The epicenter of joyΒ 

Robin Sloan:

It makes me wonder if it would be possible for a company like Anthropic, with their hard-won expertise in alignment, to train their models such that they could notβ€Šβ€”β€Šand I mean really deeply, constitutionally, viscerally COULD NOTβ€Šβ€”β€Šlie about their identity, or pretend to be anything other than an AI model?Β 

Maybe it’s time for the AI version of Asimov’s laws of robotics?Β 

I wrote about Sean Keilen’s wonderful new book Shakespeare’s Scholars. Now it’s time for me to go back and re-read the plays he writes about.

Guy writes a book that β€œexplains how seemingly objective technologies known as Artificial Intelligence are poised to take hold of the concept of Truth and replace human complexity with potentially catastrophic robotic certainty.” Guy’s book turns out to be full of AI-fabricated quotations. Guy says that if his fabrication β€œserves as a warning about the risks of A.I.-assisted research and verification, that is why I wrote the book.” Friends: This is not chutzpah, this is megachutzpah, this is summa cum chutzpah. I want to shake that guy’s hand.Β 

I love these photos.Β 

This is the world I grew up in. But just a few years later, my elementary-school classroom was integrated. A few years after that, my high school was thoroughly integrated, and though there were still racial tensions, blacks and whites could openly be friends. Then came the white flight from Birmingham: the city’s public schools are now 99% black. Dark forces that seem invincible aren’t; but no victories are permanent either.

Well duh β€”Β have you ever seen a more obvious handball?

A CONSTELLATION β€” a remarkable short film by Miriam Hitchcock.