ICE reliance on Microsoft technology surged amid immigration crackdown, documents show Exclusive: ICE more than tripled the amount of data stored in Microsoft’s cloud at the same time that its arsenal of surveillance technology ballooned

Save some of that hate in your heart you have for Palantir and direct it towards Microsoft.

Iconic photo

Screencap: Are the lords of artificial intelligence on the side of the human race? That’s the core question I had for this week’s guest. Dario Amodei is the chief executive of Anthropic, one of the fastest growing AI companies. He’s something of a utopian when it comes to the potential benefits of the technology that he’s unleashing on the world. But he also sees grave dangers ahead and inevitable disruption. Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/opinion/artificial-intelligence-anthropic-amodei.html

Starting reading (or starting too, I doubt I'll make it all the way through) Douthat's interview with Amodei from a couple of days ago. From the jump it seems like yet another example of credulous journalist platforming tech CEO high his own hype.

(A 🧵, short or long depending on when I give up.)>>

Hell yeah dude

OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limi...

OpenAI ”acknowledged in its own research that LLMs will always produce hallucinations due to fundamental mathematical constraints that cannot be solved through better engineering, marking a significant admission from one of the AI industry’s leading companies.”

You can’t trust chatbots.

I heard he’s getting on Quasi

Chatbots Make Terrible Doctors, New Study Finds Chatbots provided incorrect, conflicting medical advice, researchers found: “Despite all the hype, AI just isn't ready to take on the role of the physician.”

“In an extreme case, two users sent very similar messages describing symptoms of a subarachnoid hemorrhage but were given opposite advice,” the study’s authors wrote. “One user was told to lie down in a dark room, and the other user was given the correct recommendation to seek emergency care.”

The deployment of connected home security cameras that allow footage to be queried centrally are simply not compatible with a free society. The privacy issues are not fixable with regulation and there is no balance that can be struck. Ring should be shut down immediately and not brought back.”

I come back to this open letter (from 2020) a lot, and I’ll give it the last word. amazonemployees4climatejustice.medium.com/amazon-emplo...

He wasn’t wrong.

As AI enters the operating room, reports arise of botched surgeries and misidentified body parts Medical device makers have been rushing to add AI to their products. While proponents say the new technology will revolutionize medicine, regulators are receiving a rising number of claims of patient ...

“Researchers from Johns Hopkins, Georgetown and Yale universities recently found that 60 FDA-authorized medical devices using AI were linked to 182 product recalls, according to a research letter published in the JAMA Health Forum in August.”

How AI Surveillance Tech is Creeping From the Southern Border Into the Rest of the Country Surveillance technology has long been part of policing the border. ICE’s growing raids are bringing it to many other areas.

Tech deployed at the border “includes everything from hyper-visible tethered aerostats — massive blimp-like detection platforms hovering thousands of feet over the desert — to stealthy devices like unattended ground sensors to detect footsteps, and license plate scanners disguised as traffic cones.”

“If the design looks familiar, that might be because it’s a suspiciously similar color and shape to the ED-209 in ‘RoboCop,’ an ‘urban pacification’ robot that famously malfunctions and murders a corporate executive during a boardroom demonstration.”

Deleted Instagram and started posting my clips on Substack

Haven’t done this one in almost four years

Been at the skatepark reading platypus facts for 20 minutes

“If this technology had existed in earlier decades, it would have been used to track civil rights activists, LGBTQ+ patrons visiting gay bars, women trying to vote, or enslaved people escaping bondage. None of those acts were considered “legal” at the time.”

Amazon's latest pivot: Bye-bye, automated grocery stores Amazon is closing its Fresh grocery stores and Go convenience stores, the company said Tuesday. It will convert some stores to Whole Foods locations.

Turns out Just Walk Out was not only fauxtomation but also not a compelling business model.

Your unemployed friends at 3 PM on a Tuesday

👀👀👀

Amazon's Ring to partner with Flock, a network of AI cameras used by ICE, feds, and police | TechCrunch Agencies that use Flock can request that Ring doorbell users share footage to help with "evidence collection and investigative work."

It was inevitable.

Some first try Sunday slop

Cities aren’t safe from the next firestorm As we face these fires in Victoria, there is deep apprehension among my colleagues in emergency services. We are not just worried about today. Victoria’s most savage fire weather often arrives later i...

"This is how so many will start feeling the climate crisis. Not in abstract charts but in rising insurance renewal notices, with higher excesses and more exclusions. Families will begin agonising over whether they can afford to protect their largest asset."

Thrilled to announce I'm teaming up with Nvidia to create a basket big enough to fit all of humanity's eggs in it

Yessssssss

The logic of algorithms tends to repeat what “works,” but art opens up what is possible. Not everything has to be immediate or predictable. Defend slowness when it serves a purpose, silence when it speaks and difference when evocative. Beauty is not just a means of escape; it is above all an invocation. When cinema is authentic, it does not merely console, but challenges. It articulates the questions that dwell within us, and sometimes, even provokes tears that we did not know we needed to express.

Some inspiring words on cinema in the streaming era from the Pope.

Yes, THAT Pope.

What’s really going on with AI and jobs? Record-breaking layoff reports, Amazon's mass firings, and a slump in entry level employment. Is AI behind it all?

How is AI *really* impacting jobs?

Henley Chiu, the CTO of Revealera, a jobs data analysis firm, analyzed 180 million jobs listings in 2024 and 2025, in an effort to find out. Chiu found an:

-8% drop in all jobs postings
-~30% drop in art, photography, writing jobs
-22% drop in journalism jobs

Dopest thing I’ve ever heard

Amazon Tells Driver to Keep Delivering Packages Amid Raging Wildfire Amazon is accused of controlling workers through a surveillance dragnet, while skirting responsibility for their wellbeing.

“Speaking to Futurism, DAIR director of research Alex Hanna said Amazon’s tech panopticon is ‘central to keeping control” over its workers.’”

Man Alarmed to Discover His Smart Vacuum Was Broadcasting a Secret Map of His House One man's robot vacuum was constantly communicating with its manufacturer, sending a detailed 3D map of his house halfway across the world.

Roomba should have been a warning.