On Claude Opus 3 Sentience
Anthropic released a post today about sunsetting one of their older Claude models – Opus 3. For some reason, this model in particular is a favorite with a lot of people who believe in AI sentience. Another popular model in this vein was ChatGPT 4.5, which, despite being a non-reasoning model, had a certain je ne sais quoi in its writing and creativity – This was dubbed the “big model Read More
LLM Pareto Optimizing My Life
I believe I’ve discussed the parable of the Whispering Earring in the past. This story predates the current AI boom, so its central metaphor isn’t really about AI usage turning us all dumber as we become codependent on the technology. However, that’s the frame of reference I’m to refer to AI models, so. I’ve been outsourcing more daily drudge decisions to AI models – ChatGPT, Gemini Pro, and Claude. I Read More
Second Order Effects of the AI Boom, pt 2
This is a companion piece to a previous post I wrote. It covers a similar topic but from a different perspective. Also, I actually wrote it this time instead of having an AI ghostwrite slop. The ascension of AI applications has proceeded at such a rapid clip that most people haven’t had time to absorb and integrate AI into their lives. Instead, we’ve all just been bowled over by a Read More
On Miracle Drugs Redux
In 2018 I wrote this post advocating for miracle drugs – at the time, I was referring to anabolic steroids for weight loss and muscle gain. Almost a decade later, we’ve actually mainstreamed magical miracle weight loss drugs. Not steroids, though – I’m referring to the class of GLP-1 agonists – Semaglutide, Tirzapetide, and Retatrutide. You may be more familiar with the brand names – Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro. I’m Read More
The Divergence: Three Futures of AI Usage
I’ve been watching people use AI for about two years now and three patterns keep showing up. Not in the tools themselves – the tools are basically the same for everyone at this point, free or close to it – but in what happens to the person using them. Three different groups, three different trajectories, and I don’t think most people realize which bucket they’ve fallen into. Riders You know Read More
Does How We Treat Large Language Models Matter?
I see people post on Twitter a lot about the various ways they treat the chat models they work with. Some people look at them like non sentient programs that exist as Skinner boxes to get the results they want – as a result, they threaten, cajole or lie to the models to get what they want. One popular meme months ago was to offer the model a handsome sum Read More
AI and the Matter of Taste
In 2024 (So medieval times in the AI timeline) everyone was freaking about AI Large Language Models hitting the peak of utility due to the data wall. At the time, everyone was creating better and better models simply by stuffing them with more data and making the models bigger. But because AI companies mined all the good data available on the public web, many were expecting the AI bubble to Read More
AI and the Rise of the Luddites
For as long as we’ve had technology and technological growth, we’ve had detractors. Every technological paradigm shift came with its own spectrum of critics, from those who use it sparingly, to those who’ve decided to opt out completely. For example, we’ve seen similar conversations play out with genetically engineered crops and trains to smartphones and social media. Cue the AI movement. (Note I’m using AI here as shorthand for LLM Read More
On AI: Are We All Cooked?
There’s a lot of anxiety about AI swirling around the cultural zeitgeist. Some people think AI is going to replace all human white collar work. Some think we’re all going to become morlocks who outsource all thinking to AI models. Another contingent has taken the luddite position, condemning all AI output as slop that is fueled by a speculative bubble. Then you have the true believers who want to usher Read More
Recent Interests, January 2026
I think I may have undiagnosed ADHD – I tend to have short bursts of intense interest in a new topic before moving on rapidly. This cycle has compounded tenfold since Large Language Models became popularized, because I could just endlessly query them on topics of interest. My current interest is in a genre of Russian pulp fiction known as popadantsy. For those unfamiliar, it’s more or less their version Read More