Update: the judge in the Stanford case has declared a mistrial, with jurors "hopelessly deadlocked" on both felony counts – a big embarrassment for the Santa Clara DA, who has already said he'll retry the case.

I had not realized that OpenAI used to use “general-purpose AI,“ instead of AGI. The older meaning lives on in Chinese usage, where 通用人工智能 (general-purpose, or general-use AI) remains the dominant term.

Who will provide a full record of the AOC/Munich remarks in podcast form will receive my gratitude.

If you're in DC next week and would like to meet up, let me know! I might have some time during a short visit.

Follow Ishaan’s next moves.

would not have guessed she would embrace RBO language

recently I found my mostly unread copy of Kurzweil’s “The Age of Spiritual Machines” (1999), and last night I started reading. 1) i feel like @davekarpf.bsky.social 2) the present business about ”human-level intelligence” and sentient-or-not is very well rehearsed by the build-machine-souls crew

Does anyone retain a copy?

www.nsf.gov/news/transit... I wish I had a good read on this, but I don’t and neither does anyone else right now. Definitely not good, but not clear how bad and how fast things could change now. Still time to respond to the DCL and say NCAR must stay together. If not for NCAR’s sake, for yours…

absolute classic in the “don’t write it down if you wouldn’t want to see it in the NYT” tradition, with a dash of Streisand

They wanted cameras in schools for our safety. Some of us kids already understood this just meant dragging kids into the prison pipeline. And what did we get but traumatizing footage of April 20, 1999, in Littleton. (…which Michael Moore later used afaikt just for his own attention seeking)

Maybe the chinamaxxing is about an era coming to an end, withdrawal of the mandate, etc. 250 years is a pretty good run for a regime in Chinese history—not your longest- but not your shortest-lived state on record. (PRC by this logic could have some more kick or could just as well also yield soon)

Is this chinamaxxing?

At first I thought the propaganda system’s embrace of “a very Chinese time of my life” would end the mene. But what if the chinamaxxers gain an appreciation for the hamfisted online astroturf that irony-soaked Chinese netizens have been, um, enjoying for two decades? /tongue partially in cheek

In other words, long enough that habeas petitions can be filed on their behalf in Minnesota before they're whisked off to an immigration detention facility somewhere in the Fifth Circuit (where, under that court's current law, they wouldn't be eligible for a bond hearing).

This is absolutely bonkers

WHAT

Again, DHS must be dismantled, CBP and ICE abolished, and essential functions reconstituted under accountable conditions.

13/10

this is incredibly frustrating. By framing this as a policy demand Dems are aiding a disinformation campaign that is intended to confuse the public about what is constitutionally required.

Called it out when it was evidence-free statements that all data went straight to the MSS. Gotta call it out when it’s equally evidence-free in another direction.

Steps toward an announcement, substantive or otherwise, during a Trump visit to Chiba in April?

Will they take away any other Canadian stereotypes available to the erratic mind? Will poutine be outlawed, Tim Hortons allowed only in China, knit caps forced to be called beanies?

It’s because the magic, and humor, would be a lot deeper with actual, aged actors in now-too-tight costumes.

Just in case anyone thinks, like Biden, they can simply close family detention—Dilley is back. And it was Obama’s baby jail before it was Trump’s. Look for the people who knew this was awful before it was “maga” and listen to them.

Reinstating weekends off social media. Here’s some moose side-eye caught on the 90mm to keep you on your toes. #filmphotography

Whenever I see Super Bowl LX my Honda brain says dang, they didn’t even spring for the moonroof.

I developed tendonitis when I was Vonn’s age (a few dozen days ago) and was questionable for the “going downstairs” event. www.nytimes.com/athletic/702...

People should stop talking and thinking about the Trump Administration's National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy as if Trump himself knows what they say.

Swear to god, ICE could just announce they're leaving a city but not leave and the media will just stop covering that city completely even though ICE never left. It's what ICE and the media did with LA and they're doing it with Minneapolis too

Trousers hiked or on the floor, two tailors’ assistants at competing ateliers size each other up. Pleated Rivalry

While I’m complaining… “Homan says 23% of deployed agents will leave Minnesota” takes no more space than ”Homan says 700 federal agents will be leaving Minnesota“ and avoids the (likely desired) false impression that they‘re pulling back drastically

Boo hoo. This person accepted a position as a leading attorney for Trump. The people being illegally detained did not. If you don’t like it, resign. Meanwhile, do these whiners have any idea how hard the advocates for their victims are working? How hard it is to sleep in a smelly, overpacked cell?

once again nyt crossword conflates confucianism and daoism

Hey, remember that time I said that pointing out that AI is giving bad data to ICE is missing the point because ICE doesn't actually care if the data is good? Check out how right I am.

‘One officer told me that I "had no chance of returning to Minnesota" and that "the best thing for (me] is self-deportation." … She offered me $2600 to self-deport. I refused. I wanted to talk to my attorney. They didn't tell me the judge had already ordered my release and return to Minnesota.’

Rep DeLauro on NPR perfectly reflects the weak and feckless Dem leadership. Explains the minimal “changes” they’re seeking to DHS behavior. No indication of ambition beyond the week’s process. No call to abolish, even couched in terms of eventually, when we have power. www.npr.org/2026/02/04/n...

On top of all the acute damage, here’s the Bezos Post providing discriminatory pricing based on undisclosed personal data. One of many toxic uses of machine learning or other algorithms that flourish in the US market while China has identified and banned them.

Would be funny if people giving the keys to their social accounts to “agents” get banned for TOS violations.

China has released a remarkable draft Cybercrime Law. You can think of it as the "little Cybersecurity Law" with a much more concrete and direct impact; comprehensively addressing specific online illegal conduct and prevention obligations. www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/cybercrim...

Maybe it's a generational thing, but I'm pretty sure second guessing social interactions with ChatGPT would worsen my sometimes considerable anxiety!

Good one from Clay Shirky. On young people using chatbots to offload the anxiety of social interaction. Going into spring teaching, I'm considering classroom no-devices policies or other measures, which would remove the intermediation but may be uncomfortable. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/o...

"Criminality is so rampant inside CBP that it has seen one of its own agents or officers arrested every 24 to 36 hours since 2005." "it appears the crime rate of CBP agents and offices was higher PER CAPITA than the crime rate of undocumented immigrants." www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/accountabi...

This is an important new work. Alex Wang has closely followed China’s trajectory from environmental scofflaw / backslider to emergent, if still problematic, clean-energy superpower

One of my darkest fears: Like after his first term, folks who today are horrified by abuses in detention, expulsion to terrifying conditions, and closed hearts toward desperate people might pull a Biden and largely keep the cruelty going. This system needs to go, whoever is president.

Today's XKCD is a good way to explain to anglophone/US folks how the meaning of a chengyu works.

So, law friends, is "next friend" Xingyi Li about to get fined for polluting the court system?

Take me down to the Parallax city where the far moves slow and the near moves quickly

Union workers solved the trolley problem, you're welcome