Kester

Aside from all the other nonsense, kind of hilarious and shady that the metric for consciousness is anxiety.

God-like: A 500-Year History of Artificial Intelligence in Myths, Machines, Monsters God-like: A 500-Year History of Artificial Intelligence in Myths, Machines, Monsters : Brewin, Mr Kester F: Amazon.co.uk: Books

Technology has - right through history - been laden with this promise that new, greater powers will bedazzle us into peace.

Shock, and awe: it's what tech-bros, presidents and priests have all deployed. And we keep believing them.

I explore this in my book on #AI:
www.amazon.co.uk/God-like-500...

#Oppenheimer called the test of the first atomic weapon 'Trinity' as a nod to the sonnet written by John Donne.
His hope, it seemed, was that the immense #violence of this weapon would somehow act as a purifying, sanctifying, integrating force.
He was wrong then, and we're wrong now.

what a crazy night for sam altman to be like "yeah we got that dept of war deal, and there's no moral concerns here"

Token Anxiety Nikunj Kothari C @nikunj • Feb 13 A friend left a party at 9:30 on a Saturday. Not tired. Not sick. He wanted to get back to his agents. Nobody questions it anymore. Half the room is thinking the same thing. The other half are probably checking the progress of their agents. At a party. All the parties are sober now. Young people don't drink because they're going back to work after. Not inspired by Bryan Johnson, although that's probably a factor. The buzz they want now runs on tokens per day.

I keep noticing it on walks through the Mission. Laptops glowing everywhere. Cafes, sidewalks, heck even park benches. People walking with screens open like a flashlight guiding them somewhere. Less drunk laughter on the streets these days. More keystrokes. Dinner conversations used to start with "what are you building?" That's over. Now it's "how many agents do you have running?" People drop the number the way they used to drop their follower count. Quietly competitive. The flex isn't what you've accomplished anymore. It's what's working while you're sitting here not working. The vocabulary is what really gets me though. People describe models the way sommeliers describe wine. This one has better taste. That one hallucinates with more confidence. Opus is bold, Codex is smooth. They talk about harnesses and reins like they're controlling horses. Invisible whips directing invisible labor. Someone at a dinner said they keep

labor. Someone at a dinner said they keep "Claude on a tight leash for code review but give it more slack for creative work." We've started borrowing the language of how we treat animals for something none of us actually understand yet. Waking up and checking what your agents produced overnight is the first thing now. Before coffee. Before texts. You open your laptop and grade homework you assigned in your sleep. Some of it is good. Most needs rework. But you start shipping a plan before you sleep just so you can wake up to more code written overnight. Saturdays became uninterrupted build windows. No meetings, no Slack, twelve hours of you and your agents. Sunday morning X is all terminal screenshots and shipping receipts. "What'd you ship this weekend?" replaced "what'd you do this weekend?"

The anxiety is rational, which is why it sticks. Every week some new benchmark drops that makes last month's workflow feel prehistoric. Codex ships overnight processing. Opus gets faster. Context windows double. None of it reduces the pressure. It multiplies it. You can do more now. And someone already is. The window to be first at anything feels like it's shrinking by the day. Literally, by the day. I replaced Netflix with Claude Code. I lie in bed thinking about what I can spin up before I fall asleep, what can run while I'm unconscious. Reading a novel feels indulgent now. Watching a movie without a laptop open feels wasteful. This voice in my head that says "something could be running right now" just doesn't shut off. I'm not even building a company. I'm just addicted to building my random ideas. Everyone here knows they should step away more. That's not the problem. The problem is what your brain does when you try. I still take a x ss walks. The agents come with me now.

Token Anxiety

i think i mostly echo this for myself. with so much that can be done, i often feel like i *should* be doing something, always

Can't believe I forgot to celebrate Justin Webb Day yesterday. Must have been distracted by all that normality in America

Yes, It’s Fascism Until recently, I thought it a term best avoided. But now, the resemblances are too many and too strong to deny.

“Recent events have brought Trump’s governing style into sharper focus. Fascist best describes it, and reluctance to use the term has now become perverse.”
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

How about we start by banning over 16s from social media and see how we get on

www.instagram.com/p/DTRlOq0DhkE/

Over time, I have learned to be content with my CSE.
100% on merit, at least.

We now have a full-blown European-American crisis, and for no reason that the president is able to articulate

This.

This is clearly depressing and radicalising in a way a tax wouldn't have been.

Not trying to make too big a claim here, but it's been a rough time for the world but now #InOurTime is back, so I'm pretty sure we'll see an uptick in wisdom, thoughtfulness, empathy, and general smarts.

Will always miss Bragg - but loving MG already. Thanks BBC team.

Can A.I. Generate New Ideas?

The new framing by promoters of AI Scientists is that you still need an experienced human in the loop (as stated in this article). But HOW do you get such a human if these tools are used earlier and earlier in training and education. Also, the article gives the answer to the title's question: no.

…Liz Hurley, as fans of early Harry Hill must reflexively reply.

From Sept 2024.
Only now, doubly.

Immense skill issue to not have found this immediately obvious in 2016

From nuts to kelp: The 'carbon-negative' foods that help reverse climate change Eating low-carbon foods helps reduce emissions, but some foods actually suck up carbon from the atmosphere for good, leaving the climate in a better place. Could we eat more of them?

A global shift to plant-based diets could free an area of land as big as the US, China, the EU and Australia combined: restored ecosystems could draw down CO2, making our diets carbon negative. Average food emissions per person would be reduced from about 2,000 kg CO2eq/year to -160 kg CO2eq/year.

If a Pakistani Muslim owned X, distributed indecent images of girls on a platform where govt do their PR, where some receive payments for posts, they would have distanced themselves by now. X would be shutdown and Braverman and Farage would be calling for a ban and investigation into Pakistani men.

EXCLUSIVE: Leaked WhatsApp messages show Labour MPs urging govt to leave X, arguing that it should "show direction to others in the UK"

The MPs said X owner Elon Musk is "fascist" and that the platform's AI tool, Grok, had put "children in harm's way"

Time might not be money.
Time could be gift.

Aggression: the surest sign of a weak argument.

for the love of god, AI systems aren't "just tools that are neither good nor evil in and of themselves". AI systems *are* tools of capitalism. they exist as tools of capitalism. there is no AI system "in and of itself" outside of capitalism

‘This will be a stressful job’: Sam Altman offers $555k salary to fill most daunting role in AI New head of preparedness at OpenAI will face unnerving in-tray amid fears from some experts that AI could ‘turn on us’

Would do it for $111k more.
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Wow, true spirit of the season from @grantamag.bsky.social sending out rejections on Christmas Day morning. Super classy!
Seriously… even if this is automated… having a fuc*ing word with yourselves about appropriate settings etc. All tech is social, and this is grossly anti-

I mean yeah it’s an authoritarian takeover but can we take some comfort in the fact that the people doing it are INSANELY stupid?

Hi Sky people. Quick favour… I’ve pitched at @sxsw.com #London to do a talk, and it’s down to a public vote. Be great if you were able to give this some love… and a share if poss! 🤖🙌 ☑️ sxswlondon.awardsplatform.com/entry/vote/b...

A driver killed my parents - attitudes to speeding need to change Claire Corkery wants cultural change on road safety after her parents were killed by a speeding driver.

Cultural change should be accompanied by legal changes.
Caught speeding once: points and course.
Caught again, compulsory black box to track your driving.
We have a right to privacy. We abdicate this right if we fail to act responsibly.
www.bbc.com/news/article...

A door and a 3m length of pipe?
Mate, I can fit this in a Nissan Leaf.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...