Shakeel

*Another* apparently AI-generated story wins a literary prize, this time judged by a panel including the novelist Ruth Ozeki. Literary prizes need to start including Pangram checks in their process, or else change the rules to make AI writing ok. It’s very simple!

@jeremyakahn @Jameswise Agreed! Dutch govt seems very reticent to use its leverage though (and the UK probably doesn’t get in on any deal like that…)

@ShakeelHashim @Jameswise Europe could do this now—impose export controls on ASML to all non-Europeans and then cut a deal with the US (guaranteed access to ASML’s tech for US chip supply chain in exchange for guaranteed frontier model access.) would not solve the problem long term but ok short term play.

This is a really well written and argued case so it’s worth your time - but I strongly disagree. We live in a world of trade-offs, especially so if you are suggesting you use €100Bns of tax-payers money. So here are your options with what you can do with that capital to build sovereign technology capabilities: 1) Use it to lower the costs of the next wave of innovation for everyone ( cut energy costs, provide compute, cut innovation taxes, lower regulatory barriers etc ) 2) Use it to make many smaller bets to capture the next frontiers of innovation ( next gen chips, fusion, quantum, RSI etc ), lower the cost of capital ( back VC ) and underwrite the Government to take more risks purchasing domestic ( procurement reforms etc ). 3) Make one big bet that you can replicate the current SOTA in frontier models with a single Govt owned lab. It is ambitious and patriotic in a way to believe in 3, that the Government could co-ordinate the talent, resources and capital to do this. But history, and economics, suggest it is overwhelmingly a better idea to back entrepreneurs & researchers by making it easier for them to build bottom-up, not top-down through dictat. Recent American success has been mostly built on strategy 1) with some of 2). I’d argue recent Chinese industrial strategy has been mostly 2) supported by 1) ( but open to that debate! ). No-one has achieved 3) in an era where startups have clearly been a better organising approach for producing productivity surpluses. A fair counter is if you truly believe in the bitter lesson on compute, and that the current dominant technical architectures will be unsurpassable I.e this is the end state of technology before take off. This would be a very bold view indeed - and even then there are only ~ 10 people on the planet that could pull this off - and most are otherwise engaged. Back entrepreneurs. Support the innovators where the market fails. Let a thousand flowers bloom.

Been thinking about this nonstop for 24 hours. The odd thing is that it’s not hard to give a good answer to this. “I think systemic change and better safety nets, addiction treatment, and mental health support could vastly reduce the amount of crime. Of course it won’t eliminate it altogether, and some people probably do need to be kept apart from wider society, but for those people we could and should move towards a Norwegian style system that treats them with as much dignity and freedom as possible, while still keeping everyone safe.”

@ilex_ulmus None of Anthropic’s money is being used on election spending

There's really no mystery here-- he counted Anthropic as "safety" spending

As I’ve been thinking about Fable this week, one conclusion I’ve come to is that the uncertainty and chaos may end up being a very good thing. It could turn out to be the wake up call governments need — a sign of how bad things can get without clear rules of the road, and an incentive to ensure something like this never happens again.

🚨AI safety groups have thus far *outspent* the a16z and OpenAI backed Leading the Future in the midterms — $24.65m to $23.63m. Bit of a narrative violation surfaced by our AI Campaign Finance Tracker: elections.transformernews.ai

Even before Mythos I was getting asked more and more what Anthropic's deal is, and why tf they're acting the way they're acting if they believe what they say they believe. The best answer I can give is that their basic worldview is something like: 1. There are giant, dangerous monsters in the forest 2. We see others going out and making loud noises that will rouse the monsters, and they're not going to stop because of all the treasure and magical artifacts that can be found in the forest 3. We believe the best way we can help is to send out our own vanguard to go faster and farther into the forest than everyone else, because we'll spend a ton on monster containment and taming and we'll also send back detailed reports of what monsters we're finding so that the townspeople can ready themselves, which those other guys won't do On the one hand I understand how they got there, and I think it's possible they're basically right. On the other hand it's not hard to see why this approach makes people wonder if you're crazy or lying or both.

merge and assist, baby! (i do not think demis is going to join ant or oai)

Congress doesn't have the technical expertise to govern AI properly. A 1970s idea — the Office of Technology Assessment — could provide the solution... transformernews.ai/p/how-to-fill-…

It's incredibly annoying how hard it is to have a coherent view on biosecurity The epistemic environment is so scuffed. I have no idea how to evaluate the claims of biosecurity experts because there isn't any public writing due to fears of infohazards I'm not saying that they are wrong to not publish stuff publicly but its just annoying The number of people that have an inside view on bio seems terribly small and the fraction of those people who are AGI-pilled is even smaller So it feels like the entire discourse around AGI biorisk is dominated by a handful of experts who spread memes about "agi biorisk scary" throughout the community Again, I'm not trying to attack any of these ppl. It's just unfortunate. I personally would like to develop an inside view but it seems too hard (and high oppurtunity cost)

you’re saying we should have … technical safety standards? that the government can use? to evaluate if a model is safe to release? and they should be written by a collaboration between industry and government?

How tech’s midterm beating is shaping its 2028 playbook, via @dustingardiner and @MuiChristine politico.com/news/2026/06/1…

thank god for that

Oh my! Great get for OpenAI, Dean is one of the very sharpest people in this space. I only hope he continues to write as openly in public!!

@NateWitkin you are correct about the manhattan project, however.

@NateWitkin lots of people are viscerally scared, lots of people realize it is the most important natsec challenge. there is tons of reporting on this, the actions of the admin and increased securitization of AI speaks for itself, and if you talk to people in DC this is clearly happening

I swear to god you people have the worst epistemic hygiene. Literally none of these things have happened! People are not "viscerally" scared "from the halls of the Pentagon to the backroom congressional briefings." There is no, nor are there plans for an "AGI Manhattan Project." And very, very few people on Capitol Hill think "this is the most important challenge for [our] national security ... since the Atomic bomb." Could that change before the end of 2027? Sure, maybe. But until then, if this impresses you, you're telling on yourself.

@kmei_ farcical