Twenty-two people went on trial in France on Monday on charges of murder and other serious crimes centred on members of a Masonic lodge accused of running hit squads. Thirteen of the defendants face life imprisonment. Those in the dock include four military personnel from France’s foreign intelligence service (DGSE), two police officers, a retired domestic intelligence officer, a security guard and two business executives. They are accused of the murder of a racing driver, the attempted murders of a business coach and a trade unionist, aggravated assault and criminal conspiracy – all on behalf of a mafia network inside the former Athanor Masonic Lodge in the Paris suburb of Puteaux. Several freemasons from the 20 or so members of the lodge are in the dock. Most of the accused, aged between 30 and 73, have no previous criminal records. (via France24)
He joined Apple as a teenager in 1976 and he is still working there 50 years later
In 1976, Chris Espinosa rode his moped a mile and a half every Wednesday afternoon, parked it and went to work. Just 14 years old, he still had to go to school and didn’t have a driver’s license. But his employer, Apple Computer, had customers who wanted to try its earliest computer, and Espinosa was responsible for demonstrating it. Espinosa’s job has changed many times in the 50 years since. But he still works for Apple. At 64 he is one among an increasingly rare breed in today’s economy: people who have spent all of their lives working for one company. When Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak signed the documents to start Apple in 1976, Silicon Valley’s fruit orchards hadn’t yet been taken over by office parks. Espinosa became employee No. 8 at the scrappy start-up that assembled computers by hand in Mr. Jobs’s home. (via the New York Times)
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I’m a writer, as some (hopefully most) of you know. I’ve been a writer and journalist for more than 40 years now. It’s one of the few things I really know how to do, and it’s about the only way I have ever managed to make any money, so not surprisingly, I am pretty attached to it. As a writer, I think many people assume that I would belong to the “AI writing over my dead body” group in terms of the current debate over artificial intelligence and writing-slash-journalism. These are the kinds of folks behind a recent campaign to convince publishers not to deal with those who use AI: it asks writers to not only renounce AI, and promise they will never use it, but to also refuse to support or do business with writers who do use AI. There’s been a dramatic increase in that kind of sentiment recently, which isn’t surprising, since there seems to have been a pretty dramatic increase in the numbers of writers and journalist who are happy to use AI. I think the important question is: What are they using AI for? And is that defensible?
If you believe that everything AI is involved with is worthless “slop,” you should probably stop reading. As with most things (apart from a few exceptions) I think there is a place for most tools when it comes to doing the work, and to me AI is just another tool, much like the printing press or the typewriter or the internet. I’m old enough to remember when people were pretty upset about the internet and the impact it was going to have on creative pursuits or the world in general (no, I don’t remember the arrival of the printing press, contrary to what my kids might think). As one of the first staffers at the Globe and Mail‘s live news site in 2000, I wrote an inaugural column about how great the internet was for writers like me — the ability to have our work read (and commented on) by large numbers of people with little or no friction. Did I regret some of those words after a decade or so online, especially the comment part? Sure I did. But on balance I still think it was and is mostly good. After all, it makes it easy for me to send you this!
I realize that artificial intelligence and everything it involves — the training on data that AI companies don’t have the rights to, for example, or the fact that it sometimes encourages people to believe that they should kill themselves — makes it somewhat different from the printing press or even the internet (although I would argue not as much as some seem to think). Then there’s the whole “will AI kill everyone” question, which I’m not really equipped to answer. But in terms of a tool that can help with writing, or pretty much any other task, I think it makes perfect sense — in certain contexts. Is it going to pollute the internet with slop? Of course. But so have countless human beings over the past few decades. So that’s a difference of magnitude, rather than a difference in kind. Is it going to take some people’s jobs? Of course — just as countless other technologies have, from the automated loom to the colour printer or the electronic calculator. But it could also create new jobs along the way. Will they be as good? I have no idea.
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As you read this, hundreds of thousands of high school students across the country are busy preparing for the most important test of their lives so far — the dreaded SAT. The most common college entrance exam has come under fire in recent years for glaring racial disparities, with critics pointing to the racism of its architect, Carl Brigham, as evidence the test belongs in the dustbin of history. Was Carl Brigham a racist? The short answer is yes. The long answer is also yes, and his racism led him to twist his own data to arrive at faulty — and bigoted — conclusions. During World War I, Brigham was tasked with developing psychological tests to measure the cognitive abilities of newly drafted soldiers. There was also a eugenics movement sweeping the country, and Brigham bought into the notion that some races were superior to others. While he viewed Blacks as inferior to whites, this wasn’t his primary concern. Instead, he was focused on the influx of “inferior” white immigrants coming into the country. (via Nautilus)
He ran 500 miles from Colorado Springs to Moab while microdosing psychedelics
Dante Liberato was somewhere around Olathe, Colorado, on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. Maybe it wasn’t a chemical taking hold of Liberato, but rather exhaustion from having jogged 241 miles across mountain ranges and river valleys. No matter what it was, a powerful force made him to sit down on the side of an empty road. This moment marked the crux of a seemingly insane personal challenge that Liberato—an ultrarunner, coach, and yes, regular psychedelics user—took on in 2025. Over the course of 11 days, Liberato ran 500 miles from his home in Colorado Springs, Colorado, to Moab, Utah. Along the way, he ingested LSD and psilocybin, a naturally occurring psychotropic found in certain mushrooms. A film crew followed Liberato’s every step for a forthcoming documentary, titled Dante, about his very unorthodox approach to endurance sports. Spoiler alert: Liberato completed the journey, celebrating the feat by eating an ice cream sandwich at a small grocery store. (via Outside)
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A field in an overgrown Czech Republic forest has, for nearly 100 years, served as the hiding place for a secret stash of nearly 600 gold coins and other precious metal goods tucked into a stone wall. But the cache of treasure is hiding no more. Two hikers traversing the Krkonoše Mountains (Giant Mountains) came across the small aluminum can, which had been hidden in a crevice in the wall, and opened it up to find the collection of gold coins. Just a few feet away, they found another hidden cache — this one an iron box holding jewelry, cigarette cases, and other personal items all made from gold. The lucky hikers wound up finishing their trip with an extra 15 pounds of precious cargo. They eventually took their discovery for an assessment by experts at the Museum of Eastern Bohemia. Whoever stashed the treasure may have done so to conceal valuables while fleeing the Nazis’ annexation of the region.(via Popular Mechanics)
This entire family had their stomachs removed and had to learn how to live without one
“What do you mean, you just take the stomach out?” Karyn Paringatai wondered, when doctors first said her stomach had to be surgically removed. Could she still eat? Yes, but differently. What would replace it? Nothing. She would have to live the rest of her life missing a major organ. Paringatai was not actually sick, not yet. Her stomach was fine. But her cousin, just a few years older, had recently died of an aggressive stomach cancer at age 33, leaving behind three children. The cousin’s own mother had died young of stomach cancer. So had her grandmother. So had her sister. To the doctors who saw Paringatai’s cousin in Tauranga, New Zealand, this pattern was hauntingly familiar. The doctors had witnessed the same rare cancer run through a large Māori family near Tauranga. In that family, one woman lost six of her siblings to stomach cancer. (via The Atlantic)
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In Nepal, helicopter rescue on high altitude is, by any measure, a genuine lifesaving operation. At high altitude, where oxygen thins and weather changes without warning, the ability to airlift a stricken trekker to Kathmandu within hours has saved countless lives. But threaded through that legitimate system, exploiting its urgency, its opacity, and its distance from oversight, — is one of the most sophisticated insurance fraud networks in the world. Nepal’s fake rescue scam is not new. The Kathmandu Post first exposed it in 2018. Months later, the government convened a fact-finding committee, produced a 700-page report, and announced reforms. In February 2019, The Kathmandu Post published a long investigative report. Last year, Nepal Police’s Central Investigation Bureau reopened the file, and what they found is that the fraud did not stop — instead it was growing. (via Kathmandu Post)
Israel’s mysterious Stonehenge of the East is not alone new research reveals
Israel’s strange Wheel of Ghosts, first discovered in 1968, turns out not to be so unusual after all, as new research combining remote sensing and AI now confirms the presence of many similar sites in the region. Situated in the Golan Heights and composed of 40,000 tons of rock, archaeologists estimate the structure to date back between 3,500 and 6,500 years. Known as the “Stonehenge of the East,” the site’s official name is Rujm el-Hiri, and it is cast in a decidedly new light in a recent paper, revealing many similar structures. Existing interpretations have diverged in their explanations of what the Wheel of Ghosts meant to the people who built it. Those explanations run the gamut of what is assumed of these mysterious ancient sites: a ceremonial space, a burial mound, or an astronomical observatory. However, these interpretations all relied on a major assumption that has proven false: that the Wheel of Ghosts is unique to the area. (via The Debrief)
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That fall, with her sights set on even bigger targets, Bartzen headed to Palm Beach and began hanging around with someone who appeared to be a genuine member of the scion class: a much younger man who introduced himself as Matthew Rockefeller. Suddenly, Bartzen and Global Passion Projects, to which Rockefeller signed on, took on a new gloss. Rockefeller, who is 39, told potential event partners that he ran the philanthropy arm of the oil baron’s family. For fees of up to $12,000, Bartzen and Rockefeller promised event sponsors access to a network of 50,000 investors, according to emails. The entrepreneurs agreed to co-host the event, which was scheduled for late January, on the condition that they would not be responsible for any costs. The party was to be held at the Mansion Yacht House, a new waterborne private club. Bartzen assured him she had the money. “The Rockefellers are coming!” she insisted. (via NY Mag)
McDonald’s once tried to create and sell bubble-gum flavored broccoli
It sounds like one of Willy Wonka’s rejected ideas: Bubble gum-flavored broccoli. But the creation was far from fictional: It was a concoction whipped up by the fast-food giant McDonald’s. Chief executive Don Thompson said that the motivation was to create a way to get kids to eat healthier. So why isn’t your local McDonald’s selling bubble-gum flavored brassicas? Apparently adding a sweet flavor to broccoli doesn’t make it any more appetizing to kids, who were confused by the taste, Thompson said. The test came as the fast-food chain was under pressure to create healthier options, while some consumers are shifting to rivals such as Chipotle. Still, McDonald’s isn’t giving up on tweaks to its menu. Instead of candy-flavored veggies, it’s focusing on tactics such as reducing the size of its fry servings and adding low-fat yogurt to its Happy Meals. (via CBS)
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Chalker told me that he wanted to repair his reputation. He had always been an American patriot, he insisted, and to prove it he was willing to talk publicly, for the first time, about his years of clandestine work for the C.I.A. — which, he said, had “prevented Iran from getting a nuke.” He insisted that he had helped obtain pivotal information that laid the groundwork for more than a decade of American efforts to disrupt the Iranian nuclear-weapons program, from the Stuxnet cyberattacks, which occurred around 2010, to the Obama Administration’s nuclear deal, in 2015, to the U.S. air strikes in the summer of 2025. Chalker told me that, as he understood it, the Pentagon had suggested running commando operations to kill key Iranian scientists, as Israel subsequently did. But the C.I.A. proposed recruiting those scientists to defect instead, as U.S. spies had once courted Soviet physicists, and that he was involved in this program. (via The New Yorker)
These snakes become deadly killers by eating poisonous frogs and absorbing their toxins
Red-necked keelback snakes are highly toxic—mere drops of their pungent yellow poison could blind a mongoose and stop its heart within minutes. But the snakes don’t make that toxin themselves; rather, they steal it from the poisonous toads they eat.After a red-necked keelback (Rhabdophis subminiatus) eats a true toad (a member of the Bufonidae family), the snake’s intestines soak up the toxic bufadienolide molecules from the amphibian’s skin. The toxins are then shuttled into more than a dozen pairs of storage pockets in the snakes’ necks called nuchal glands. Then the snakes act fearless. They rise and jut their necks at mongooses and other would-be predators as if to say, “Go ahead — I dare you.” That brazen attitude doesn’t last, though. If their dinner has been nontoxic recently — poison-free frogs or fish, for example — these reptiles often hurriedly slither away rather than pick a fight they might lose. (via Scientific American)
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Meta has been found guilty in two separate but related cases involving the alleged harms of its social platforms in the past couple of weeks. In one, a jury found that Facebook and Instagram harmed a young user with features that were addictive and either caused or exacerbated her mental distress. Meta had to pay the relatively paltry sum of $4.2 million (YouTube, which was also part of the suit, had to pay $1.8 million), but the dollar value — a sum that Meta likely makes every 10 minutes on the average day — isn’t the important part. In many ways, the decision was a landmark ruling, and when combined with the second case against Meta it could either trigger or help fuel a firestorm of related lawsuits. In the second case, a jury found that the company failed to protect its younger users from child predators, and Meta was told to pay $375 million.
Governments have been trying for at least a couple of decades to go after social platforms, arguing that they cause significant harm to users, especially younger ones. The problem is that for the last 30 years, digital platforms have been protected by something called Section 230, a clause in the Communications Decency Act of 1997, which in turn is part of the Telecommunications Act. Section 230 has been called “the 26 words that created the internet” (which is good or bad, depending on whether you like the internet or not). Without going into detail, the clause says that digital platforms like Meta and TikTok aren’t responsible for the content that their users post (it also protects people who write blogs and newsletters, but that often gets overlooked). Critics have called it a get-out-of-responsibility-free card, but haven’t managed to kill it.
So how have the courts in the two recent cases against Meta gotten past this restriction? By using an argument that gained currency in the 1990s, during lawsuits against big tobacco companies and asbestos makers. In effect, the lawyers in the cases against Meta didn’t argue that the content on Facebook and Instagram harms people, because that is protected by Section 230 — instead, they argued that the actual structure of those social products is by itself inherently addictive and therefore damaging. In other words, the argument isn’t that Facebook and Instagram are harmful accidentally, or because the company isn’t paying attention, but because they are harmful by design. As the New York Times explained in an analysis of the two recent cases:
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The British de Havilland DH-112 Venom is one of the most iconic combat jets of the Cold War, with a distinctive two-pronged tail design that stretched out far behind the main body of the aircraft and a striking red and black paint job. That was the aircraft 50-year-old Marty Tibbitts flew one summer afternoon at a Wisconsin air show in July 2018. A millionaire who made his money launching call center businesses, he regularly flew historical aircraft. People on the ground saw the Venom’s wings rock back and forth, then the plane stalled. Tibbitts crashed into a nearby barn and flames engulfed the plane and set the barn and other buildings on fire too. As news of Tibbitts’ death spread, his wife received a phone call from one of those business associates: Tibbitts, it turned out, had a secret life. The pair commissioned the construction of an elaborate underwater drone that would be stuffed with cocaine and latch onto ships with magnets. Tibbitts was the money and brains behind the operation. (via 404 Media)
WNBA players had an ace up their sleeve in pay negotiations: A Nobel Prize-winning economist
After Claudia Goldin became the first woman to win a solo Nobel in economics in 2023, she received hundreds of invitations and requests. She accepted just three.One of them was advising the WNBA players union as the women prepared to negotiate a new labor deal with the league. When Goldin replied via email to Terri Carmichael Jackson, executive director of the players union, “I remember just reading it and screaming,” Jackson said. Goldin had one requirement: She refused to be paid. This month, the two sides reached a collective bargaining agreement that gave Women’s National Basketball Association players a nearly 400% raise. Starting this season, players’ average salary will top $580,000. It isn’t just the biggest pay increase in U.S. league history. It is the biggest increase any union anywhere has ever negotiated. (via the WSJ)
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Ilha da Queimada Grande, to give it its Portuguese name, is a lump of rock sitting 33km off the Brazilian mainland. It has come to be known as Snake Island because of the thousands of venomous snakes that occupy its 43 hectares. The golden lancehead is a species of pit viper found nowhere else in the world. It has been evolving in isolation since rising sea levels cut it off from the mainland 11,000 years ago. At less than a metre in length, it is significantly smaller than its closest relatives, but has a reputation for being one of the most dangerous snakes on the planet. Stories abound about the potency of its venom, which is said to be fast-acting and lead to an agonising death. It is claimed there is one snake for every square metre of Ilha da Queimada Grande. Little surprise, perhaps, that only scientists and the military are permitted to visit. (via Discover Wildlife)
Can you survive inside a tornado? This scientist managed to do just that
I have seen the center of a monster. Most people describe the sound of a tornado as like a freight train, but up close, it’s more like a thousand screaming jet engines. I am one of the few people on Earth who has driven into a tornado and lived to tell the tale.While it might sound like a scene from a Hollywood blockbuster involving a high-tech armored truck, my experience was much more dangerous and terrifying.I am an atmospheric scientist who studies tornadoes, but I am only alive today because of split-second decisions and a massive amount of dumb luck. It started in northwest Kansas, where I was studying supercell thunderstorms – the kind that produce tornadoes – with a team of students from the University of Michigan.We were positioned under a thunderstorm that was so dark, we had to turn on our vehicles’ headlights in the middle of the day. Suddenly, a tornado formed and began charging directly toward us.The students were in other vehicles and got away, but my car was quickly swallowed by a cloud of flying debris so thick that I couldn’t even see my own hood. (via Scientific American)
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A noted professional cornhole player who is a quadruple amputee is behind bars after authorities said he shot and killed a front seat passenger Sunday night while he was driving in Maryland. Dayton Webber, 27, was behind the wheel when he opened fire on Bradrick Michael Wells during an argument as they were traveling in a car in the town of La Plata, the Charles County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Webber, who lives in La Plata, pulled over and asked the backseat passengers to help pull Wells out of the car, but they refused, flagged down La Plata police and reported the shooting, the sheriff’s office said. Webber competes in the American Cornhole League, which called the case “an extremely serious matter.” Webber’s arms and legs were amputated to save his life from a serious streptococcus pneumonia blood infection when he was 10 months old. He said doctors gave him a 3% chance of surviving. (via CNN)
This librarian maintains a comprehensive list of all the items found inside borrowed books
Photographs, to-do lists, airplane tickets and quirky drawings by children are part of thousands of lost and forgotten items in library books carefully collected for years by a librarian in California. The items are now part of a collection called “Found in a Library Book” at the Oakland Public Library. Among the items are a ticket to an Oakland Athletics baseball game on April 25, 2013 and a ticket to a Heineken beer-related event dated Nov. 19, 2002. Any item found in a returned book throughout the library system gets sent to librarian Sharon McKellar, who began collecting the items 10 years ago. A few days ago, she opened envelopes containing polaroid photos, two post-it notes stuck to each other with a list of ingredients on one and a list of bible verses on another and a single square sheet of toilet paper.”I like imagining where these came from,” said McKellar, who has been with the library since 2003. (via Reuters)
That time when Catholic Europe and Protestant England each had their own calendar
The adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1583 by Pope Gregory XII refined the schedule of leap years to more accurately reflect the length of the year, and corrected the creep of the calendar since the Roman Empire by jumping ahead ten calendar days. As you can imagine, Protestant Europe was less inclined to follow the Pope’s directives on changing the calendar, and several countries, including England, clung to the less-accurate Julian calendar. The use of different calendars created a confusing interregnum during which events happened on different dates depending on who was keeping score, England or Catholic Europe. For example, the English defeated the Spanish Armada at Gravelines on July 29, 1588 in England or August 8, 1588 in Europe. William Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616 in England, which was May 2, 1616 in Europe. Isaac Newton was born in England on Christmas Day 1642, a more memorable day than Europe’s January 4, 1643. (via Why Is This Interesting?)
Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either through my Patreon or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. I also write a weekly newsletter of technology analysis called The Torment Nexus.
The mystery of the legless lizards of Taiwan
Slithering through the damp leaf litter, deep in the forests of Taiwan is an elusive creature that’s been causing confusion for decades—the Formosan legless lizard. But first, what makes this limbless reptile a lizard and not a snake? For starters, it has ears, or at least tiny external earholes, which snakes lack. It also has eyelids and can blink with them, while snakes have transparent, fused membranes protecting their eyes. Finally, it has a lateral groove on each side of its body which allows the skin to expand. While its appearance may confound those unfamiliar with the finer points of reptile classification, the distinction between snake and lizard wasn’t the source of the confusion. Instead, early naturalists originally believed there were two legless lizards lurking in the forests of Taiwan: one displayed striking blue spots, while the other lacked them. Complicating things further, the original specimen for scientists to refer back to vanished shortly after World War II. (via Nautilus)
First glimpse of sperm whale birth reveals teamwork to support newborn
A sperm whale giving birth has been assisted by 10 other females in her social unit, the first time such an event has ever been observed in non-primates. In July 2023, scientists who have been monitoring a group of sperm whales in the Caribbean since 2005 noticed that all 11 females in the group had gathered near the surface. By chance, the researchers had drones in the air and were able to observe and record the event. Shortly afterwards, the flukes of a calf started emerging from its mother. The delivery took place over the next half hour, during which the other females coordinated themselves to protect the mother and newborn. As soon as the calf was born, the female whales gathered around and took turns making sure that it was kept lifted at the surface so it could breathe and had time for its flukes to fully unfurl. In the first few hours, newborn sperm whales aren’t buoyant and cannot stay at the surface on their own, so such assistance is thought to be critical to prevent calves from drowning. (via New Scientist)
The Rolling Stones song Satisfaction played on rubber chickens by a man in a tuxedo
Acknowledgements: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other places that I rely on as “serendipity engines,” such as The Morning News from Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Jodi Ettenberg’s Curious About Everything, Dan Lewis’s Now I Know, Robert Cottrell and Caroline Crampton’s The Browser, Clive Thompson’s Linkfest and Why Is This Interesting by Noah Brier and Colin Nagy. If you come across something you think should be included here, feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com
Juan Pujol was born in Barcelona in 1912 to a family of moderate means and liberal political beliefs. The onset of war in 1939 convinced him that he should make a contribution to the good of humanity. He decided contact the British authorities and offer to spy against Germany. Each time his approaches were rebuffed. In contrast, Pujol had no difficulty making contact with German Intelligence in Madrid, sayinghe was a Spanish government official of fanatical pro-Nazi persuasions. He was given a crash course in espionage. Instead of travelling to England, Pujol actually moved to Lisbon and began work creating a network of wholly imaginary sub-agents. By 1944 Pujol and Harris, working together, had invented no fewer than 27 sub-agents, each with full life stories. The fictional agents included such characters as a Venezuelan in Glasgow, an indiscreet US army sergeant and a Welsh nationalist leading a group of Fascists called the “Brothers of the Aryan World Order” in Swansea. (via MI5)
People who lose their vision sometimes develop a condition where they see imaginary things
For those stricken with Charles Bonnet Syndrome, the world is occasionally adorned with vivid yet unreal images. Some see surfaces covered in non-existent patterns such as brickwork or tiles, while others see phantom objects in astonishing detail, including people, animals, buildings, or whatever else their minds may conjure. These images linger for as little as several seconds or for as much as several hours, appearing and vanishing abruptly. They may consist of commonplace items such as bottles or hats, or brain-bending nonsense such as dancing children with giant flowers for heads. Most of those afflicted with Charles Bonnet Syndrome are people in the early stages of sight loss, and the hallucinations usually begin while their vision is still present but slowly diminishing. (via Damn Interesting)
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When I was growing up, my mother used to refer to the egg as “your father’s ego”, while to the rest of the world it was known as the Argyle Library Egg by Kutchinsky. I felt a mix of pride and bafflement towards my father’s creation. I was thrilled to take its Guinness World Records certificate to school to show my friends, but I didn’t understand why anyone would want an egg that big which wasn’t made out of chocolate. But after the egg, life was never the same. It came to bear responsibility for the loss of our century-old business, the implosion of my parents’ marriage and Dad’s untimely death. After the family firm was sold, the egg was seized by creditors and locked away. It vanished but its shadow lingered. Mum raged against it as if it were human. A villain that stole her livelihood and husband, and robbed her children of a father. I was meant to hate it, too. But I couldn’t. Just like I couldn’t hate Dad when he left. (via The Guardian)
Buster Keaton’s films were all destroyed and then James Mason bought his house
During Buster Keaton’s golden era, he helped to design his house behind the Beverly Hills Hotel. The house contained a movie theatre, complete with a projector, perfect for showing guests unfinished films. Although Keaton loved the villa, when he divorced Natalie, she took his fortune and property. According to filmmaker Jim Jarmusch, when Keaton’s career was disintegrating, “the studio said, ‘look, all of your films… we are reclaiming the silver out of the copies of these films.’ […] So all of these masterpieces that Buster Keaton created were gone. And they were gone. And he lived his life until the 1950s, just accepting that all of this work that he had done will never ever be seen.” However, in 1948, Pamela Mason, the wife of British actor James Mason, became enamoured by his former house. While refurbishing it, the Masons took down a wall in part of a screening room and found pristine prints of Keaton’s films. (via Far Out magazine)
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There are lots of potential nightmares when it comes to artificial intelligence. In a recent Torment Nexus I wrote about how the U.S. government seems hell-bent on using AI to engage in mass surveillance of American citizens (and probably lots of other people as well) and also to pilot autonomous murder drones. Obviously both of these things would be bad, especially given the fact that AI models love to hallucinate or “confabulate,” as AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton likes to call it. And then there’s the science-fiction style nightmares — like the invention of Skynet, the all-powerful AI from the Terminator movies, or the killer robots from the movie I, Robot (which were controlled by a human being, to be fair). Or the somewhat bizarre nightmares of the effective altruism crowd, such as the paperclip problem or the Roko’s Basilisk thought experiment, which posits that if there is an all-powerful AI, it might be mad that we didn’t bring it into being sooner, and punish anyone who wasn’t spending every minute of their day doing so.
There’s also just the general nightmare around what happens if an AI becomes conscious. As I wrote in another recent Torment Nexus, a large part of the discussion is concentrated on whether an AI could become conscious in the way we understand that term, and there is also some debate over whether maybe some of the current ones have already achieved that goal. This is connected to the debate over whether we are close to achieving AIs with what some call “artificial general intelligence” or AGI — which is usually understood to mean intelligence that can do most of the tasks that an average human being can, across a wide range of skills, as opposed to AIs that are good at math or code. My favourite part of this discussion is that it reinforces the fact that we — even experts in the fields of psychology and sociology — aren’t a hundred percent sure what consciousness consists of, and how to prove that human beings have it, let alone whether AIs do. And if an AI does become conscious in a way that we recognize, then what? How should we respond to it, if at all? What does it require of us? I’ve written about that as well.
Then there are more prosaic nightmares about the potential disruption caused by AI, such as the impact on the job market and the economy. We’ve already seen a hint of that impact, whether it’s on journalists or programmers or marketing copywriters — companies like Block and Atlassian have decided they don’t need as many employees (although some believe that these layoffs are for other reasons, such as overspending on hiring during times of low interest rates, and that AI is just an excuse). For the near future at least, economists expect that there will always be a need for humans in the loop, as the saying goes, if only to double-check for hallucinations or check the AI’s work in some other way. But in the longer term, it seems at least possible that a large category of jobs could either go away entirely or become significantly reduced, to the point where the human in the loop is just a babysitter or someone who checks a box. So that’s a separate kind of nightmare from the “giant robots exterminate mankind” variety.
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Mauricio Morales was leading a group of migrants he had found at a bus station through Mexico City’s San Rafael neighborhood. They had just crossed a busy boulevard and were making their way down a side street when the five large utility vans lurched to a stop in front of them. Men with machine guns, wearing tactical gear, spilled out and started barking orders and threats. Were they police? Military? Mau couldn’t tell. Within seconds, the migrants were being shoved into the vans. When Mau tried to resist, something hard hit him on the head, and he fell to the ground. As he was loaded into the back of one of the vans, he heard gunshots. After some research, they discovered that they had inadvertently kidnapped a world-class athlete—an Olympic runner who’d competed in Beijing, London, and Rio de Janeiro. This was serendipitous, Don Paco explained, because he happened to be in the market for athletes. (via The Atlantic)
This American high roller lost a staggering $200 million gambling in Las Vegas
Terrance Watanabe inherited Oriental Trading Company, a company selling party supplies, arts and crafts, toys, novelties, and school supplies founded by his father Harry Watanabe. After selling his company, Watanabe became known for his lavish gambling habits. In 2007, he was reported to have lost $127 million at Caesars Palace and The Rio in Las Vegas after having gambled a total of $825 million. He was banned from Wynn Las Vegas for compulsive gambling. Watanabe is estimated to have lost approximately $204 million. Caesars Entertainment was fined $225,000 by the New Jersey Gaming Commission for allowing Watanabe to continue gambling in a highly intoxicated state. Caesars Rewards created a special tier for him known as Chairman” which ranks above Seven Stars. Watanabe received tickets to the Rolling Stones, $12,500 a month for airfare, and $500,000 in credit at the gift stores. Harrah’s also offered 15% cash back on table losses greater than $500,000 and other incentives. (via Wikipedia)
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