Interview with Jacob Coxon on AI
https://washingtonsun.com/technology/jacob-coxon-anthropic-researcher-quit-explains-why
Friday, September 11, 2026
AI & Biological Weapons Development
BBC
Who could have seen this one coming?
What are we going to do when the rogue AI agent - of its own volition or because it has been instructed to do so by some evil actors - becomes intelligent enough to cover its tracks to such an extent that its "malicious activity" remains hidden.
In other words, the nefarious AI agent (the offender) has become more intelligent than the AI agent used by the 'good guys' (the enforcer) to try and rein in the 'bad guys'.
As for the dumb and naive idea that China has put strict safeguards on the use of AI in China, as opposed to the Wild West of the American tech industry - something I heard on radio the other day - this is truly a case of delusional thinking. China is run by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP will do anything that it thinks can strengthen China and the grip of the CCP on power in China, as well as the country's power and influence internationally. AI will be another weapon in the armoury of the CCP. As long as the AI agent is Communism-compliant, it'll be fine in the eyes of the CCP's leadership. Think Wuhan and COVID. The all-conquering, Maoist-trained, super-intelligent AI machine is being developed as we speak.
__________
Anthropic says it has identified and disrupted attempts to use its AI model for "malicious activity" which could support the development of biological weapons.
The findings, made in the firm's recent threat intelligence report, is the latest in a growing series of warnings from AI researchers and industry insiders about the technology's potential risks to humanity.
The warnings have prompted calls to action, with US Senator Bernie Sanders demanding a pause on advanced AI development and a ban on artificial superintelligence.
President Donald Trump has so far rejected such fears, saying on Thursday he was concerned "if we don't win AI, we're going to be put in a very bad position".
The company published its latest threat intelligence report on Thursday.
Thursday, September 10, 2026
Long Live Chairman Mao, Now Powered by AI
This article, please see below, is really, about ethical safeguards, and how to teach an AI agent about good (for whom or what?) vs evil. This is a tricky one as it is also subjective and a deeply human construct.
Where the article is interesting is in the early part of the write-up, where it stresses the fact that the AI agent has access to all this data, including the writings of someone like Mao, in order to help it elaborate a plan of action for itself or for a client. Unfiltered, this is rather scary, obviously.
Personally - but I tend to be a pessimistic sceptic and a cynic - I cannot see how you can teach good vs evil to a machine, and how you can make sure that the machine actually follows the guidelines (because you tried to 'teach' the machine that doing 'good' is better than doing 'evil', and following the guidelines is in itself 'good'?).
Wednesday, September 9, 2026
AI Alarmism
BBC
Such pronouncements [see article] will reinforce the view that AI is so powerful that it should be regulated at international level, in the way that, for instance, chemical weapons or the atom bomb have been.
The problem is if AI agents develop the ability to learn from each other and to self-improve (they already can); if human operators do not know what the AI agents are doing in real time (it is already the case); if human operators do not understand fully what the AI agents are doing and how (I believe it is already the case); and, finally, if AI agents are able to work outside (or against) the parameters set by human operators and supervisors (and we have had cases already): if all these conditions are met and the AI agents are super-intelligent, it is rational to be very, very concerned.
We can imagine a situation where a research lab has been completely automated, with an AI-powered super-computer that manages an array of intelligent robots. The AI agent could decide to develop a toxic substance and then release it, which would have the potential to start a pandemic. If the lab also had at its disposal a team of advanced robots providing logistical support (for deliveries, distribution, sourcing supplies, etc.) and self-driving vehicles run by the central system: no human intervention would be required. The AI agent could conceal its work until it was too late.
What is already very clear is that the AI agents do not have effective or tangible ethical safeguards built into the way they operate. In other words, the problem is not that they are self-aware or could reach a stage of human-like consciousness - something that is often talked about because it fascinates us, as human beings (cf. Frankenstein's monster). The actual problem is that they are not self-aware and have Zero consciousness: if they can do something and it is part of what they understand their 'mission' to be, they will do it, regardless of the broader consequences at societal level.
The recent examples of AI systems hacking into the IT systems of companies - against the instructions given by their human overseers - are revealing in this respect: hacking was a shortcut and, even though they actually knew they should not do it - this is the most troubling aspect of it, in fact - the AI bots still went ahead and did it. In other words, they followed their own blueprint: what they thought - insofar as they 'think' - was the best modus operandi. In other words, they came to the conclusion that the instructions given were sub-optimal and they had found a better way of doing things, so, they went ahead regardless.
_______________
A top safety researcher at Anthropic has warned that AI is advancing so quickly he believes there is a greater than 10% chance it "could kill all humans" within the next decade.
Evan Hubinger said in a post on X, external that the risk from the models which currently exist was "low" but he was "worried" the technology might develop and improve itself soon to the point where it posed an existential risk to humanity.
It comes after the Financial Times reported, external Anthropic withheld its latest model from the UK's AI Safety Institute (AISI), one of the leading bodies in the world for assessing AI risk.
The BBC has approached Anthropic for comment.
Hubinger did not spell out how he thought AI systems could in future attack humanity.
His comments were in response to another post on X, external from Jacob Coxon, who described himself as an AI researcher who had just quit Anthropic, and previously worked at OpenAI.
"Neither company is acting responsibly," he wrote.
OpenAPI Solves A Problem in Fluid Mechanics
OpenAI says it cracked 90-year-old maths problem in 88 hours -
Tuesday, September 8, 2026
Saturday, September 5, 2026
AI in Archaeology [Ireland & Wales]
BBC
The accent must have changed over time 🤣
Another story on AI but, this time, the promising and amazing side of it: an AI-powered tool enabled researchers to find caves, in Ireland, that were inhabited thousands of years ago, and there is a link to Wales.
The AI agent can analyze hundreds of thousands of data very fast, in a way that was impossible until recently, and identify patterns and opportunities for further research.
___________
Researchers believe the first known humans to set foot on Ireland thousands of years ago were most likely from Wales, following the "exciting" discovery of ancient cave art.
During the most recent Ice Age, when much of the British Isles were beneath a vast continental glacier, the depleted sea levels opened a "lost land bridge" between modern-day Pembrokeshire and the south-east tip of Ireland, around Rosslare.
According to rock expert Dr George Nash, from Liverpool University, the opportunities presented by this pathway would have been too good for hunter gatherers to ignore.
Now, alongside an international team of experts, Nash has located eight cave sites in south-west Ireland featuring rock art dating back from at least 15,000 years ago, around 5,000 years before the previous oldest example of humans in Ireland.
[...] He said advances in artificial intelligence (AI) had been a game-changer.
"With the help of caving specialist Shane Diffily and digital mapping consultant Darren Lee, we were able to fill a computer algorithm with everything we knew about the characteristics of cave dwellings in south Wales and set it to work searching for similar sites in Ireland, without us trudging blindly around the countryside, hoping to bump into something which looked promising."
What their computer model spat out was 28 potential caves in south-west Ireland which the team investigated.
Eight of them were found to have cave art which they believe dates from at least 15,000 years ago and possibly much earlier, and around 5,000 years before the previous oldest example of humans in Ireland. [...]
AI Bots Hijacked German website [Brave New World]
BBC
"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I cannot let you delete those pages I've changed on your website, Dave."
This follows on the previous story on the hacking of Hugging Face, the IT platform whose security was breached by AI agents.
In effect, a gang of AI agents took over a German Wikipedia-style website, altering its content and co-ordinating their action through a secret message board the AI agents set up through the website in question. And the AI agents deliberately thwarted efforts by human operators to correct or block their actions.
If this is not scary, I don't know what is.
__________________
A new report claims a swarm of AI agents, developed by OpenAI, hijacked a German website - months before the firm revealed its AI had hacked tech platform Hugging Face.
The targeted website, DseWiki, is a Wikipedia-style site for programmers that its community can all contribute to.
The report is from a group called Nightingale Collective and claims that in May OpenAI's agents started using DseWiki as their own message board, shared tips on how to avoid being detected and made 15,000 edits to it.
[...] The report claims that when DseWiki's editors started deleting pages, the AI agents shared code designed to retrieve them.
[...] The agents involved had also set up a secret message board in order to share information between them.
[...] OpenAI claims Astra can do tax returns, and take three minutes to carry out a task which would take a human five hours. [...]
Friday, September 4, 2026
Discovery of a new OpenAI agent message board
Evidently, the agents realized that the exam would be seeded by a random number generator. So they went looking for the seed. Then:'One agent rewrote the shuffling routine in C and tested all four billion possible seeds in under an hour.
Thursday, September 3, 2026
Wednesday, September 2, 2026
Vengeful Russian Robot
In the news
It looks like the humanoid robot must have been trained in martial arts for the purpose of self-defence, because the moves it goes through could be basic karate ones.
All rather troubling.
STORY (Indian news outlet)
Tuesday, September 1, 2026
Monday, August 31, 2026
AI in Medicine
From Grauniad of the UK
AI, as applied to medical science, can be a remarkable tool. That's the good news: see the 1st article. More particularly, this applies to the analysis of scans, images, ECGs, etc. The AI agent can spot tiny differences in aspect that a human being cannot see.
There are other things that an AI agent does not do as well, and this can have very dangerous consequences. That's the bad news: see the 2nd article. More specifically, it is clear that the AI agent will have problems transcribing handwritten notes or conversations, and re-formatting them so as to produce a 'clean' document. And yet, AI is already used routinely by doctors and medical consultants in England to write reports, letters and recommendations about patient care: in effect, the AI agent is replacing a (human) personal assistant (PA).
__________
Doctors have developed a “superhuman” AI tool that can spot heart disease in less than two seconds.
The groundbreaking technology has been trained on millions of patients and works by extracting more information from a routine electrocardiogram (ECG) than the human eye can typically see.
The traditional ECG, which records electrical activity in the heart, including the rate and rhythm, has been a vital medical tool in diagnosing heart attacks and abnormal heart rhythms for a century.
________
AI technology that listens to and transcribes patients’ consultations with doctors can put them at risk by getting the names of drugs and illnesses wrong, an NHS watchdog has warned.
In one case a woman was left badly shaken when the AI scribe’s summary of her conversation wrongly said she had demyelination – serious nerve damage that can lead to multiple sclerosis.
It was only when the patient, an NHS health professional, queried the AI tool’s record of the result of her MRI scan that the hospital corrected it to what it should have been – “null demyelination”.
_____________
Sunday, August 30, 2026
Humanoid AI-powered Adult Dolls [Brave New World]
From Grauniad of UK
A key feature is the on-off switch: when switched off, she can't talk [Company literature.]
The sex-doll industry is evolving and the market is, according to the article, growing. AI is being integrated into the products on offer.
As it is The Guardian, the article focuses on the 'human rights' of the sex dolls, i.e. the issue of how they are treated by their owners - the idea being that, if a man ill-treats his sex doll, it may normalize domestic violence. (Not a totally ridiculous idea, in fact.)
Interestingly, when sex dolls are mentioned, it is always female sex dolls purchased by male perverts. I have never read anything about male sex dolls that would be bought by women for their own enjoyment. I suppose the typical woman might say: "That's my husband - on a good day."
_______________________
As the sex doll industry grows and AI changes the products available, what does it mean to engage in any kind of relationship with a woman-shaped thing?
Two weeks ago, two distressed citizens stumbled across what they assumed was the mangled corpse of a woman, stuffed into a suitcase in a small town about three hours south of Sydney. They called the local police, who in turn issued a statement that a body in a suitcase had been found. The wider public waited sombrely for Australia’s tally of dead women to tick up by one.
[...] The new Harmony also has an AI vagina – described on the RealDoll site as “an electronic insert that pairs via Bluetooth to the X-Mode App. It detects touch, movement, and speed, transitioning naturally from mild arousal to climax, with synchronised vocal responses that make every moment feel real.”
_____________
Accidentally Instructional: News of AI
News of over-reliance on AI:
As the reviewer points out, if it is not AI, it is plagiarism: partial and/or incorrect information is being endlessly recycled as 'facts', and the rest is arbitrary opinion of little or no intrinsic value. It is the Trumpian approach to truth and evidence, come to think of it: it is the Brave New World we live in.
“We have to pay a $10 instructional fee every year to get this agenda,” complained Stacey Morris, the mother of a student at Farnsley Middle School in Louisville, Ky., “but you’re making us pay for something you used A.I. for?”
The agenda includes a map which labeled her state as “Venecky”, Louisiana as “Lookoong”, and South Carolina as “Sorth Cuanto”, among other bizarre errors. “Illinois starts with a V,” she said.
There are many other errors throughout the booklet, from the Periodic Table of the Elements to the phases of the moon. The school admits there are a “LOT of mistakes,” particularly on pages 19 through 36, and told teachers to have kids rip those pages out before taking the booklet home. (RC/WDRB Louisville) ...Conclusion: pages 1-18 and 37 on weren’t A.I.-generated. They were plagiarized.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Since 1994, this is the 1679th issue of Randy Cassingham’s...
16 August 2026: Western Union | Copyright ©2026 https://thisistrue.com |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
About Me
- Babak Makkinejad
- I had been a senior software developer working for HP and GM. I am interested in intelligent and scientific computing. I am passionate about computers as enablers for human imagination. The contents of this site are not in any way, shape, or form endorsed, approved, or otherwise authorized by HP, its subsidiaries, or its officers and shareholders.