“Mechanistic interpretability is the science of ‘reading an AI’s mind’. Large language models are ‘grown, not built’. Researchers run training data through a neural network. Eventually this creates a working AI; nobody really knows how. But a neural network is just a set of simulated neurons on a computer. The person with the computer can see the neurons, the connections between them, and which ones activate when the AI answers questions. So it seems like it should be possible to ‘reverse engineer’ the AI. … Unfortunately this is very hard.” (09/08/26)
“Australia on Tuesday proposed giving social media users the option to select the content they see on their feeds, marking the next step in the government’s push to improve online safety, following its world-first social media ban for children. Under draft laws proposed by the centre-left Labor government, social media platforms will be required to notify users and offer them a choice over their default feed. Users can choose to opt in to having their default feed include personalised content recommended by an algorithm. Alternatively, they can opt out of algorithmically recommended content and instead see posts only from the friends and creators they choose to follow.” [editor’s note: If users want that and are willing to pay for it in some way, they’ll get it without government requirements – TLK] (09/08/26)
“Two terms, dozens of announced withdrawals, and the Army’s brigades are still unpacking their gear in Europe, the Pacific, and beyond. Rhetoric about restraint and retrenchment is one thing; the discipline to see it through is another. On that score, the Trump administration has been exactly what its critics always suspected: all talk, no action.” (09/08/26)
“American forces are conducting combat operations in South America right now. If that comes as news, it is because the administration has disclosed the mission only in fragments, and Congress has not forced a public accounting. United States Green Berets are operating alongside Ecuadorian forces in the northern province of Esmeraldas in what the provincial governor described as joint operations against ‘narcoterrorism.’ Neither government has said which organizations the ground operations are targeting, what the troops are doing or how many Americans are involved.” (09/08/26)
“The Trump administration sent Congress its civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia. Asked what the deal permits, the president wrote: There will be no enrichment of material. His own Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, has said the opposite. The agreement gives Riyadh a pathway to enrich uranium on its own soil, and in doing so the potential for a Saudi nuclear Bomb. To placate fears Wright has put enrichment years down the road but not in doubt. Wright is describing the document. Trump is describing a country he is at war with to prevent from doing exactly this.” (09/08/260
“An online petition calling for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s exclusion from the 9/11 remembrance ceremony later this week has crossed 100,000 signatures amid a similar push made by several prominent Republican leaders from the state, including former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Gov. George Pataki. … The petition says the organizers oppose Mamdani’s attendance because of various ‘public positions, associations, and responses to rhetoric’ that are hostile to their values. The petition then outlines eight grievances against the New York Mayor, including allegations of support or association with people who are ‘dismissive of American institutions or insufficiently critical of extremist ideologies.'” (09/08/26)
