Kristen Collins

a lot of critiques in aughts alleged that pentagon was influencing video games and in truth the relationship seems to be the other way around

Read an awful essay one such person created using Claude and it disturbs me that he claimed it’s good enough to get published in an academic journal. Any editor who’d send it out would only be doing so to get feedback to who they would presume was a grad student, and reviewers would reject it

One possibly under-appreciated way elites value LLMs is those who build their career on fueling and exploiting hatred for the academy have a nice new and easy way to create propaganda for their cause

A surprisingly fun digression on Hume's debts to Polybius with multiple appearances of Machiavelli and Adam Smith (and some Plutarch) I know, that Polybius ascribes the infamy of Greek faith to the prevalency of the EPICUREAN philosophy; but I know also, that Punic faith had as bad a reputation in ancient times, as Irish evidence ha...

A surprisingly fun digression on Hume's debts to Polybius with multiple appearances of Machiavelli and Adam Smith (and some Plutarch) open.substack.com/pub/digressi...

Glad I’m not alone!

I’m not sure what this says about me but I think scrolling LinkedIn feels way more depressing than being on here

Meta's AI display glasses reportedly share intimate videos with human moderators Users in Europe of Meta's AI smart glasses may be unknowingly sharing intimate video and sensitive financial information with moderators outside of the bloc.

“If a wearer wants to make use of that AI, though, they must agree to Meta's terms of service that allow any data captured to be reviewed by humans.”

Excellent coverage of how CBP uses the real-time bidding for digital ads—the basic infrastructure of our modern internet—for surveillance. Also serves a a great explainer for why digital surveillance is impossible for an individual to just “opt-out” of even when it’s created by market actors

YouTube video by ralexh Futurama War Were Declared

Partner and I coping with the misery of yet another pointless war by just periodically quoting this to each other

youtu.be/v8Ha6tNvRUg?...

The "rally-around-the-flag" effect is not some law of physics that works automatically. It largely seems to happen because 1) the opposition party stops criticizing the president or the military operation, 2) partially as a consequence, the mass media is flooded with pro-government messages. /1

"I moved to one of the most unstable regions in the world, within missile range of an internationally recognized rogue state, to a city built by 'Israelites in Egypt'-esque slave labor. The place where I live depends on every faction in unstable region mutually agreeing to not let shit pop off"

How OpenAI caved to the Pentagon on AI surveillance The law doesn’t say what Sam Altman claims it does.

NEW: On Friday night when OpenAI announced its Pentagon deal, people immediately challenged Sam Altman's claims. Why, they asked, would the DoD suddenly agree to red lines when it had clearly said it would never budge?

The answer, sources told me, is that it didn't.
www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

OpenAI posted the terms of the deal. Reveals that it absolutely does allow for domestic surveillance. EO 12333 is how the NSA hides its domestic surveillance by capturing communications by tapping into lines *outside the US* even if it contains info from/on US persons.

openai.com/index/our-ag...

Important reading for the toothlessness of the War Powers Resolution and the inability of Congress to reign in the executive

I’m not watching that video st 3am but I don’t need to see it know this is a grave violation of US and international law. From my area of study I can tell you that it’s easy to think the UN Charter doesn’t mean much, but we want to live in a world that values its prohibition on aggressive warfare

This is actually genuinely very much not good for stability and not-killing

And now updated once more to include Secretary Hegseth's "final" decision in the matter, designating Anthropic a supply chain risk.

aside from the AI angle, what makes the Anthropic case important is that it is -- unless there is something I am forgetting -- the first time a major tech company has stood up to Trump instead of accommodating him

Trump Orders Government to Stop Using Anthropic After Pentagon Standoff

A US-based company has never been declared a supply chain risk. The decision by the Pentagon to use this tactic against Anthropic will almost certainly end up in court: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/27/u...

What's missing? The public. Decisions about whether AI can surveil American citizens or autonomously deploy lethal force are being settled in a contract dispute. No Congress. No democratic deliberation. No accountability. We've outsourced questions about the use of force to a corporate negotiation.

YouTube video by Bloomberg Television Trump Tells US to Stop Using Anthropic Products

I spoke with @bloomberg.com about the designation of Anthropic as a "supply chain risk" by the Trump Administration www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCQ0...

The original “woke” code was the constitution and bill of rights (this joke was poorly constructed but I love it and am keeping it for posterity)

x.com/SecWar/statu... Anthropic has just been designated as a "Supply Chain Risk to National Security." This is so fucking insane it is hard to describe how insane it is.

[US history teacher voice] you know, almost 250 years ago there were another bunch of nerds with very weird ideas about “woke” code

Who loses from the Anthropic fight? Maybe Elon Musk and Alex Karp. Arbitrary state power can cut in many directions

substack.com/@henryfarrel...

100%

Yeah, I think Martin makes a number of good and correct observations but what I took from Bouie’s post was more of a “they can conquer the territory but can they hold it?” line of thinking.

The thread makes good points about US media. But by focusing on that it missing the forest for the trees. I don’t read JB denying the poor state of the press. But rather even in its terrible state, and even with these bad oligarchic moves, it’s still different than it was in Hungary/Russia

Absolute must-read for anyone think about AI, oligarchy, and the surveillance state