mat honan ☀️

Taking a Twitter break

@RachaelRad Immeasurable props to Liana Satenstein and our own @DanielLurie for using the correct nomenclature

oh hey @mat

Read @antonioregalado on the backstory of @Conception technologyreview.com/2021/10/28/103…

@mcuban I think it’s more complicated- it can both be about data centers themselves (would you want one next to you?) and also a way to stand in front of the tech bus or drop a cone on a Waymo as a small act of resistance against big forces beyond your control technologyreview.com/2026/01/14/113…

It’s time for everyone to realize that the fight against data centers has nothing to do with data centers. They have become a proxy for the hate towards AI and the concentration and accumulation of wealth it’s creating. Until those running the big LLMs understand this and start a community tour, not to explain the benefits of AI, it’s too late for that, but to help towns and cities that may be impacted by job losses (and I’m a believer their will be a net gains in a few years), this battle is only going to get more intense and let me tell you now , no matter how much money you pay to buy politicians and races, you will lose. One thing I have learned is being hated is not good for business. How can they help ? They will tell you. You will need to do what they ask. Billions of dollars is a lot of money across towns and city programs. Across the major LLMs, it’s a cost of doing business. At the same time, I would go to LA and NYC and ask the arts and creative unions what kind of programs would help and protect their artists. DO NOT GO TO THE MUSIC OR FILM COMPANIES. that will make it worse. Don’t try to pay famous people to endorse what you are doing. That’s dumb. Talk to artists and ask them what you can do to provide financial and creative support. Every creative I know is TERRIFIED about what AI will do to their profession. You must meet them face to face and basically do what they say. The big LLMs have lost the PR battle. Why ? Because they all suck at putting people first. They have an SV attitude that makes them all think they are John Galt saving the world Given the number of data centers and power that is needed, today and going forward , If you don’t kiss the asses of the people that go to work every day, and are just trying to pay their bills, you will fall far far short of the capacity you need to make your business work.

So sad to see the news about @om. As he was with so many other people, he was so good to me. Generous. Kind. Helpful. Always willing to chat, offer advice - and make a brutally funny point. What an incredible human. Hope there’s is a cigar waiting somewhere for you buddy

“Michelle Obama is a man” shouted on the White House lawn in a ring sponsored by Bud Light only available on Larry Ellison’s Paramount Plus. What a way to celebrate America 250 and the twilight of liberal democracy.

The newspaper laid off my entire video department of award-winning journalists so @PostOpinions could make the smarmiest, shittiest engagement slop imaginable.

The Android XR sunglasses are pretty cute. I'm surprised they went with such a feminine design, especially given how much more skeptical of AI women seem to be in general.

So this is actually a pretty positive development re: online trust and misinformation.

One development I really did find interesting: OpenAI, Eleven Labs, and others are taking up Google's SynthID—its watermark technology for AI-generated content. SynthID will only be effective if it's widely adopted; otherwise, people will just switch to other tools to avoid it.

I'm @ Google I/O in sunny Mountain View today, and I'll be sharing my thoughts here throughout the day. We're just over halfway through the keynote now, and one thing is already pretty obvious—Google isn't coming for Anthropic and OpenAI's shared agentic coding crown anytime soon

@techreview "What was the technology like at that point?" Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers asks Sutskever, in a rare interjection, showing genuine curiosity. Comparing AI in 2018 to now, "it was like the difference between an ant and a cat," says Sutskever. "It's a big difference."

Ilya Sutskever and the rest of the OpenAI board briefly fired Sam Altman as CEO in 2023. “This kind of environment, where the executives [don’t] exactly have the correct information, makes the environment not conducive to attaining any difficult, grand goal,” such as “safe AGI," says Sutskever, reflecting on the event. He thought about firing Altman for a year before doing so.

Day 9 of Musk v. Altman trial in federal court in Oakland, California. Ilya Sutskever, former OpenAI chief scientist, and Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO, will testify. I'm a reporter (and lawyer) at @techreview

When asked if Sam Altman was not candid with her by fall of 2023, Mira Murati takes a long pause, sighs, and says, "Not always." “I had an incredibly hard job to do in an organization that was very complex, and I was asking Sam to lead and lead with clarity," she says.

I also wrote this piece, a while ago now, on data centers. And it is also a thing that I hope readddddddds like something a human being wrote. And moreover it's just gotten to be more true and more true and more true. technologyreview.com/2026/01/14/113…

I wrote this piece on AI Malaise. And I think it's good! Or maybe not. Maybe you will hate it, like licorice. But it's distinctly un-AI. (I hope.) technologyreview.com/2026/04/21/113…

Look, look, look, I'm sorry. Look. I don't do the best job of promoting my own work. So, here I am. Posting.

Shivon Zilis describes her complicated relationship with Elon Musk. Before 2020, "there had been kind of a one-off at the offsite," she says, describing it as romantic. “Then we were friends and eventually colleagues,” she says. Later, when she wanted to be a mom, "Elon had made the offer around that time [to be a sperm donor] … and I accepted," she says.

@techreview Stuart Russell testifies during cross-examination that he's getting paid $235,000 by Elon Musk to testify about AI safety in this trial. He says that will make up 20% of his annual income.