https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/technology/openai-operator-agent.html
The version tested here was unimpressive, though some of the limits (CAPTCHA, Credit Card, etc) are presumably temporary.
A narrower-scope agent to replace the human “swivel-chair interface” seems more achievable. (If the Agents actually work reliably that implies a level of functionality that will replace most of us.)
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/why-has-trump-gone-soft-on-china
I don’t think this scale of transparent bribery could have worked in the 90s.
Presumably China is one or more of the “whales”
1. Reach voters directly
2. Courts
https://www.bannedinyourstate.com/p/schrodingers-freeze
Trump’s OMB director.
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/bacteria-and-their-metabolites-and-depression
Weird but maybe real.
https://one.google.com/changestorageplan and then more plans. They hide it quite well.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/31/house-republicans-tax-bill-math/?location=alert
What a bunch of bozos. So now it’s over to the Fed.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/chatbot-software-begins-to-face-fundamental-limitations-20250131/
A fundamental limit of our current architecture would be good news.
“in December 2024, Peng and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley posted a proof … showing that multilayer transformers indeed cannot solve certain complicated compositional tasks.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/31/elon-musk-treasury-department-payment-systems/
The USDS very quietly did great work for years. It would be interesting to speak with some of them, but they may be wise not to talk.
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/its-a-scam-its-a-purge-its-a-scam
This is irrational but true. Culture matters. But as corruption grows these people leave.
https://contrarian.substack.com/p/departing-the-new-york-times
“all Times opinion writers were banned from engaging in any kind of media criticism”
“avoiding saying anything too directly in a way that might get some people (particularly on the right) riled up”
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/some-good-mash-nash-news-once
Frustrating disease.
Big failure by mayor of St Paul. The left can also be dumb.
https://www.persuasion.community/p/francis-fukuyama-on-trump-20
“The problem with the bureaucracy is that they are over-controlled, over-regulated and they do not have enough discretion to use their own judgment to do their jobs.”
“Bureaucrats live under this incredible burden of accumulated rules.”
This. The pile of garbage and contradictory rules is impossible to communicate. Bureaucrats spend a lot of their time shoveling crap.
https://buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/p/deepirony
Dear future historian – yeah, we could all see it happening. Nobody had blinkers on. We just had to watch America immolate itself.
https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/120-the-impoundment-crisis-of-2025
Trump tests Roberts obedience.
It looks like it has morphed into something primarily aimed at educators and students.
Usage based pricing that lasts one year. I signed up for the free trial. I look forward to the day an AI can resurrect all of my ancient file formats. (I found this via the vendor’s excellent essay on AI / Nvidia.)
https://www.bannedinyourstate.com/p/how-not-to-see
This is where Jedeed excels. She’s a natural anthropologist working in journalism. The key to resurrecting American constitutional democracy is finding a way to infiltrate reality past the moats and firewalls Murdoch and others have erected.
https://youtubetranscriptoptimizer.com/blog/05_the_short_case_for_nvda
This essay from a guy who (I believe) shorted nvidia post R1 is among the best I’ve read on the state of play.
https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jan/27/deepseek-nvidia/#atom-everything
“Jeffrey Emanuel capturing the current state of the AI/LLM industry”
https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/reading-thiels-op-ed
I think Ganz is going to the root of what is happening with the oligarchs: “a technological singularity is coming and the elect must work to accelerate it. The state must organize itself like an enterprise for this work to be completed. Progress, which is hampered by democracy, must have an authoritarian state to continue unabated.”
Fascism for the cause of immortality.
“Who do you think you are? God?”
Thiel would think, “not yet, but ask again in 3 years”
https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/mob-rule
The Party of Trump.
https://jabberwocking.com/colombia-tells-trump-to-fuck-off/
An excellent example for Americans. Trump may bring Columbia and Mexico closer together.
It’s an under-appreciated answer on this page.
Get share link, open in browser, save to desktop as .webloc file. Opens note in Safari. Now you can integrate your Notes note with other documents in a finder folder. (PS. Got answer from AI then tracked down on web.)
https://jabberwocking.com/elons-big-task-is-interoperability/
Kevin is wrong. There is big potential here. A small Obama era SV cohort did well with login.gov even during Trump 1.
The huge problem is removing a truckload of well intended but wrong regulation. That requires Congress.
https://musgrave.substack.com/p/the-green-dawn-scenario
“Trump believes Greenland is important to U.S. national security.
He’s pursued this policy for years.
Republicans are not pushing back on this.”
The EU needs to be ready. Maybe China will offer Denmark military protection.
https://www.ifyoucankeepit.org/p/dear-civil-servant
Doesn’t dissemble, early advice is look for other work.
https://timkellogg.me/blog/2025/01/25/r1
Energy costs falling fast now.
https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jan/26/chatgpt-operator-system-prompt/#atom-everything
A proto-agent AI. Any resemblance to the “3 laws” is coincidental. Also, don’t complete CAPCHAs — even though you could totally do that faster than any squish.
Ex: why did pre-avian dinosaurs have feathers?
Hitler had serious political skills. Great rundown of how to destroy a constitutional republic.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/january-24-2025
Get off the floor you cowards.
https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jan/24/anthropics-new-citations-api/#atom-everything
A step beyond what Perplexity does now, but i hope they will use it.
I loved this explanation. Willison notes RAG responses are a mix of model knowledge and reference knowledge.
https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/welcome-to-vichy-america
There are several causes of American collapse. Two big ones started at our greatest peak in the mid-90s.
Alongside those is a kind of nihilistic boredom.
https://contrarian.substack.com/p/how-to-drink-from-a-firehose
Finally, good comms advice.
https://jabberwocking.com/weve-finally-learned-why-paul-krugman-quit-the-times/
They wanted both sideism
https://daringfireball.net/2025/01/ice_raids_are_an_escalation_of_a_de_facto_cold_civil_war
Gruber is correct. Share this understanding.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/opinion/trump-mckinley-populism.html
I’m a bit stunned. Is this really written by David Brooks?
“they thought they could solve the disruptions of industrialization if only they could find the evil conspirators who were responsible for every ill. Their diagnoses were simple-minded, their rhetoric over the top; their proposals, Hofstadter noted, wandered “over the border between reality and impossibility.””
https://bsky.app/profile/johngordon.bsky.social/post/3lginrszk722g
To keep your old price without CoPilot you have to “cancel” — which just shows the options. For our family plan it is $100 and no CoPilot.
Since most AIs are $20/m a cost of $30 a year is a bargain for a family — but CoPilot does not appear particularly useful so far.
Congo is another world entirely.
https://notes.kateva.org/2025/01/repairing-broken-america-where-trump.html
Corruption, Eugenics, Mediciine, SCOTUS, Religion, Bitcoin reserve, cruelty to the cognitively disabled.
https://notes.kateva.org/2025/01/the-jan-21-2025-federal-opm-informer.html
“Nobody will be able to say they did not know.”
https://eclecticlight.co/2025/01/23/create-and-use-virtual-machines-on-apple-silicon-macs/
“they should be stored in their own volume that doesn’t have snapshots made of it, as well as being excluded from normal backups.”
A useful reference.
https://samharris.substack.com/p/the-trouble-with-elon
Trump’s barnacle.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/01/musk-trump-inauguration-salute/681390/
Article is about Musk the awkward nazi, but the Bannon quote raised my brow.
“anyone has to understand Musk’s motives is a damning video, his past words and actions, and plenty of circumstantial evidence about his beliefs.”
Tweed tried to do to the NYT what Bezos did to WaPo
https://contrarian.substack.com/p/of-for-and-by-the-billionaires
Americans threw America away. I hope they miss it.
King and barons before the pope vibe.