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Graham Webster

Graham Webster

@gwbstr.com

3.1K followers 590 following 1.4K posts

Chinese tech policy and US-China relations at Stanford
Newsletter: herecomes.transpacifica.net
Basics: gwbstr.com
Also: #filmphotography

Graham Alexander Webster OBE was a British archaeologist, one of the pre-eminent figures of Roman-British archaeology in the late 20th century.

Source: Wikipedia

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Graham Webster @gwbstr.com · Nov 10

Photography (especially film) has been a source of peace and joy these last few years. For now I mostly post it on ig at @grahamophoto (more independent site coming eventually). Come check out what I've caught in the emulsions. www.instagram.com/grahamophoto/

Graham Webster @gwbstr.com · 7h

All kinds of uses for mechanical information encoding. Cargo net steganography. “I wish you were dead” written out in looseness of lugnuts.

Graham Webster @gwbstr.com · 7h

mechano-intelligence

Graham Webster @gwbstr.com · 8h

I hope they keep the diplomatic tempo.

Tobias Harris @tobiasharris.bsky.social · 16h

This is a little goofy but it's much better than the alternative

Reposted by Graham Webster

Tobias Harris @tobiasharris.bsky.social · 16h

This is a little goofy but it's much better than the alternative

Reposted by Kevin Carey, Graham Webster

Adam Harris @adamhsays.com · 16h

A quick 🧵 about Thurgood Marshall, civil rights, and Trump’s recent argument that, “White people were very badly treated, where they did extremely well and they were not invited to go into a college or university.” (You can find more in chapter 8 of The State Must Provide)

Graham Webster @gwbstr.com · 1d

So here “AI race” is a contest to gain market share in less developed economies.

Smith attributes china’s putative success to government subsidies, which seems less likely than models being open and tuned for efficiency.

Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.bsky.social · 1d

Microsoft warns that China is winning AI race outside the west

Microsoft warns that China is winning AI race outside the west

DeepSeek’s technology is being rapidly adopted across Africa and beyond, tech group’s research shows

giftarticle.ft.com

Reposted by Graham Webster

Ulrike Franke @rikefranke.bsky.social · 1d

Microsoft warns that China is winning AI race outside the west

Microsoft warns that China is winning AI race outside the west

DeepSeek’s technology is being rapidly adopted across Africa and beyond, tech group’s research shows

giftarticle.ft.com

Graham Webster @gwbstr.com · 1d

Never considered that fugitive simians would use genai to evade capture but I guess they do sling shit.

Reposted by Anna O. Law, Jacob Montgomery, Janet Murray , and 2 more Anna O. Law, Jacob Montgomery, Janet Murray, Margot C. Finn, Graham Webster

The Associated Press @apnews.com · 1d

Multiple monkeys are on the loose in St. Louis. And AI generated images are complicating the effort to find them.

Monkeys are on the loose in St. Louis and AI is complicating efforts to capture them

Multiple monkeys are on the loose in St. Louis. And AI generated images are complicating the effort to find them.

Graham Webster @gwbstr.com · 2d

good god Jeremy what era was he in

Graham Webster @gwbstr.com · 2d

Academic exchange on bilateral ties is full of “I have observed event; some interpret this way and others that way; can you help me understand?” We ask each other follow up questions and are skeptical of pat political talking points. Sometimes if we’re being honest both sides go “idk shit’s wild.”

Graham Webster @gwbstr.com · 2d

You think reading the news is dizzying? Try going into ten days of meetings with Chinese professors who also read the news and would appreciate some context.

Graham Webster @gwbstr.com · 2d

About to give a talk in Shanghai about the contested concept of AGI (host’s suggestion), and my highest hope is that the audience will help me understand how people are navigating the real and the BS of LLMs in China.

Graham Webster @gwbstr.com · 2d

No Sunk Costs @nosunkcosts.bsky.social · 3d

Disengagement is the only option — the sooner a country realizes this, the better its future prospects

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01...

Graham Webster @gwbstr.com · 2d

Maximilian Mayer @maximilianiras.bsky.social · 5d

A fully fascist state emerges. Decoupling is needed, quickly.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 5d

JD Vance: "It was a legitimate law enforcement operation. We were going door to door to try to find criminal illegal aliens and deport them from the United States ... say a prayer for that agent ... he deserves a debt of gratitude."

Reposted by Graham Webster

Daniel Ahmad @zhugeex.com · 2d

Classic

Graham Webster @gwbstr.com · 3d

decoupling 2.0

No Sunk Costs @nosunkcosts.bsky.social · 3d

Disengagement is the only option — the sooner a country realizes this, the better its future prospects

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01...

Reposted by Edgar Morgenroth, Daniel W. Drezner, David R. Miller , and 1 more Edgar Morgenroth, Daniel W. Drezner, David R. Miller, Graham Webster

Micah @rincewind.run · 3d

“A diplomatic source said: 'The generals think Trump's Greenland plan is crazy and illegal. So they are trying to deflect him with other major military operations. They say it's like dealing with a five-year-old'.”

what the fuck

have we tried turning the country off and back on again

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 3d

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

Trump 'orders US army chiefs to draw up plan to invade Greenland'

Donald Trump has ordered his special forces commanders to draw up a plan for the invasion of Greenland - but is being resisted by senior military figures, The Mail on Sunday has learned.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Reposted by Graham Webster

No Sunk Costs @nosunkcosts.bsky.social · 3d

Disengagement is the only option — the sooner a country realizes this, the better its future prospects

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01...

Reposted by Graham Webster

Nathan Lambert @natolambert.bsky.social · 4d

I wanted to see how some of the smaller and newer entrants in the LLM space were faring over H2 2025, so I added a new plot to the ATOM Project.

In this time, OpenAI and DeepSeek have logged over 50M downloads, and Qwen over 400M, so we have a long way to go.

Graham Webster @gwbstr.com · 4d

I keep explaining to people both older and younger what that event occurring during a person’s early political awareness does to their sense of the U.S. regime type.

Reposted by Will Jennings, Janet Murray, Aaron Sojourner , and 3 more Will Jennings, Janet Murray, Aaron Sojourner, Michael Zimmer, Graham Webster, Greg Linden

Casey Newton @caseynewton.bsky.social · 5d

I'm glad to see this pressure on Google and Apple. If any other company was running an active CSAM generator in public you better believe it would have been removed from their app stores by now www.wired.com/story/x-grok...

Why Are Grok and X Still Available in App Stores?

Elon Musk’s chatbot has been used to generate thousands of sexualized images of adults and apparent minors. Apple and Google have removed other “nudify” apps—but continue to host X and Grok.

Reposted by Graham Webster

Maximilian Mayer @maximilianiras.bsky.social · 5d

A fully fascist state emerges. Decoupling is needed, quickly.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 5d

JD Vance: "It was a legitimate law enforcement operation. We were going door to door to try to find criminal illegal aliens and deport them from the United States ... say a prayer for that agent ... he deserves a debt of gratitude."

Reposted by Timnit Gebru, Graham Webster

404 Media @404media.co · 5d

404 Media has obtained material that explains how two surveillance systems ICE recently purchased, work. One can track phones without a warrant and follow their owners home or to their employer. @evystadium.bsky.social has more.

Scoop by @josephcox.bsky.social: www.404media.co/inside-ices-...

Reposted by Graham Webster

Financial Times @financialtimes.com · 6d

The attacks are the latest element of a massive cyber espionage campaign, known as Salt Typhoon, by Beijing’s intelligence service. ft.trib.al/7RyrXh1

Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Graham Webster

Kyle Lo @kylelo.bsky.social · 8d

some citation graphs data pipelines will create new "paper" nodes based on extracted bibstrings from PDFs

so in 2026 the papers we hallucinated in 2025 might end up being "real" papers on gscholar or sthn lol

Graham Webster @gwbstr.com · 8d

J.G.G. v. Trump is a key case on invoking the Alien Enemies Act to send people to the CECOT gulag in El Salvador. www.aclu.org/cases/j-g-g-...

Reposted by Graham Webster

Riana @riana.bsky.social · 8d

wild that "your body, my choice" is now the governing policy for both women, children, and foreign heads of state

Reposted by Peter Thorne, Benjamin I. Cook, Graham Webster

Scott St. George @scottstgeorge.paleohydrology.com · 8d

Unbelievable. The National Weather Service issued a wind warning supported by a hazard map showing places that **do not exist***.

Chris Vagasky @coweatherman.bsky.social · 8d

Wait a minute...why is NWS throwing out genAI generated slop on their socials?

This is a horrible look and doesn't help keep people safe or aware of the forecast.

NWS AI Slop.

Graham Webster @gwbstr.com · 10d

How big is the signal group chat discussing how doing the right thing might play