AI Article Readings

This is beautiful. https://open.substack.com/pub/nataliercargill/p/it-is-the-end-of-the-world-and-i?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web Get full access to Askwho Casts AI at askwhocastsai.substack.com/subscribe

A short story by Max Harms. https://open.substack.com/pub/raelifin/p/the-fulcrum?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web Get full access to Askwho Casts AI at askwhocastsai.substack.com/subscribe

In this post, Kelsey Piper argues that one of AI’s most prominent critics is making a weaker case than he used to: as AI tools have improved, adoption has grown, and costs have fallen, the serious skeptical argument has shifted from “AI has no value” to harder questions about profitability, capital expenditure, and whether current revenue can justify the build-out. It’s a sharp but spoiler-free cr...

In this post, Jane Psmith reviews Thomas Asbridge’s The Greatest Knight , a biography of William Marshal, using it as a springboard into the violent, strange, and often surprisingly funny world of twelfth-century knighthood. She highlights how Asbridge turns one extraordinary career into a broader portrait of civil war, tournament culture, patronage, loyalty, and the making of chivalric ideals. ht...

In this post Scott Alexander offers fifteen (and a half) short pieces of writing advice, framed as compensation for missing the first half of Lighthaven's second Inkhaven — a month-long bootcamp where aspiring bloggers must publish a post a day or get kicked out. Dispensed in his characteristic voice, with the usual asides, jokes, and passing metaphors, the collection ranges across questions of cr...

In this post Andy Masley takes a close, critical look at popular claims that data centers produce harmful “infrasound,” using the viral videos of Benn Jordan as a case study in how persuasive, high-production misinformation can spread. He unpacks the underlying science, contrasts it with how it’s presented online, and argues that while noise pollution is real, the more extreme infrasound claims do...

In this post Eliezer Yudkowsky writes a satirical news article in which physicists "disprove" pregnancy by showing that women's weight gain during gestation is fully explained by increased eating and drinking, a mass-in-mass-out (MIMO) balance, and therefore no underlying biological phenomenon need exist. The piece is a sustained analogy to the Calories In, Calories Out (CICO) framing of obesity:...

In this post Alex Imas asks what becomes scarce when AI can automate most production. Drawing on the economics of structural change, mimetic desire theory from René Girard, and consumer expenditure data, he argues that cheap commodity production won't eliminate jobs, it will redirect spending and employment toward a "relational sector" where the human element is itself part of the value. The post...

In this post Eliezer Yudkowsky argues that the existential risk posed by artificial superintelligence cannot be mitigated by individual action, corporate self-regulation, or localised prohibitions, but only by coordinated international law — specifically, a global treaty restricting the specialised hardware used to train and run frontier AI systems — and he systematically dismantles the notion tha...

In this article Max explores the craft of writing through the lens of tension, arguing that the ability to create, sustain, and release anticipation is one of the most powerful tools a writer has for keeping readers engaged, while also emphasizing that tension alone is not enough without underlying quality. Using a mix of examples from film, television, nonfiction, and classic literature, he exami...

The Scary Bridge - by Moridinamael In this post Moridinamael uses a short allegorical scene, a town hall debate about a dangerous bridge, to illustrate how technical arguments about real, mechanistic risks get flattened into emotional narratives by both allies and opponents, and how onlookers end up judging the validity of claims based on the perceived confidence and composure of the speakers rath...

Consider chilling out in 2028 - by Valentine. In this post Valentine argues that if the AI risk landscape in early 2028 looks functionally the same as it does today, perpetually escalating alarm without correspondingly escalating real-world evidence of doom, the rationalist community should treat that as a serious signal to pause, reconsider its decades-long strategy of frightening people into act...

Against the Luddites - By SE Gyges In this post, SE Gyges argues that the contemporary rehabilitation of the Luddites as thoughtful technology critics is historically dishonest. Drawing on labor history, Marx and Engels, and modern post-capitalist thinkers, the piece makes the case that Luddism was a reactionary defense of guild privilege and male craft monopoly, not a progressive workers' movemen...

dark ilan - By Ozy Brennan https://open.substack.com/pub/ozybrennan/p/dark-ilan?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web Get full access to Askwho Casts AI at askwhocastsai.substack.com/subscribe

This post by Corvin is a pastiche of the ACX Bay Area House Party Series. https://open.substack.com/pub/ravenstales/p/every-acx-house-party?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web Get full access to Askwho Casts AI at askwhocastsai.substack.com/subscribe

Every Debate On Pausing AI - By Scott Alexander https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/every-debate-on-pausing-ai?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web Get full access to Askwho Casts AI at askwhocastsai.substack.com/subscribe

“Full Cast” AI reading of Being John Rawls - By Scott Alexander. * 00:00 - Introduction * 03:23 - II * 11:27 - III * 20:21 - IV * 25:00 - V * 31:17 - VI https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/being-john-rawls?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web Get full access to Askwho Casts AI at askwhocastsai.substack.com/subscribe

In this article, SE Gyges argues that the widely cited “stochastic parrots” critique of large language models is not only outdated but actively harmful to serious discussion of AI. The piece examines how the argument misunderstands modern AI systems, ignores advances like multimodal training and reinforcement learning, and rests on a narrow definition of “meaning.” By walking through both empirica...

In this article David Oks takes a familiar story about technology and jobs, the idea that ATMs automated banking without destroying teller work, and turns it on its head, arguing that the real disruption came later from the smartphone era. Using the history of bank branches, bank tellers, and mobile banking, he explores a broader point about technological change: that the biggest effects often com...

A short story by Tomás Bjartur https://open.substack.com/pub/tomasbjartur/p/the-elect?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web Get full access to Askwho Casts AI at askwhocastsai.substack.com/subscribe

In this post Dean W. Ball explores the gradual nature of life and death, drawing a poignant parallel between the passing of his father and the ongoing decline of the American republic. Using a recent policy skirmish between the AI firm Anthropic and the U.S. Department of War over the military deployment of the Claude AI system as a focal point, he examines the shifting dynamics of government powe...

In this post, Scott Alexander examines the legal and contractual implications of the Department of War's "all lawful use" demand for AI systems, breaking down what US law actually permits regarding mass domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons, and why the phrase "lawful use" provides far less protection than most people assume. * 00:00 - Introduction * 02:42 - Mass domestic surveillance: more...

In this essay, Citrini and Alap Shah construct a fictional macro memo written from the perspective of June 2028, using the format of financial retrospective analysis to explore a single underexamined scenario: what happens when AI adoption succeeds beyond all expectations, and that success becomes the source of catastrophic economic disruption. The piece traces how accelerating AI capability inter...

In this essay, Dan Kagan-Kans argues that the political left has largely refused to engage seriously with artificial intelligence, instead settling on a dismissive consensus that treats it as little more than "spicy autocomplete." Drawing on voices from left-wing publications, podcasts, academics, and politicians, he traces how this attitude took hold, examines the understandable reasons for skept...

In this article, Kelsey Piper tackles a persistent claim that keeps circulating in prestigious publications: that AI language models are "just" next-word predictors, stochastic parrots, or "spicy autocomplete." She argues this framing — while containing a kernel of truth about one stage of how models are trained — has become a form of "highbrow misinformation" that leaves the public less equipped...