Tessera

"The sad but inescapable truth is that Russia will be an existential threat to its many neighbors, especially Ukraine, as long as its infatuation with greatness persists" foreignpolicy.com/2026/09/18/r...

Will Russia Ever Be ‘Normal’?

Empires inevitably decline, and Putin’s project will be no exception.

foreignpolicy.com

Futurist at the movies microreview: "The Watch" (2012)

This note found in a TSA screening bin suggests some confusion about Greek mythology.

This kind of puts a question mark by Anthropic's loyalty to humanity. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/u...

Is Claude Conscious? Inside Anthropic’s Quest to Instill Morality Into Its A.I. Models (Gift Article)

In a series of private meetings, the company consulted religious scholars to help instill morality into its A.I. models — and make the case that Claude could be conscious.

nytimes.com

Chinese views of AI risk and safety are quite distinct from Western views -- scsp222.substack.com/p/is-china-h...

Is China Having an AI Safety Debate?

Hello, I’m Ylli Bajraktari, President of the Special Competitive Studies Project.

scsp222.substack.com

The US and Russia removed requirements in a new autonomous weapons treaty for human decision-making, ethical use, predictability, or reliability -- wapo.st/4dKgact

U.S., Russia stripped human oversight from global AI weapons pact

The two nations weakened a range of safeguards in a landmark U.N. effort to try to regulate the use of lethal autonomous weaponry. The global negotiations earlier this month marked the furthest progre...

wapo.st

Tracking the planes of the ultrawealthy for signs of an imminent apocalypse -- wapo.st/46Hu5w8

Want to track the apocalypse? One theory: Follow the billionaires’ jets.

Artist and coder Kyle McDonald has a theory: The ultra-rich will flee city centers before an apocalyptic event.

wapo.st

China seeks "to accelerate the historical trend President Xi Jinping has described as the rise of the East and the decline of the West. In less than two years, the Trump administration has done much to bring that outcome closer." foreignpolicy.com/2026/09/17/c...

China, Not Iran, Is Trump’s Real Foreign-Policy Debacle

In 19 months, Washington has lost ground to Beijing on every conceivable front.

foreignpolicy.com

Futurist movies microreview: "Children of Men." It came out 20 years ago today, and was the best futurist film of 2006.

An AI hallucination almost triggered hostile US action against a Chinese ship (reportedly) -- edition.cnn.com/2026/09/18/p...

Exclusive: US military had close call after using AI for false intelligence report, sources say | CNN Politics

The episode shows the risks of using this new, relatively poorly understood technology in the middle of the Iran war

edition.cnn.com

Futurist at the movies microreview: "The Day the Earth Stood Still," which came out 75 years ago today.

Whatever humanoid robots amount to, China is making a plausible play to dominate the industry -- www.economist.com/business/202...

China is training up thousands of humanoid robots

But its approach will come with enormous costs

economist.com

"Giving AIs rights would be like handing them the keys to the castle. It would provide them with a rationale and justification for dominating humanity as well as the tools to enact a creeping takeover using politics and the law." www.economist.com/leaders/2026...

Could AIs become conscious?

Even if they don’t, they might be treated as such—to humanity’s great cost

economist.com

Finished reading my first Belgian novel, Hertmans's War and Turpentine. That makes 45 countries.

Futurist the movies microreview: "Fahrenheit 451," which came out 60 years ago today.

You think? -- "If computer scientists were ever able to identify the key ingredients to making AIs conscious, the feeling of many within the frontier labs is that it would be reckless to deliberately create such models" www.economist.com/interactive/...

The search for consciousness inside AI

Scientists are trying to figure out whether algorithms could one day wake up and feel

economist.com

Americans are broadly open to significant changes to the U.S. political system -- www.newamerica.org/insights/pro...

New Survey Finds Broad Support for Proportional Representation

Americans are frustrated with the two-party system and broadly favor the underlying principles of proportional representation.

newamerica.org

@helicoptersofdc.bsky.social A V-22 Osprey seemingly in helicopter mode just went over NW DC, heading NW. Does that count?

The brochure from my visit to the World Trade Center as a kid.

AI safety -- "Before a model goes up, its developer should measure what it can do at its very worst, with guardrails stripped off — using a published test anyone can rerun, developed by select experts the United States government convenes." www.nytimes.com/2026/07/30/o...

Opinion | Stop Testing A.I. Like an App. Test It Like a Weapon. (Gift Article)

Responding to the safety risks A.I. pose means coming to terms with an uncomfortable truth: A.I. models are weapons.

nytimes.com

Futurist at the movies microreview: "Contagion," which came out 15 years ago today. This was my assessment as of 2019.

If the people building a supercollider had said it had a 10% chance of killing all humans, we would not have let them build it. www.cnbc.com/2026/09/09/a...

Experts weigh in as researcher says AI has more than 10% chance of 'killing all humans'

Jacob Coxon said in a post on X that Anthropic and OpenAI are "gambling with our lives."

cnbc.com