Kenneth Payne

Agree - it’s a po-faced snooze fest…

Creepy! Visited the abandoned Fort de la Chartreuse. The fort was built in 1817 by the Dutch to defend Liège. After the revolution of 1830, it came into Belgian hands. Decommissioned in 1891, it was converted into a barracks. In 1988, it was finally abandoned by the Belgian army.

That it Neil - I’m going to fight for my academic royalties to the last penny!

Men and boys: 10 takeaways From my CPS discussion with Richard Reeves and Nick Eberstadt

open.substack.com/pub/fraserne...

V interesting. And maybe multicausal, but I reckon Fraser Nelson gets at one of the reasons - apathetic, screen addicted young men aren’t getting drunk and violent… link below:

True. And also habit

Doctor Weirdlove or: “How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Skynet” Why betting on a crewed RAF Tempest is a dangerous gamble—and how ignoring the AGI debate leaves us strategically exposed

New blog post: open.substack.com/pub/cassiai/...

Ukraine Pinning War Hopes on Expanded Drone Program Ukraine has adapted strategies and weapons during its fight against Russia. It is now banking on expanding the use of domestically produced drones, even though American arms remain crucial.

‚Drones don’t replace troops; in fact, each flight of a first-person-view drone can require up to four soldiers. For flights last week in northeastern Ukraine, a drone squad consisted of a pilot, a navigator, an armorer and a pilot of a retransmitting drone.‘ www.nytimes.com/2025/04/28/w...

Russian satellite at centre of nuclear weapons allegations is spinning out of control, analysts say Data indicates the Cosmos 2553 – which US officials claim is aiding Moscow’s development of nuclear anti-satellite weapon – may no longer be functional

Russian satellite at centre of nuclear weapons allegations is 'spinning out of control'

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Full agree. Overconfidence and signalling their expertise via knowing cynicism on the basis of very limited knowledge of philosophy of mind, neuroscience and psych.

Stochastic parrot - check; autocomplete - check. Is he getting after it at pace too? That’s the full house…

Robustly demonstrated by now that you don’t need a mind to have theory of mind:

It’s great!

Simulating the Russia-Ukraine Conflict A Project Schelling update

Simulating the Russia Ukraine conflict with AI:

open.substack.com/pub/kpayne/p...

Brain cells given an ‘invisibility cloak’ fix Parkinson’s symptoms in rats Neurons engineered to evade the immune system could work as cell-replacement therapy.

Human brain cells engineered to evade detection by the immune system have successfully restored muscle control in a rat model of Parkinson’s disease

https://go.nature.com/4lqDT3w

Artificial intelligence complicates nuclear deterrence strategy in more ways than you might expect. warontherocks.com/episode/thin...

Pundits are - in vain - looking to economics and politics when trying to explain Trump's behavior.

But, in reality, the central place to look if we want to understand Trump and his policies is this:

The psychology of dominance.

🧵(1/5)

Complete sequencing of ape genomes - Nature Complete sequences of chromosomes telomere-to-telomere from chimpanzee, bonobo, gorilla, Bornean orangutan, Sumatran orangutan and siamang provide a comprehensive and valuable resource for future evolutionary comparisons.

Nature research paper: Complete sequencing of ape genomes

https://go.nature.com/3EfWwqk

DSD Research Seminar Series: Shall we play a game? Using artificial intelligence to simulate strategic decision-making. Professor Kenneth Payne discusses the role of Artificial Intelligence in making strategic choices. Do they look anything like human ones?

Giving a talk in June, with more updates on our experiments so far -

www.kcl.ac.uk/events/shall...

Terrific stuff

And yet, few signs of anything other than business as usual

Trump Steak ftw

Towards a Universal Schelling Machine A Manifesto

The Universal Schelling Machine

open.substack.com/pub/kpayne/p...

No.

And I’m not stopping there

And in answer to their last question about China experts, they need talk to Ryan Fedasiuk and Elsa Kania, ofc

AGI and the Future of Warfare Shashank and Horowitz go beyond superweapons

This is super - Mike and Shashank feel the AGI and discuss much else besides:

www.chinatalk.media/p/agi-and-th...

This would be a huge cultural change. Dutch leader of the Party for the Animals announces there is a majority in parliament for banning private fireworks—a mainstay of New Year’s celebrations.

Pre-Copernican astronomers in a post-Capernican era.