Alex Wellerstein

ok folks we have officially entered in the Demon Core AI slop phase of history (those first two images are obvious AI slop. it would have been less work to just use the actual photos!! I don't get it)

ah CORRECTION they are not AI slop, just a weird recreation still very sloppy looking www.bbc.com/future/artic...

ok folks we have officially entered in the Demon Core AI slop phase of history (those first two images are obvious AI slop. it would have been less work to just use the actual photos!! I don't get it)

It's been very surreal to read in the news all these statements that "Paris is burning." I feel obligated to point out that any burning was highly localized and long since extinguished. Paris is not, in a broad sense, burning.

All that being said, I like it when people check in, so I don't take any offense. And I'm not trying to downplay the protest activity. Just the perception that Paris is some kind of active war zone or whatever. Here's what it actually looked like on my walk with the dog today.

It's been very surreal to read in the news all these statements that "Paris is burning." I feel obligated to point out that any burning was highly localized and long since extinguished. Paris is not, in a broad sense, burning.

I've gotten a lot of "I hope you are ok and how are you surviving" messages, mostly from Americans, over the last few days. It's a little embarrassing because this stuff has almost not affected us at all in the part of the city we live (on the edge of the 6th and 14th arrondissements).

OK, I saw "Digger" and here's my very hot take: it's not that bad? Or as bad as I thought it was going to be? Or maybe actually a little good? To explain why would utterly spoil it, but it is not the film I thought it was going to be from the trailers and advertisements.

It is profoundly stranger than it appears. The complicated part is that the very thing that makes it strange makes it hard to evaluate, I think. Without (again) spoiling it, it makes it hard to know even what genre one should consider it. It's not clear to me it is actually a comedy, for example.

OK, I saw "Digger" and here's my very hot take: it's not that bad? Or as bad as I thought it was going to be? Or maybe actually a little good? To explain why would utterly spoil it, but it is not the film I thought it was going to be from the trailers and advertisements.

It has a level of complexity to it, from a narrative perspective, that something like "Don't Look Up" did not have. Now, granted, whether it entirely "works" is a different question. There were some moments I found too slow, for one thing. But I was surprised at how little I hated it in the end.

OK, I saw "Digger" and here's my very hot take: it's not that bad? Or as bad as I thought it was going to be? Or maybe actually a little good? To explain why would utterly spoil it, but it is not the film I thought it was going to be from the trailers and advertisements.

Last night I saw an advance screening of a new French film about nuclear weapons, JUPITER. It was great. It does an excellent job of painting a realistic context for a nuclear crisis in Europe re: Russia and Ukraine.

Lastly, me saying "it was great" does not mean I am necessarily endorsing every aspect of its message, implicit/explicit arguments, etc. Obviously. For me a "great" film about a nuclear crisis is one that sheds realistic light crisis dynamics, and raises serious, hard questions. JUPITER does this.

Last night I saw an advance screening of a new French film about nuclear weapons, JUPITER. It was great. It does an excellent job of painting a realistic context for a nuclear crisis in Europe re: Russia and Ukraine.

It also managed to do all of this in a tight 90 minutes, without feeling rushed. The director did a great job of letting the scenes "breathe" and also taking moments to let us inside the mind (somewhat literally) of the (fictional) French President, giving him a sense of vulnerability and humanity.

Last night I saw an advance screening of a new French film about nuclear weapons, JUPITER. It was great. It does an excellent job of painting a realistic context for a nuclear crisis in Europe re: Russia and Ukraine.

"Nukes are scary" is necessary but insufficient for real political discussion of the weapons. It underwrites literally every position on them at some level. "How do we avoid nuclear weapons being used?" is a context question, not a consequences question.

Last night I saw an advance screening of a new French film about nuclear weapons, JUPITER. It was great. It does an excellent job of painting a realistic context for a nuclear crisis in Europe re: Russia and Ukraine.

My biggest, truly biggest, issues with fictional or even semi-factual imaginations of nuclear war is that so many of them want to only talk about the consequences and skip over the context that gets you to those. And you literally cannot realistically talk about the latter without the former.

Last night I saw an advance screening of a new French film about nuclear weapons, JUPITER. It was great. It does an excellent job of painting a realistic context for a nuclear crisis in Europe re: Russia and Ukraine.

JUPITER is a much "braver" film in this respect, and is much more realistic in the burdens, responsibilities, and quandaries imposed on a nuclear-armed president. In HOD, it is never made clear why the President is pushed towards nuclear retaliation, given that there is no attribution to the attack.

Last night I saw an advance screening of a new French film about nuclear weapons, JUPITER. It was great. It does an excellent job of painting a realistic context for a nuclear crisis in Europe re: Russia and Ukraine.

Aside from being well-produced, well-acted, and gripping (particularly hard for a movie that is 90% people in meetings), it really works hard to get into the context of realistic crises, obviously aided by the fact that this one is quite "ripped from the headlines."

Last night I saw an advance screening of a new French film about nuclear weapons, JUPITER. It was great. It does an excellent job of painting a realistic context for a nuclear crisis in Europe re: Russia and Ukraine.

There's something deeply resonate about how the AI companies are leveraged up to the gills both metaphorically and literally. Like the entire business model is predicated on an infinite payday that they promise is only a "someday" away, and they treat things like resources and politics the same way.

As I have said before, I am not actually that worried about AI destroying the world in an existential sense. But that doesn't mean it can't do a lot of damage, both in its "disruption" (particularly of education and politics) and the aftermath of what seems to me to be the inevitable bubble pop.

There's something deeply resonate about how the AI companies are leveraged up to the gills both metaphorically and literally. Like the entire business model is predicated on an infinite payday that they promise is only a "someday" away, and they treat things like resources and politics the same way.

And because they're financially AND ideologically captured by the idea, and dependent on it to underwrite their work, even entertaining the idea that it might NOT be true is impossible. Of course, the tech billionaires will probably be fine either way, so what do they care, really?

There's something deeply resonate about how the AI companies are leveraged up to the gills both metaphorically and literally. Like the entire business model is predicated on an infinite payday that they promise is only a "someday" away, and they treat things like resources and politics the same way.