I have never been more ready for Some Football.

Have I learned all about the teams and players in detail? No, I have been rather busy, and have not had the opportunity to do that, although I eagerly await Seth Burn’s Football Preview. I’ll have to do that part on the fly.

But oh my would a change of pace and chance to relax be welcome. It is time.

The debate over SB 1047 has been dominating for weeks. I’ve now said my peace on the bill and how it works, and compiled the reactions in support and opposition. There are two small orders of business left for the weekly. One is the absurd Chamber of Commerce ‘poll’ that is the equivalent of a pollster asking if you support John Smith, who recently killed your dog and who opponents say will likely kill again, while hoping you fail to notice you never had a dog.

The other is a (hopefully last) illustration that those who obsess highly disingenuously over funding sources for safety advocates are, themselves, deeply conflicted by their funding sources. It is remarkable how consistently so many cynical self-interested actors project their own motives and morality onto others.

The bill has passed the Assembly and now it is up to Gavin Newsom, where the odds are roughly 50/50. I sincerely hope that is a wrap on all that, at least this time out, and I have set my bar for further comment much higher going forward. Newsom might also sign various other AI bills.

Otherwise, it was a fun and hopeful week. We saw a lot of Mundane Utility, Gemini updates, OpenAI and Anthropic made an advance review deal with the American AISI and The Economist pointing out China is non-zero amounts of safety pilled. I have another hopeful iron in the fire as well, although that likely will take a few weeks.

And for those who aren’t into football? I’ve also been enjoying Nate Silver’s On the Edge. So far, I can report that the first section on gambling is, from what I know, both fun and remarkably accurate.

Table of Contents

Introduction.
Table of Contents.
Language Models Offer Mundane Utility. Turns out you did have a dog. Once.
Language Models Don’t Offer Mundane Utility. The AI did my homework.
Fun With Image Generation. Too much fun. We are DOOMed.
Deepfaketown and Botpocalypse Soon. The removal of trivial frictions.
They Took Our Jobs. Find a different job before that happens. Until you can’t.
Get Involved. DARP

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John Stephenson

John Stephenson