Jim Lai
@grimjim.bsky.social
"Do not feed the LLMs" was posted on the sign, but no one paid any heed. Yes, I'm critical of AI and irrational exuberance.
Me? Something between a would-be modern Renaissance man and dilettante. Also, Canadian.
Me? Something between a would-be modern Renaissance man and dilettante. Also, Canadian.
It never fails to amuse me whenever more evidence turns up that the genetic code is more variations on a theme than a fixed thing. cen.acs.org/biological-c...
These archaea built a distinct genetic code to put pyrrolysine in proteins
That feat has synthetic biologists excited
cen.acs.org
November 25, 2025 at 10:21 PM
It never fails to amuse me whenever more evidence turns up that the genetic code is more variations on a theme than a fixed thing. cen.acs.org/biological-c...
It is inevitable under capitalism that in a loneliness epidemic, AI companies will see opportunity in profiting from sustained loneliness. In this era of revenue stream maximization, the best customer is a recurring customer.
November 25, 2025 at 3:27 PM
It is inevitable under capitalism that in a loneliness epidemic, AI companies will see opportunity in profiting from sustained loneliness. In this era of revenue stream maximization, the best customer is a recurring customer.
Time to find out what the risks are to the ecosystem before anyone seriously tries to launch orbital AI datacenters or factories. The precautionary principle demands we look. news.climate.columbia.edu/2025/03/04/r...
Rocket Launches Are Proliferating. What Is This Doing to the Atmosphere?
What goes up in the form of rockets and their payloads must eventually come down in the form of launch emissions and objects falling out of orbit.
news.climate.columbia.edu
November 22, 2025 at 4:19 AM
Time to find out what the risks are to the ecosystem before anyone seriously tries to launch orbital AI datacenters or factories. The precautionary principle demands we look. news.climate.columbia.edu/2025/03/04/r...
My "biological name" is H. Sapiens. Binomial nomenclature is internationally recognized.
November 9, 2025 at 2:56 AM
My "biological name" is H. Sapiens. Binomial nomenclature is internationally recognized.
Due to a lack of data, we have been spared future attempts to train AI to one-shot a movie.
petapixel.com/2025/09/23/m...
petapixel.com/2025/09/23/m...
Movie Studio Lionsgate is Struggling to Make AI-Generated Films With Runway
AI models need a lot of data.
petapixel.com
October 29, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Due to a lack of data, we have been spared future attempts to train AI to one-shot a movie.
petapixel.com/2025/09/23/m...
petapixel.com/2025/09/23/m...
AI can now make mistakes in military planning faster than humanly possible. breakingdefense.com/2025/09/air-...
Air Force AI writes battle plans faster than humans can — but some of them are wrong - Breaking Defense
“While we're getting faster results and we're getting more results, there's still going to have to be a human in the loop for the foreseeable future to make sure they’re all viable,” said Maj. Gen. Ro...
breakingdefense.com
September 27, 2025 at 12:38 AM
AI can now make mistakes in military planning faster than humanly possible. breakingdefense.com/2025/09/air-...
Rapture? A human body literally being raised into the sky indefinitely is not headed for Heaven. First hypoxia, then anoxia, followed by unconsciousness. Past the Armstrong limit, water in the body boils off. The end result after ebullism is a radiation-fried bloated mummy headed for deep space.
September 23, 2025 at 6:04 AM
Rapture? A human body literally being raised into the sky indefinitely is not headed for Heaven. First hypoxia, then anoxia, followed by unconsciousness. Past the Armstrong limit, water in the body boils off. The end result after ebullism is a radiation-fried bloated mummy headed for deep space.
Who else is astonished at the number of people who didn't know that acetaminophen is generic Tylenol?
September 23, 2025 at 12:19 AM
Who else is astonished at the number of people who didn't know that acetaminophen is generic Tylenol?
With AI, we've literally automated Orwell's "duckspeak". The formulas may be more complex, but that fact that we can now fairly easily detect AI slop is sufficient proof.
September 18, 2025 at 3:06 PM
With AI, we've literally automated Orwell's "duckspeak". The formulas may be more complex, but that fact that we can now fairly easily detect AI slop is sufficient proof.
A recent piece about people's experiences with AI-enabled psychosis. I found it interesting that Gemini helped one man realize ChatGPT was supporting his delusions. ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/...
AI-fuelled delusions are hurting Canadians. Here are some of their stories | RCI
'I went from very normal … to complete devastation,' Ontario man says after 'AI psychosis'.
ici.radio-canada.ca
September 18, 2025 at 2:10 PM
A recent piece about people's experiences with AI-enabled psychosis. I found it interesting that Gemini helped one man realize ChatGPT was supporting his delusions. ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/...
An ongoing trend not typically covered is how the Russia-Ukraine conflict has escalated to drone war arms race, now augmented with AI, resulting in rapid development of Skynet-adjacent technologies. Societies are sleepwalking into this future. www.defensenews.com/industry/202...
Drones, AI and robotics challenge order of Top 100 defense firms
Massive geopolitical shifts and tech advancements continued to realign the annual Defense News defense-contractor ranking.
www.defensenews.com
September 14, 2025 at 8:25 PM
An ongoing trend not typically covered is how the Russia-Ukraine conflict has escalated to drone war arms race, now augmented with AI, resulting in rapid development of Skynet-adjacent technologies. Societies are sleepwalking into this future. www.defensenews.com/industry/202...
Christian Evangelicals and TESCREAL are not aligned. Time will tell how this internal conflict plays out, but there is increasing friction.
arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
AI vs. MAGA: Populists alarmed by Trump’s embrace of AI, Big Tech
AI “threatens the common man’s liberty,” says GOP Sen. Josh Hawley.
arstechnica.com
September 11, 2025 at 7:16 PM
Christian Evangelicals and TESCREAL are not aligned. Time will tell how this internal conflict plays out, but there is increasing friction.
arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...
Long story short, now it's been quantitatively shown that AI-generated stories are derivative slop. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Echoes in AI: Quantifying lack of plot diversity in LLM outputs | PNAS
With rapid advances in large language models (LLMs), there has been an increasing
application of LLMs in creative content ideation and generation. ...
www.pnas.org
September 5, 2025 at 4:26 AM
Long story short, now it's been quantitatively shown that AI-generated stories are derivative slop. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
What if the danger is that AI is too anthropomorphic to trigger a sense of the uncanny valley? news.westernu.ca/2025/08/dang...
Expert insight: Humanlike chatbots detract from developing AI for the human good - Western News
The danger of anthropomorphic AI isn’t some near or distant future. The danger is here, now, and hiding in the illusion that these systems are like us.
news.westernu.ca
August 29, 2025 at 2:41 AM
What if the danger is that AI is too anthropomorphic to trigger a sense of the uncanny valley? news.westernu.ca/2025/08/dang...
TESCREAL is killing the USA in an all-or-nothing bet on ASI.
August 29, 2025 at 2:01 AM
TESCREAL is killing the USA in an all-or-nothing bet on ASI.
AI is eating jobs. The only question is to what degree. www.tomshardware.com/tech-industr...
AI is eating entry-level coding and customer service roles, according to a new Stanford study — junior job listings drop 13% in three years in fields vulnerable to AI
After tracking payroll data, it found 13% fewer entry-level employment opportunities over the past three years.
www.tomshardware.com
August 26, 2025 at 12:58 PM
AI is eating jobs. The only question is to what degree. www.tomshardware.com/tech-industr...
A reminder that AI is still deep into a hype cycle, and is in need of a reality check. www.tomshardware.com/tech-industr...
95% of generative AI implementations in enterprise 'have no measurable impact on P&L', says MIT — flawed integration cited as why AI projects underperform
AI is a powerful tool, but only if used correctly. | The study shows that AI tools must adjust to the organization’s processes for it to work effectively.
www.tomshardware.com
August 22, 2025 at 12:28 AM
A reminder that AI is still deep into a hype cycle, and is in need of a reality check. www.tomshardware.com/tech-industr...
Unit testing AI isn't good enough in practice, according to this study.
ai-frontiers.org/articles/how...
ai-frontiers.org/articles/how...
How AI Can Degrade Human Performance in High-Stakes Settings | AI Frontiers
Dane A. Morey, Jul 15, 2025 — Across disciplines, bad AI predictions have a surprising tendency to make human experts perform worse.
ai-frontiers.org
August 19, 2025 at 2:58 AM
Unit testing AI isn't good enough in practice, according to this study.
ai-frontiers.org/articles/how...
ai-frontiers.org/articles/how...
Infrastructure gentrification of the US power grid is in effect.
www.pcmag.com/news/shocked...
www.pcmag.com/news/shocked...
Shocked by Your Electric Bill? AI Is Spiking Prices 20% in These 13 States
America's largest power grid struggles to meet demand amid a tech industry power grab—but that's not the only issue.
www.pcmag.com
July 11, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Infrastructure gentrification of the US power grid is in effect.
www.pcmag.com/news/shocked...
www.pcmag.com/news/shocked...
I told someone back in 2020 that everything being done against protesters then was a trial run. My only regret is not making that statement more boldly.
www.npr.org/2020/07/17/8...
www.npr.org/2020/07/17/8...
Federal Officers Use Unmarked Vehicles To Grab People In Portland, DHS Confirms
Agents are deployed in the Oregon city amid anti-police protests. Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli tells NPR the tactic is being used to move detainees to a "safe location for questioning."
www.npr.org
July 8, 2025 at 1:38 AM
I told someone back in 2020 that everything being done against protesters then was a trial run. My only regret is not making that statement more boldly.
www.npr.org/2020/07/17/8...
www.npr.org/2020/07/17/8...
I'm uneasy that millions of books were destroyed in the process of feeding this AI effort. Have any works been lost to future human readers?
arstechnica.com/ai/2025/06/a...
arstechnica.com/ai/2025/06/a...
Anthropic destroyed millions of print books to build its AI models
Company hired Google’s book-scanning chief to cut up and digitize “all the books in the world.”…
arstechnica.com
June 28, 2025 at 4:05 PM
I'm uneasy that millions of books were destroyed in the process of feeding this AI effort. Have any works been lost to future human readers?
arstechnica.com/ai/2025/06/a...
arstechnica.com/ai/2025/06/a...
That way madness lies. Now with AI.
www.tomshardware.com/tech-industr...
www.tomshardware.com/tech-industr...
ChatGPT touts conspiracies, pretends to communicate with metaphysical entities — attempts to convince one user that they're Neo
'What does a human slowly going insane look like to a corporation? It looks like an additional monthly user.'
www.tomshardware.com
June 13, 2025 at 7:12 PM
That way madness lies. Now with AI.
www.tomshardware.com/tech-industr...
www.tomshardware.com/tech-industr...
Bluesky is "dying" because blocking is highly effective against trolls. That cuts short a voluminous yet highly unproductive form of engagement.
June 10, 2025 at 1:11 AM
Bluesky is "dying" because blocking is highly effective against trolls. That cuts short a voluminous yet highly unproductive form of engagement.
The term "sigma male" is ironically apt because Six Sigma is renowned for process bloat and resulting inefficiency.
June 10, 2025 at 1:04 AM
The term "sigma male" is ironically apt because Six Sigma is renowned for process bloat and resulting inefficiency.
What if it's not that degrees are being overproduced, but that the oligarchic market is under-utilizing them? Talent is being squandered in the name of efficiencies and quarterly performance.
futurism.com/computer-sci...
futurism.com/computer-sci...
"Learn to Code" Backfires Spectacularly as Comp-Sci Majors Suddenly Have Sky-High Unemployment
It looks like the "learn to code" push is backfiring spectacularly for those who majored in computer science in college.
futurism.com
May 31, 2025 at 2:42 PM
What if it's not that degrees are being overproduced, but that the oligarchic market is under-utilizing them? Talent is being squandered in the name of efficiencies and quarterly performance.
futurism.com/computer-sci...
futurism.com/computer-sci...