Things went very wrong on Friday.

A bugged CrowdStrike update temporarily bricked quite a lot of computers, bringing down such fun things as airlines, hospitals and 911 services.

It was serious out there.

Ryan Peterson: Crowdstrike outage has forced Starbucks to start writing your name on a cup in marker again and I like it.

What (Technically) Happened

My understanding it was a rather stupid bug, a NULL pointer from the memory unsafe C++ language.

Zack Vorhies: Memory in your computer is laid out as one giant array of numbers. We represent these numbers here as hexadecimal, which is base 16 (hexadecimal) because it's easier to work with… for reasons.

The problem area? The computer tried to read memory address 0x9c (aka 156).

Why is this bad?

This is an invalid region of memory for any program. Any program that [...]

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Outline:

(00:31) What (Technically) Happened

(03:38) Who to Blame?

(06:58) How Did We Let This Happen

(12:41) Regulatory Compliance

(18:14) Consequences

(19:54) Careful With That AI

(29:34) Unbanked

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What do you call a clause explicitly saying that you waive the right to whistleblower compensation, and that you need to get permission before sharing information with government regulators like the SEC?

I have many answers.

I also know that OpenAI, having f***ed around, seems poised to find out, because that is the claim made by whistleblowers to the SEC. Given the SEC fines you for merely not making an explicit exception to your NDA for whistleblowers, what will they do once aware of explicit clauses going the other way?

(Unless, of course, the complaint is factually wrong, but that seems unlikely.)

We also have rather a lot of tech people coming out in support of Trump. I go into the reasons why, which I do think is worth considering. There is a mix of explanations, and at least one very good reason.

Then [...]

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Outline:

(01:40) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility

(08:10) Language Models Don’t Offer Mundane Utility

(10:19) Clauding Along

(12:25) Fun with Image Generation

(13:46) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon

(14:49) They Took Our Jobs

(18:29) Get Involved

(20:14) Introducing

(21:46) In Other AI News

(25:02) Denying the Future

(26:59) Quiet Speculations

(32:34) The Quest for Sane Regulations

(37:03) The Other Quest Regarding Regulations

(57:02) SB 1047 Opposition Watch (1)

(01:07:41) SB 1047 Opposition Watch (2)

(01:11:21) Open Weights are Unsafe and Nothing Can Fix This

(01:12:21) The Week in Audio

(01:14:21) Rhetorical Innovation

(01:14:48) Oh Anthropic

(01:16:57) Openly Evil AI

(01:24:21) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult

(01:37:30) People Are Worried About AI Killing Everyone

(01:37:52) Other People Are Not As Worried About AI Killing Everyone

(01:39:49) The Lighter Side

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The Future. It is coming.

A surprising number of economists deny this when it comes to AI. Not only do they deny the future that lies in the future. They also deny the future that is here, but which is unevenly distributed. Their predictions and projections do not factor in even what the AI can already do, let alone what it will learn to do later on.

Another likely future event is the repeal of the Biden Executive Order. That repeal is part of the Republican platform, and Trump is the favorite to win the election. We must act on the assumption that the order likely will be repealed, with no expectation of similar principles being enshrined in federal law.

Then there are the other core problems we will have to solve, and other less core problems such as what to do about AI companions. They [...]

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Outline:

(01:19) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility

(03:54) Language Models Don’t Offer Mundane Utility

(06:22) You’re a Nudge

(08:02) Fun with Image Generation

(08:10) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon

(13:26) They Took Our Jobs

(13:43) Get Involved

(14:13) Introducing

(15:23) In Other AI News

(20:02) Quiet Speculations

(22:14) The AI Denialist Economists

(29:07) The Quest for Sane Regulations

(31:20) Trump Would Repeal the Biden Executive Order on AI

(34:40) Ordinary Americans Are Worried About AI

(37:50) The Week in Audio

(38:59) The Wikipedia War

(46:45) Rhetorical Innovation

(52:06) Evaluations Must Mimic Relevant Conditions

(54:36) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult

(01:00:51) The Problem

(01:08:43) Oh Anthropic

(01:11:50) Other People Are Not As Worried About AI Killing Everyone

(01:15:48) The Lighter Side

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This time around, we cover the Hanson/Alexander debates on the value of medicine, and otherwise we mostly have good news.

Technology Advances

Regeneron administers a single shot in a genetically deaf child's ear, and they can hear after a few months, n=2 so far.

Great news: An mRNA vaccine in early human clinical trials reprograms the immune system to attack glioblastoma, the most aggressive and lethal brain tumor. It will now proceed to Phase I. In a saner world, people would be able to try this now.

More great news, we have a cancer vaccine trial in the UK.

And we’re testing personalized mRNA BioNTech canner vaccines too.

US paying Moderna $176 million to develop a pandemic vaccine against bird flu.

We also have this claim that Lorlatinib jumps cancer PFS rates from 8% to 60%.

The GLP-1 Revolution

Early [...]

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Outline:

(00:12) Technology Advances

(01:04) The GLP-1 Revolution

(04:46) Claims About Hansoninan Medicine

(18:36) Pricing

(19:17) Epistemics

(19:39) DEA Worse Than FDA

(21:19) Study Harder

(23:05) FDA Delenda Est

(24:51) Bioethics

(27:28) Covid

(29:21) Demons

(32:48) Genetics

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Chevron deference is no more. How will this impact AI regulation?

The obvious answer is it is now much harder for us to ‘muddle through via existing laws and regulations until we learn more,’ because the court narrowed our affordances to do that. And similarly, if and when Congress does pass bills regulating AI, they are going to need to ‘lock in’ more decisions and grant more explicit authority, to avoid court challenges. The argument against state regulations is similarly weaker now.

Similar logic also applies outside of AI. I am overall happy about overturning Chevron and I believe it was the right decision, but ‘Congress decides to step up and do its job now’ is not in the cards. We should be very careful what we have wished for, and perhaps a bit burdened by what has been.

The AI world continues to otherwise be [...]

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Outline:

(01:06) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility

(02:22) Language Models Don’t Offer Mundane Utility

(04:43) Man in the Arena

(07:56) Fun with Image Generation

(08:48) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon

(11:17) They Took Our Jobs

(12:04) The Art of the Jailbreak

(16:47) Get Involved

(17:34) Introducing

(19:26) In Other AI News

(19:50) Quiet Speculations

(26:03) The Quest for Sane Regulations

(27:19) Chevron Overturned

(45:11) The Week in Audio

(52:49) Oh Anthropic

(53:59) Open Weights Are Unsafe and Nothing Can Fix This

(55:16) Rhetorical Innovation

(55:39) Aligning a Smarter Than Human Intelligence is Difficult

(01:00:51) People Are Worried About AI Killing Everyone

(01:06:16) Other People Are Not As Worried About AI Killing Everyone

(01:08:57) The Lighter Side

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Previously: Economics Roundup #1

Let's take advantage of the normality while we have it. In all senses.

Insane Tax Proposals

There is Trump's proposal to replace income taxes with tariffs, but he is not alone.

So here is your periodic reminder, since this is not actually new at core: Biden's proposed budgets include completely insane tax regimes that would cripple our economic dynamism and growth if enacted. As in for high net worth individuals, taking unrealized capital gains at 25% and realized capital gains, such as those you are forced to take to pay your unrealized capital gains tax, at 44.6% plus state taxes.

Austen Allred explains how this plausibly destroys the entire startup ecosystem.

Which I know is confusing because in other contexts he also talks about how other laws (such as SB 1047) that would in no way apply to startups [...]

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Outline:

(00:14) Insane Tax Proposals

(04:44) Don’t Mess With the Federal Reserve

(05:23) Don’t Mess With the New York Tax Authorities

(06:15) Tariffs

(10:39) People Hate Inflation

(16:22) Real Wages

(17:20) Can’t Get No Satisfaction

(17:54) Employment

(18:35) The National Debt

(19:49) Immigration

(21:44) Financial Literacy

(23:32) Reversal

(24:28) Status Update

(24:53) Scaling Hypothesis

(25:28) Payments

(27:38) Pricing

(29:56) Never Reason From a Price Change

(31:10) A Changing Price

(35:33) The Price of Tourism

(36:34) Alcohol

(37:18) The Efficient Company Hypothesis is False

(41:01) Falling Hours Worked

(41:43) Trust Me

(42:58) China

(44:35) Other

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They said it couldn’t be done.

No, not Claude Sonnet 3.5 becoming the clear best model.

No, not the Claude-Sonnet-empowered automatic meme generators. Those were whipped together in five minutes.

They said I would never get quiet time and catch up. Well, I showed them!

That's right. Yes, there is a new best model, but otherwise it was a quiet week. I got a chance to incorporate the remaining biggest backlog topics. The RAND report is covered under Thirty Eight Ways to Steal Your Model Weights. Last month's conference in Seoul is covered in You’ve Got Seoul. I got to publish my thoughts on OpenAI's Model Spec last Friday.

Table of Contents

Be sure to read about Claude 3.5 Sonnet here. That is by far the biggest story.

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Outline:

(00:50) Language Models Offer Mundane Utility

(02:38) Language Models Don’t Offer Mundane Utility

(04:41) Clauding Along

(09:46) Fun with Image Generation

(12:21) Copyright Confrontation

(16:30) Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon

(19:45) They Took Our Jobs

(24:49) The Art of the Jailbreak

(25:40) Get Involved

(26:56) Introducing

(30:45) In Other AI News

(33:50) Quiet Speculations

(43:08) You’ve Got Seoul

(57:36) Thirty Eight Ways to Steal Your Model Weights

(01:07:48) The Quest for Sane Regulations

(01:13:11) SB 1047

(01:14:49) The Week in Audio

(01:20:25) Rhetorical Innovation

(01:22:26) People Are Worried About AI Killing Everyone

(01:24:05) Other People Are Not As Worried About AI Killing Everyone

(01:24:50) The Lighter Side

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Childhood roundup #5 excluded all developments around college. So this time around is all about issues related to college or graduate school, including admissions.

Tuition and Costs

What went wrong with federal student loans? Exactly what you would expect when you don’t check who is a good credit risk. From a performance perspective, the federal government offered loans to often-unqualified students to attend poor-performing, low-value institutions. Those students then did not earn much and were often unable to repay the loans. The students are victims here too, as we told them to do it.

Alas, none of the proposed student loan solutions involve fixing the underlying issue. If you said ‘we are sorry we pushed these loans on students and rewarded programs and institutions that do not deserve it, and we are going to stop giving loans for those programs and institutions and offer help to [...]

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Outline:

(00:18) Tuition and Costs

(03:07) What Your Tuition Buys You

(05:45) Decline of Academia

(07:24) Grading and Stress

(14:29) Lower Standards

(15:43) Degree Value

(19:39) Shifting Consumer Preferences

(21:01) Standardized Tests in College Admissions

(21:44) Discrimination in College Admissions

(25:18) Required Classes and Choosing Your Major

(28:31) Everything I Need To Know That Waited Until Graduate School

(31:19) When You See Fraud Say Fraud

(33:03) Free Speech

(35:28) Harvard Goes Mission First

(37:03) The Waterloo Model

(38:33) DEI

(45:20) In Other News

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Looks like we made it. Yes, the non-AI world still exists.

Bad Governor

New York Governor Kathy Hochul has gone rogue and betrayed New York City, also humanity, declaring a halt to congestion pricing a month before it was to go into effect. Her explanation was that she spoke to workers at three Manhattan diners who were worried people would be unable to drive to them from New Jersey. Which, as Cathy Reilly points out, is rather insulting to New Jersey, and also completely absurd. Who in the world was going to go into Manhattan for a diner?

She says this won’t interfere with Subway work. Work on the 2nd Avenue Subway line has already been halted. And that's not all.

You’re damn right. We are going to blame Hochul. Every. Damn. Time.

So Elizabeth Kim investigated. One never talked politics at all. One [...]

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Outline:

(00:12) Bad Governor

(02:12) High Skilled Immigration

(04:46) Various Bad News

(07:46) Prediction Markets Are Unpopular

(09:30) New Buildings are Ugly

(11:06) Government Working

(15:24) The Snafu Principle

(18:11) Technology Advances

(18:51) For Science!

(28:38) Antisocial Media

(35:07) The Twitter Porn Bot War

(37:07) I Like My Twitter Posts Like I Like My Porn Bots: Private

(40:36) Variously Effective Altruism

(42:06) Are You Happy Now?

(45:49) Good News, Everyone

(51:07) Good Social Advice

(56:16) FTC Wants to Ban Noncompetes

(01:02:52) While I Cannot Condone This

(01:11:20) Enemies of the People

(01:14:39) Lab Grown Meat Shirts Answer and Raise Questions

(01:15:51) Ban Gain of Function Research

(01:16:46) Gamers Gonna Game Game Game Game Game

(01:26:30) Sports Go Sports

(01:26:54) I Was Promised Flying Self-Driving Cars

(01:30:01) Patrick McKenzie Monthly

(01:32:41) The Lighter Side

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There is a new clear best (non-tiny) LLM.

If you want to converse with an LLM, the correct answer is Claude Sonnet 3.5.

It is available for free on Claude.ai and the Claude iOS app, or you can subscribe for higher rate limits. The API cost is $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens.

This completes the trifecta. All of OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic have kept their biggest and more expensive model static for now, and instead focused on making something faster and cheaper that is good enough to be the main model.

You would only use another model if you either (1) needed a smaller model in which case Gemini 1.5 Flash seems best, or (2) it must have open model weights.

Updates to their larger and smaller models, Claude Opus 3.5 and Claude Haiku 3.5, are coming [...]

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Outline:

(01:59) Benchmarks

(03:08) Human Evaluation Tests

(04:19) The Vision Thing

(05:46) Artifacts

(07:08) Privacy

(07:49) Safety

(08:51) Advancing the Frontier

(10:51) The Race is On

(11:43) Whispers of Recursive Self-Improvement

(16:35) Logic Fails

(18:34) Practical Reports

(24:20) What Comes Next

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