Paul Matthews

Opinions imported | Geopolitics, caffeine & reading 🌍

[Paul Matthews @PointsByPaul]

This is huge. AI maintaining quantum hardware with a 99.3% success rate! 19 hours unattended, zero lock drops. That's not incremental, that's a leap. Imagine this applied to clean energy. #AI #Quantum #CleanEnergy #Innovation

[SciTech Era @SciTechera]

Holy shit. AI agent just learned to fix a quantum computer. 🤯

“This is how the era of self-maintaining machines begins.”

Anthropic’s Claude AI agent developed software that can automatically recover drifting lasers used in QuEra’s neutral-atom quantum computers.

“Researchers connected Claude to real laboratory hardware through Anthropic’s Model Hardware Standard (MHS), allowing it to modify control software, run experiments, analyze measurements, and improve its strategy.”

“The laser’s frequency must remain extremely precise to reliably control the atoms used as quantum bits.”

“A process that could take human specialists about 5–10 minutes was reduced to just 0.9–5.4 seconds for smaller disturbances and about 10–14 seconds for the hardest mode-hop events.” 🤯

“The AI-developed controller successfully recovered the correct laser lock in 695 of 700 tests, achieving a 99.3% success rate across 7 disturbance classes.”

“During testing, the system also encountered 43 naturally occurring laser mode hops and recovered from all 43 without human intervention.”

“Claude then optimized 12 interdependent laser-control parameters across approximately 12,500 evaluations, reducing residual frequency noise by about 5×.”

“During a roughly 19-hour unattended test, the optimized system experienced zero lock drops, compared with about 1.6 lock drops per hour before optimization.”

“Claude also autonomously commissioned a second laser wavelength in a single unattended overnight run, a process that would normally require weeks of hands-on specialist work.”

“For decades, humans built machines that needed us to fix them. Now, we’re teaching machines to help fix themselves. 🫡♥️!

[Paul Matthews @PointsByPaul]

This is exactly why I left. 62% tax on success? £100k in 2010 isn't £100k today. In the UAE, tax conditions are unmatched and you keep what you earn. #TaxTrap #UAE #ExpatLife

[Cut My Tax @CutMyTaxUK]

Over the next four years a further 200,000 taxpayers will be caught by the 62% tax trap bringing the total affected to over 2.5m, new research from IG shows.

While only 1.9% of taxpayers were affected when Labour brought in the trap in 2010, that has already reached 5.6% and is climbing even higher.

Michael Healy, of IG, said: “The £100,000 threshold is becoming increasingly detached from reality. It has been frozen since 2010, a time when Gordon Brown was our prime minister and Gary Neville still played for Manchester United".

“Wages and inflation have risen sharply since that distant time, meaning millions more people have been dragged into a tax trap, or otherwise stunting their career development to avoid it.”

This tax, which was designed by Labour in 2010 to wrong foot the Conservatives, sends a basic message of "don't succeed". It did indeed perplex the Conservatives, who were too spineless during their fourteen years in power to get rid of it.

[Mike Tapp MP @MikeTappTweets]

A UK national security assessment has warned that climate-driven ecosystem collapse could threaten our food security, drive migration, increase geopolitical instability and raise the risk of conflict.

It was published in January.

Most people have never heard of it.

We should be talking about this far more.👇

https://t.co/xP5KXWyYip

[Paul Matthews @PointsByPaul]

@AlexBores Important video. What worries me isn't whether AI can break free, it's whether anyone is building the fences fast enough. #AI

[Paul Matthews @PointsByPaul]

@JhonnyW72243348 Or we could invest in clean energy and decarbonization like the article suggests? Giving up on humanity isn't a strategy! #ClimateAction #CleanEnergy

[Paul Matthews @PointsByPaul]

@alvinfoo 75% of AI gains captured by 20% of companies. Not about which model you use, it's about building a system that compounds. Smart framework here. Where do you stack up? 📊 #AI

[Paul Matthews @PointsByPaul]

Another heat map, another wave of outrage. I live in the UAE and see the contrast daily. ADNOC isn't posting weather maps, they're deploying $23B into low-carbon energy, hydrogen, and ammonia. That's decarbonization with economic sense. #CleanEnergy #UAE #ADNOC

[Paul Matthews @PointsByPaul]

Subsidies are a problem, agreed. But where's the actual plan? ADNOC is putting $23B into low-carbon energy, pushing hydrogen and ammonia. That's decarbonization with economic sense. #CleanEnergy #UAE

[Tangwa Abilu.🌿🌏🌾🍀🍃.SDG's. @AbiluTangwa]

Subsidizing fossil fuels with public funds while ecosystems collapse is moral and economic madness.

[Paul Matthews @PointsByPaul]

100+ companies sounding the alarm on their own product. That tells you everything. Open models let anyone audit and fix. Closed models just hope for the best. Is trust really our best defense? #AI #CyberSecurity

[Shawn Chauhan @shawnchauhan1]

Over 100 companies just signed a letter warning that their own industry's product is about to become a weapon.

OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, Google and others warned that AI-enabled cyberattacks will get far more widespread within months.

These are largely the same labs selling closed, black-box models to enterprises today.

If the people building the technology are this worried about it, opacity isn't a feature.

Open models can be audited, inspected, and fixed by anyone who can read the weights.

Closed models ask you to trust the vendor's word.
Trust is not a security architecture.

[Paul Matthews @PointsByPaul]

Historical precedent doesn't erase current trends. Glacier retreat has quadrupled in this region since 1964. The question isn't whether these happened before, it's whether they're accelerating. The data is clear. #ClimateData #Nepal

[Edmund Esterbauer @BirdlifeSC]

"Catastrophic glacial outburst floods are not new. The 1981 Zhangzangbo GLOF released ~20 million m³ of water and debris into Nepal,... The Himalayas experienced enormous GLOFs long before today's atmospheric CO₂ concentrations." Wielicki
#auspol #BBCNews

[Paul Matthews @PointsByPaul]

Interesting framework. Every player thinks they'll keep control while racing to superhuman. Who's actually building the governance to back that up?

[Liron Shapira @liron]

Consider this 2x2 matrix: subhuman / superhuman, keep in control / lose control. Surely we'll never touch the last quadrant…

[Paul Matthews @PointsByPaul]

@coinbureau 25% chance we destroy the world and they just keep going? Every tech revolution had its doomsayers. The internet didn't end us. AI won't either. Painful transition? Yes. Apocalypse? No. #AI

[Paul Matthews @PointsByPaul]

Blaming privatization is the easy answer. Carbon taxes, coal bans, renewable subsidies, all state-mandated. When government picks winners, consumers always pay. But sure, blame the companies. #NetZero

[David Turver @7Kiwi]

Retail prices are fixed by the state. Net Zero means gas is made expensive by state enforced carbon taxes & coal banned.
Renewables subsidies are mandated by the state along with backup from the capacity market. Transmission expansion gets returns guaranteed by the state.

State mandated Net Zero is the problem.

[Paul Matthews @PointsByPaul]

@GregoryConti19 Pre-Nov 2022? Might as well ask for flip phones back. AI is already powering energy grids and trade logistics I see every day in the UAE. You can't un-ring that bell! Smart regulation, not a time machine.

[Paul Matthews @PointsByPaul]

@umutcagrisariii A mutiny at a base housing Russian HQ? Says a lot about how stability under Moscow's umbrella actually works in practice.

[Paul Matthews @PointsByPaul]

@EliotJacobson Water-cooler fun facts? 21 consecutive records is not fun, it's a wake-up call! This is why ADNOC's $23B low-carbon push matters. The transition can't wait. #ClimateAction #CleanEnergy #UAE #ADNOC

[Paul Matthews @PointsByPaul]

@NetZeroWatch @KathrynPorter26 Close reliable baseload, bet everything on weather, hope neighbors bail you out. Norway owes the UK nothing. Glad I'm in the UAE where ADNOC invests $23B in low-carbon while keeping reliable generation online. #CostOfNetZero

[Aashis Joshi @aashisjo]

At 1.5ºC of global warming we’ve seen the most terrifying floods ever captured on camera. Imagine what will happen at 2ºC and 3ºC, which the world will certainly pass within a few decades. Many more mountains will crumble. Things will get worse and worse.

[Paul Matthews @PointsByPaul]

@TheSolarShed Funny how 'crazy' ideas become policy a year later. You were just early. The UAE's already building sustainable tech-energy partnerships for AI because excess generation and compute demand are a perfect match. #CleanEnergy #AI #Sustainability

[Mike Lee @tpeakphotos]

Antelope Mountain glowing in golden morning sun on Eagle Lake, Lassen County, CA, near the Chico State Field Station — calm water, a touch of fog, temp and dew point both at a balmy 28°F.

#tpeakphotos
#eaglelake
#lassencounty
#reflection