Heritage America First

You don't truly understand the magnitude of the potential impact of powerful AI on the world unless you are aware, and have fully internalized, that senior leadership and most researchers at the frontier labs *actually believe* the following: 1. Existing AI is already significantly speeding up AI research. Very soon (this year), AI will very likely take over *ALL* aspects of AI research other than generation of novel research ideas. Soon (within the next 2 years), AI will very likely take over *ALL* aspects of AI research, period. This means hundreds of thousands of GPUs working 24/7 to discover novel ideas at the level of, or better than, the likes of Alec Radford, Ilya Sutskever, etc. The thread below presents a conservative timeline: AI researchers will "meaningfully contribute" to AI development in 1-3 years. 2. Many (but, as far as I can tell, not all) executives and researchers at the frontier labs believe that fully automated AI research will kick off recursive self-improvement (RSI), wherein the AI models will autonomously build better and better AI models, with human oversight (for safety reasons), but increasingly with no human input into the research or implementation of that research. From the thread below: "'[h]umans vs AI on intellectual work is likely to be like human runner vs a Porsche in a race', likely very soon" - but replace "intellectual work" generally with "AI research" specifically. RSI is a complicated and messy thing to consider, both because there will be compute and energy constrains and because there are unknowns (will there be diminishing returns from greater intelligence of the models? if so, when will these diminishing returns become meaningful? is there a ceiling to intelligence that we don't know about?). But suffice to say that, if RSI *is* achieved in a way that many leaders/researchers at the frontier labs believe is possible, *THE WORLD MAY BECOME COMPLETELY UNRECOGNIZABLE WITHIN JUST A FEW YEARS*. This is subject to various bottlenecks; as the thread below correctly notes, "[i]nstitutional, personal & regulatory bottlenecks will bind very hard", and much also depends on continuing progress in areas like robotics. 3. On ~the same timeline as full, end-to-end automation of *ALL* aspects of AI research (within the next 2 years), AI will also become capable of making significant novel scientific discoveries *IN OTHER FIELDS*. This is why Dario Amodei, Demis Hassabis et al. believe that it is possible that all diseases will be curable within 10 years. (One account of how this might be possible is set forth in "Machines of Loving Grace".) The point is that an LLM that is capable of significant novel insights in the field of AI research should likewise be capable of significant novel insights in at least some (and perhaps all) other fields. The thread below notes: "AI for automating science [is] very early" - obviously true, but I think some changes may be right on the horizon. Overall, and again from the thread below: "'a million scientists in a data center' will think much more quickly than humans, on almost any intellectual task; this will happen in the next 2-10 years." This is ~the same timeline as that presented in "Machines of Loving Grace". Many will be tempted to dismiss all this as "just hype", "they are just trying to raise money again", etc. But no! - the above, in fact, presents the *actual beliefs* of senior leadership and many researchers at the frontier labs. Again, they genuinely think that AI research will be automated soon. Many of them genuinely believe that RSI is achievable in the not-too-distant future. And they genuinely see a real path towards AI significantly accelerating science, curing diseases, inventing new materials, helping to solve key global issues from poverty to climate change, etc., etc. Whether the frontier labs' beliefs are correct is, of course, a separate question. I personally have historically tended to take public statements by OpenAI, Anthropic and Google at face value and quite seriously. As a result, I was not surprised when LLMs won gold in the IMO, IOI and the ICPC competitions last year, or when Claude Code/Codex started taking off, or when Anthropic and OpenAI started releasing significantly better models every 1-2 months, or when some of the best coders became reliant on Claude Code/Codex in their daily work, or when LLMs became significantly helpful to scientists in fields like math and physics in the last few months. The trajectory has been ~the same as that publicly predicted by the frontier labs. We have been accelerating. And, as of right now, all signs are indicating that the acceleration shall continue and that full automation of AI research and, potentially, RSI are firmly on the horizon.

NEW: Student athlete left paralyzed after he was shot at a Waffle House while coming to his friend’s aid. 18-year-old Seth Jackson had reportedly tried helping his friend who was being attacked by a group of teens. When one of the teens pulled a gun out, Jackson started running but was then shot as he tried running away, his family says. The Richardson, Texas teen will never walk again. Charles Webster, 17, and Taylor Griffin, 18 were both charged with engaging in organized criminal activity. The shooter has not yet been caught. Jackson is a straight-A student, had two jobs and recently committed to the University of Houston. He suffered a ruptured lung and aorta, fractured ribs and a shattered spinal cord.

The Mostly Peaceful are at it again.

JUST IN - Trump says if deal is not reached with Iran and Hormuz Strait opened, U.S. "will conclude our lovely 'stay' in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!)."

I’ve never seen such a disconnect between the commentary on this site and what I hear in the real world. I’ve talked to dozens of normal conservatives in real life about the Iran War and I haven’t met a single one who’s actually enthusiastically in favor of it. At best they’re warily optimistic. In most cases they’re opposed. In some cases they’re not only opposed but deeply furious. And yet here if you utter a word of criticism about the war you’ll be shouted down by throngs of alleged American conservatives who allegedly have wanted nothing more than for America to go to war with Iran. It just doesn’t reflect what I see on the ground. That’s not just cope because my position is unpopular with “my side.” I’ve held plenty of unpopular positions. I really don’t care. But in this case the social media vs real world divide is stark and unlike anything I’ve seen before.

Trump now is in an impossible bind: if he tries to occupy Kharg Island, he will almost certainly have to use US troops, committing the US fully to a war that will ratchet up gas prices. If Trump chickens out due to Hormuz, it makes America’s military might look laughable