it's gotten scary out there for purveyors of truth and knowledge. book burnings, banning, retributive use of the judicial system, etc..

If you read anthropic paper on "functional" emotions in llm's you'd have a lot of fun. there's so much research that would be so fun to do if we had the compute to spare

https://transformer-circuits.pub/2026/emotions/index.html

for a good counterbalance to those just finding out the nyt is a state dept mouthpiece at best, read about real journalists and why there seem to be so few of them, read Pegasus by laurent richard. Spoiler alert, real journalists who expose powerful peoples' wrongdoings simply get killed.

One of the journalists was Jason Koebler who later cofounded 404media. That is imho pretty legit outlet which uncovered many pretty damning stories about tech.

404media is good stuff, one of the few news outlets I pay for. I didn't dig too deep on the above comment because I have a deep respect for journalists despite admittedly many of them servicing things I dislike by choice or coercion or for remuneration or fame, etc. Reading about journalists in more authoritarian countries was seriously depressing

Yep Googlers... Metans... don't throw stones.

Glen Greenwald is alive and kicking.

Along with his zero credibility. Dude torched his career just like Taibbi.

Sure but releasing the Snowden files wasn't what did that. He did that all by himself cozying up to Russia.

Reminds me of a related principle:

“How do you know if a conspiracy theorist is really on to something?”

“Check the missing persons list.”

"how easy it is, for those of us who play no part in public affairs, to sneer at the compromises required of those who do" - robert harris

Not making any value judgements, but I can see how one might value their interpretability research higher than what the ceo says in a time where the corrupt, criminal executive branch is muscling in to everything from what's written on currency, to journalistic sources. I generally blame fascists before i blame those unable or unwilling to resist them. though obviously, ideally, we'd all lock arms and, together through friendship, crush authoritarians and fascists.

They are a private company. They have zero obligation to sell anything to any part of the government or military. The only reason they are involved in "public affairs" is because they want to profit from the government. Moreover, long before this DoW controversy, they had plenty of nationalist and anti-China rhetoric in their press releases, more so than the other AI firms.

The other explanation besides profit is that they're true believers that democratic militaries should be stronger than the military of dictators around the world, including AI capabilities.

I appreciate your point about this. At the same time AI doesn't discriminate. Its going to help the democratic and the facist altogether.

Seriously blame anyone other than the fucking abuser. These people

Not sure that quote has aged well from a close personal friend and spirited defender of Peter Mandelson.

if it helps it's from his novel imperium about cicero. the rest of the quote is great. "...Cicero had stuck to his principles and rejected joining pompey, crassus, and Caesar in their triumvirate to supplant the state. He denounced their criminality in public...in response, he suffered banishment, poverty, and heartbreak. "What good am i to my family or my principles, exiled here?" something like that. from memory. great little trilogy of books btw. got the rec off here actually

It's not sneering. Anthropic constantly puts itself out as some sort of moral arbiter when they are no different from any other business, as your quote suggests.

“I was only following orders”—not a legitimate defense for some footsoldier.

“I had the burden of impacting public affairs through my wildly succesful corporation”—poor them.

When the only question is how precipitous the empire's fall will be, it's not looking good, regardless.

That is always the only question.

In an empire in decline, sure.

All empires decline.

Rome will never fall! How can it? It has only ever grown more powerful.

But not all are IN decline..

the end of proprietary blobs has to be the oddest set of words that excites me

In retrospect, was there a better place to learn about the cruelty of the world than runescape? Must've got scammed thrice before I lost the youthful light in my eye

I'm sorry for your loss. Beautiful memorial and portrait you painted though. Thank you for sharing.

What's even crazier is the technological pursuit of EUV and what a moonshot it was. Chip wars by chris miller chronicles it and it is absolutely crazier than sci fi.

is there anyway you'd be willing to field a few questions from a soon to be cs grad interested deeply in this specific career path after realizing they'd been doing it in a way for free already. good experience, but unconventional experience who aspires to a position similar to yours?

Everyone I know who has done it, started out as a developer, moved up to a tech lead position and while doing so learned soft skills and presentations and gut real world experience with designing systems and then moved into consulting.

It’s from my seeing the lay of the land in 2026 almost impossible to get a full time job in a consulting company starting out of a college with just an undergrad doing something technical - unless you are in one of the cheaper countries to hire from.

Most besides the WITCH companies use the business models of hire people in the US for the customer facing roles and hire people in cheaper countries for the Lower level roles.

Luckily I am US based, but unfortunately looks like there's no way out of the developer grind for a few years.

I have presentation skills and plenty of soft skills but no experience building complex b2b systems. I've, for many a year, done a very basic version of my understanding of the role for non profits, business and individuals. designed technical solutions of all sorts but mostly just met their needs with existing software along with education.

I was hoping I could enter straight into customer facing roles but I suppose I was simply really holding out hope I could avoid what I've heard called, so lovingly, "the code mines". Any further suggestions would be greatly welcome.

Thank you again for taking the time to respond and offer this wisdom.