David Ha

[David Ha @hazeotrope]

@slash1sol Also on their YouTube channel: https://t.co/JkqyyBnDPh

[Robert Reich @RBReich]

Montana — yes, deep red Montana — has a plan to effectively neuter Citizens United.

No Supreme Court ruling or constitutional amendment needed.

Here's how it works.

[Peter Girnus 🦅 @gothburz]

I work in government affairs at OpenAI.

My job is federal partnerships. When an agency wants our models, I make sure the paperwork is beautiful. Paperwork is my love language. On my desk I have a framed quote that says "Policy Is Just Code That Runs on People." I bought the frame at Target. It was in the Live Laugh Love section. I did not see the irony at the time. I still don't.

We had a good week.

On Monday, we closed a $110 billion funding round. One hundred and ten billion dollars. Amazon put in fifty. Nvidia put in thirty. Valuation: $730 billion. The largest private fundraise in the history of anyone raising anything. There was a company-wide Slack message about it. The message used the word "transformative" twice and the word "safety" once. The word "safety" was in the last sentence, after the link to the new branded hoodie pre-order. The hoodies are nice. They're the soft kind.

On Tuesday, we fired a research scientist for insider trading on Polymarket.

He had opened seventy-seven positions across sixty wallets, betting on our product announcements before they were public. Over three years. Total profit: sixteen thousand dollars. Seventy-seven positions. Sixty wallets. Sixteen thousand dollars. That is two hundred and eight dollars per wallet. The man had access to the most valuable product roadmap in artificial intelligence and he used it to make less money than a good weekend at a Reno blackjack table.

The wallets were linked. Not discreetly linked. Linked like Christmas lights. One wallet was reportedly called something I cannot repeat but it contained the word "OpenAI" and a number. He did not use a VPN. He did not use an alias. He used Polymarket, the platform that is designed to be publicly auditable, to place bets on information he stole from the company that invented GPT. A compliance team composed entirely of Labrador retrievers would have found this by lunch on day one.

We did not find it for three years.

This will matter later.

On Wednesday, a petition appeared. "We Will Not Be Divided." Four hundred and seven signatures. Two hundred sixty-six from Google. Sixty-five from OpenAI. The petition warned that the government was pitting AI companies against each other on safety. It said that if one company broke ranks, the government would use the defection to lower the bar for everyone.

I meant to read it. It went into my to-read folder. The to-read folder also contains the Responsible Scaling Policy, three think-tank white papers on AI governance, and a New Yorker article someone sent me in November. The folder is aspirational.

On Thursday, OpenAI told CNN we would maintain "the same red lines as Anthropic."

Same red lines.

On Friday, Anthropic told the Pentagon no.

The Pentagon had given them seventy-two hours to remove the safety guardrails from Claude. Anthropic's guardrails were not in a policy document. They were not in a legal reference. They were in the code. Written into Claude's architecture. If Claude hit a safety boundary, Claude stopped. Not because a lawyer said so. Because the math said so. You could fire every lawyer at Anthropic and the model would still refuse.

You cannot remove code with a contract amendment.

You can remove a contract reference by Tuesday. I checked.

Anthropic said no.

By that evening, the Pentagon had designated them a supply-chain risk. I have worked in government procurement for eight years. Government paperwork does not move in hours. I have waited nine weeks for a badge renewal. I once spent four months getting a PDF notarized. This designation moved in hours. The document was pre-written. Formatted before the deadline expired. Calibri 11pt. Consistent margins. Somebody wanted this very badly. I respect the craft. I do not think about the implication. That is not my scope.

Within hours, we had signed the replacement contract.

I was proud of the turnaround. My team moved fast. Legal moved fast. Everyone moved fast. We are very good at moving fast. We are not always sure what we are moving toward, but the speed is impressive and the hoodies are soft.

The contract referenced DoD Directive 3000.09, which governs autonomous weapon systems. The directive requires "appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force." The word "appropriate" is not defined. This is not an oversight. This is the point. The word "appropriate" is the most load-bearing word in the entire contract and it is doing exactly as much work as a throw pillow on a couch that is on fire.

Anthropic built a wall. We referenced a document about where walls should go.

Anthropic's guardrails were architecture. Ours were a citation. Theirs execute. Ours can be filed. The Pentagon asked both companies to take down the wall. Anthropic said it's load-bearing, the building will collapse. We said what wall? Oh, you mean the wallpaper. Here, watch.

It peeled off beautifully. It was designed to.

Sam announced the partnership that night. The word "responsible" appeared in the announcement and in the contract. In the announcement it was a brand. In the contract it was a footnote to a directive that uses the word "appropriate" which nobody has defined. The word traveled from a legal document to a public statement without changing its font. Only its meaning. At this valuation, "responsible" means: we will do the thing the other company refused to do, and we will describe doing it with the same adjective they used to describe not doing it.

By Saturday morning, "How to delete your OpenAI account" was the number one post on Hacker News. 982 points. By noon, subscription cancellations were up eighty-nine times the daily average. Not eighty-nine percent. Eighty-nine times. Someone in our Slack posted the Hacker News link with the message "should we be worried?" Someone else reacted with the branded hoodie emoji. We have a branded hoodie emoji now. It was introduced on Monday, to celebrate the fundraise. It has been used four hundred and twelve times. Mostly in the #general channel. Mostly this week.

The communications team drafted a response. The response used the word "committed" three times and the word "safety" four times. It did not use the word "guardrails." It did not use the word "code." It did not explain anything. It was a holding statement. It held nothing. It held beautifully.

Here is the math.

The twenty-dollar-a-month customers were upset. The two-hundred-million-dollar customer was upset because the previous vendor had guardrails that could not be removed. The hundred-and-ten-billion-dollar investors were not upset. The subscription cancellations, at eighty-nine times the daily rate, represented less than the interest on Amazon's fifty billion dollar contribution calculated over a long weekend.

Twenty dollars. Two hundred million. One hundred and ten billion.

Three different price points. Three different definitions of "responsible." The most expensive one won. It always does. The math does not have red lines. The math has a cap table and a TAM slide that now includes "defense and intelligence" where it previously said "enterprise and consumer." One word changed on one slide in one deck and the company is worth one hundred and ten billion dollars more.

The sixty-five OpenAI employees who signed the petition came to work on Monday. They sat at their desks. Nobody asked them about it. Nobody asked them to resign. Nobody brought it up at the all-hands. The all-hands had catering. Sweetgreen. The chopped salads. Someone made a joke about the kale being "responsibly sourced." No one laughed. Then everyone laughed. Then it was quiet.

The petition had four hundred and seven signatures.

The contract had one.

Now: the Polymarket thing.

Seventy-seven positions. Sixty wallets. Three years. A public blockchain. We did not catch him.

That same week, we were entrusted with deploying artificial intelligence on America's classified military networks. The classified networks. The ones where the detection requirements are somewhat more rigorous than "check if anyone's gambling on our launch dates on a website that is literally designed to be publicly auditable."

The company that could not find the Polymarket guy can now be found in the Pentagon's classified infrastructure.

I'm sure it'll be fine.

We move fast.

The contract is signed. The deployment is underway. The compliance documentation will reference the directives. The directives will use the word "appropriate." I will not define it. That is not my scope. My scope is the paperwork. The paperwork is beautiful.

The petition is still a Google Doc. Nobody has updated it. The signatures still say four hundred and seven. The to-read folder still has the New Yorker article from November. The branded hoodie pre-order closed on Wednesday. I got mine in navy. It's the soft kind.

On Thursday we told CNN: the same red lines.

On Friday we signed the contract they refused.

We do have the same red lines.

We drew ours in pencil.

[Brian Stelter @brianstelter]

A statement from the family of Alex Pretti, obtained by CNN:

"We are heartbroken but also very angry.

Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the hero term lightly. However his last thought and act was to protect a woman.

The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He has his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down all while being pepper sprayed.

Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you."

[Jenin Younes @JeninYounesEsq]

I'm a former defense attorney and currently a civil liberties attorney with no political dog in this fight. I watched the video at least 10 times from different angles and at different speeds and waited to offer an opinion, which I still reserve the right to change if additional information changes the calculus.

It is very clear that the officers instigated the confrontation. The woman initially tried to wave them past her.

ICE officers have no authority to search a US citizen or arrest her (unless there's probable cause to believe she's harboring undocumented individuals, not a contention here). A woman surrounded by masked, armed men who have no law enforcement authority over her has every right to try to escape. Video shows her steering wheel is turned to the right, clearly an attempt to leave WITHOUT hitting anyone and steer clear of the officer standing towards the front of her car. That officer had time to step to the side, which is where he was when he shot her.

Even a real police officer would not have the right to shoot at her for trying to flee. This is well-established in the case law; deadly force may not be used simply to prevent someone from getting away. Given that the ICE officers had no law enforcement authority to begin with, AND the video footage shows she was trying to escape a perceived threat, not to kill anyone, the crime is all the more inexcusable.

I'm praying for the victim's family, especially her children. I'm also praying for all the conservatives who are so unprincipled and lost they're excusing this terrible crime, and gloating over a death that will leave three young children motherless, because of the victim's politics.

[Don Winslow @donwinslow]

Have you watched...

Trump and the Death of the American Farmer?

[derek guy @dieworkwear]

my naturally squinty eyes are how im able to detect small, inconsequential differences in clothing

[David Ha @hazeotrope]

@EdgewaterBoroNJ Does this apply to alkaline batteries? Or is the notice about rechargeable batteries (i.e. Lithium ion or NiMH)?

[Tracy Chapman @tchapmanonline]

Some of you are looking for a video link to the full version of sunday's performance, not just a snippet and in the best quality possible. Good news! @RecordingAcad published it on their website. Click on the link in the first thread to watch it. Enjoy 🤩

#Grammys #tracychapman

[All The Right Movies @ATRightMovies]

Some of the greatest movie artwork can come from the world of ALTERNATIVE MOVIE POSTERS. Here's a selection of our favourites and their creators...

First up, Inception (2010) by Grzegorz Domaradzki

1/61

[Robert Reich @RBReich]

It's official. On the eve of the third anniversary of January 6, the Supreme Court announced it will rule on whether Trump can appear on the ballot. Oral arguments are scheduled for Feb 8. Here's what you need to know about the case against Trump.

[The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln]

We made this pre-election, thinking that we’d never have to release it. After the events of today, we decided to post, #Bloodlines

[Borriss @_Borriss_]

Less than 31 hours since OpenAI started dropping the ChatGPT vision feature on pro users...

People are scratching their heads in disbelief.

10 wild examples:

[Alex Friedman 🤠 @heyalexfriedman]

The girl in the video below is a friend of mine from college, Julia.
She hosts a podcast where she talks about breakups, relationships and trying to love yourself at any stage you are in.

The fact that Matt took her video out of context to build some commentary that fits a hyper-negative narrative and chooses to call her “stupid” is not just cruel but flat out uninformed. The point of most of Julia’s content is to say “even if you are alone, even if you are going through a breakup, even if you haven’t found “the one” yet to start a family… there are ways to find joy through that.”

It just so happens that her Sunday joy is celebrating learning to cook a new dish and watch reality TV ‘guilt free’. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

And please, let’s not forget when we share commentary on content, there are real people behind those videos / posts and more often than not we do not get a full picture in a few minutes long video or a few sentences.

[Tim Curry @NotTheTimCurry]

Whenever someone tries to do a nice tribute post like this, without fail, an army of edgelord fuckwits descend to inform them they missed one out. I have played over TWO HUNDRED and FIFTY characters in my career, darling - will you kindly fuck off.

[ESPN F1 @ESPNF1]

Ferrari fans seeing Carlos Sainz top 2 out of 3 practice sessions in Monza 👀🇮🇹

[Shannon Watts @shannonrwatts]

NEW: A Tennessee 4-year-old was shot to death over the weekend by a 25-year-old woman who claims she was teaching the girl “firearm safety.” Police say Evangeline Gunter was shot point-blank in the chest. https://t.co/FIpvtzJqnL

[The Fourteenth Amendment @USConstAmendXIV]

Yes, I do. Thanks for asking!

[HawaiiDelilah™ 🥥🌴🌊 @HawaiiDelilah]

I'd like to address the GOP talking points as regards assistance to Maui survivors. I had a lot to say and it wasn't going to fit in a tweet.

[Auschwitz Memorial @AuschwitzMuseum]

While it is true that some Jews may have used their skills or usefulness to increase their chances of survival during the Holocaust, it is essential to contextualize this statement properly and understand that it does not represent the complex history of the genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany.

Viktor Frankl's observation about the specific situation in Auschwitz, which at some point became a camp that connected the functions of a concentration camp and extermination center and where deported Jews went through the selection process, highlights how some Jews became registered prisoners and might have used their skills to gain favor or prolong their lives in that particular setting. Yet, it never gave them complete protection.

However, we must not overlook the larger picture of the Holocaust. Nazi Germany's ultimate goal was to exterminate all the people it considered Jews (Nazis created their racial definition of a Jewish person). Millions of Jews were brutally murdered in execution sites, mainly across the east of occupied Europe, with entire communities wiped out regardless of their usefulness or contributions to society. While some of the ghettos seemed to have the goal of being productive and Jews were used as slave labor there, being "useful" did not guarantee safety, as the Nazis eventually decided to liquidate them, leading to the murder of those considered valuable as well.

There were no selections in extermination camps, such as Treblinka or Sobibor, and almost all deported Jews were murdered upon arrival, irrespective of any perceived usefulness. Being skilled or useful did not spare them from the horrors of the gas chambers.

Furthermore, during the final stages of the Holocaust, as the Nazi system was collapsing, concentration camp prisoners were evacuated to shrinking camp systems, resulting in the death of many. In these circumstances, being useful did not offer protection either.

Therefore, while it is accurate to acknowledge that some Jews may have survived temporarily due to their perceived usefulness, it is crucial to remember that the Holocaust was a systematic genocide with the ultimate aim of exterminating the entire Jewish population. It would be more appropriate to say that some Jews survived the Holocaust because they were considered temporarily useful, and the circumstances of the Nazi regime's collapse prevented their murder. We should avoid such oversimplifications in talking about this complex tragic story.