All-in-all (or non-all lol), I will still post here, but if you want to keep up with me more regularly, see what I’m making a doing more regularly, etc. Find me over at @noahdesign_.
I still read theory, and talk politics, but as my career has progressed in Tech + Design I am mainly over here at: @noahdesign_
I could combine my accounts, but I feel the reason most people follow me here outside of friends is for Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics.
Dario Amodei just gave his first interview since the Pentagon blacklisted his company. The toll is visible on his face.
He was asked one question. What would you say to the President right now?
He didn’t hesitate.
Amodei: “We are patriotic Americans. Everything we have done has been for the sake of this country.”
Anthropic built their models to defend America. They were the first AI lab cleared for classified military systems. They wanted to help the warfighter.
But the Pentagon demanded unrestricted access to fully autonomous weapons and mass surveillance of American citizens.
Amodei drew the line.
The government responded with emergency Cold War powers. A supply chain designation normally reserved for foreign adversaries. A six-month federal phaseout ordered from Truth Social.
Amodei: “When we were threatened with supply chain designation and Defense Production Act, which are unprecedented intrusions into the private economy, we exercised our classic First Amendment rights to speak up and disagree with the government.”
The administration framed Anthropic’s refusal as anti-American.
Amodei’s response dismantled that framing in one sentence.
Amodei: “Disagreeing with the government is the most American thing in the world.”
Here is the deeper paradox nobody in Washington wants to say out loud.
We are in a geopolitical race against autocratic adversaries who use AI for mass surveillance of their own citizens and autonomous weapons with no human oversight.
The Pentagon demanded that Anthropic build those exact capabilities for America.
Amodei: “The red lines we have drawn, we drew because we believe that crossing those red lines is contrary to American values.”
You cannot defeat authoritarianism by adopting its methods.
You cannot defend the open society by forcing private companies to build its antithesis under threat of wartime emergency powers.
Anthropic held the line. Got blacklisted for it. And came out the other side saying the same thing they said going in.
That is what it actually looks like to mean it.
And then if we add the fact I am pitching to executives this week, my brain is firing on all cylinders.
This isn’t a complaint though, I genuinely love what I do. It’s just wild when I take a step back and look at it all.
Being a “Unicorn” is great and all, but sometimes I look at my 3 monitors.. and I see my local IDE, a Google App Script IDE, an After Effects window, a Figma window, a WordPress tab, and several tabs of different Google Slides… and I realize how insane it all looks.
If it something to be created, built, or designed, I’m basically “The Guy” especially when it’s an overlap of something Creative and Technical.
It’s awesome, but dude if I didn’t use obsidian to keep track of everything I’d probably lose my mind.
Working on my Portfolio, because it desperately needs an update. So work in progress.
Playing with shaders in Framer, and using Geist Pixel has been an awesome experience.
No one talks about this, but the secret to creative excellence is having 8 projects with concurrent deadlines and overlapping meetings and being in a constant state of panic