UPDATES
Hey! Hope you all are doing well!
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I expect Fable to be back soon. Here are some prompts you might want to use when it does.
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My debate with Zack Korman on the morality of Dario Amodei.
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Public Dividends on AI Companies?
I'm not studied up on the topic fully, but I'm starting to get excited about this concept of public dividends from AI companies.
So imagine the U.S. basically owns some portion of Anthropic and OpenAI and Google and NVIDIA, or whatever that set of companies is. And it’s like a Prosperity Fund or something.
And as they make more money, U.S. citizens basically receive a monthly check based on that. So it’s like nationalization / communism in some ways, but without the downsides. And it’s like capitalism in most ways, but with public benefit from a few companies exploding in profits while tons of other things get consumed. So it’s another way of doing UBI basically.
Again, I’ve not looked at all the different types of programs like these, so I don’t know the various structures and their pros/cons. But I feel like it’s ripe for exploration. And crucially, it’s about to be like THE topic for elections in 2028 anyway (AI vs. Jobs) so we might as well start thinking about it now.
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Getting really worried about the people refusing to use AI.
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I’ve been writing on the site (blog) like crazy last few months. Don’t sleep on regular writing / essays from people!
Sponsor
Stop tokenmaxxing and start tracking the value of AI
I recently sat down with Harmonic's CEO to talk through something most security teams get backwards: treating AI governance as a blocking function instead of an enablement one.
We got into how companies measure AI use by token volume, giving gold stars for prompt count, and why that tells you almost nothing useful. We also covered what real visibility into shadow AI actually looks like in practice, and where agent monitoring is headed next.
Worth watching if your team is trying to let people use AI without flying blind.
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Had a phenomenal time talking about agent integration with security workflows with our partner Elastic Security. I think what they’re building is exactly where AI integration into cyber is going: Basically, AI (MCP) integrations with security practitioners’ existing workflows.
Really enjoyed the event, which you can watch here.
Kai made a couple of really cool websites for understanding the positions of Dario Amodei and Sam Altman. We basically went through hundreds of interviews and essays and articles and pulled out the transcripts, and quotes, and did some super-objective, non-biased analysis (as much as possible, of course) on what they have said, and what it looks like when you put it all together.
They basically give you all the content itself in the raw form, and then it pulls out a whole bunch of quotes related to AI in the future, security, governance, and everything. Basically, you are able to use that to point your AI at it and ask all sorts of questions and do your own analysis.
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I think these are much better definitions of AGI and ASI than I was using before.
Basically, AGI means doing any cognitive role as well as a human expert, and ASI means doing it better than any human ever. THE BLOG
CYBERSECURITY
Reverse engineering binaries with Ghidra’s MCP Server Jakob Breu uses Ghidra MCP and Copilot to turn a closed-source missile launcher app into a Rust port. JAKOB BREU BLOG POST
Ubiquiti bugs are getting hit in the wild Attackers are using three critical Ubiquiti flaws to make rogue admin accounts and push commands on exposed devices.
My personal recommendation: Don’t use built-in VPN options for Ubiquiti or any other stack right now, and lock down your remote admin features. Use something like Tailscale or Headscale instead to make outbound connections that are also hardened with strong auth combined with additional security for internal systems. SECURITYWEEK ARTICLE
🚨Larger Security Recommendation Given Model Advancement on Cyber
Migrate away from externally facing services wherever you can
Move to outbound / meet-in-the-cloud type services where possible
Basically, assume that your externally facing services are vulnerable. Even things like IKE/IPSEC, Wireguard, SSH, etc.
Assume that nation states and top-tier attackers might have access to Mythos++ via whatever means, and that they could be sitting on 0-days for these services.
The only thing you can be sure they can’t hack is a service that’s not listening.
Anthropic says Alibaba ran a huge Claude extraction campaign Anthropic says Alibaba-linked operators ran millions of fake Claude chats to copy its abilities and train weaker models. I really don’t get the people saying BBC NEWS ARTICLE
Sponsor
Finally, code security you trust
Legacy SCA and SAST scanners match patterns and bury engineers in noise. That's why we built Maze Code: AI agents that understand your code and dependencies.
AI agents investigate every finding with context from your code and cloud, close false positives, and catch business logic flaws other tools miss. Then they help you fix what's left, right in your IDE or coding agent.
WorkOS wants apps to let agents sign users up Auth.md lets an agent register users without a sign-up form. It’s open, it uses OAuth, and WorkOS says any app can publish one. WORKOS DOCS
50% of LG and Samsung smart TV apps hide residential proxies Smart TV apps are quietly turning into proxy nodes. Spur found proxy SDKs in 2,058 of 6,038 apps, and the TVs barely show it. CYBERINSIDER ARTICLE
AI systems beat expert humans at persuasion AI systems out-persuade skilled humans in repeated tests, and the gap still holds after coaching. They also raise more real money than professional canvassers. ARXIV PAPER
Dragos built an AI tool for OT security Dragos just shipped EmberAI for OT security. It uses their huge incident and asset dataset, keeps customer data inside the platform, and keeps humans in control. SECURITYWEEK ARTICLE
Vulnerability reports aren't special anymore LLMs make bug finding cheap for everyone, so triage and fast fixes matter more than secret reports. FILIPPO VALSORDA ESSAY
Apple chip flaw makes old iPhones jailbreakable A spyware vendor published a Boot ROM bug that helps jailbreak older iPhones, but only with physical access and more chaining. TECHCRUNCH ARTICLE
Threat modeling is really just choosing what not to defend This post says security is about scarce money, real constraints, and picking the losses you can live with. PWNDEFEND BLOG
Prompt injection as role confusion This paper says LLMs don’t really know roles; they infer them from style, and attackers can spoof that. ROLE CONFUSION GITHUB PAGE
NATIONAL SECURITY
The thing I'm most worried about with the global situation and the U.S. kicking multiple own goals is that China won't actually have to fight Taiwan at all. I think if things continue as they are within one to five years, Taiwan could simply look around and say, "Yeah, we've always seen ourselves as part of China." No war needed. Plus they're an actual democracy, so at any point a pro-China person could get elected and move in that direction.
Iran might skip fighters and build drones instead Iran could rebuild a classic air force, but drones and cheap unmanned systems may be the smarter bet. RYAN MCBETH POST
The war on Iran was a giant strategic self-own The war bought almost nothing and burned cash, missiles, and leverage. And the deal seems worse than Obama’s. People wondered what the worst was that could happen with this guy. Now we’re finding out. INKSTICK MEDIA ARTICLE
Britain’s moving back toward Europe, and Brexit looks dead ECFR’s polling says voters now want closer ties, trust Europe more than the US, and have mostly moved past the old leave-remain split. ECFR POLICY BRIEF
The Air Force picked both drone teams The Air Force is sending Anduril and General Atomics into production at the same time. It also split the software work so no single vendor owns the whole stack. THE NATIONAL INTEREST ARTICLE
China’s AI experts are worried too China and the US are both treating AI like a race they can’t afford to lose. The people building it are starting to worry that one bad failure could hit everyone at once. WIRED ARTICLE
Russia’s gasoline production drops 25% Russia’s fuel output just fell hard, and officials are already talking about imports and subsidies. MEDUZA NEWS ARTICLE
Pax Silica is turning into a bigger AI supply chain bloc The US is pulling more allies into Pax Silica to lock down semiconductors, minerals, and energy for the AI race. EU countries and Germany just joined. SEOUL ECONOMIC DAILY ARTICLE
AI
💡Primary AI Harness Recommendation
Switch from (over)engineering your prompts around how something gets done, to what the ideal outcome looks like. Specifically. For you.
The whole game giving your AI the proper context for what the perfect output looks like, and the tools it can use to get there, not telling it how to do it.
Assume the AI knows better than you how to do it. Your job is to tell you what you want as perfectly as possible.
Looks like Anthropic is bringing Fable 5 back into subscriptions A leaked Claude Code binary shows weekly Fable 5 usage baked into plans, and the pricing model looks changed too. No guarantee, but looks promising. DECRYPT ARTICLE
Google's Nobel-winning AI expert heads to Anthropic John Jumper is leaving Google DeepMind for Anthropic after helping build AlphaFold. The move could make Google’s AI race even harder. PYMNTS NEWS ARTICLE
OpenAI wants ChatGPT to become a super app OpenAI is folding ChatGPT and Codex into one agent that remembers you, does tasks, and tries to prove it's bigger than chat. FORTUNE ARTICLE
Anthropic turns Slack into a persistent AI teammate Anthropic put Claude inside Slack as a shared agent that learns the channel, takes tasks, and can keep working on its own. VENTUREBEAT ARTICLE
Google loses two stars and maybe profits from one of them Two top researchers just walked out of Google in the same week, and one of them went to a company Google partly owns. My guess is their lack of product management is costing them somewhere between tens and hundreds of billions of dollars. VIRTUALUNCLE ARTICLE
People trust AI more than estate-planning experts now Americans are getting more comfortable letting AI handle estate planning, and trust is beating old friction faster than expected. FAST COMPANY ARTICLE
TECHNOLOGY
The ultimate prompt for businesses being pushed into using AI MY NEW POST
What company problem do we have specifically that we’re hoping AI will solve? And how do you expect AI to help solve it?
Most companies want AI before they know the problem
Meta and Microsoft look lost despite spending absurd money
OpenAI still has a real shot because Sam has vision
Anthropic looks strongest here because it pairs vision with discipline
The hard question is whether AI solves a real company problem
Too many companies are adding AI to ambiguity, and will fail
Related:
The anatomy of an AI-native org AI eats the translation layer in software teams. The middle shrinks, managers have to contribute, and the real work shifts toward judgment and harnesses. This is the way. So many of my projects are oriented around this type of thinking, especially for enterprises. AJEY GORE POST
Companies are hiring people back to babysit broken AI Companies cut staff for AI, then discovered the systems were brittle, expensive, and needed humans watching them again. Disagree with the overall narrative here ALAN SCOTT ENCINAS BLOG
Bain is using vibecoding to stress-test software deals Bain is mocking up target software with AI so buyers can see whether the code is actually the moat. One investor already walked away after the replica made the business look too easy to copy. THE DECODER ARTICLE
iOS 27’s Shortcuts is AI at its best The new operating systems from Apple have started integrating AI, and it's going exactly in the direction that I thought it would, which is very promising. I was wrong on the timeline though: I thought they would be exactly here like a year or more ago. MACWORLD ARTICLE | JONNY EVANS POST
SuperPlane is trying to make production ops feel like code SuperPlane raised $2.6 million to turn messy production work into an AI-native control plane. It wants engineers and agents to coordinate deployments, incidents, and approvals without losing human control. TECH.EU ARTICLE
Morgan Stanley thinks China’s humanoid robot boom is real now China’s robots are moving out of demos and into factories, shops, and restaurants. Morgan Stanley keeps lifting its forecast because the orders, policy help, and supply chain are finally lining up. TNW ARTICLE
AI engineers vs. forward deployed engineers A look at the two different roles. ZDNET ARTICLE
New radio frequency platform hits 85% accuracy on the edge BrainChip built a tiny RF classifier that runs under a watt and skips the cloud. It’s aimed at defense gear that needs to spot signals fast in bad conditions. INTERESTING ENGINEERING ARTICLE
HUMANS
Swordflight is the best D&D game nobody talks about Swordflight turns Neverwinter Nights into a brutally clever, years-long fan campaign that makes old D&D systems feel fresh again. PC GAMER ARTICLE
Everyone is a builder now AI is pushing more work from specialists to regular employees. The real shift is that taste and judgment matter more than coding. FAST COMPANY ARTICLE
Estonia wants to hand AI agents official digital IDs Estonia is trying to give software its own state-backed identity so agents can act with narrow, auditable permissions instead of borrowing a human’s whole account. COMPLEXDISCOVERY ARTICLE
The personal brand trap Argues that humans keep changing, so treating yourself like a brand breaks fast. I think this is true if you brand too narrowly or incorrectly. The key is to make sure that you brand around something that's durable. FAST COMPANY ARTICLE
The new inner game is what AI rewards most AI is making effort and knowledge cheap, so emotional clarity, conflict, and self-talk become the real edge. LENNY’S NEWSLETTER POST
China’s humanoid robots are filling Asia’s labor gaps Asia Times says cheap Chinese humanoids are moving from demos into real airport work as aging societies run out of people. ASIA TIMES ARTICLE
The truth about being a manager Being a manager means less team belonging, more lonely calls, and a lot of hidden emotional labor. SOFIA KODAR BLOG
Yes to life is really about responsibility under pressure Frankl turns survival into a question of what life asks of you, not what you want from it. MARIA POPOVA ESSAY
How to use AI to make you better at the right things AI helps most at the edges, where you were never going to get to them yourself. It broadens what you can actually do, but it doesn't fix the part that still needs your judgment. THE ALGORITHMIC BRIDGE POST
IDEAS
We have never taught critical thinking, and AI is exposing it Colleges treat critical thinking like it appears by accident. This piece says that was always the weak link, and AI just makes it obvious. INSIDE HIGHER ED OPINION
What my chaotic dog taught me about control A dog story becomes a neat little theory of power, guilt, and why humans want control so badly. THE GUARDIAN ARTICLE
How to kill Moloch Morpheus turns the old Moloch idea into a blunt AI strategy memo: use superhuman judgment, then build leverage that can actually beat myopic incentives. LESSWRONG POST
AI writing is better than no writing AI helps if you’ve got something real to say, but you still need to own the outline, check the facts, and cut the slop. ANDREW WHEELER POST
If you don’t know what to do, pick up a chair JUHA-MATTI SANTALA BLOG
Chairs become a simple test of service
He links moving day to real community trust
The best helpers do unglamorous work first
PyCon CZ turned chair stacking into shared momentum
How to find your path Chris Williamson keeps it simple here: listen for the work that feels meaningful enough to keep doing when nobody's watching. CHRIS WILLIAMSON VIDEO
DISCOVERY
I spent months teaching a laptop to read the Moon He used synthetic moonscapes to train vision models, then tuned them on real lunar terrain until they could rank landing sites. ALAN SCOTT ENCINAS POST
Four ways to run an eval, from a cheap unit test to a full-blown agent JIM BENNETT BLOG
Kurt Vonnegut told his kids to treat life as improvisation Vonnegut gives his children advice about love, school, power, and self-education, and the best line is that planned years are not. THE MARGINALIAN POST
Your personal brand matters more because AI makes competence cheap AI makes a lot of routine work easy, so your name, taste, and reputation become the real edge. A counter to the other angle. DARIUS FOROUX BLOG
Best voice recorder with transcription options in 2026 A recorder is really a workflow choice now, and the hidden trap is quotas, privacy, and export friction. PERPLEXITY AI MAGAZINE ARTICLE
Cargo culture is what happens when tech runs out of ideas Ed Zitron says Silicon Valley has stopped inventing much and started copying rituals that only look like progress. He ties that to AI hype, venture capital, and the habit of funding whatever already feels successful. ED ZITRON POST
Horror and romance as mirror genres Tracy Durnell draws a neat mirror between horror and romance: one turns fear into survival, the other turns fear into love. TRACY DURNELL POST
RECOMMENDATION OF THE WEEK
Focus less on telling your AI how to do things.
Focus more on telling AI what you want the outcome to be, and give it lots of context. Ideally in a harness so you don’t have to constantly repeat yourself.
APHORISM OF THE WEEK
What are you afraid of losing when nothing in this world actually belongs to you?
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