aanet

Archive: https://archive.is/N1iZG

They aren’t a security threat — they’re what competition looks like.

From his keynote at ICML 2026

More here https://www.normaltech.ai/p/what-will-be-left-for-us-to-work

Talk by Arvind Narayanan of Princeton

Now is a time of great excitement in AI, but it's also a time of great anxiety in the AI community. I want to address that anxiety head on. How do we prepare for a future where AI will become capable of doing more and more of the work that we do today?

Oh no!!

I loved Andersen’s Pea Soup. Have great memories of dining there having the endless soup, on my way to Ojai, or back. And bought a carton full of their cans too.

Sad to hear they closed and sadder that it will be demolished. ;-(

One doesn't need to be a consultant to realize how people respond to problems (other than solving them).

But it helps. Perhaps. Maybe even more so if you (=consultant) leave with just the recommendations, without actually implementing them. Which is what most of the Big 4 consulting companies do.

(Guilty, to be honest. And that's why (partly) I gave up mgmt consulting)

But it helps to understand where people are coming from to realize why the problems exist in the first place.

Thanks. Just ordered

Archive: https://archive.is/20260717173446/https://www.ft.com/content...

The banks that underwrote SpaceX’s blockbuster flotation last month have finally published their research on Elon Musk’s company after the expiry of the regulatory “quiet period” on advisers to the deal. Every one recommends buying the stock. Goldman Sachs, which took the prime lead-left slot on the list of advisers in documents for the initial public offering, put a $205 price target on the shares. Morgan Stanley went to $300. Raymond James was even more hopeful, putting out an $800 price target, implying a valuation of more than $10tn.

Each bank justifies the numbers differently, but the conclusion is invariably bullish. Deutsche Bank, for example, hailed SpaceX as “the apex of civilizational ambition, oftentimes expressed in steel and fire, bending the arc of history”. The current share price of about $125 — down 44 per cent from the post-IPO peak and 6 per cent below the offer price...

SMH

Business development companies (BDCs) have lent around *$115 billion* to software firms, which represents about a fifth of all their lending and over 80% of their fast-growing technology portfolios.

Borrowers' revenue uncertainty posed by generative artificial intelligence has not affected these loans yet, and neither BDCs nor their equity investors have priced software exposure differently.

Recently, credit spreads have narrowed, reducing the buffers to absorb losses, and a few large BDCs are exposed to a shared pool of borrowers, though low leverage and secured lending may limit spillovers.

I LOVE this book! Where was it when I was learning algebra, years ago??

Thanks for posting. I wish there were many other books done similarly.

Selfishly, I'd love to see statistics, probability and advanced robotics displayed this way.

<3 <3

I fear the upcoming changes... It ALWAYS starts with a name change, then more useless features, more ensh*ttification, then users flee, then the product is killed.

Google:

- Hangout

- Chat

- Meets

- Duo

- ...

If sloppy digital pollution is the state of things to come, I fear for our species.

"Two business school professors, curious about A.I. books and whether anyone actually likes them, gathered data about 10 million books published on Amazon over the last five years. They found that the number of e-books published per month had tripled since the release of ChatGPT, to more than 300,000 at the end of last year, from around 100,000 in 2022. (Amazon said that its internal metrics did not show that level of growth, but would not share its figures.). Because romance sells, the professors thought it would be the genre most susceptible to A.I. intervention, but instead it was nonfiction — a term that should probably be used loosely in this context. While A.I.-assisted books received lower customer ratings than human-made ones, they deemed A.I.’s entry into the market a positive development, because the books were selling, if modestly. As economists, they told me, they’re less concerned with literary quality or customer satisfaction than revenue growth and market expansion."

One of the writers, Bill Johns, age 70, a retired cyber security consultant:

"Mr. Johns now has 445 books for sale on Amazon. He orders a paperback copy of each one and keeps them on four rotating white bookshelves that are crowded awkwardly next to a couch in his living room. They all feature a photo of him in a serious dark suit — which is A.I. generated. “It was either that or put on a suit and take selfies,” he said."

I love the visualization of the matches. The flow dynamics, along with the timeline, the sound of the crowds, and the goals, all look and sounds great.

The writing itself, though, is too-AI. Sorry. It sounds very unreal, forced and, well, AI-like.

Compliments on the project though.

While GoPro action cameras are built to withstand shock, the brand itself is looking distinctly shaky right now. Latest reports[1] are that founder Nicholas Woodman is propping the company up by extending it a loan of his own money to the tune of $20 million, at an annual interest rate of 6.5%, while a buyer is desperately sought. It’s believed GoPro may not survive the year without a new owner or fresh injection of cash, with Woodman’s intervention acting as a stopgap rather than bail-out per se.

+1 for pairing Samosa with Chāt :D :D

I already dont want it

More info at: https://findingeliza.org

Archive: https://archive.is/20260714123400/https://www.nytimes.com/20...

Also: Summer of Ludd - https://archive.is/GqzjV

So... that's the unlock, eh?

/s

I dont usually read rants, but sometimes I do. And sometimes I like 'em too.

This one is a well deserved read. and I find myself agreeing with @geohot

Even if the blog's title is "Singularity is nearer"

Archive: https://archive.is/20260709212011/https://www.nytimes.com/20...

Memo PDF: https://d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net/production/uploaded-fi...

Rapid improvements in AI capabilities and growing corporate adoption have led to predictions that the technology could lead to large-scale job losses before the end of the decade. So, just how concerned should we be about an AI “job apocalypse”? MIT’s Daron Acemoglu and Neil Thompson and GS’ Joseph Briggs generally agree that these predictions likely won’t come to pass, though they differ on the scale of disruption ahead. Briggs expects significant labor displacement but only temporarily as new jobs eventually emerge. Thompson is less convinced about large-scale job displacement and takes comfort in the ability to anticipate changes, seeing AI as a rising tide rather than a crashing wave for labor. And Acemoglu expects a small net negative impact on labor over the next five years, with possible larger losses over the longer term if investment remains focused on replacing rather than complementing workers. Amid this debate, we find that AI’s impact on corporate labor needs—and earnings—remains too uncertain for markets to reward (for now).

A GS report - including discussions with MIT labor economists DAren Acemoglu (Nobel), Neil Thompson

I had two reactions, possibly more, as I read this.

First - yes, I agree. This is exactly how I think. I agreed with this. Then I thought. Why would somebody write something this... simple? true? obvious? Perhaps because they came to this realization a bit later in life, I thought. Maybe, yes. That must be it.

Then as I read more, I felt a bit incensed. Does this smell of... AI by any chance? The writing looks sincere and simple, but some tell tale signs pointed to AI. The argument structure is awfully well constructed. The inflection is just as the right moment.

Consider this: "Their opinions aren’t positions they hold; they are the position."

Or this: "You can’t win an argument like this, because it was never an argument"

Or this: "They learn from consequences. They have to touch the stove themselves. Words bounce off; pain sticks."

The contrastive negation is tell-tale AI. It could possibly be human, but I've read far too many AI-written articles now to think otherwise.

---

Does it matter, though?

In the large scheme of things, probably not. One reads an article, one moves on. But in the much grander scheme of things, when tons of articles are AI-written, I believe we will stop paying attention. To a greater or smaller degree.

YMMV ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

One well-documented but underappreciated flaw of artificial intelligence models is that they tend to favor work produced by artificial intelligence. A 2025 paper in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that several large language models had a low opinion of text written by humans, creating a “potentially consequential form of implicit ‘anti-human’ bias.”

Great. Now AI is judging humans' work (instead of the opposite). Who will eval the AI evals??

<3

Oh wow. What?! Just this morning I had an occasion to go thru his site/blog.

Still can't believe it. 60 is too young.

I met Om finally in 2013-ish at one of his GigaOm events in the SF Bay Area. Before that, I had been a long time reader of his GigaOm blogs and other writings at Fast Company, Red Herring, Light Reading, and elsewhere, including his book Broadbandits. He was one of the few bloggers / reporters who wrote it as he saw it; his takes were often brutally honest and pointed. He called upon the excesses of various telecom execs during the dot-com and telecom bust of 2000-2001/2. His book Broadbandits is basically an invective of the go-go days of telecom companies' incestuous deals (now seen in the AI companies too).

I had a few more occasions to meet him at dinners around the Bay Area. He was always gracious, and listened intently to what people said. As a venture partner, he focused on the people (founder) and their stories much more on the businesses.

I had heard about his troubles with his heart (~age 40-ish), which made him turn his life around to focus on only a few things that brought him joy - writing, photography, travels.

He will be missed. RIP, Om.

--- (Update: the book is Broadbandits (not Telecom Bandits, as I mistakenly wrote)

Thanks, all for the reco.

Looking fwd to my reader soon!

I've been eyeing the Xteink Reader but cannot decide between the X4 (4.7" diag) and X3 (3.7" diag).

FWIW, the X3 requires a pogo pin cable, while the X4 requires a standard USB-C.

Anybody got any recommendations?

Thanks!

https://haveibeenflocked.com/