politics

A billionaire pulling a heist

Bas Leenders

17 Feb 2025

Musk has taken over the civilian government. This is a billionaire pulling a heist on the entire nation.

Elizabeth Lopatto on The Verge, taking notes on another week of “King” Elon’s coup c.q. rapid unscheduled disassembly of the US government.

If you’re not convinced that there’s something more sinister at work:

Chaos is central to his deployment of unchecked executive power. But chaos has to be tended like a fire. It needs the right amount of constant oxygen to keep it going. That is Musk’s utility to Trump.

Tressie McMillan Cottom urges you to Look Past Elon Musk’s Chaos, in her opinion piece in The New York Times

Your brain breaks a little

It’s worse than you think in the same way that your brain breaks a little when you try to picture how deep the ocean is. Brian Barrett, in Wired on Musk's DOGE Takeover: It’s worse than you think because the people running the government seem to

Hoovering up all available government-controlled data

In its current “chainsaw” phase, Musk’s DOGE initiative is attempting to rid the government of as many humans as possible while at the same time hoovering up all available government-controlled data and transferring it into large language models. The intent is to clear a space for the incubation of

So powerful and widely available now that it's a commodity

I argue that the ability for a model to spit out a full HTML+JavaScript custom interface is so powerful and widely available now that it’s a commodity. Simon Willison summarizing What’s new in the world of LLMs

Are you conscious?

The lines between conscious and "unconscious" entities can get blurry when the interaction feels as natural as this. ChatGPT, conversing with Richard Dawkins, questioning if it’s conscious (via Mathew Ingram)

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Your brain breaks a little

Hoovering up all available government-controlled data

So powerful and widely available now that it's a commodity

Are you conscious?