Welcome to onfocus—a weblog by Paul Bausch where I post recommended links, my photos, and occasional thoughts. Subscribe here if you like RSS.
Talking Points Memo
Under Kennedy, science has taken a backseat to conspiracists, opportunists, and snake-oil salesman. The result is now a nationwide limitation on access to a vital vaccine that has saved countless lives over the past five years.
Destroying the US public health infrastructure for what? Eugenics? So some health grifters can make money selling horse de-wormer? A sick population is less likely to protest? Social instability is helpful to Republicans? It is baffling to me but must make sense somehow to this administration.
latimes.com
Although his office filed felony cases against at least 38 people for alleged misconduct that either took place during last month’s protests or near the sites of immigration raids, many have been dismissed or reduced to misdemeanor charges.
LA juries are not having it. Encouraging.
BBC
In one clip, a customer seemingly crashed the system by ordering 18,000 water cups, while in another a person got increasingly angry as the AI repeatedly asked him to add more drinks to his order.
Obligatory
Emptywheel
John Roberts and his Republican colleagues have granted a kid with ties to criminal hackers, Ed “Big Balls” Coristine, live access to every American’s Social Security data.
Supreme Court majority implicated in US government hacking incident.
CNBC
Now, amid high interest rates and economic uncertainty, job openings have fallen and employers are hiring at their slowest pace in more than a decade.
Economy warning light flashing.
pbump.net
My intent remains to take a job with an established institution, rather than simply to write for myself. There is value in working for an institution: shared protection from attack; responsibility for others that can prompt caution or useful self-reflection. And while my most recent tenure working for an institution showed how accrued power can be redirected unexpectedly, I still think there is value in helping institutions that are doing good, important work to build their power.
A journalist I follow who used to write for The Washington Post is weighing his options and deciding where to help build power.
Reuters
The soldiers, some of whom told Reuters they did not get involved in arrests, are officially in Washington to support a federal crackdown on what President Donald Trump calls a crime epidemic. But that depiction appears to run counter to the fact that crime rates overall have shrunk in recent years.
What are they doing there beyond creating a media spectacle?
apnews.com
On Saturday, postal services around Europe announced that they are suspending the shipment of many packages to the United States amid confusion over new import duties. Postal services in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Italy said they will stop shipping most merchandise to the U.S. effective immediately. France and Austria will follow on Monday.
It's like the US imposed sanctions on itself. Elections have consequences.
BBC
Wake up babe, new giraffes just dropped.
Business Insider
This is the latest example of a strange marketing strategy by AI companies. Instead of selling products based on helpful features and letting users decide, executives often deploy scare tactics that essentially warn people they will become obsolete if they don't get on the AI bandwagon.
No hint of desperation here. I'm sure the quarterly numbers for adoption and engagement are off the charts and the only reason to strong arm people is because he's excited about the potential of the technology.
thedailyadda.com
A new study from MIT found that 95 percent of enterprise organizations report zero measurable gains from the adoption of AI tools.
Those billions spent on no gains are going to be a problem.
The New Yorker
In the aftermath of GPT-5’s launch, it has become more difficult to take bombastic predictions about A.I. at face value, and the views of critics like Marcus seem increasingly moderate. Such voices argue that this technology is important, but not poised to drastically transform our lives. They challenge us to consider a different vision for the near-future—one in which A.I. might not get much better than this.
What if we're closer to the end state of AI rather than the beginning?
« Older posts