Aaron Pressman

In fact, Amodei already answered the question: if nuclear weapons were developed by a private company, and that private company sought to dictate terms to the U.S. military, the U.S. would absolutely be incentivized to destroy that company. The reason goes back to the question of international law, North Korea, and the rest: International law is ultimately a function of power; might makes right. There are some categories of capabilities — like nuclear weapons — that are sufficiently powerful to fundamentally affect the U.S.’s freedom of action; we can bomb Iran, but we can’t North Korea. To the extent that AI is on the level of nuclear weapons — or beyond — is the extent that Amodei and Anthropic are building a power base that potentially rivals the U.S. military. Anthropic talks a lot about alignment; this insistence on controlling the U.S. military, however, is fundamentally misaligned with reality. Current AI models are obviously not yet so powerful that they rival the U.S. military; if that is the trajectory, however — and no one has been more vocal in arguing for that trajectory than Amodei — then it seems to me the choice facing the U.S. is actually quite binary: Option 1 is that Anthropic accepts a subservient position relative to the U.S. government, and does not seek to retain ultimate decision-making power about how its models are used, instead leaving that to Congress and the President. Option 2 is that the U.S. government either destroys Anthropic or removes Amodei.

Ben Thompson making a full-throated case for fascism here stratechery.com/2026/anthrop...

Oh great, here comes 6G What’s in a G?

From
Oh great, here comes 6G
We could be in for some wild stuff come 2030. But is this the 5G hype industrial complex all over again? www.theverge.com/tech/886558/...

“Is this desire to demo 6G here guided by the same minds that brought us the nonsensical “race to 5G”? Probably. Does it make any sense to orient technological progress around an international sporting event? I don’t know, man. Just consider yourself warned.“ - @allisonjo1.bsky.social

Detroit Enters Another Oil Shock Making Massive Vehicles With the world bracing for energy disruption, the US is making massive vehicles like never before.

It’s more than a little unsettling that Detroit entered this latest Middle East conflict with the pedal to the metal on gas-guzzling pickups and SUVs. www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet...

The Boston Globe adds an option that puts it one step closer (maybe) to sharing on social media This past November I wrote about how a Boston Globe subscriber could share a gift link with  a non-subscriber via email. It was strictly a one-to-one feature — there was no authorized way of sendin…

New at Media Nation: The @bostonglobe.com adds a feature that puts it one step closer (maybe) to sharing on social media. #journalism dankennedy.net/2026/02/22/t...

Email Newsletters as a Source of News Three-in-ten U.S. adults say they at least sometimes get news from newsletters, but many don’t read most of the newsletters they get.

Three-in-ten U.S. adults say they get news from newsletters at least sometimes, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in August 2025. Digital platforms, such as news websites, search engines and social media are all more common pathways to news. www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2...

Sources: Amazon's AI tools caused at least two AWS outages, including a 13-hour disruption in December after its Kiro AI deleted and recreated an environment (Rafe Rosner-Uddin/Financial Times)

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Hi everyone, I earned my PhD from the Department of Child Study and Human Development. My studies, research, and professional work focus on how positive media use among children and young people… |... Hi everyone, I earned my PhD from the Department of Child Study and Human Development. My studies, research, and professional work focus on how positive media use among children and young people ca...

DOCTOR Rümeysa Öztürk has earned her PhD!!

Why I'm Worried About Job Loss + Thoughts on Comparative Advantage — LessWrong David Oks published a well-written essay yesterday arguing that the current panic about AI job displacement is overblown. I agree with a few of his p…

On AI and jobs: "You can have more total economic activity and still have millions of people whose specific skills and local labor markets are destroyed. The people being displaced right now are not edge cases." www.lesswrong.com/posts/YPJHkc...

Still 5786 over at this jewish household!

David J. Farber, ‘Grandfather of the Internet,’ Dies at 91

David J. Farber, ‘Grandfather of the Internet,’ Dies at 91
A researcher, professor and federal policy adviser, he guided students who went on to do groundbreaking work in connecting the world online. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/14/t...

Oh boy do we need Mister Roger right now!

Well this absolutely stinks. Gmail on the web won't download messages from a POP3 account anymore. But the mobile app somehow still does? So will the emails pulled via POP3 on the app then appear in the web Gmail???

After I failed to complete my rush to transfer a bazillion notes out of Evernote to something cheaper like Standard Notes in time to avoid the latest price hike, my iPhone upgraded to the new EV v. 11 and...still checking it out. Semantic search is slow so far.

Big Tech to Spend $650 Billion This Year as AI Race Intensifies Four of the biggest US technology companies together have forecast capital expenditures that will reach about $650 billion in 2026 — a mind-boggling tide of cash earmarked for new data centers and all...

Source: Big Tech to Spend $650 Billion This Year as AI Race Intensifies
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Dwarfed
4 tech companies will spend $650 billion in capex this year.
Largest US automakers, construction equipment, railroads, defense contractors, wireless carriers, delivery, plus Exxon Mobil, Intel, Walmart and GE spin-offs (21 companies) projected to spend a combined $180 billion. -Bloomberg

A little bummed to see how little Mass. tech action in line to go public right now. Lendbuzz is the only non-biotech I've seen that filed an S-1 with the SEC. Any others?

Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, and other New England politicians need to quit X - The Boston Globe Elected officials should not be lending legitimacy to Elon Musk’s toxic social media site.

Ed Markey, Elizabeth Warren, and other New England politicians need to quit X
Elected officials should not be lending legitimacy to Elon Musk’s toxic social media site.
www.bostonglobe.com/2026/02/04/o...

How many Harper's Letter signatories have denounced the arrests of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort for practicing journalism? Has anybody among the Twitter Files crew chimed in with a take yet?

Best gas masks “How did these people go out and get gas masks?” AG Bondi asked.

when they tell you to go back to writing about gadgets www.theverge.com/policy/86857...

Tesla is committing automotive suicide Tesla's Q4 2025 earnings call made one thing painfully clear: the company is no longer interested in being an automaker.

Tesla is committing automotive suicide
Tesla’s Q4 2025 earnings call made one thing painfully clear: the company is no longer interested in being an automaker: killing Model S and Model X, no new mass-market models, pivoting entirely to “transportation as a service.” electrek.co/2026/01/29/t...

Pfefferkorn is a policy fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.

Grok’s Sexualized Images Test the Limits of AI Oversight Despite global uproar over the generation of non-consensual explicit photos, Elon Musk has continued to downplay the issue.

And the least surprising, in this case...
“The worst outcome would be if there are just no consequences whatsoever as a demonstration that there is one person actually above the law,” said Riana Pfefferkorn www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

Will Pittsburgh become America’s most important city without a newspaper? One of the country's oldest newspapers, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, says it's shutting down in May. Not going digital-only — just closing. But the delayed closure could also spur some long-delayed ac...

New by me —>

Will Pittsburgh become America’s most important city without a newspaper? Or will the @post-gazette.com shutting down in May spur some long-delayed action?

www.niemanlab.org/2026/01/will...

Trump’s Drone Ban Is Corrupt, Protectionist Nonsense Dressed Up As A National Security Fix For years we had to listen to a bipartisan roster of lawmakers insist that TikTok was one of the greatest national security threats to ever face the nation. In reality, they were mostly just intere…

ugh — Trump’s Drone Ban Is Corrupt, Protectionist Nonsense Dressed Up As A National Security Fix www.techdirt.com/2025/12/31/t...

‘It’s been a challenging year.’ Trump’s tariffs have taken a toll on small businesses. - The Boston Globe It's been a year of complications and cost-cutting for business owners struggling to deal with unpredictable levies on imported goods.

“Business owners interviewed by the Globe described an atmosphere of anxiety and uncertainty as they struggled to plan for on-again, off-again tariffs, wrestled with how much of the cost to pass on to customers, scrambled to find alternate suppliers, and scoured their operations for savings.”

Linda Henry aims to deepen the Globe’s neighborhood coverage and expand in New England You can count on one hand the number of independently owned large metro newspapers that are doing reasonably well and continuing to grow. Among them is The Boston Globe. Today’s print edition…

New at Media Nation: Linda Henry aims to deepen The Boston Globe's neighborhood coverage and expand in New England. dankennedy.net/2025/12/28/l...

2025 was the year Xbox died The Xbox brand effectively died this year. But can it be resurrected as a PC platform?

Nicely crafted, @engadget.com
"Xbox didn't enter 2025 in a great state, and it's leaving the year grasping for help, like an Arc Raider player desperate for a revival after being knocked out." www.engadget.com/gaming/xbox/...

The FCC’s foreign drone ban is here You can still fly the DJI drones you already own.

DJI has, what, 90% share of the US consumer drone market? Most US players are B2B or defense oriented. Order also covers foreign made drone parts. Effectively ending consumer drone sales:
The FCC’s foreign drone ban is here @theverge.com
www.theverge.com/news/849460/...

The New Yorker Reporting, Profiles, breaking news, cultural coverage, podcasts, videos, and cartoons from The New Yorker.

Worth subscribing for this alone:
The Entire New Yorker Archive Is Now Fully Digitized
For the first time, every cover, article, and issue in the magazine’s hundred-year history can be enjoyed on newyorker.com.
www.newyorker.com/news/press-r...