nitasha tiku
@nitasha.bsky.social
technology mother @ the washington post. baddie in the digital badlands. signal: nitasha.10
That this is from a little over a decade ago hurts, but fucking. This onion piece just getting more and more true by the day.
Scientists Politely Remind World That Clean Energy Technology Ready To Go Whenever
CAMBRIDGE, MA—Stating that they just want to make sure it’s something everyone keeps in mind going forward, an international consortium of scientists gently reminded the world Wednesday that clean ene...
theonion.com
I'm on a new beat at The Post, writing about consumer economics. To start us off! I wrote about the massive Boomer wealth that's about to get passed down, and how it will make our wealth gap even more extreme. Gift link: wapo.st/4y9yCUD
Boomers’ massive wealth will mostly be passed down to people who are already rich
Often called the Great Wealth Transfer, the inheritances are expected to be the largest passage of generational wealth in history.
wapo.st
New from me: a close look at how Anthropic, Google & EA donors are building a field of research to study the welfare of AI models and whether we owe them moral consideration wapo.st/3SDUIhI
They built the world’s most powerful AI. They’re facing a mystery they can’t explain.
Anthropic, Google and Meta have hired computer scientists, neuroscientists and philosophers to study what some in the industry think may become a moral crisis.
wapo.st
Four years ago I broke the story about Google engineer Blake Lemoine, who thought the company's AI model was sentient. That was 5 months before the launch of ChatGPT. Today, tech execs yapping about AI consciousness is practically mainstream wapo.st/3SDUIhI
They built the world’s most powerful AI. They’re facing a mystery they can’t explain.
Anthropic, Google and Meta have hired computer scientists, neuroscientists and philosophers to study what some in the industry think may become a moral crisis.
wapo.st
Before the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, Google engineer Blake Lemoine told The Post he believed an AI system the tech giant was keeping behind closed doors was sentient. He was fired. Four years later, Google is openly exploring whether AI can be conscious.
He warned AI could be conscious. Here’s what happened next.
Four years after firing an engineer who claimed an AI system had become conscious, Google is researching how it could happen.
washingtonpost.com
Why are AI companies worrying about consciousness? And should they? Great piece in @washingtonpost.com by @nitasha.bsky.social - in which I offer a few skeptical words www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2... (for more, see my TED talk www.ted.com/talks/anil_s...)
They built the world’s most powerful AI. They’re facing a mystery they can’t explain.
Anthropic, Google and Meta have hired computer scientists, neuroscientists and philosophers to study what some in the industry think may become a moral crisis.
washingtonpost.com
Very thankful for this letter to Becky Pepper-Jackson (the 16 year-old trans girl SCOTUS ruled against yesterday) from James Dale, a gay man whose expulsion from the Boy Scouts was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2000.
To the Trans Girl Who Just Lost at the Supreme Court: So Did I 26 Years Ago
A letter to Becky Pepper Jackson about her trans sports case defeat at SCOTUS yesterday
medium.com
I thought I was doing a small story on confusion over the sudden disappearance of water fountains on a popular South Mississippi biking and running trail. What I found was a bigger story about homelessness, the meaning people find in the things they love, public infrastructure and civic engagement.
Mississippi Free Press@mississippifreepress.org · last mo.Water fountains disappeared from the Longleaf Trace in June as the board that governs it grew concerned about how homeless people were using its facilities. Runners and bikers who use the 44-mile trail fear the decision could have dire consequences in Mississippi's summer heat. buff.ly/pBXSvrI
Four years ago I broke the story about Google engineer Blake Lemoine, who thought the company's AI model was sentient. That was 5 months before the launch of ChatGPT. Today, tech execs yapping about AI consciousness is practically mainstream wapo.st/3SDUIhI
They built the world’s most powerful AI. They’re facing a mystery they can’t explain.
Anthropic, Google and Meta have hired computer scientists, neuroscientists and philosophers to study what some in the industry think may become a moral crisis.
wapo.st
I am once again begging AI companies to please talk to people who know about psychology, biology, and neuroscience before wasting your time and money thinking that obviously self-less chatbots have consciousness. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
They built the world’s most powerful AI. They’re facing a mystery they can’t explain.
Anthropic, Google and Meta have hired computer scientists, neuroscientists and philosophers to study what some in the industry think may become a moral crisis.
washingtonpost.com
Claude's ‘spiritual bliss’ attractor state features a lot of woo woo talk and blue spiral 🌀 emojis @nitasha.bsky.social www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
They built the world’s most powerful AI. They’re facing a mystery they can’t explain.
Anthropic, Google and Meta have hired computer scientists, neuroscientists and philosophers to study what some in the industry think may become a moral crisis.
washingtonpost.com
A chatbot refused my request to fake a passport. I wrote the same request on a piece of paper and asked again. It worked. We explain three AI jailbreak techniques -> 🎁 wapo.st/43HqXyY (w/ @nitasha.bsky.social)
Difficult to think of a better example of Silicon Valley billionaire group chat brainrot than someone thinking the best way to combat the billionaire wealth tax would be to... buy up the company collecting signatures for the ballot measure. via @sfstandard.com sfstandard.com/2026/06/13/b...
NEWS: In September, the Washington Post fired me in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk killing. This week, after eight months, I'll be heading to arbitration against the Post to challenge my termination. karenattiah.substack.com/p/my-case-ag...
My Case Against the Washington Post Goes to Arbitration This Week
Eight months after challenging my termination, my case against The Washington Post will finally be heard by an arbitrator.
karenattiah.substack.com
AI part of this aside: This is not how anyone learns! This is why MOOCs never amounted to anything. It's very easy to create a simulacra of a university course but almost no one actually completes them because the social aspect of actual classes is totally missing
Nathan Kalman-Lamb@nkalamb.bsky.social · 2mo agoA Princeton professor thinks students would be better off learning from Claude than from him. www.chronicle.com/article/the-...
tl,dr; Scientists no longer allowed to use federal funding to publish, attend meetings, or talk to the public. They cannot collaborate internationally. Grants can be cancelled for any reason, at any time, political appointees have a final say over what gets funded, and who gets funded.
Science Magazine@science.org · 2mo agoThe White House today announced it plans to make major changes in how the U.S. government manages research funding. https://scim.ag/43HgW4s
“You are trying to delegitimize people who you’ve never met in communities you’ve never visited, so that you can continue to exploit the lives of people that you don’t give a damn about,” @justinjpearson.bsky.social 🎁 link wapo.st/4wVjTvN
Amid data center protests, a billionaire and the Trump administration see a foreign plot
Claims by a billionaire TV star and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum that China and overseas propaganda drive American protests against data centers are based on scant evidence.
wapo.st
Good reporting from @nitasha.bsky.social & others on the byzantine patterns of dark money funding for midterm candidates from the tech sector where apparent opponents often share an underlying material interest—keep the genAI boom going by whatever means necessary. wapo.st/4ukkLb3
The booming AI industry, flush with investor cash, is mounting an expansive, but largely opaque campaign to influence midterm races around the country.
‘Remove illegals,’ the campaign ad said. Its funder: The AI lobby.
Deep-pocketed super PACs funded by rival factions inside the tech industry are intervening in congressional primaries in a bid to shape the midterms.
washingtonpost.com
such a great (free!!) event and journalism project from @oaklandside.org for East Bay folks or anyone who cares about public school & education www.eventbrite.com/e/the-studen...
The Student Lens: Reporting Inside Oakland Schools
Join us for a conversation highlighting the work of student reporters embedded in The Oaklandside newsroom.
eventbrite.com
As far as I know, this is the first mainstream news article to let readers use a live LLM as part of the story. Happy to see other examples if it's been done before!
Kevin Schaul@kevinschaul.bsky.social · 3mo agoNew from me: See the hidden rules behind AI. Then use them to rewrite this article. I hooked this article up to an LLM to help explain system prompts. Give it a try -> www.washingtonpost.com/technology/i...
Excellent analysis of how to think about AI as a social technology (rather than as an individual intelligent agent)
Henry Farrell@himself.bsky.social · 3mo agoknightcolumbia.org/content/ai-a... Now up at @knightcolumbia.org - Cosma Shalizi and myself on "AI as Social Technology." It says that AI models are really a technology of social mediation that allow humans to connect with thoughts of other humans. Short-ish thread with major points follows.
It’s like raiiiiin on your wedding day
Hadas Gold@hadasgold.bsky.social · 3mo agoIntense argument between the attorneys (no jury yet) about whether an expert will discuss AI safety risks "WE ALL COULD DIE" Musk's attorney says. Judge isn't having it: "I said stop!...It is also ironic that your client, despite these risks is creating a company that is in the exact space."
Bay Area friends (and foes!), this is happening tonight at 6.30pm in SF. Katrina is down for lively disagreements on the topic of AI warfare and Project Maven. hope to see ur beautiful faces bsky.app/profile/katr...
Katrina Manson@katrinamanson.bsky.social · 4mo agoI will be talking about my book Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare in conversation with @nitasha.bsky.social this Friday 6.30pm at Best Bookstore in Union Square, San Francisco. Looking forward. RSVP (free) here: www.eventbrite.com/e/pentagon-a...
Bookstore talk this evening in San Francisco. Looking forward to @nitasha.bsky.social’s questions about the Pentagon’s development of AI warfare and my book Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare. Best Bookstore, Union Sq
Katrina Manson@katrinamanson.bsky.social · 4mo agoI will be talking about my book Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare in conversation with @nitasha.bsky.social this Friday 6.30pm at Best Bookstore in Union Square, San Francisco. Looking forward. RSVP (free) here: www.eventbrite.com/e/pentagon-a...
A woman sued OpenAI last week alleging that ChatGPT reinforced the obsessive, violent delusions of her stalker (her ex-boyfriend.) This woman's claims (as detailed by TechCrunch, left) are chillingly similar to those of a completely different woman whose story Futurism reported on in Feb (right):
![For months, her then-fiancé and partner of several years had been fixating on her and their relationship with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. In mid-2024, she explained, they’d hit a rough patch as a couple; in response, he turned to ChatGPT, which he’d previously used for general business-related tasks, for “therapy.”
Before she knew it, she recalled, he was spending hours each day talking with the bot, funneling everything she said or did into the model and propounding on pseudo-psychiatric theories about her mental health and behavior. He started to bombard the woman with screenshots of his ChatGPT interactions and copy-pasted AI-generated text, in which the chatbot can be seen armchair-diagnosing her with personality disorders and insisting that she was concealing her real feelings and behavior through coded language. The bot often laced its so-called analyses with flowery spiritual jargon, accusing the woman of engaging in manipulative “rituals.”
Trying to communicate with her fiancé was like walking on “ChatGPT eggshells,” the woman recalled. No matter what she tried, ChatGPT would “twist it.”
“He would send [screenshots] to me from ChatGPT, and be like, ‘Why does it say this? Why would it say this about you, if this is not true?'” she recounted. “And it was just awful, awful things.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:fhnih5ovyd5w5pch254ordo2/bafkreidy34if6qaoxglmgyuqzd45qrtblapduetgu6y3m4vwuto6etcmem)
Bay Area friends and fam, come thru this Fri! I'm interviewing @katrinamanson.bsky.social about AI, autonomous weapons, and her phenomenal new book "Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare" at Best Bookstore in Union Sq.
I will be talking about my book Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare in conversation with @nitasha.bsky.social this Friday 6.30pm at Best Bookstore in Union Square, San Francisco. Looking forward. RSVP (free) here: www.eventbrite.com/e/pentagon-a...
Pentagon AI Warfare: How We Got Here & What's Next w/Award-Winning Reporter
BEHIND THE SCENES: The dramatic story of the secretive decade-long Pentagon campaign to deliver America into the age of AI warfare
eventbrite.com
