Breaking news: Katie Zacharia has been fired as White House Press Secretary after just 5 days. Source: NYT nytimes.com/2026/10/16/us/po…

El-Sayed: Trump’s neat trick is to become the subject of every conversation and to force people to take sides. And here’s the thing about it: once you take sides, he’s forcing you to double down on crazier and crazier stuff. And soon enough, you’re out here signing on to a bunch of things that, like three years ago, you’re like, “That’s insane.” But here’s the problem: you don’t want to have to face down that one friend who’s going to tell you, “I told you so.” And so what happens is that you keep doubling down on the craziest stuff. And you find yourself so far gone up that tree that there’s no way you can climb down. We’ve got to help those folks. Because guess what? They’re paying for $5 gas too. They’re paying insane diesel prices too. They can’t see a doctor either

Prayers for Pope Leo.

.@nycmayor says he won’t be firing Commissioner Tisch

The old Yudkowskian guess was that verifiable domains like coding and AI research would spike first, and then build AI with higher general intelligence to drag wide AI capability along. Briefly, there was a passing phase of history where AI was mostly trained on human data and looked less spiky around verifiable domains, and people boasted and shouted that all Yudkowskian scenarios had been falsified. I admittedly didn't predict that transient departure! But like many other little surprises that people shouted and boasted had falsified some question of deep foundations, that passing age would only last a few years. Pretrain has dropped to a 7% share of compute, and matters now revert back to older trends and the first-order predictions of underlying theory. People had vastly over-updated on the month's latest news, lacking deep roots themselves and having not watched the field of AI change and change again over decades. Many dynamics are easier to predict as the forces involved become stronger, less subject to noise. Over and over and over again now, the answer to those who cry, "But the particular AI I see today doesn't look like what Yudkowsky was talking about!" has been proven, exonerated, verified and established to be: "Tomorrow's AI will." It is of course another large problem that tons of people are making shit up I never said, and calling that falsified.

We need to know exactly why Trump said that Russ Vought will “go down in history in a few weeks.” Vogt is the author of Project 2025 and we all know the midterms is what happens in a few weeks.

New newsletter: WHY AMERICANS HATE AI AI might be the most instantly unpopular emerging technology in modern history. Off the top of my head, I blame the rise of tech pessimism, the emergence of anti-billionaire politics, the fallout from disappointments of the social media age, the demonization (sometimes fair, sometimes unfair) of data centers, growing distrust of corporations in general, or the fact that people don’t appreciate being told that a new product is going to disemploy their children and destroy the world, while its architects become billionaires. But there’s another reason that these explanations overlook: AI's prophets promised a world of cheap abundance. But the AI buildout has created the exact opposite reality, in which basically everything AI touches is getting more expensive. We're seeing higher prices for everything in the AI buildout—electronics, electricity, construction labor, even credit. The Fed now believes that the growth from AI is pushing up overall inflation, which means AI is also a contributor to higher interest rates. We get so wrapped up in talking about what AI will do in the near future that we sometimes forget to look closely at what it's doing right now: a project broadly predicted to reduce prices and create post-material abundance is instead raising prices and showing everybody just how materially finite some parts of the economy are. derekthompson.org/p/were-mis…

Calling all NYC artists — painters, filmmakers, poets, musicians and more! Did you know our city provides grants to support your work every year? And this year, for the first time in nearly two decades, we're DOUBLING the amount — from $5,000 to up to $10,000 per artist! Deadlines are approaching fast so don't wait. Go to nyc.gov/artistgrants to apply today!

I was encouraged this week to see the leaders of the frontier labs agree on the need for them to slow down the pace of AI development. Given the stakes, it’s a good and necessary first step.   But I’m even more encouraged by the growing recognition that how this powerful new technology develops should be at the center of our public debate.   I’ve been watching the progress on AI for over a decade now, and one thing that’s clear to me is that the potential impact of this technology is not overhyped. It’s also moving at lightning speed – and even faster than those who are engineering it can keep up with.   I’m not an AI accelerationist who believes it will lead to some techno-utopia, and I’m not a doomer who thinks it will inevitably lead to humanity’s destruction. But whether this technology results in amazing breakthroughs in medicine, energy and education or unleashes huge economic disruptions, greater inequality, and potential catastrophe will depend on the choices that we make right now – choices that should be made not just by the companies involved, but by all of us.

CNN got the extended version of the much propagandized clip of @AOC & @NYCMayor Zohran Mamdani & it demolishes all the bad faith attacks. Extended footage shows Zohran standing in somber mood before AOC comes. They exchange greetings & return to somber mood thereafter.

I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn’t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.