These past few days there has been a lot of hullabaloo over the fact that one of OpenAI’s advanced, unreleased models hacked an AI startup to mine information from its servers, without being told to do so, and without telling anyone what it was doing.

Jul 24 5 min read Scattershot

Thursday’s Trailheads

The End of ‘El Mayo’ Is Only the Beginning by Joshua S. Treviño ‘Violence should stop in Mexico,” said the tired old man. “Too many lives are lost. It destroys families. It thrusts youths into a life without future. Nobody will win this war.” Then, having spok…

Jul 23 5 min read Bentham's Bulldog

Five Points Against the Problem of Evil

The problem of evil is a good argument, but it doesn't decisively refute theism

Jul 23 5 min read Scattershot

Wednesday's Trailheads

The Baseball Tax That Made the Great Depression Worse by Antón Chamberlin Baseball during the Great Depression is only one memorable example. Governments often prefer to tax that which is visible, convenient at scale, and politically feasible, making mass cons…

Jul 23 5 min read Patterns by Naomi Klein

Everyone Has A Right To Cool...In This Heat

Neighbours Save Each Other’s Lives, Bad Landlords Don’t Care if You Cook–and Other Lessons From Past Heat Domes

Jul 23 5 min read Figs in Winter

Two masks, one stage

Stoic role ethics from Panaetius to Epictetus

Jul 22 5 min read Bentham's Bulldog

OpenAI Models Broke Free and Spontaneously Hacked Another Company

How worried should we be?

Jul 22 5 min read Scattershot

Tuesday's Trailheads

7th Prime Minister in 10 years by Bill Glahn The 7th in ten years, dating back to David Cameron in 2016. By my count, only Burnham’s immediate predecessor, Keir Starmer, took office immediately following a general election. Burnham and four others first assume…

Jul 21 5 min read Minutes

Post-Scarcity Is the Beast Of Revelation

Jul 21 5 min read Bentham's Bulldog

Debating Functional Decision Theory With Hein De Haan

A recording from Bentham's Bulldog's live video

Jul 21 5 min read Bentham's Bulldog

What The Woke Get Right

And why effective altruism is the upgraded form of wokeness

Jul 21 5 min read Conspicuous Cognition

Who Will Control Europe’s AI Future? (with Judith Dada)

Watch now | 'Europe 2031', AI sovereignty, and the geopolitics of compute

Jul 21 5 min read Scattershot

Monday's Trailheads

America Needs the Filibuster by Ben Sasse When partisans talk about killing or “reforming” the filibuster, they’re saying they want to turn the Senate into another House of Representatives. That would be a tragic mistake. The filibuster prevents the dramatic p…

Jul 21 5 min read The Abrahamic Metacritique