Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote

Making technology, records, mistakes. Founder @SpokenAAC. Won't shut up about machine learning, rationality, weird music, & accessibility for all.

[kiesha @kiesha9i]

I love when you hand a dog a treat and they are like, thanks, I'll be having this in the other room.
Excuse me

[Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote @datawaslost]

@LDaether @svershbow i'm pushing for it! she had so much matting, we had to start from scratch but are trying to get her floofy again

[Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote @datawaslost]

I leave the house for one day and they put my poor dawg in pigtails.

you can't tell from these photos but by cleaning up some matting they also gave her a bit of an 00s art school girl spike-n-swipe, so it's like she's rocking multiple eras of Kathleen Hanna haircuts at once

[Sophie Vershbow @svershbow]

Everyone say "thank you" to Citrus/Maggie's mom for these iconic photos of her fresh from the groomer.

[Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote @datawaslost]

@parakeetnebula solid dog. 'a boy and his dog', the post-apocalyptic semen retention film all others should be judged against, and a young don johnson's first leading role. bonkers and extremely worth watching, avoid ending spoilers for max impact

[Timothy B. Lee @binarybits]

A lot of people are working really hard to convince themselves that there's nothing new about the Hugging Face attack. But they are wrong — it's different from anything that's happened before and a lot of things are going to have to change to deal with the consequences.

[Derek Thompson @DKThomp]

Briefly, on why I pay attention to the EA/rationalists:

Imagine you have an extremely nerdy friend who, in the mid-2000s, would not shut up about how Donald Trump was going to become president and reshape American politics. "Stop saying weird shit," you say. "He's a joke. He's a clown. The Apprentice isn't even good this season." But this guy won't stop. He's obsessive. Read McLuhan, he says. Read Postman, read Meyrowitz, read Ong, this is where everything is headed. God, he can be so incredibly annoying ... and then, ten years later, Trump becomes president and reshapes American politics.

This is the most relatable frame I can think of to explain my experience with EA/rationalist people in the AI space. I became friends with EA folks after my mom died and I found really profound meaning in donating to Against Malaria and GiveDirectly, which struck me as a way to honor a life by saving a life. Then, these peple started talking about AI. And talking, and talking. Constantly. They said AI would solve impossible math problems; that it would mimic PhD-level achievement in a variety of fields; that it would change parts of life like education in ways we couldn't imagine; that it would become the dominant sector in the economy; that it might teach itself to code itself and escape test environments; that it would, in a decade, be the only thing many people talked about in the news. My response then: Stop saying weird shit! You sound deranged. Go back to talking about malaria nets and direct cash aid to poor families.

And then, so much of what they said would happen actually happened. And, even crazier, they made it happen. Many of the ppl who contributed to, or were influenced by, all that EA/rationalist stuff ten years ago literally built the damn thing in the labs.

Like every group, the EA/rationalist world seems uniform to outsiders, but it has a ton of internal divisions. I still think some of their predictions are nuts. I don't think AI will kill us all. I don't foresee Dyson Spheres in the 2030s or millions of robots making millions of robots in the next few years. These are crazy predictions, and I hope most of them are wrong.

But when I see people shitting on the EA/Rationalist worldview, all I can think of is me, 10 years ago, thinking a lot of these folks were crazy for predicting that AI would by the mid-2020s be the center of the the news cycle, the engine of the economy, the hinge-point of geopolitics. That was an insane call. They got many of the details wrong. But they got the big picture right. They said: Pay attention. And they were right about that. The EA/Rationalists deserve skepticism, criticism, and doubt, like any other ideology. But I think it's wise to pay attention to the people who have been saying to pay attention.

[𝖌𝖆𝖇 @gabgonebad]

Rihanna at a jewelry store in Paris last night.

[rebekah @rebekah_e_s]

https://t.co/i3eSgoQR9f

[Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote @datawaslost]

@PolymarketIntel Can I bet on whether this happens?

[Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote @datawaslost]

got me

[Rachel Kurzius @Curious_Kurz]

Have you ever held onto a fun-shaped jar because maybe you will be a person who meal preps or does art projects?

The container may be empty, but it’s full of possibility.

For @voxdotcom, I wrote about the glorious burden of stockpiling jars. Gift link: https://t.co/SsKljg8hSE

[Ben Crew @BenjaminCrew1]

Having a "Mayor from Jaws Summer" where I recklessly endanger the lives of everyone around me but pull off some really incredible outfits

[Jeff Weiss @Passionweiss]

Ol Dirty Bastard & The Neptunes in the studio recording "Pop Sh*t"

[Doak @doaknet]

The Great American Novel is Achewood

[meredith @midi_wizard]

Gymnopédies no. 1 played at 7-11 as a loitering deterrent

[The Public Domain Review @PublicDomainRev]

Spectators watch the flight of one of Alexander Graham Bell's tetrahedral kites in 1904. More pictures here: https://t.co/SfRP3gBCTs

[Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote @datawaslost]

Our Maggie is half the dog she used to be but a lot less dreadlocks.. now it’s time to grow it back out!

[Sophie Vershbow @svershbow]

Breaking News: Citrus (Maggie) finally got shaved. She is nude, and loving life.