I read a lot of random stuff. Link Dumps are the things I think are worth remembering. Every Sunday (if I remember) I will send out my weeks worth of links. You can always check out my Link Dump Tag if you’re looking for even more to read and please forward these if someone might find them interesting.
Video. Hannah Ritchie: Are we the last generation — or the first sustainable one? Somehow I missed this TED talk but Ritchie is easily my favorite data scientist tackling climate change and the tension between progress and sustainability. Incredible video worth 12 minutes of your time.
Kevin Williamson: Calling a War a War. There are many times I find Williamson a bit of a smug know-it-all. Sort of like looking in a mirror. But I do appreciate a good screed even if it boiled down to just one more strong illustration of Trump and Vance are huge fucking liars.
Noah Smith: AI keeps stubbornly refusing to take our jobs. I cannot help but feel that AI has lead to quite a lot of moral panic, so I see Smith’s point here but I guess I’m still a little on the “everything is changing, it’s just not changing fast enough yet to see all the stuff.” Worth a read.
Ben Thompson: Writing Things Down. I love his takes on AI, he seems to be the most aligned of anyone I read overall. However, I also like…
Sean Goedecke: Why we should anthropomorphize AI agents. What’s REALLY INTERESTING about this piece is it files directly in the face of Ben Thompson above who argues AGAINST anthropomorphizing. And this reminded me of a piece from Rohit Krishnan: AIs are companies, my friend which also leans into the ideas of treating them like corporations for governance and control.
What Makes Inference Nondeterministic? This is giving me a bunch of vibes from the Fluke book I just read where chaos theory points out that ANYTHING can tip a scale in a different direction.
Matthew Yglesias: Trump’s terrible plan to break skilled immigration
Sean Goedecke: They really do think AI will kill everyone. It’s a great summation of the worries. Reminded me of “If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Will Die” that I reviewed here.
Jonathan Bastion: The loneliness of the male therapist. A good read and from a lens different from the typical “men need to get in touch with their emotions” type of direction to I think.
Sean Goedeck: AI is breaking our proxies for expertise. I like this framing and the way he ties it both to history and to other industries. I think it’s also funny that I’ve never been interested in being “the expert” on something that is, perhaps, why I worry more about industry chaos than having my personal sense of worth impacted.
Dario Amodei: Anthropic CEO on pacing AI development. I especially like that he’s talking about China here.