. interference as a national security threat 1. BAN foreign ownership of major Canadian media 2. CSIS: investigate separatist networks + financing, lay charges as warranted 3. Probe foreign-linked backchannels involving Danielle Smith.

Running a province means making tough decisions. New hospitals? No. Funding for disabled Albertans? No. Funding for public education? No. $900 million taxpayer dollars to Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission? YES!! Read: #selection-2607.108-2607.146" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">archive.is/orCUv#selectio… #abpoli #UCPCorruption #ableg

TODAY: Hundreds of thousands in Minnesota braved -10°F weather to march through downtown Minneapolis as part of the statewide general strike demanding ICE out of the Twin Cities.

Working mom's plea for basic income

“Yeah Chinese citizens have far better education and healthcare outcomes, own their own homes and retire far younger, and live longer on average than us US citizens, but my ultra-violent government that deprives me of all of this tells me communism is bad so I believe them”

One of the best ways to fund UBI is land value It's distinct from all other types of wealth. Gold and stocks don't raise your cost of living. Land does, and its value is publicly generated.

What Stewart does here is something I’ve never quite seen anywhere else before: part conceptual analysis, part campfire story, part survival manual, part history of technology. A rare book that you will be wiser for reading. And the kintsugi cover is 🤌🏻

#ableg #abpoli Even if the Alberta separation petition fails, we NEED to take U.S. interference seriously U.S.-linked money fuelledthe illegal Ottawa occupation. Elections Alberta fined David Parker’s TBA over illegal U.S. contributions And now we’re watching it again Enough!