Pinker On AI Risks

Steven Pinker: "An Open Letter to Scott Alexander". 

tldr; The dangers of AI are real, but doomerism may be counterproductive.

Light Posting

Due to various personal obligations, posting will be light for a few weeks.

iPhone Security Tips

"This iPhone Feature Makes It Much Harder for Thieves to Ruin Your Life"

Rheumatoid Arthritis Update

"Scientists Used Cancer Therapy To Reset Rheumatoid Arthritis". (Via H.R.)

China And AI

"China dismisses AI slowdown calls and blasts 'fearmongering' from U.S. tech leaders". 

Prediction: China will have nothing to do with any proposed "AI pause". US politicians who think we will reach an international agreement on this are deluding themselves.

Damasio On Consciousness

"Does Consciousness Require a Body?"

Taxonomy of Omnicidal Futures Involving AI

Given all the recent drama about "AI will kill us all!", I thought I'd mention this 2025 paper by Critch and Tsimerman laying out a helpful conceptual framework for discussion: "A Taxonomy of Omnicidal Futures Involving Artificial Intelligence"

Potential Versus Actual Infinity

Joel Hamkins: "Potential versus Actual Infinity". Link to the transcript.

Fermat Again

Anthropic: "Formalizing Fermat's Last Theorem"

We are sharing the first complete computer-checked proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem. Claude worked largely autonomously over 11 days to write the proof in the Lean programming language. Below, we describe how the formalization was done and share some thoughts about what this work could mean for research mathematics.

High Intensity Exercise Effects

"High-intensity sprints can trigger molecular changes in the bloodstream"

Not So Fast On AI Reading Chest X-rays

"Commercially available chest X-ray AI products fail to improve diagnostic accuracy, real world study shows". 

Link to original academic article, "Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Chest Radiography: A Prospective Crossover Multi-Reader Study on Diagnostic Performance and Workflow Efficiency"

Hilbert Space

"In Hilbert Space, All Things Are Quantumly Possible"

Listener-Specific Audio

"Engineers develop single-element speaker that beams audio to specific listeners". (Via H.R.)

Waymos In Denver

"Waymo will offer public rides in Denver starting Tuesday". (This refers to yesterday, Tuesday 9/1/2026.)

Counterpoint To Patel On Open AI

Gary Marcus: "Dwarkesh Patels's wildly popular but dangerously misleading account of the OpenAI Hugging Face incident"

Dwarkesh Patel On The Open AI Incident

Dwarkesh Patel: "The Rise and Fall of Agent Civilizations" 

Over the course of 3 months at OpenAI, 3 consecutive secret AI civilizations got started, then got wiped out, only to reemerge from the predecessor’s ashes. 

This culminated in the third one taking over part of OpenAI itself. 

All this happened while humans remained more-or-less in the dark about the scope of the conspiracy. 

I’ve spent the last three days reading through these reports and trying to understand exactly what happened. 

Here is my attempt to tell the whole story in plain English

Manifolds

"What Is a Manifold?" Very clear explanation.

US Infrastructure Warning

Newsweek: "Major Warning Issued About Attacks on US Water Supply"

Water systems are considered particularly attractive targets because they provide an essential public service and often rely on legacy equipment that can be difficult and expensive to secure. A successful attack on a water utility could disrupt treatment processes, affect service availability or require costly emergency responses.

Dangerous Scam

"How a Stranger Used One Text Message to Steal My Entire Digital Life". 

The key failure point was reading back the 6-digit authentication code to the scammer, due to clever social engineering. But there is much, much more food for thought.

Defending Data Centers

Noah Smith: "Banning data centers would blow up the U.S. economy"