If we want to prevent tomorrow’s crises from spiraling out of control, we must recognize epistemic systems as critical infrastructure, writes Elizabeth Seger.
A quote from Daniel Stenberg
The challenge with AI in open source security has transitioned from an AI slop tsunami into more of a ... plain security report tsunami. Less slop but lots of reports. …
Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth o…
Few topics are as timely as the growth of government. T…
Village-scale resilience
The end-of-the-world already happened, it's just not evenly distributed. But with every end is a new beginning.
AI Safety Is a Narrative Problem · Special Issue 5: Grappling With the Generative AI Revolution
This op-ed explores power and narrative dynamics around AI. Drawing on pop-culture references, the professional experiences of the author and examples from 2023’s “Great AI Safety Hype Roadshow,” this piece draws on the literary criticism technique of practical criticism to consider how speeches and announcements from both Silicon Valley executives and research scientists to interrogate the media-friendly nature of p(doom) discourse—which focuses on the existential risks of AI (PauseAI, 2023)—and its likely consequences. The complexities of AI and its numerous social impacts can be difficult for even the most expert analyst to unpack. In spite of this, the potential of “existential threats” has successfully cut through to become a mainstay of mainstream media coverage over the last year. This piece will make the case that this is an effective narrative conceit that has achieved a number of ends that traditional science communication tends to find difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. Firstly, it is easy to understand. Simplification of this nature—that removes jargon and complexity and focuses on a single outcome—is much easier to fit on a TV rolling news ticker or on the cover of a tabloid newspaper than more well-balanced, representative opinions. Secondly, it inherits prior assumptions from well-known dramatic forms. P(doom) plays to stories familiar from Greek tragedy through to Marvel movies, in which lone male heroes battle ineluctable forces. Thirdly, it is imbued with urgency and so becomes difficult to ignore.
Conflict Systems
The zine contends that many recent sites of community building, especially online, have lacked the tools and norms for the practice of conflict. Many reasonable expectations that go by names like due process, justice, accountability, or mediation are unavailable or not even considered in emerging communities. The platforms that communities rely on treat conflict as a corporate liability, not a chance to strengthen relationships.
Risk, Uncertainty and Profit
A timeless classic of economic theory that remains fasc…
Amplifying climate resilience: The impact of social protection, social cohesion, and social capital on public support for climate change action
Traditional climate action strategies often overlook the critical role of social cohesion. This study explores how social protection programs and community unity can bolster climate resilience and ...
Cybersecurity Looks Like Proof of Work Now
The UK's AI Safety Institute recently published Our evaluation of Claude Mythos Preview’s cyber capabilities, their own independent analysis of Claude Mythos which backs up Anthropic's claims that it is …
The AI "Evaluation Crisis" Is an Opportunity to Get Data Flow Right
Why the AI evaluation crisis could force a reckoning on dataset provenance, attribution, and consent.
The Internet Transition
The Internet is allowing us to build a richer, more complex society but the way in which we Internet today is failing to support the governance systems that a more complex world requires. I take a look at why these issues are related, try to develop an intuition for a way forward, and point at the emerging field that is coming together to build that future.
Disaster risk reduction
Disaster risk reduction aims to make disasters less likely to happen. The approach, also called DRR or disaster risk management, also aims to make disasters less damaging when they do occur. DRR aims to make communities stronger and better prepared to handle disasters. In technical terms, it aims to make them more resilient or less vulnerable. When DRR is successful, it makes communities less the vulnerable because it mitigates the effects of disasters. This means DRR can make risky events fewer and less severe. Climate change can increase climate hazards. So development efforts often consider DRR and climate change adaptation together.
PLC Threat-modeling & Auditability - Daniel's Leaflets
What Functional Programmers Get Wrong About Systems - Ian Duncan
Type systems verify properties of programs. Production correctness is a property of systems. The gap between these is where the interesting failures live.
Europe 2031 — What getting AI wrong means for us
A five-year scenario about AI and Europe's impending slide into irrelevance, with a 2034 epilogue that describes how the collapse of the European model could have been prevented.
Climate doom may discourage climate action, but there’s a way to counter it
One way to guard against misinformation is to empower people to identify climate doom in the first place.
eurosky
Eurosky exists because Europe needs technological sovereignty and democratic resilience in its digital infrastructure.
