William Russell

Been trying with increasing frustration to explain crumpets to my American friends, and now I'm confused too

Support for a ban on superintelligence is overwhelming and bipartisan.

So why hasn't it been banned yet?

Two reasons:
1. Most people don't even know AI companies are working to build superintelligence within years.
2. Even those who do aren't sure what they can do about it.

A new poll shows 69% of American voters think superintelligence should be banned.

Just 9% disagree.

Despite acknowledging that the development of this technology could lead to human extinction, the largest AI companies are openly racing to build it.

Thread 🧵

controlai.news/p/new...

As a counterpoint: Unicorns are heraldic creatures and were traditionally fearsome beasts. They're even Scotland's national animal. I think it's cool that the symbol traditionally held both feminine and fiercesome attributes as if to say these things were not contrary to each other.

Must have been quite the hair!

"Some details were fudged. For example, the functions of several dozen JCVI-syn3A genes still aren’t known, so Thornburg’s team modelled them as inert spheres."

Love that for them. Inscrutable.

MORE GREEK GODS NEEDED IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS.

1/2 Rodents enjoy gnawing

In this study, they find neurophysiological and functional evidence that there is a reinforcement circuit associated with dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens.

(paper) www.cell.com/neuron/fullt...

Humpback whales playing with dolphins (March 9, 2026; Maui)

The whale in the front is a female; the ones behind her are males competing for her attention. The female seemed more interested in playing with the dolphins

(full video) www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkoV...
by Craig Emmerich

Deepdale #lakedistrict

On this topic, I do think that the show is showing us that the world becomes inconceivably boring when there is, essentially, only one other person in the world to talk to, a single homogeneous, obsequious personality, no edges

BuzzFeed Nearing Bankruptcy After Disastrous Turn Toward AI Three years after its pivot to AI, the writing is on the wall for BuzzFeed. The company said there's "substantial doubt" it can keep going.

Self-own of the decade: BuzzFeed pivots toward AI slop, loses everything.
futurism.com/artificial-i...

A rather lofty #FoxOfTheDay today , shared by Angela Douglas on Facebook !

From @jakelikesonions on Instagram

4-panel comic Panel 1: "Jogging from the perspective of animals" Panel 2: A dog looking at a jogger. "What are you running from, apex predator?" Panel 3: "Are you chasing prey? You need to conserve energy." Panel 4: A second dog peers over. "The hell is that guy doing" "I don't know I don't understand."

Unknown Facebook user: "Olympics are for the best athletes in the world to compete against each other to determine who is the best. Having retards competing is doing the opposite!" Arnold Schwarzenegger: "As stupid and evil as this comment is, I'm not going to delete it or ban you (yet) because it's a teachable moment. You have two possible paths ahead. Right now, I guarantee you that these athletes have more courage, compassion, brains, skill- actually more of every positive human quality than you. So take their path -you could learn from them, and try to challenge yourself, to give back, to add something from the world. Or you can stay on your path, and keep being a sad, pitiful, jealous internet troll who adds nothing to the world but mocks anyone who does out of small-minded jealousy. I know what you really want is attention, so let me be clear. If you choose to keep going this way, no one will ever remember you."

And as a fun related legal fact, the failure of a commander to punish war crimes by his subordinates is also a war crime under the doctrine of command responsibility.

Published by the Naval War College in 2021:

digital-commons.usnwc.edu/ils/vol97/is...

Every war involves killing. Any war means. death, and pain, and grief. For centuries the civilized nations of the world have attempted to reduce the death and suffering by observing the laws and usages of war. By international conventions and agreements, such as the Hague and Geneva Conventions, and by general custom, certain practices are internationally regarded as cruel, inhumane, and criminal. Such barbarities include the killing of s,urrendered belligerents, the refusal of quarter, and torture or other ill-treatment of belligerents or inhabitants of occupied countries. Such acts are crimes and, if they result in death, are murders.

From the "High Command Case" at Nuremberg:

(1) The accused declared, ordered, or otherwise indicated that there shall be no survivors or surrender accepted; (2) The accused thereby intended to threaten an adversary or to conduct hostilities such that there would be no survivors or surrender accepted; (3) It was foreseeable that circumstances would be such that a practicable and reasonable ability to accept surrender would exist; (4) The accused was in a position of effective command or control over the subordinate forces to which the declaration or order was directed; and (5) The conduct took place in the context of and was associated with hostilities.

✋ Former USG war crimes lawyer here.

Apropos of SecDef's remarks this morning:

Denial of quarter—even the declaration of no quarter—is a war crime.

And recognized as such by the US Government.

From DoD's Manual for Military Commissions.

Hegseth: "We will keep pushing, keep advancing. No quarter, no mercy for our enemies."

No quarter is the refusal to take prisoners and instead just execute everyone. It's been considered a war crime for over a century.

I have a friend, who specialised in how genetics is taught, whose grant was axed by one of these men. His life is in tatters, and his work matters.

Very Christian

Again, leaders of other countries don’t talk this way. The glee with which our current leaders talk about killing people is not normal, and nor is their lack of concern for who exactly we’re killing. American bombs incinerated 100 kids in Minab. Were those the “right people”?

The Matrix Resurrections – Official Trailer 1 YouTube video by Warner Bros.

The Matrix Resurrections was so good it makes me happy :>

We need more sequels like this!

Sad that this is from 8 years ago and we're still stuck in this hellscape

An illustration of a large T.rex at sunset. Its jaws are opened wide, and a flock of tiny birds surrounds its head, with a few brave individuals landing in its mouth, to pick scraps from the huge teeth.

T. rex tooth cleaning time.
#SciArt

New Poll: People Don’t Want Superintelligence “Artificial intelligence should serve humanity, not the reverse.”

New poll shows the public clearly wants superintelligence banned, amid warnings from experts that the technology could cause human extinction.

Plus: The Pro-Human AI Declaration, Evaluation Awareness, and more!

I Watched 6 Hours of DOGE Bro Testimony. Here's What They Had to Say For Themselves The hours of videos provide fascinating, or perhaps horrifying, insight into the thinking of someone inside DOGE.

I have watched 6 hours of a DOGE bro deposition. The whole thing, start to finish. It's a fascinating, and horrifying, look at the people who caused so much damage, didn't really achieve anything at all, while still being so sure they are right. Here's what they said: www.404media.co/i-watched-6-...

Every god damn "innovation" capitalists churn out ends up just being "what if we could have slavery or near-slavery, but hide it?"