Caroline Pugh

ERA

[sourcery @sourceryy]

Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch (@rauchg) says the old work week is officially dead:

“You would think, ‘AI has arrived, & we're all working 2 hours a week.’”

“The opposite is happening. I get text messages at midnight from the CEOs and CTOs of these companies.”

“It’s more like 7/7/7: 7 days a week from 7 AM to 7 PM.”

[Caroline Pugh @Caroline_Pugh]

🚀

[Generalist @GeneralistAI]

We're expanding access to GEN-1.5

Sign up to get in line
https://t.co/kaM93SJkXM

[Just a Dude Who Invests @DudeWhoInvests]

Ladies and gentlemen, the greatest entrepreneur to ever exist.

[Jensen Huang @JensenHuang]

Gavin, spot on.

AI is bringing manufacturing back to America and reindustrializing the nation after decades of offshoring.

AI is creating demand that drives investment in our aging power grid and sustainable energy, powered by market forces, not subsidies.

AI is creating construction and manufacturing jobs across energy plants, chip fabs and data centers.

AI is creating new companies and industries. $400 billion has been invested in AI startups in the past six months alone.

Builders must partner with communities to build in their hometowns, earn trust and create local benefits.

We have an opportunity to create lasting benefits for communities across America and help America lead the next industrial revolution.

[Dario Amodei @DarioAmodei]

1/2 Thanks Gavin for an especially thoughtful exchange. I don't usually spend much time on social media but I wanted to engage here because it really brings out the heart of an important conversation.

First, on regulation, I think that “either concentrate it in the hands of a chosen few companies and politicians via regulation or distribute it widely” is a false choice.  I know that there’s a sort of Silicon Valley shorthand where regulation = regulatory capture = concentration of power, but I’ve always found this to be an overly simplified picture of the world.  Many people outside this bubble think of regulation as something that constrains corporate power and benefits ordinary people.  I don’t necessarily agree with that perspective either, rather I think it’s complicated and really depends on what the “regulation” consists of.  But in particular I think that those in the “regulation = regulatory capture = concentration of power” frame often underrate the decentralizing power of objective and fair institutional processes.  A crude analogy is that the formal court system can sometimes feel stuffy and elitist, but it does a much better job of defending the rights of vulnerable individuals than the alternative, mob justice.  At their best, institutions can vest power in ideas rather than people, and thereby decentralize that power.

This is why Anthropic has always made its policy proposals very carefully.  We try very hard to make proposals that disadvantage (slow down) frontier AI companies while *advantaging* smaller competitors.  California’s SB53 (which we supported), and even the much-maligned SB 1047 (which we were ambivalent on), completely exempt any company below a certain amount of revenue or model training costs from being covered at all (it was $500M for SB 53, lower for 1047 but we objected to that).  More recently the testing process we’ve advocated for at CAISI and the White House involves more rigorous tests for frontier models than off-frontier models — something that differentially advantages challengers.  Similarly, the “Pacing the Frontier” letter envisions (or at least Anthropic’s preferred implementation of it envisions) modulating the pace of the very best models while not constraining those who are catching up.  This hurts the business interests of the frontier labs and helps challengers, including open-weights!

Overall my view is that AI is *structurally* a technology that tends to concentrate power, for reasons that have nothing to do with regulation (more to do with the extreme implications of the scaling laws).  Open-weights do help some with this but are nowhere near a sufficient solution because they simply shift the concentration somewhat to those with the most compute and chips (which are roughly the frontier labs plus maybe hardware providers).  By contrast I think the right “rules of the road” can simultaneously (a) address AI’s cyber/bio/alignment risks, (b) institutionally constrain the power of the frontier AI companies, and (c) leave room for open-weights models while also addressing the specific risks that they bring.

BTW I do not think that the events of the last few months have “failed to result in [my] preferred regulatory path”.  The approach that the Trump administration is reported to be taking — pre-deployment testing for frontier models, and also testing of open-weights models when they get closer to the frontier — is one that I am very supportive of, though of course I have to see the details to be sure.  I am also supportive of Demis Hassabis’ ideas around a FINRA-like entity.  This contrasts with six months ago when most of the industry was still pushing for preemption of all state regulation and no apparent federal approach either.

[Caroline Pugh @Caroline_Pugh]

Big

[Jensen Huang @JensenHuang]

https://t.co/pppEbPVtfE

[Caroline Pugh @Caroline_Pugh]

Amen

[Aporia @aporia9n]

We should all stop with this modern obsession of having a perfectly balanced, optimised life (8 hours sleep, daily cardio + gym, eat well, deep work, etc.)

Most exceptional lives are heavily overallocated somewhere and any pursuit of greatness (in business, art, sport, research) requires big sacrifices.

Online gurus love selling this perfect recipe of life but reality is you only have a 24h day. No way you can sleep 8h, do 10k steps, gym, morning sunlight, read, eat perfectly, do 9h of deep work, see friends, maintain a relationship and somehow be happy through all of it.

I think a better thing for ambitious people is to think of life in seasons: a year obsessed with work, then a period focused on health, family, travel, etc. You can be massively overallocated to one thing for a while without deciding that’s what your entire life should look like. Balance probably makes more sense measured over years than every single day.

[Stan Lee (founder) @stanleefounder]

sf is insane

met a software engineer making $250k at a Series B startup

apartments are $4k

he decided fuck it

chose to be homeless and save up his money

he spends $8 a day getting food at mcdonald's and that's it

sleeps in the park, sneaks onto the bus to get around,

he's going to save $240k this year

what about taxes?

he set his withholdings to zero and will just leave the country with the money after a year of doing this

sf builders are different

[Demis Hassabis @demishassabis]

A strong and secure open ecosystem is important for the world to benefit from AI. We’ve always supported and contributed heavily to open source and science from Jax to Transformers to AlphaFold to Gemma open models which have now been downloaded 300M+ times. And the standards framework we’ve proposed supports responsible deployment of both open and proprietary models.

[Camus @newstart_2024]

Andrew Huberman shares a simple, science-backed trick to fall asleep faster when your mind races or you can't stop noticing your body position:

Close your eyes and do slow, deliberate eye movements to shut down proprioception (body awareness) and signal your brain it's time to transition into sleep.

Try this tonight (takes ~1–2 minutes):

- Slowly move eyes left → right (a few times)

- Then counterclockwise circle → clockwise circle
Look up → down

- Gently attempt to look toward the bridge of your nose (faux cross-eyed)

- Finish with a long exhale to slow heart rate

Why it works: Eye movements coordinate with your vestibular system & cerebellum to mimic the natural forgetting of body position that happens at sleep onset (similar to slow rocking or boat motion calming the brain). It gives your racing mind something active to focus on instead of "just relax."

Huberman: "Many people find it helps them fall asleep quickly—it's not kooky; it's physiology."

No apps, no gadgets—just your eyes. Game-changer for insomniacs or restless nights. Try it & report back.

[Bill Ackman @BillAckman]

Never give up

[Tim Ferriss @tferriss]

This makes me happy on so many levels.

[Demis Hassabis @demishassabis]

https://t.co/PTeDiv1b6L

[Caroline Pugh @Caroline_Pugh]

LFG!

[Mira Murati @miramurati]

Today we share the worldview behind our mission.

Human values don't average out. Local knowledge can't be centralized. The good future has many AIs, raised in different places, shaped by the people they serve, disagreeing with each other the way we do.

https://t.co/A14SurOM2K

[Mira Murati @miramurati]

Bridgewater used their unique financial knowledge and partnered with us on @tinkerapi to fine-tune a model that helps their analysts focus on what's important. Experts improving AI that empowers experts.
https://t.co/6RJITMG2BJ

[Robert Sterling @RobertMSterling]

> you’ll never start a rocket company
> you’ll never build your own engines
> you’ll never be able to use off-the-shelf parts
> you’ll never survive three launch failures
> you’ll never reach orbit
> you’ll never win NASA’s trust
> you’ll never launch cargo to the ISS
> you’ll never compete with Boeing
> you’ll never compete with Lockheed
> you’ll never make rockets reusable
> you’ll never land a rocket vertically
> you’ll never land one on a drone ship
> you’ll never reuse a booster
> you’ll never fly the same booster 10 times
> you’ll never fly the same booster 20 times
> you’ll never fly the same booster 30 times
> you’ll never recover and reuse the fairing
> you’ll never lower launch costs
> you’ll never launch every month
> you’ll never launch every week
> you’ll never launch multiple times a week
> you’ll never carry astronauts
> you’ll never replace Roscosmos
> you’ll never fly civilians to orbit
> you’ll never manufacture satellites at scale
> you’ll never build the biggest constellation ever
> you’ll never make satellite internet work
> you’ll never make satellite internet fast
> you’ll never make satellite internet affordable
> you’ll never serve rural customers
> you’ll never serve aircraft and ships
> you’ll never build a methane rocket engine
> you’ll never make full-flow staged combustion work
> you’ll never build the most powerful rocket ever
> you’ll never build a rocket bigger than Saturn V
> you’ll never build it out of stainless steel
> you’ll never launch Starship
> you’ll never separate Super Heavy and Starship
> you’ll never relight Raptor in space
> you’ll never bring Super Heavy back
> you’ll never catch a booster with Mechazilla tower arms
> you’ll never launch 85% of mass to orbit worldwide
> you’ll never change the economics of space
> you’ll never force the entire industry to copy you
> you’ll never win
> you’ll never IPO

Congratulations to @elonmusk and the SpaceX team. You did what countless people said was impossible, and you did it time and time again.

Today is your day. You deserve this. May it be a glorious one.

[Vlad Tenev @vladtenev]

Investors don’t naturally think, “I only want exposure after the IPO.”

They think, “I want to back great businesses.”

[Vlad Tenev @vladtenev]

Thanks for the thought-provoking piece.

My main critique is that you are overemphasizing flashy but low probability events like “left-handed bacteria,” while merely giving lip service to the risk of extreme economic concentration of power, which is very real and materializing as we speak.

Anthropic is reportedly raising funds at a $350B valuation, and the wealth created thus far has been concentrated into a few hundred (perhaps more like dozens) high net worth individuals / institutions. It’s looking increasingly likely to me that none of the leading AI labs will IPO until they reach valuations in the trillions, at which point retail investors will finally be able to get shares. In order for retail to get a 100x return on these investments, which was achievable for Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, the valuations of the AI labs will need to reach hundreds of trillions of dollars, meaning it’s likely too late for a more equitable redistribution of wealth.

Simply put, you are currently exacerbating the problem. The consequences of this are that voters may take matters into their own hands and push for either or both 1) more aggressive / nonsensical forms of redistribution — the CA Founders’ Tax is just the beginning or 2) a drastic knee-capping of the AI industry in America, which make the CCP dominance scenario more likely.

The solution is to enable retail ownership now, increasing the number of Americans with economic exposure to Anthropic and other AI labs from hundreds of people to millions.

[Caroline Pugh @Caroline_Pugh]

RT @vladtenev: We know nothing certain about the origins of evolution. What we do know rather well is the dynamics of the emergence of a ne…

[Vlad Tenev @vladtenev]

Soon, we’ll be amazed there ever was a time where humans were manually reviewing the correctness of a mathematical proof.

Mathematics is converging with computer programming in front of our eyes — leading to a closed loop where you get automatic feedback on the validity of concepts and ideas. This will greatly accelerate frontier math research.

While in many ways it’s still too slow and too dumb, Aristotle by @HarmonicMath is getting better every day — here generating 5000 lines of highly nontrivial Lean code to machine check complex mathematical proofs.