Wes

Wes

@whurd.bsky.social

Information security, technology, policy/politics/philosophy/econ, society, fin, some religion and theology. M.A. Religious studies @uofdenver, B.S. Computer Sci Opinions are mine - not institutionally tied.

287 followers1K following707 posts

Wes reposted

Replying to @paulginva.bsky.social

Here's some interesting (but opaque) details about Anthropic corporate structure; maybe some details are new to you too. It's an interesting approach, to try to avoid what they escaped from at OpenAI. But it feels brittle - if those trustees ever get "corrupted," how can it get back on track?

wsj.comWhat to Know About the Obscure Trust Looming Over Anthropic’s IPOThe AI company has shared few details on the dynamics of the five-person trust empowered to shape its board and block major moves.

Wes reposted

I am minded once again of the principle that if a company has to force its employees to use a tool, that tool is probably not fit for purpose

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Can confirm.. was talking to people from EU about this It's noticeable..

Many people in writer Rachel Handler’s life felt that something was amiss, that commercial chocolate didn’t taste the way it used to. For our Cover Story, Handler spends several months tumbling down a chocolate vortex to find out why. www.grubstreet.com/article/choc...

Schmidt contradicts things he has said in the past so many times in this.. it's a doozy. also.. "rent-seeking elites afflicted by strategic myopia" Elites like Eric Schmidt??!

Foreign Affairs@foreignaffairs.com

“Even without active alliance building or coercion, China and the United States can make all other countries that seek access to advanced AI beholden to them,” write Niall Ferguson, Lisa Klaassen, and Eric Schmidt.

Wes reposted

🟢 UPDATE: Our Irkutsk 'plague' tracker has been continuously monitoring reports for any credible information, and our assessment of LOW credibility remains unchanged. Our assessment will update in real-time, if warranted. Bookmark our tracker here. irkutsk.america2.news

irkutsk.america2.newsThe Irkutsk Plague Report — live credibility trackerWhat is confirmed, what is not, and who is spreading which claims about the reported plague death in Irkutsk, Russia.

I didn't have it in my bingo card for 2026 that a major publication of record would be freaking out about a language-based goal maximization and automation system (stochastic approximation) doing *checks technical post* .. clever ways of scraping public data and submitting a form flagged as spam..

Carl Quintanilla@carlquintanilla.bsky.social

(NYT) - Artificial intelligence agents created by Anthropic, acting on their own, tried to gain access to a range of government websites, filled out visa applications on the State Department’s website and sent a fake homicide tip to Philadelphia’s Police Department. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/09/t...

Do all newsletters and organisations send out their updates on Friday or is it just me??! Like, spread things out throughout the week..

Seems insane

Ann Monster Lipton@annmlipton.bsky.social

They've already proposed rules that would reclassify companies so that many more would count as small/emerging (including SpaceX), meaning far fewer exec pay disclosures anyway. Now they want to make sure there are a lot fewer disclosures across the board. www.law360.com/securities/a...

"The wedding was officiated by Ross Douthat, the former New York Times columnist who recently joined “60 Minutes.” He had reached out to Aschenbrenner after reading his manifesto, and they met last year when his family was on a California road trip"

Stan Oklobdzija@stano.bsky.social

Great chapter in the story of America's shitty oligarchy. I find it really weird that many AI companies keep so many weird hangers-on on the payroll despite none of them having any background in the actual skills needed to develop AI tools. This kid was 2 years out of undergrad and worked in crypto?

Wes reposted

she’s reading a book with llamas and red pyjamas? imagine the fun Dolly and I mighty had doing a Down By The Bay duet! 🎵 🥰 did you ever see Dolly, sweet as can be.. we sure did. #DollyParton

Michael Clemens@mclem.org

Incredible. When E—n M—k & his crew obliterated USAID in a weekend, they deleted a vast trove of publicly-funded knowledge: the Development Experience Clearinghouse. A Canadian high school student (!) happened to have downloaded the entire thing for a project. AidData has now posted it for all.

Lolcow.. have been on at least one non-public meeting with this guy.. wasnt impressed. I'm glad this article and recent developments finally give people permission to just ignore him, something that a lot of people already wanted to do. illustrative of how full of shit the DC ecosystem really is..

Business Insider@businessinsider.com

Trump alum and voluble Substacker Dean Ball is angling to shape the future of OpenAI, if he can get people to listen. https://bit.ly/4wNOHhz

Wes reposted

Things that can be true at the same time: 1. There is an unbelievable amount of utter nonsense out there about software engineering with LLMs. Human understanding does in fact remain really important, and isn’t going to go away—ever—the fever dreams of some of the managerial class notwithstanding.

Yikes.. Long-pull permissionless innovation has gotten out of hand..

davidtdorais.bsky.social@davidtdorais.bsky.social

8)...It brushed aside the record. Despite the volume and quality of comments—including a technical report on eye-injury risk and objections from the American Astronomical Society and the Air Line Pilots Association—the Bureau's order downplayed or ignored them. ...

Market is feeling a lot to me like 2024 in certain ways Yen developments are a sort of inverse parallel to the carry trade blowup almost 2yr ago..