This a classic case study for anyone working in tech policy www.anthropic.com/news/fable-m.... I don't pretend to know anything about international trade law but there is a bunch of interesting stuff here. 🧵
Who's Who of AI
Rachel Coldicutt
Hopeful technologist.
Community tech, careful innovation, socially progressive tech policy.
https://www.careful.industries
https://hopeful.technology
https://buttondown.email/justenoughinternet
DMs don't work but hello@careful.industries will find me
What they're sharing
Statement on the US government directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 anthropic.com
The AI Resist List airesistlist.org
Anthropic says the world should have option to ‘pause’ on AI theguardian.com
giftarticle.ft.com
giftarticle.ft.com
giftarticle.ft.com
The Sports Car Theory of LLM Adoption buttondown.com
‘It’s smoke and mirrors’: hope turns to fear in Scottish village chosen for AI datacentre theguardian.com
OpenAI’s apparent failure to visit key site raises questions over UK investment theguardian.com
Making AI work for more people gatesfoundation.org
Articles & links
The AI Resist List is here airesistlist.org - so much hope and positivity for crafting positive, different futures in the room and on the list.
AI Weekly's analysis
→
- Karen Hao launched the AI Resist List on the one-year anniversary of her book Empire of AI as a publicly accessible, community-contributed database.
- The database organizes entries by 'Pillars of Support' sustaining AI empires, a framework adapted from Choose Democracy's authoritarianism resistance model.
- Entries span labor actions, legal challenges, and grassroots campaigns across gig work, healthcare, education, and law enforcement sectors.
Read full analysis →
I do find this whole thing a bit weird. Anthropic could, literally, stop or change what they are doing at any time www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
"They are arguably the modern-day railroad,” Schulte said. “It makes sense for them to issue longer maturities because AI is a long-term infrastructure." giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... I'm v sympathetic to long-term infra development, but what if hyperscale AI is as flying…
This interview with Simon Johnson, chair of the new UK AI Economics Institute, is interesting not so much because it is very revelatory but because his views will presumably shape policy and ministerial opinions giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
Quite something when the FT is publishing this kind of article about Palantir giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... have Karp and Co actually finally crossed the imaginary line (I mean, I doubt it, but live in hope)
Something I cut out of this, because it was too much of a digression, is that I think technology adoption suffers from a lot of macroeconomic post-rationalisation. Because some people are always making money, it is presumed it must make sense buttondown.com/justenoughin...
Some pretty solid reporting in the Guardian on what is going on with AI Growth Zones and data centre build out that should make pretty interesting reading for whoever is thinking about technology and local growth in the new govt www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
www.theguardian.com/technology/2... and this is pretty damning on the DSIT strategy of piling announcements onto the docket around big events
This is like a case study in how not to do it. Gates Foundation subsidises Anthropic to the tune of $200m to fund "public benefit" www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/media-...
Their own posts
Recent commentary
I've done the same "understanding the consequences of AI" talk twice today, and sometimes it's still a surprise even to me just how wide-ranging and varied the harmful impacts of technologies can be when they are badly made and rolled out without care and attention.
I sometimes use Popular LLMs to test their capabilities for routine tasks/find out what they're good at and bad at. One of the *worst* aspects is that they nearly all suggest a next task, which is almost NEVER the next most useful task, but I can see how it send folk down rabbit holes.
Thinking a little about the hot mess of the "discourse" on climate and AI and why there are so few moves to ensure transparency. At the moment, every time the environmental footprint of data centres is raised, the pro-AI lobby bends over backwards to minimise the impact and scoff at concerns
Over on Threads (and, I gather X) there is a huge meltdown happening about use of genAI on AO3; notwithstanding the fact that fans can be the most intense/least forgiving people ever, it is super interesting how cross/betrayed folks are that sthg they loved might be AI generated, even in part
Prob the main thing on lots of people's minds re: AI just now is "is it making me more stupid?" Am having regular conversations about that with nearly everyone I have a work meeting with. (The answer is: probably, yes.) With that in mind, is fascinating to sit in the barbers and watch them at work
Just following on from a group chat with some other senior women in tech about how Claude is suddenly getting very superior and bossy, I can't help but wonder if it also bosses around people it thinks are men? You hear a lot about AI sycophancy but not so much about AI bossiness.
There are totally deranged video ads at London Bridge station for something called Legora, in which Jude Law is giving come hither looks to camera over his shoulder with the strap lines READY TO FALL IN LOVE WITH LAW? and LAW NEVER LOOKED THIS GOOD and what if this is not a legal AI platform
Been offline since Thursday and wouldn't it be great if online newspapers had a "last 24 hours" summary, laddering up to "in the last week". (And yes, I'm aware I could ask an LLM to do this for me.)
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