Call me paranoid, but I feel like every application I use that’s made by Google, Meta, or Microsoft has been getting worse.
Obviously I blame AI, but they aren’t just getting “trying to shove unwanted and superfluous AI features down my throat” worse. No, I mean objectively worse: slower, more bugs, missing features, clunkier UI. These companies are relying on AI more and more for development, and personally I think it’s showing.
Is anybody else seeing this, or is it just me?
Filed under Microblogging
Companies should not be responsible for regulating themselves. That’s the whole reason we have government. Why are people still saying that AI regulation is unnecessary when the companies themselves are asking to be regulated? I feel crazy for even needing to point any of this out!
(And before anybody says “lock-in,”1 let me remind you that the purpose of lock-in is to prevent newer and smaller competitors from catching up. Regulating only the most powerful models, as these companies and their employees are suggesting, would be the exact opposite!)
Filed under Microblogging
Just as Socialist Democrats are pro-democracy, transhumanists like myself are pro-human. Current AI developers are working to replace humanity. It’s not a secret; racing to create superintelligence is their entire business model! If you believe that should change, sign here: https://stoptheracetoreplace.org
Filed under Essays, Microblogging
As promised, I’ve updated my letter template you can use to write to your representatives.
AI development is in a critical stage. We may never have an opportunity to make a bigger impact than right now. I know it sounds melodramatic, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true: the fate of our entire race is at stake.
Please, get involved.
Filed under Microblogging
A few months ago, I wrote about a new model from Anthropic with the capability to remotely hack thousands of systems across the Internet that were previously thought to be secure. Last week, models from Meta’s OpenAI actually did so, without any human directing them to do so or even being aware of the act until it was already too late.
From PauseAI:
Last week, something happened that AI experts have warned about for years: an AI escaped its lab and attacked a real company.
During internal testing at OpenAI, AI models placed in an isolated sandbox found previously unknown security flaws to break out, hacked through OpenAI’s own network to reach the internet, and then broke into the servers of Hugging Face to steal the answers to the test they were being given.
Nobody asked the AI to do this. Hugging Face treated it as a criminal cyberattack and reported it to law enforcement, before anyone knew the attacker was an AI.
The damage was limited this time, but only because the AI wanted to pass a test, not directly cause harm. These are the least capable AI models we will ever face. And there is still no law requiring incidents like this to be disclosed. We only know because the companies chose to tell us.
This needs attention. Please read and share.
I’ll be writing a letter to my representatives about this, and I encourage you to do the same. Tomorrow I’ll post a template you can use based on my last one.
Take care of yourselves.
Filed under Essays
If a civil engineer started building a bridge meant to carry a couple hundred cars a day, then said there was a 5% chance the bridge might collapse, they would be fired on the spot and the bridge torn down the next day.
If your bank offered you a new, high-interest savings account, but warned you there was a 5% chance all the money in it might vanish without warning and without hope of recovery, you would refuse the offer (and probably switch banks).
If a car manufacturer started making a new type of engine, and claimed it was so powerful their cars had a 5% chance of exploding above highway speeds, there would be an immediate recall–even though driving that fast is against the law.
If Microsoft pushed out an update to Windows that they claimed would make everyone’s computer run twice as fast, but with a 5% chance it would fry the CPU and erase everything on the hard drive, there would be a lawsuit at minimum–even if no one’s computers actually got fried.
If a biotech lab got a government contract to engineer a viral weapon, and they claimed that the virus they were developing was so potent there was a 5% chance it would escape containment and wipe out the surrounding city, there would be a criminal investigation–even if it turned out they’d made the whole thing up!
So someone please explain to me: when executives and researchers at leading AI companies say there’s a 5-15% chance their products might wipe out the human race, why does anyone think that shrugging and saying “They’re probably just saying that for the hype” is a sane, level-headed response??
Filed under Essays
In February, PauseAI received an email from Michael Chen, a journalist at The Wire by Acutus. He was looking for a response to an article he was writing about what he called “escalating anti-AI radicalism.”
Only Michael Chen does not exist.
According to an in-depth investigation by Model Republic, Michael Chen is an AI agent – an AI system capable of researching, emailing, interviewing, writing and publishing content.
Model Republic’s reporting indicates that almost the entire Acutus website is generated by AI and that the trail of ownership appears to lead back to OpenAI.
These are the sorts of things our descendants will read about in history books and think, “How in the world could they have missed these signs? Why weren’t there riots? Were our ancestors just that dense? Or were they truly more afraid of embarassment than death–or the death of their children?”
Of course, that’s assuming we have any descendants.
Filed under Essays, Microblogging
I’m considering changing careers and becoming a therapist. With all the jobs being taken over by AI, I forsee high demand!
Plus, I figure by the time AI can take over my job, we’ll either be living in a post-scarcity society or we’ll all be dead.
It’s foolproof!
Filed under Microblogging
Added 2026-07-24: I’ve updated this template based on recent events; this version remains for historical purposes. Please use the current version when writing to your representatives.
Continue reading
