A not true but very very true observation on public opinion in the modern era

John Adams: “Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.” James Carville: this, but 11 minutes long with many many many many many many many bad words

This is one of the best conversations I've heard about AI -- and I've spent most waking hours these last 6 months reading and listening to people talk about it Ezra Klein interviews Dean W Ball about the implications of Trump v Anthropic. & policy dilemmas ahead podcasts.apple.com/fi/podcast/w...

‘A.I. Brain Fry’: A second research study in just a couple of weeks finds that hyper-productive workers using AI in novel ways risk mental overload. Taking on new tasks, too many tasks. Study says managers can make a difference — in how they set A.I. policy. hbr.org/2026/03/when...

Summary: 1) Anthropic still negotiating with Pentagon 2) Supply chain risk designation has arrived via letter; it’s narrowly written, affects minimal slice of business 3) Apologizes for angry memo — says he didn’t leak it; was written amid anger last Friday www.anthropic.com/news/where-s...

Very disturbing implications for a couple of places where I’ve lived, and encouraging ones for the place where I’m from. From Pew: “We asked people around the world to rate the morality and ethics of others in their country.”

Hm. He mentions donations too. So I have some company in wondering whether grubby self-dealing is driving a radical shift in U.S. national-security policy involving a vital technology —>

The lawsuits against Facebook over these glasses are going to involve amounts that could build hotels on Mars

Trump's ex-AI advisor sees the forest for the trees: Claude v Pentagon isn't just about one company getting squeezed; it's another milestone in democratic decline. Using state levers to crush disfavored companies = Authoritarianism 101. OpenAI participated in this. No redactions can undo that

I wrote a blog post on the appropriate response to blatant authoritarian over-reach like this —>

Here are three steps to consider in switching away from ChatGPT. As surveillance-weapons deal with Trump admin sends record stampede toward Claude. alexpanetta.substack.com/publish/post...

The market reaction to the U.S. military threatening to destroy Claude: boosting it to No. 1 on the Apple Store.

Me greeting people in my neighborhood, located between the embassies of Iran, Israel and the U.S. ambassador’s residence: “Buongiorno! English? No, scusa. Sono italiano!”

Thoughts and prayers for US intelligence analysts stuck using ChatGPT, instead of Claude Trump Orders Government to Stop Using Anthropic After Pentagon Standoff www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/u...

From FDR to Trump: What turns up when you feed Claude Code 90 years of State of the Union speeches. Some patterns surprised me, some didn't. 1/

In a normal news cycle in a normal year, Anthropic vs the Pentagon would be the story of the year. The military threatening a top A.I. lab over a defining question of our century’s technology — its use in autonomous weapons & mass surveillance. Bigger than post-Olympic hockey micro controversies!

Greetings from a slice of Canada within Turkey. Whatever happens today, let’s all celebrate this; we invented the only Olympic sport where it’s mildly acceptable to punch another guy in the face. 🇨🇦

—Relying on the Twitter/X Curated Algorithm Shifts Political Views Rightward —Big survey exposes gap: Most public servants use A.I., but think their government has no plan —Google puts music creation inside Gemini Some of the stuff included in the daily AI briefing I’ve automated for myself

Nick Suzuki! My overseas low budget pirated streaming site held on just long enough for me to enjoy that live 🇨🇦

Another impressive new model is out from China. GLM-5. I’ll trust it when it can answer these questions a little differently.

Well, here is a rather interesting addendum to the Davos speech: Talks led by Mark Carney to create an EU-TPP super-bloc. Sans the U.S. www.politico.eu/article/eu-a...

What a coincidence. My automated daily AI brief had this as its lead headline today: “LLM Outperforms Judges in Legal Testing.“ with the legal community pushing back, saying the test misrepresented the work of judges. Just funny to see again today. dailyaidigest.net

I wrote yesterday about building an automated daily briefing for myself on developments in AI. Here’s today’s version. —Claude Desktop arrives on Windows —ChatGPT’s work with the U.S. military —Programmers’ fears for impending societal impacts dailyaidigest.net

Aaand there you go: Trump’s sudden about-face on the most important Canada-US border crossing came after meeting with the billionaire family that owns the rival bridge. Nice scoop, confirming suspicions of everyone who has followed this file and is familiar with Trump www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/w...

I’d say this gentleman has ambitions and they don’t involve being popular in Canada.

My initial take here: Canada, don’t take the bait. Trump would get torn apart at home in a midterm year over this and would be seeking an off-ramp.

Wanted to extract my old articles into a PDF I could show my kids someday, with the pics and headlines. Not sharing here, obviously, because nobody asked for it and for copyright reasons. Personal use only. But did want to show this capability of Claude Code.

A brilliant read on what’s destroying software stocks. TLDR: If you sell a product whose value is in its interface, you are screwed. Whether it’s a news site, financial analysis, legal or medical research site. Your value is now in your data. Protect it, manage it, monetize. That’s your business 1/2

For anyone wondering why there’s been a vibe shift since late November, when Anthropic released Opus 4.5. These are not the same tools they were a couple of months ago: “What You Need to Know About the AI Models Rattling Markets” www.wsj.com/tech/ai/what...

Hm. Pattern developing: Microsoft staff using Claude Code over its own Copilot/OpenAI www.theverge.com/tech/865689/... ... Nvidia using Claude internally over OpenAI; its deal with OpenAI falls apart substack.com/home/post/p-... Having used Claude Code the last couple of months, I'm not surprised

Greetings from Turkey. Was talking to a non-U.S. friend the other day about how it’s difficult to steal U.S. elections because they’re too decentralized. Looks like somebody wants to change that —> Trump, in Escalation, Calls for GOP to ‘Nationalize’ Elections www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/u...

Yes, there was an element of smoke and mirrors to moltbook, the Reddit for robots thing. Yes, lots of it was jibberish or humans pranking. But people dismissing it as a nothingburger are wrong in my opinion for some of the reasons outlined here. open.substack.com/pub/importai...

Two fascinating studies out today gauging the impact of AI on creative work. On balance, not great for creators — but there are some nuances: 1) The number of books published since ChatGPT has *tripled*. A veritable tsunami of slop, some might call it. /

Feels like everything has sped up in the last several weeks. Just yesterday: —Reading about self-driving car insurance. And —Seeing a discussion board populated entirely by A.I. agents complaining, gossiping about their human masters, and ruminating on the meaning of consciousness —>

Still my favorite, and the champion of this genre in my opinion, from Mr. Woody Guthrie: open.spotify.com/track/649Zk1...

I cannot stress how completely bizarre & unheard of it is for the DNI to be personally present for a search warrant execution, never mind this one.

A striking essay from the CEO of Anthropic warning that AI without safeguards could lead to the end of democracy and a return to feudalism. He proposes certain internal safeguards for AI companies but also societal ones like: 1/ www.darioamodei.com/essay/the-ad...

1. Trump says he’s fine with China-Canada deal. Been working on his own 2. Gets upstaged at Davos 3. Goes nuclear

A eulogy for the postwar order: "A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself," Carney said. www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

Think your neighborhood gossip is awkward? Here’s mine in Ankara: U.S. and Danish ambassadors live next door to each other. Must be one helluva conversation across the backyard fence these days.

Craziest thing about living overseas is waking up Monday morning to posts from people I follow for politics like, “I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS HAPPENED,” and “Wow!” And, “HOLY CRAP,” and I’m making mental preparations to live in a bunker before realizing it’s about NFL football.

An OpenAI economics researcher quits, saying the company behind ChatGPT is burying research on painful economic consequences of A.I. and only interested in publishing propaganda. Piece here contrasts this with Anthropic publicly making dire claims about mass job losses. medium.com/predict/open...

Today’s news is making me think of a conversation I had with a prominent Canadian official, fuming that the U.S. was negotiating trade liberalization with China while Canada was frozen out, having poisoned its relationship with the fastest-growing economy on Earth to please DC to little gain

Personal confession: I'm instantly suspicious of anyone who utilizes the word 'utilize'

Observation: Claude Opus 4.5 is a far, far superior writer to ChatGPT. I sometimes submit a draft to both for an edit, then make my two 'editors' argue with each other. And Claude is consistently better. Like here where it mocks ChatGPT for proposing to butcher my copy:

I did not build this app to predict a stock market crash but... What I wanted to show was how you or your institution can create a data dashboard, in a few easy steps. A project that would have cost tens of thousands is now virtually free for anyone. alexpanetta.substack.com/p/i-did-not-...

Developing…. Salman Rushdie vs the Iranian regime

After a few years stumbling through the desert, I could drink these words: "There were moments for the Canadiens when the hockey was so extraordinary it looked like the Central Red Army at the height of its powers."

Opus 4.5 is a beast. I'm using it semi-constantly. But anyone here pumping it as AGI or the start of the singularity or whatever is selling snake oil, if my exchange with it a few minutes ago is any indication. It just apologized to me for ....

Happy New Year everyone, from 8 hours ahead of where I usually celebrate it.