James Vincent
@jjvincent.bsky.social
journalist and writer. author of BEYOND MEASURE, a history of measurement; a New Yorker, Economist, Times book of the year. former senior editor / AI reporter at The Verge. you can buy my book here: https://linktr.ee/BeyondMeasureBook
Reposted by James Vincent
Most of the discussion around America's AI strategy abroad has focused on the AI Action Plan - but perhaps more important was the Executive Order on exporting the AI stack.
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November 10, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Most of the discussion around America's AI strategy abroad has focused on the AI Action Plan - but perhaps more important was the Executive Order on exporting the AI stack.
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"before starting work [Herman Melville] would feed his cow a pumpkin – he lived on a 160-acre farm in Massachusetts – ‘for it’s a pleasant sight to see a cow move her jaws – she does it so mildly & with great sanctity.’" www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2013/oc...
Nick Richardson | Benefits of a Hangover
Writing drunk rarely works. Writing hungover, on the other hand, can be surprisingly effective. A bastard behind the...
www.lrb.co.uk
November 8, 2025 at 2:49 PM
"before starting work [Herman Melville] would feed his cow a pumpkin – he lived on a 160-acre farm in Massachusetts – ‘for it’s a pleasant sight to see a cow move her jaws – she does it so mildly & with great sanctity.’" www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2013/oc...
i bet that we're going to see AI terrorism inspired by belief in a specific model's sentience before we see any violence from the doomer crowd. devotion will move people more powerfully than fear, i think.
November 8, 2025 at 10:35 AM
i bet that we're going to see AI terrorism inspired by belief in a specific model's sentience before we see any violence from the doomer crowd. devotion will move people more powerfully than fear, i think.
Reposted by James Vincent
brilliant piece (and brilliantly visualized) on the scale, ambition, and colossal failure of The Line — the saudi megaproject that was never going to be ig.ft.com/saudi-neom-l...
End of The Line: how Saudi Arabia’s Neom dream unravelled
Mohammed bin Salman’s utopian city was undone by the laws of physics and finance
ig.ft.com
November 7, 2025 at 4:05 PM
brilliant piece (and brilliantly visualized) on the scale, ambition, and colossal failure of The Line — the saudi megaproject that was never going to be ig.ft.com/saudi-neom-l...
I reviewed a new biography of Palantir CEO Alex Karp and his co-authored manifesto, The Technological Republic for @newstatesman1913.bsky.social. Karp is marketing as Silicon Valley's philosopher-CEO, but what actually guides his business?
www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...
www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...
All your data belongs to us: the rise of Palantir
A biography of the tech company’s founder Alex Karp reveals the philosophy behind its troubling conquest of the world
www.newstatesman.com
November 7, 2025 at 3:46 PM
I reviewed a new biography of Palantir CEO Alex Karp and his co-authored manifesto, The Technological Republic for @newstatesman1913.bsky.social. Karp is marketing as Silicon Valley's philosopher-CEO, but what actually guides his business?
www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...
www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...
lovely frontispiece from william gilbert's de magnete (1600). not sure of the symbology, but it looks like a caduceus representing hermes/mecury and knowledge, and the clasped hands perhaps refer to sympathy/affinity - fitting for a book on magnetism
November 4, 2025 at 5:06 PM
lovely frontispiece from william gilbert's de magnete (1600). not sure of the symbology, but it looks like a caduceus representing hermes/mecury and knowledge, and the clasped hands perhaps refer to sympathy/affinity - fitting for a book on magnetism
The clip immediately preceding the day today one is Gerry Adams talking about how colonial dynamics require dehumanisation and demonisation of the subject… that is hardly “no indicator” though admittedly it requires you pay attention to what’s being said
bsky.app/profile/andr...
bsky.app/profile/andr...
This New Yorker documentary about the 1988 UK government ban on broadcasting the voices of Sinn Féin and I.R.A. leaders is pretty good but they show *that clip from The Day Today with no explanation and no indicator that it is satire.
www.newyorker.com/video/watch/...
www.newyorker.com/video/watch/...
The Ban
www.newyorker.com
November 3, 2025 at 2:53 PM
The clip immediately preceding the day today one is Gerry Adams talking about how colonial dynamics require dehumanisation and demonisation of the subject… that is hardly “no indicator” though admittedly it requires you pay attention to what’s being said
bsky.app/profile/andr...
bsky.app/profile/andr...
Reposted by James Vincent
spotted a rather bleak epitaph on this gravestone while taking the cat for a walk - “She hath done what she could”
November 3, 2025 at 11:44 AM
spotted a rather bleak epitaph on this gravestone while taking the cat for a walk - “She hath done what she could”
"People often wonder how to get back to the vibes of the early, heady days of the internet. It’s easy: Crash the global economy and leave lots of young people with keyboards and spare time. Make it boring. That’s what’s interesting." www.wired.com/story/ai-nor...
The Argument for Letting AI Burn It All Down
When the AI bubble bursts, the nerds will do their best work.
www.wired.com
October 31, 2025 at 5:25 PM
"People often wonder how to get back to the vibes of the early, heady days of the internet. It’s easy: Crash the global economy and leave lots of young people with keyboards and spare time. Make it boring. That’s what’s interesting." www.wired.com/story/ai-nor...
The aphantasia/hyperphantasia essay is v good, but I find most fascinating what it reveals only in relief: the vast disparity in human comprehension and experience of the world - and how we are still exploring this spectrum www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Some People Can’t See Mental Images. The Consequences Are Profound
Research has linked the ability to visualize to a bewildering variety of human traits—how we experience trauma, hold grudges, and, above all, remember our lives.
www.newyorker.com
October 31, 2025 at 3:54 PM
The aphantasia/hyperphantasia essay is v good, but I find most fascinating what it reveals only in relief: the vast disparity in human comprehension and experience of the world - and how we are still exploring this spectrum www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
finally listened to the andrej karpathy dwarkesh interview and it really is very good. AI skeptics overindex on current failures but karpathy is, i think, correct: AI agents are bullshit rn, but the problems they face are tractable and will be solved in 10 years
www.dwarkesh.com/p/andrej-kar...
www.dwarkesh.com/p/andrej-kar...
Andrej Karpathy — AGI is still a decade away
"The problems are tractable, but they're still difficult”
www.dwarkesh.com
October 31, 2025 at 10:50 AM
finally listened to the andrej karpathy dwarkesh interview and it really is very good. AI skeptics overindex on current failures but karpathy is, i think, correct: AI agents are bullshit rn, but the problems they face are tractable and will be solved in 10 years
www.dwarkesh.com/p/andrej-kar...
www.dwarkesh.com/p/andrej-kar...
deepfakes are being used more in European elections. i think we'll definitely see more of this in the UK in the coming years considering how much the talking points of the right and far-right are driven by online agitators
www.politico.eu/article/elec...
www.politico.eu/article/elec...
The week that AI deepfakes hit Europe’s elections
Dutch and Irish elections show voters now have to worry if the political content they consume is real.
www.politico.eu
October 31, 2025 at 10:11 AM
deepfakes are being used more in European elections. i think we'll definitely see more of this in the UK in the coming years considering how much the talking points of the right and far-right are driven by online agitators
www.politico.eu/article/elec...
www.politico.eu/article/elec...
it's definitely a milestone for 1X to take Neo pre-orders but my god people are ignoring the fact every complex job requires teleoperation. in this (great) WSJ video, the company doesn't demo a single autonomous task
youtu.be/f3c4mQty_so?...
youtu.be/f3c4mQty_so?...
I Tried the First Humanoid Home Robot. It Got Weird. | WSJ
YouTube video by The Wall Street Journal
youtu.be
October 29, 2025 at 10:21 AM
it's definitely a milestone for 1X to take Neo pre-orders but my god people are ignoring the fact every complex job requires teleoperation. in this (great) WSJ video, the company doesn't demo a single autonomous task
youtu.be/f3c4mQty_so?...
youtu.be/f3c4mQty_so?...
Reposted by James Vincent
We tried to place this story - very expensive polling, the first of its kind, strong quantitative data about what trans people feel about Britain: bluntly there is no better way to tell the story - with the BBC but it said it was "too weak".
But it will pick up any old piece of transhating garbage.
But it will pick up any old piece of transhating garbage.
In @yougov.co.uk polling of the trans community, to the best of our knowledge the first of its kind ever conducted, an astonishing 84% said Britain is “fairly unsafe” or “very unsafe” for trans people.
goodlaw.social/ncfw
goodlaw.social/ncfw
‘Abject terror’: survey shows 84% of trans people feel Britain is unsafe
YouGov poll reveals safety crisis for trans people in the UK
goodlaw.social
October 28, 2025 at 8:00 AM
We tried to place this story - very expensive polling, the first of its kind, strong quantitative data about what trans people feel about Britain: bluntly there is no better way to tell the story - with the BBC but it said it was "too weak".
But it will pick up any old piece of transhating garbage.
But it will pick up any old piece of transhating garbage.
a lawsuit against an AI chatbot maker now turns on the question of whether or not AI produces legally-protected speech — a fantastic and important report here:
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/m...
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/m...
October 27, 2025 at 12:47 PM
a lawsuit against an AI chatbot maker now turns on the question of whether or not AI produces legally-protected speech — a fantastic and important report here:
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/m...
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/m...
This is the patent age of new inventions / For saving bodies, and for killing souls / All propagated with the best intentions
October 26, 2025 at 10:56 PM
This is the patent age of new inventions / For saving bodies, and for killing souls / All propagated with the best intentions
Reposted by James Vincent
Reposted by James Vincent
truly an incredible essay, you must read; i laughed aloud many times, and i did not ONCE think with sorrow of the future of humanity
harpers.org/archive/2025...
harpers.org/archive/2025...
The Goon Squad, by Daniel Kolitz
Loneliness, porn’s next frontier, and the dream of endless masturbation
harpers.org
October 23, 2025 at 7:09 AM
truly an incredible essay, you must read; i laughed aloud many times, and i did not ONCE think with sorrow of the future of humanity
harpers.org/archive/2025...
harpers.org/archive/2025...
still thinking about this adam phillips piece on resistance. "Psychoanalysis begins when conversation breaks down, where the conversation becomes impossible, where there is a reluctance to go on speaking, a pause, a hesitation, a wilful changing of the subject." www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
October 22, 2025 at 7:28 PM
still thinking about this adam phillips piece on resistance. "Psychoanalysis begins when conversation breaks down, where the conversation becomes impossible, where there is a reluctance to go on speaking, a pause, a hesitation, a wilful changing of the subject." www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
i'm always saying this
October 22, 2025 at 3:49 PM
i'm always saying this
"It comes down to everyone quietly wanting to dig a pit for the others.”
brilliant piece on the Irish narcotrafficker at large in Dubai, and the criminal network that connects dutch gangs, international boxing, and hezbollah
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
brilliant piece on the Irish narcotrafficker at large in Dubai, and the criminal network that connects dutch gangs, international boxing, and hezbollah
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
The Cocaine Kingpin Living Large in Dubai
Daniel Kinahan, an Irish drug dealer, commands a billion-dollar empire from the U.A.E. Why isn’t he in prison?
www.newyorker.com
October 22, 2025 at 10:38 AM
"It comes down to everyone quietly wanting to dig a pit for the others.”
brilliant piece on the Irish narcotrafficker at large in Dubai, and the criminal network that connects dutch gangs, international boxing, and hezbollah
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
brilliant piece on the Irish narcotrafficker at large in Dubai, and the criminal network that connects dutch gangs, international boxing, and hezbollah
www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Reposted by James Vincent
from my lunch today; "the trouble is not so much AI making you more productive, but that it's tripling the output of the biggest f***ing idiot where you work"
October 21, 2025 at 9:21 PM
from my lunch today; "the trouble is not so much AI making you more productive, but that it's tripling the output of the biggest f***ing idiot where you work"
Reposted by James Vincent
didn't post about this when it happened friday but..... heroes!
October 21, 2025 at 8:42 AM
didn't post about this when it happened friday but..... heroes!