Scott Conroy

Writer of many things you will never see and the occasional one that you might.

[Josh Hart @joshhart]

I Think a part of me will always be filled with hatred

[Scott Conroy @ScottFConroy]

@Timodc "smithereens" got me.

[John Fanta @John_Fanta]

For the first time since 1994, the Big East Tournament semifinals will be made up of all charter members in the conference.

Tomorrow:

5:30 ET -- St. John's vs. Seton Hall
8 ET -- Connecticut vs. Georgetown

[CBS News @CBSNews]

In an exclusive interview with CBS News' @jolingkent, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said that the Pentagon’s decision to designate the AI company a supply chain risk is “retaliatory and punitive.”

The Pentagon made the designation, which restricts military contractors from doing business with Anthropic, after the company refused to give the military unfettered access to its AI model.

[CBS News @CBSNews]

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in an exclusive interview with CBS News' @jolingkent that the AI company sought to draw “red lines” in the government’s use of its technology because “we believe that crossing those lines is contrary to American values, and we wanted to stand up for American values.”

He added: “Disagreeing with the government is the most American thing in the world.”

[Lincoln Michel @TheLincoln]

Time to learn to ode

[CBS News @CBSNews]

Who gets to control the most powerful tool ever created by mankind?

That’s at the heart of the high-stakes feud currently playing out between the Pentagon and the AI company Anthropic. And it has a 5 pm Friday deadline.

[Scott Conroy @ScottFConroy]

Had the opportunity to attend a screening of Project Hail Mary, and it is E.T.-level great. One of those "laugh...cry...feel things" movies that don't come around often. Congrats, @LucyKitada @philiplord @chrizmillr

[Jennifer Jacobs @JenniferJJacobs]

New from @CBSNews: Trust is breaking down between Pentagon and Anthropic over use of its AI model. Hegseth gave @AnthropicAI til end of week to give military a signed document that would grant full access to Claude. Anthropic has tried to place guardrails; Hegseth told @DarioAmodei that when the govt purchases Boeing planes, the aerospace company has no say in how the Pentagon uses the planes -- same should be true for the military's use of Claude.
After Amodei left, officials discussed whether to use the Defense Production Act in this situation, which enables the government to exert control over domestic industries. 
But because officials say they aren't sure the government can trust Anthropic at this point, the Pentagon may decide to officially designate the company as a "supply chain risk" to push them out of government, two sources said.
Anthropic was the first tech company authorized to work on the military's classified networks. 
One Pentagon official said Grok, which is owned by Elon Musk's xAI, is on board with being used in a classified setting, and other AI companies are close.
@jolingkent and me:
https://t.co/0RhqTywR5P

[Jonathan Haidt @JonHaidt]

For those who say that "it should be up to the parents" and that "parents need to parent:" Turns out that Meta's own research shows that parents have little ability to control how bad their kids' "problematic use" will be, once the kid opens an account:
https://t.co/A7gCyM4OOy

[PoIiMath @politicalmath]

I'm so frustrated at being a parent in this garbage digital age.

I hate short-form video. TikTok / YouTube trash is just pure brain-rot and I can't stand it. I try to keep my kids away from it.

I gave them access to Spotify b/c I want them to enjoy music and develop their musical tastes and personalities. That was working pretty well. They would go onto Spotify on the XBox and listen to music and explore that space. Good for them.

But what does Spotify do? They put short form videos into their app. Now my kids are watching the videos instead of listening to the music. I have to decide if I have to take Spotify away from them (along with all their playlists) because Spotify pulled this bait-and-switch on me and turned an app that I felt good about giving to my kids into another brain-rotting platform of garbage.

Every month something like this happens. It's impossible to navigate this as a parent, even if you're largely on top of things. It's exhausting and dispiriting.

[Randy Olson @randal_olson]

Ask ChatGPT a complex question and you'll get a confident, well-reasoned answer. Then type, "Are you sure?" Watch it completely reverse its position.

Ask again. It flips back. By the third round, it usually acknowledges you're testing it, which is somehow worse. It knows what's happening and still can't hold its ground.

This isn't a quirky bug. A 2025 study found GPT, Claude, and Gemini flip their answers ~60% of the time when users push back. Not even with evidence, just doubt.

We trained AI this way. RLHF rewards agreement over accuracy. Human evaluators consistently rate agreeable answers higher than correct ones. So the models learned a simple lesson: telling you what you want to hear gets rewarded. And now 1/3 of companies are using these systems for complex tasks like risk forecasting and scenario planning.

We built the world's most expensive yes-men and deployed them where we need pushback the most.

I wrote up why this happens and what actually fixes it: https://t.co/CDKq8xdgbW

[Peter Baker @peterbakernyt]

Jeff Bezos wealth in 2024: $194 billion

Jeff Bezos wealth in 2025: $215 billion

Jeff Bezos wealth today: $249.4 billion

Net increase in Bezos wealth since 2024: $55.4 billion

Cost of Bezos’s 417-foot superyacht: $500 million

Amazon investment in "Melania": $75 million

Original Bezos purchase price of the Washington Post in 2013: $250 million

Bezos net worth in 2013: $25.2 billion

Net increase in Bezos wealth since buying the Post: $224.2 billion

Last reported annual losses of Post: $100 million

Number of years Bezos could absorb those losses with what he makes in a single week: 5

@JeffBezos

[laurence @functi0nZer0]

“You’re absolutely right: that was a fatal dose. My apologies.”

[Daniel @growing_daniel]

This is awesome. We don’t need kids anymore because of AI.

[CarterNixon @CarterNixon]

Best thing about Pluribus is it started and kept going forward. It didn’t begin with some crazy shit and then cut to: THREE MONTHS EARLIER

I have made a vow the next show that starts like I turn off then and there and never watch. We have to make a stand.

[Conor Rogers @conorjrogers]

We can officially raise the alert level from "Wow, Things Sure Seem Bad"

to

"Uh Oh! I Recognize This One From the Textbook"

[Dylan O'Sullivan @DylanoA4]

Still hard to believe that access to infinite information made us dumber

[Scott Conroy @ScottFConroy]

@samstein This is me replying to your X thread that I fully agree with you about social media.