David Wood

A thread of threads - the mini-book reviews that I have posted here during 2025. In chronological order. I happily recommend all but one of these books

Everyone who keeps claiming (yet again) that AI capability has reached a wall needs to reflect on the Sigmoid Misidentification Hall Of Fame astralcodexten.com/p/the-sigmoids…

This is impressive: it is a problem I had actually heard of. It looks like the solution approach is surprising to mathematicians. It was a general reasoning model rather than a specialized one: bitter lesson time. I think the stochastic parrot is now nuked from orbit.

Think that AI is hitting a wall? Think again.

Oops! I got this wrong, and rank alongside the many AIs that also got it wrong 😳

You can find more details and the Zoom registration link on this page: cybsoc.org/events.html

My slides are ready for this Wednesday's free-to-attend Cybernetics Live webinar, from 5pm UK time, "Anticipating the human and social consequences of next generation AI - before it's too late"

The task, as Tony will argue, is not just to improve democracy but to create a fast, legitimate mechanism through which humanity can define its values, coordinate survival, and prepare to enter coexistence with benevolent Superintelligence.

In short: AI, robotics, and brain-computer interfaces are accelerating too fast for conventional political evolution. Humanity urgently needs to create a faster, globally trusted decision-making body: Civil Stewardship Democracy

How can democracy be reformed, before it is too late? That's the question which Tony Czarnecki, Managing Partner of Sustensis, will be exploring in the @LondonFuturists webinar on Saturday 30th May - where he will champion a new type of democracy: Civil Stewardship Democracy

A tale of two letters

Here's the provocation I'll be asking attendees at our lunchtime gathering today to briefly answer, when they give short personal introductions at the start of our group conversation. (From 12 noon today, Thursday, at Ye Olde Cock Tavern, 22 Fleet Street)

This should be sobering: The bigger trend to which the hantavirus outbreak belongs

Excellent explainer video by @FryRsquared on the risks of AI agents. She also raises a crucial point: we shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking current limitations will necessarily persist. As we’ve seen for years now, the capabilities of frontier AI models are continuously increasing. There is still significant uncertainty regarding our ability to ensure these agents remain aligned with our instructions and norms. We should be much more cautious than we are today when it comes to deployment. youtube.com/watch?v=WnzR5a…

Questions can be asked about the listing on the Global Gurus "World's Top 30 Futurist Professionals for 2026", but it's noteworthy that three of the top-listed 20 will be taking part in our lunch gathering on Thursday globalgurus.org/futurist-gurus…

To secure your attendance, register at luma.com/bir9famu?tk=td… - and contact me to confirm your lunch food pre-order

Among the guests who have already signed up for Thursday's lunchtime pub get-together are two more from the "Global Gurus" list of the world's top 30 professional futurists. Don't miss the chance to join this gathering to exchange insights and debate forthcoming scenarios

This looks good: "Governing AI for Humanity - 18 Months On". From 11am UK time (12 noon Swedish time) on Wednesday. An AI Lund lunch seminar. I've registered to attend my.ai.se/events/ai-lund…

It's funny how China always announces official visits at the last minute. It's always been like that, especially with the U.S. If you read Kissinger, he explains that he and Nixon would already be **in Beijing** and still didn't know if they'd meet Mao. A hilarious episode is how they landed with Nixon in Beijing in February 1972, with zero confirmation they'd actually get to meet Mao because - in the writings of Winston Lord (who was there) - "the schedule was never fixed until the last minute" (adst.org/2013/02/nixon-…). As he explains "this was partly intended to keep us off balance, and partly to make us feel grateful when the actual meeting took place and that it did take place." Kissinger himself wrote that he saw Mao five times and that "on each occasion [he] was summoned suddenly, just as Nixon was" (x.com/RnaudBertrand/…). That time in 1972, shortly after the U.S. delegation arrived at the official guesthouse in Beijing, Zhou Enlai popped in to announce to Kissinger that Mao wanted to see Nixon "right away." Kissinger immediately went to fetch Nixon whom he found with his clothes off, about to take a shower (wbur.org/hereandnow/202…). Nixon urgently put his clothes back on and was whisked away in a Red Army car, accompanied by only Kissinger and Winston Lord, without any Secret Service agents. Bob Haldeman, Nixon's chief of staff, wrote in his diary at the time: “you wonder what's going on when you have the Red Army surrounding the president” (wbur.org/hereandnow/202…). When they got to Zhongnanhai, the official residence of the Chinese leadership, they were very surprised by the modesty of the place. As Kissinger describes in On China (fpa.org/henry-kissinge…), Mao's residence looked "no different" from any other official's housing, "had no visible guards or other appurtenances of power" and had "a small anteroom almost completely dominated by a Ping-Pong table." In another writing, Kissinger describes Mao's residence as "simple and unimposing; it could have belonged to a minor functionary. No special security measures were apparent" (x.com/RnaudBertrand/…). Meeting Mao, however, left Kissinger - a man not easily impressed, who had sparred with every 20th century leader of consequence - essentially awestruck. He wrote that he "met no one, with the possible exception of Charles de Gaulle, who so distilled raw, concentrated willpower... He dominated the room - not by the pomp that in most states confers a degree of majesty on the leaders, but by exuding in almost tangible form the overwhelming drive to prevail" (x.com/RnaudBertrand/…). Not sure how this particular meeting between Trump and Xi will go down but I like the idea of Trump being interrupted in his shower to be whisked away in a PLA car and sent to Zhongnanhai without any security detail. Would be a badly needed humble pie.

There’s no overstating how extraordinary this Atlantic article is, given the author and the outlet. As a reminder Bob Kagan is: - The co-founder of Project for the New American Century, probably the single most imperialist Think Tank in Washington (which is quite a feat) - A man who spent his entire life advocating for American military interventions, especially in the Middle East, and a vocal advocate of the Iraq war. He started advocating for intervention in Iraq before 9/11, which speaks for itself... - The husband of Victoria Nuland, an extremely hawkish former senior U.S. official (a key architect of U.S. policy in Ukraine, with the consequences we all witness today) - The brother of Frederick Kagan, one of the key architects of the Iraq surge In other words, we ain’t exactly looking at some sort of anti-imperialist peacenik. This is quite literally the guy Dick Cheney called when he needed a pep talk. And the man is writing in The Atlantic, the most reliably pro-war mainstream media outlet in the U.S. (also quite a feat). So when HE writes that the U.S. “suffered a total defeat” in Iran that has no precedent in U.S. history and can “neither be repaired nor ignored,” it’s the functional equivalent of Ronald McDonald telling you the burgers aren’t great: it means the burgers really, really aren't great. Extraordinarily (and somewhat worryingly, for me), his arguments for why this is such a defeat are virtually the same as those I laid out in my article “The First Multipolar War” last month (open.substack.com/pub/arnaudbert…). Here they are 👇 1) Vietnam/Afghanistan were survivable, this isn't He agrees that this war - and the U.S. defeat - is fundamentally different in nature from previous U.S. interventions. Where I wrote that the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan didn’t change the equation much in terms of power dynamics (“in the grand scheme of things, the giant walked away with little more than a bruised ego”), Kagan writes that “the defeats in Vietnam and Afghanistan were costly but did not do lasting damage to America's overall position in the world.” And when I wrote that “it’s painfully obvious that the Iran war is of a qualitatively different nature” from these, he writes that “defeat in the present confrontation with Iran will be of an entirely different character.” Same point. 2) Iran will never relinquish Hormuz and uses it as selective leverage When I wrote that Iran has turned “freedom of navigation” on its head by establishing “a permission-based regime” through the Strait of Hormuz, Kagan arrives at the same conclusion: “Iran will be able not only to demand tolls for passage, but to limit transit to those nations with which it has good relations.” He also agrees that “Iran has no interest in returning to the status quo ante,” when I myself cited Iran’s parliament speaker Ghalibaf in my article, saying: “The Strait of Hormuz situation won’t return to its pre-war status.” Same point and virtually the same words. 3) Gulf states will have to accommodate Iran He agrees that most Gulf states will have no choice but to accommodate Iran, effectively making Iran into a, if not THE, dominant regional power. Kagan writes “the United States will have proved itself a paper tiger, forcing the Gulf and other Arab states to accommodate Iran.” On my end, I wrote that “the Gulf monarchies will eventually have to choose between two security propositions. One where they stay aligned with a distant superpower that [can’t protect them]. The other proposition being: make peace with the regional power that just proved it can hit [them] whenever it wants.” Which is not much of a choice… 4) Military impossibility to reopen Hormuz Kagan writes that “if the United States with its mighty Navy can't or won't open the strait, no coalition of forces with just a fraction of the Americans' capability will be able to, either.” On my end, in my article I cited Germany’s defense minister Boris Pistorius: “What does Trump expect a handful of European frigates to do that the powerful US Navy cannot?” The exact same argument. 5) Global chain reaction Kagan agrees that this is a global strategic failure that fundamentally changes the U.S.’s position in the world. As he puts it: “America's once-dominant position in the Gulf is just the first of many casualties… America's allies in East Asia and Europe must wonder about American staying power in the event of future conflicts.” You’ll have guessed it, I wrote essentially the same thing: “Think about what it says if you’re Saudi Arabia, quietly watching your American-built defenses fail to protect your own refineries. Or any European country now facing the worst energy shock since 1973, caused not by your enemy but by your ally, and realizing that said ‘ally,’ supposedly in charge of ‘protecting’ you, couldn’t even protect Israel’s most strategic sites - when it’s the country with which it’s joined at the hip. I’m not even speaking about China or Russia who are seeing their worldview being validated on almost every axis simultaneously.” 6) Weapons stocks depleted, credibility shattered Kagan: “just a few weeks of war with a second-rank power have reduced American weapons stocks to perilously low levels, with no quick remedy in sight.” Me: “America’s most advanced weapons systems are much more vulnerable than previously thought - not theoretically, but in actual combat.” Kagan: “America's allies… must wonder about American staying power in the event of future conflicts.” Me: “The U.S. security guarantee has been empirically falsified in real time.” ----------- So, yup, Bob Kagan and I agree on nearly everything. I need a shower 🤢 Reassuringly though, we still differ on a few fundamental aspects. First of all, arguably the most important one, the moral aspect. In typical neocon fashion, his article contains not a word about the human cost of this war - not the 165 schoolgirls, not the devastation inflicted on Iranians during 37 days of bombing, not the toll this war is taking on the entire world through its devastating economic consequences (the economic devastation on ordinary people worldwide is referenced only as a political problem for Trump). For him, this is purely a strategic chess problem, morality and people don’t figure in his mental map. For me, the moral bankruptcy of this war isn't separate from the strategic failure - it is the strategic failure. Much like Gaza can only be a failure because of its sheer abjectness. Secondly, there is not an instant of reflection in the article on how we got there. Which is unsurprising because he personally, alongside his wife, his brother, and every co-signatory of every PNAC letter, spent a generation pushing for exactly this kind of confrontation. The man spend 30 years advocating for military dominance in the Middle East and hostility towards Iran, thereby forging them as an adversary and facilitating this very war that he now says has “checkmated” America. I know introspection has never been the neocon forte but at some point you have to stop setting houses on fire and then writing op-eds about how surprising the smoke is. Last but not least, we differ on what should be done. This is the funniest part of Kagan’s article - showing that the man is decidedly beyond salvation. On one hand he calls this a “checkmate” by Iran, and a U.S. defeat that can “neither be repaired nor ignored,” yet an the other hand his solution for it is… surprise, surprise… a bigger war still! He writes that what’s to be done is “engage in a full-scale ground and naval war to remove the current Iranian regime, and then to occupy Iran until a new government can take hold.” The arsonist's solution to the fire is a bigger fire ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ For my end, this was the conclusion of my previous article: "There is almost a Greek tragedy quality to U.S. actions lately where every move taken to escape one’s fate becomes the mechanism that delivers it. The U.S. went to war to reassert dominance - and proved it could no longer dominate. It demanded allies send warships - and revealed it had no real allies. It waged forty years of maximum pressure to break Iran before this moment came - and instead forged the very adversary now capable of meeting it. It started the war in part to have additional leverage over China - and handed the world the spectacle of begging China for help. The prophecy was multipolarity. Every American action to prevent it reveals it instead." I wouldn’t change a word. The only thing that's changed since I wrote it is that even the arsonists now smell the smoke. Src for the Atlantic article: theatlantic.com/international/…