Blake Masters retweeted
This brings up a good reminder from the Prefect of the CDF in 2004, future Pope Benedict XVI, on the DP:
Blake Masters retweeted
For the last 10 years, I have ignored false and misleading stories about me and focused on the work.
But the cycle has gotten out of control where old lies get repeated as fact, new ones get added, and the record becomes increasingly distorted.
So from time to time, I’m going to respond, not to every allegation. But when the truth matters, I’ll put the facts and supporting information out publicly, and people can judge for themselves.
Blake Masters retweeted
SpaceX added ~1% to global internet bandwidth with today's Starship launch.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
This only increased the global *satellite* capacity by 1%, not the entire world including terrestrial network capacity
x.com/manhattva/stat…
Blake Masters retweeted
This angle gets me, where he’s just kind of standing there soaking it in, then sees his daughter and smiles, then instantly melts into tears … whew. Hell of a run, 35.
Blake Masters retweeted
Today I was blessed to spend the day on a nuclear attack submarine.
Over a meal with the commander, he had a clear ask: fix American manufacturing.
These patriots, who uphold our ways of life, are running out of parts. New boats aren’t moving, and old ones are bleeding out. It’s our duty to support. Tool up!
Blake Masters retweeted
Annual reminder: Bethlehem Steel was able to build a ship a day during WW2.
Blake Masters retweeted
Dario has written that we need to “pace the frontier,” and Sam has agreed. People may be surprised by my response: go ahead.
You guys are the frontier. By any reasonable metric — market share, revenue growth, model capability — the two of you have a duopoly on frontier intelligence. You’ve also claimed the lead is widening because of recursive self-improvement.
I don’t see what you see in the lab. If the unreleased models are scary enough that you think you should slow down, I support your decision to be responsible.
But stop pretending you need anyone else’s permission. Stop pretending antitrust law has to be suspended so you can form a cartel. Stop pretending you need a regulatory approval process that supersedes product liability. Stop pretending METR is independent when it is intertwined with Anthropic’s investors and staff. Stop pretending you need those same evaluators to police competitors who aren’t even at the frontier.
Most of all, stop pretending the motivation to slow down is purely altruistic. You face massive product-liability exposure if your products enable a truly damaging cyberattack. The market already punishes models that behave in unpredictable or unauthorized ways. After the Hugging Face episode, it is simply good business for OpenAI and Anthropic to trade some raw power for reliability and predictability. Call it alignment if you want. It is also just giving customers what they want.
Pacing the frontier would also create breathing room for a more intelligent conversation about regulation than Bernie Sanders’ “shut it all down.” China is very unlikely to join a global agreement, as you know, and that has to be taken into account as well.
So go ahead and pace the frontier. You are the ones setting it. The easiest way not to build superintelligence is for you to agree not to build it. Demanding your preferred regulatory framework as the price of that will look like blackmail of the public and the political system. So just do it.
If you do, you’ll buy goodwill for the next conversation. If you don’t, we’ll know this was just another bid for regulatory capture — or an election-season psyop.
Blake Masters retweeted
AI isn’t going away. Barring unprecedented global government coordination, it isn’t even slowing down.
The only real decision is whether to centralize power, or disperse it.
Do you fear the technology? Or a small number of people controlling the technology?
Blake Masters retweeted
I reread this every year.
I cry like a baby every year.
Todd Beamer died a father, husband, and hero.
Todd: Hello… Operator… listen to me. I can’t speak very loud. This is an emergency. I’m a passenger on a United flight to San Francisco. Our plane has been hijacked.
Lisa: I understand. Can they see you?
Todd: No. There are three that we know of. They have knives — razor knives, like box cutters. Someone announced from the cockpit there was a bomb. It sounded fake.
Lisa: Your name?Todd: Todd Beamer. United Flight 93.Todd: They killed one passenger in first class. They forced most of us back. Fourteen of us here. Five flight attendants. The guy with the bomb ordered us to sit on the floor.
Lisa: Are you okay?
Todd: We’re going down… wait. No. We’re leveling off. We changed directions. We’re flying east again.
Todd: A guy named Jeremy called his wife. She told him two planes hit the World Trade Center. Lisa, is that true?
Lisa: I have to tell you the truth. It’s very bad. Both towers are gone. A third plane hit the Pentagon. Our country is under attack. I’m afraid your plane may be part of their plan.
Todd: Oh God. Lisa, will you do something for me? Call my wife and my kids. Promise me you’ll call.
Lisa: I promise.
Todd: Our home number is… You have the same name as my wife. Lisa. We’ve been married ten years. She’s pregnant with our third child. Tell her I love her. I’ll always love her. We have two boys — David, he’s 3, and Andrew, he’s 1. Tell them their daddy loves them and he is so proud of them. The baby is due January 12th. I saw an ultrasound. We still don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy.
Lisa: I’ll tell them. I promise, Todd.(Lisa patches in the FBI.)
Agent: Todd, your plane is on a course for Washington. Best guess is the White House or the Capitol.
Todd: I understand. I’ll be back.
Todd: Everyone knows this isn’t a normal hijacking. We have decided we will not be pawns in their plot.
Lisa: What are you going to do?
Todd: Four of us are going to rush the one with the bomb. Then the cockpit. A stewardess is getting boiling water. We’ll take them out.
Todd: Would you pray with me?They pray the Lord’s Prayer. Then: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.
Todd: God help me. Jesus help me.Are you guys ready? Let’s Roll.
Blake Masters retweeted
It’s UNREAL that these slides are from an actual FBI report.
Traditional Latin Mass. Conservative family values. Opposition to abortion. “Rejection of modernity.”
As a Catholic who attends the TLM, it’s disturbing to see ordinary Catholic beliefs and practices presented in this context by the FBI.
I’m grateful to the Trump administration for bringing this detailed report to the public and taking steps to ensure this never happens again.
🚨Weaponization Working Group Releases Report on 2023 FBI Richmond Field Office Memo That Targeted Non-Mainstream Catholics
This report sheds further light on the targeting and investigation of non-mainstream Catholics under the previous administration.
“This Department of Justice will not tolerate a weaponized bureaucracy that chills First Amendment activity,” said @AGToddBlanche. “The individuals who developed the Richmond Domain Perspective are no longer with the Department, and our Working Group’s efforts to investigate weaponization under the previous Administration will continue.”
Read the report here: justice.gov/opa/pr/weaponiza…
Blake Masters retweeted
In 1948, a cowboy galloped beneath an American Airlines DC-6 flying low over Tucson, Arizona, capturing the Old West and the new age of commercial aviation in a single photograph.
Blake Masters retweeted
Rainmaker just produced ~19M gallons of water in Alaska via next-gen cloud seeding over 3 hours of operations.
We are the first company to provably produce precipitation in Alaska. As promised, we’ve linked our white paper and relevant data.
In the future, Rainmaker will protect and restore glaciers with man-made snowfall.
Immediately, this demonstration shows how Rainmaker will add new water to the Colorado River and Great Salt Lake in the coming months.
We turned around this analysis and white paper just a couple days after operating. There are many data sources I want to deepen our understanding of the atmosphere and increase our provable production; we’re building the instruments to collect that data in subsequent operations. But at Rainmaker, we won’t tout LOIs, simulations, or lab tests. What matters is physically measuring that you’ve affected the atmosphere; proving that we’ve produced water. We prefer sharing only the tech that has proven to make more water for farms, industries, and ecosystems in need.
Expect a regular cadence of these from us as we build the best atmospheric science lab in the world. Feedback is welcome in the interim.
Rainmaker Century.
rainmaker.com/blog/alaska-va…
Blake Masters retweeted
we’re having debates about datacenters and China is publicly developing superhuman robot armies
what the actual hell are we doing here guys
Blake Masters retweeted
I grew up on food stamps in rural Kentucky. I have founded a company that makes clean, safe nuclear energy. I have created hundreds of jobs and will create thousands more. My family and I have bled sweat and cried to build this.
The idea that you can just steal this from me is awful and evil. You are not the good guys