Michael

programmer opens copilot in Visual Studio Code, 2026, colorised

one out of five people around you may be worth a punch

the synopsis of 500 days of summer promises more than the film could ever deliver

zero stars

my name is Geoff (pronounced ɡəʊf)

oh look, suddenly the humanities are relevant to the cryptobros

watched ready player one and i regret being born

if you listen to a terminally online idiot, the war against iran is just a distraction from domestic political issues, actually,

just left a room where someone was sitting in front of 12 monitors. super interested into what he claims he's using them for

how is the US going to come back from decades of thinking in terms of blockbuster entertainment

What this does to military A.I. capabilities is beyond the brief of this newsletter, except to say that I think it’s “bad” for Grok, the pedophile mechahitler A.I., to be involved with weapons in really any way. What I am interested in, here, is what this reveals about the state of politics in Silicon Valley. In a sentence, I think what’s happening is (1) basic (i.e. normal) cutthroat competition between rival firms for government contracts, which is both driving and being driven by (2) an open and ongoing political-ideological dispute between two factions of Silicon Valley capital, which is in turn informing and being informed by (3) an almost religious disagreement about the nature of the god being built on the computer.

To start, it seems quite obvious that the Tech Right--a bloc of right-wing, Trump-aligned executives, investors, podcasters, Twitter personalities, firms, and companies, among them Palantir’s Joe Lonsdale and Alex Karp, Anduril’s Palmer Luckey, and, of course, xAI’s Elon Musk--with its extensive links to the administration, has been exerting behind-the-scenes pressure on Hegseth and the Pentagon to sever ties with or otherwise punish Anthropic. It was a Palantir executive, after all, who snitched on Anthropic to the D.o.D., and Hegseth’s speech in January about “objectively truthful AI capabilities” was a close echo of Musk’s ramblings about his “maximally truth-seeking” model Grok. The Tech Right’s contempt for Anthropic is first and foremost financial in nature. Musk, obviously, would like xAI to be first in line for any government contracts. (Indeed, Hegseth announced a deal with xAI this week to use Grok under the Pentagon’s preferred “all lawful use” terms.) And I suspect Palantir, Anthropic client though it may be, has the same existential fear of Claude as McKinsey or Salesforce or any other consultancy or software-as-a-service provider. If Anthropic is aggressively courting the D.o.D. to contract directly, and if Claude is as good as every thinks, what does Palantir’s future as a data-analytics-in-camo platform actually look like?

This doesn’t necessarily separate him from any other Silicon Valley liberal. But I think it’s good to attend to the valence of his liberalism. Amodei, like most of the Anthropic executives and many people in the A.I. in general, has long been associated with the worlds of Bay Area Rationalism and Effective Altruism--wonkily utilitarian philosophical and philanthropic practices focused on self-described rationalist inquiry and self-improvement. Bay Area Rationalism is a loose and diverse movement, containing a host of political perspectives, but it’s always had a particular concern with moral philosophy as it relates to the expected development of artificial superintelligence. To be a Rationalist liberal democrat (small-L small-D), e.g., might mean orienting your liberal democrat-ness toward its practical applications around the eschatological scenario of hard-takeoff A.G.I.

I don’t mean to suggest that Amodei’s commitments to liberal democracy are inauthentic. More that, as far he is concerned the stakes of this commitment go well beyond his own moral or ethical culpability. The decisions he makes now, and his consistent practice to his espoused beliefs, could mean the difference between a benevolent computer god and a wrathful one. X avatar for @hlntnr Helen Toner @hlntnr One thing the Pentagon is very likely underestimating: how much Anthropic cares about what *future Claudes* will make of this situation. Because of how Claude is trained, what principles/values/priorities the company demonstrate here could shape its "character" for a long time. Andrew Curran @AndrewCurran_ Update on the meeting; according to Axios Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Dario Amodei until Friday night to give the military unfettered access to Claude or face the consequences, which may even include invoking the Defense Production Act to force the training of a WarClaude 4:26 PM · Feb 25, 2026 · 227K Views 41 Replies · 122 Reposts · 1.96K Likes And this has placed him, and Anthropic, on a collision course with the Tech Right. Musk, too, believes he is bringing superintelligence into existence at xAI. But for him the urgenct imp

one way of seeing anthropic vs. the pentagon is as a fissure between the two silicon valley tribes most enthusiastic about ai: "rationalists" and "accelerationists"

maxread.substack.com/p/what-anthr...

correct, no support for CEOs

so you're telling me an actual Mr. Krabs is actually in charge of McDonalds?

more like Warhammer 2K amirite ladies

me: Mom can we have Warhammer 40K?
mom: No we have Warhammer 40K at home

Warhammer 40K at home:

every time i look at instagram, i feel like im the only adult who doesn't know how to make money

another "devil's advocate" here to waste everyone's time

Unreal Tournament was the last anticapitalist critique in the form of a computer game

has anyone shown a gorilla the 2 girls 1 cup video and if so how did it affect them

"chilling" here having the meaning of "cool"

Hello. My name is Call me Ishmael. You killed my man who was called my father. Prepare to act in a way that is called dead.

"Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" but on the blastbeat from Napalm Death - Sacrificed

"my Task Force is not affiliated with any of the intelligence services" is a euphemism for "i am dumb"

Backdoor As A Service

Der „Bericht aus Berlin“ zeigte gestern, wie Merkel das Wahlergebnis von Merz beklatscht – dabei war sie zu diesem Zeitpunkt gar nicht mehr im Saal. Die ARD hat den Fehler online korrigiert, aber wie kann sowas (schon wieder) passieren? (1/2)

what the BBC does and doesn't understand

"nobody wants to work any more"

at what point do we think GOT fans will kidnap George Martin and force him to sniff a handbag of coke and write a thousand pages?

don't trust anybody whose ears are sweating