David Raikow
@david.raikow.online
I think about international policy, politics, conflict, and political corruption. Trying to harness Machiavellian cynicism for the common good.
What *is* so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?
What *is* so funny 'bout peace, love, and understanding?
Reposted by David Raikow
Bitch, AI isn't conscious you're just lonely
November 26, 2025 at 12:44 AM
Bitch, AI isn't conscious you're just lonely
Reposted by David Raikow
I found a piece of toast that looks like it has a smile on it. Scientists say we should make it our king.
November 25, 2025 at 9:04 PM
I found a piece of toast that looks like it has a smile on it. Scientists say we should make it our king.
Reposted by David Raikow
I’ve been running around asking tech execs and academics if language was the same as intelligence for over a year now - and, well, it isn’t. @benjaminjriley.bsky.social explains how the bubble is built on ignoring cutting-edge research into the science of thought www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...
November 25, 2025 at 1:54 PM
I’ve been running around asking tech execs and academics if language was the same as intelligence for over a year now - and, well, it isn’t. @benjaminjriley.bsky.social explains how the bubble is built on ignoring cutting-edge research into the science of thought www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...
Reposted by David Raikow
In an era filled with tech dipshits who never developed emotionally past the age of 13 & use their wealth to become odious monsters ...
... listen to Steve Wozniak.
... listen to Steve Wozniak.
November 21, 2025 at 7:41 PM
In an era filled with tech dipshits who never developed emotionally past the age of 13 & use their wealth to become odious monsters ...
... listen to Steve Wozniak.
... listen to Steve Wozniak.
My favorite part about these kinds of stories is that I don’t think there’s any way to prevent this behavior in LLMs. I think it may be inherent in the technology.
November 22, 2025 at 9:46 PM
My favorite part about these kinds of stories is that I don’t think there’s any way to prevent this behavior in LLMs. I think it may be inherent in the technology.
I honestly want 6 hours of this to use as decompression listening.
November 22, 2025 at 8:22 PM
I honestly want 6 hours of this to use as decompression listening.
Agreed 100%.
I don’t even say “Gen AI”, because most people will misinterpret that as well. Large data model-based software is not intelligent in any sense that the layperson understands the term. The minute you say anything like “AI”, people think Data from Star Trek or the hosts from Westworld.
I don’t even say “Gen AI”, because most people will misinterpret that as well. Large data model-based software is not intelligent in any sense that the layperson understands the term. The minute you say anything like “AI”, people think Data from Star Trek or the hosts from Westworld.
Yes! This is so important! Machine Learning is doing wonderful things like mapping Martian craters and analyzing microbe genomes. LLMs are a very specific form & it’s them doing these huge amounts of harm. I also sometimes say “Gen AI”
when I mean both LLMs and art generators; I try to never say AI
when I mean both LLMs and art generators; I try to never say AI
Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪
November 22, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Agreed 100%.
I don’t even say “Gen AI”, because most people will misinterpret that as well. Large data model-based software is not intelligent in any sense that the layperson understands the term. The minute you say anything like “AI”, people think Data from Star Trek or the hosts from Westworld.
I don’t even say “Gen AI”, because most people will misinterpret that as well. Large data model-based software is not intelligent in any sense that the layperson understands the term. The minute you say anything like “AI”, people think Data from Star Trek or the hosts from Westworld.
Reposted by David Raikow
"Greeks living in Afghanistan were Buddhist 500 years before China and a thousand years before Southeast Asia" is one of those things that sounds made up but is in fact true
November 20, 2025 at 3:25 PM
"Greeks living in Afghanistan were Buddhist 500 years before China and a thousand years before Southeast Asia" is one of those things that sounds made up but is in fact true
Reposted by David Raikow
"They key to the future is increasing the levels of compute."
OK, maybe the key is not saying that sentence tho.
OK, maybe the key is not saying that sentence tho.
November 20, 2025 at 3:46 PM
"They key to the future is increasing the levels of compute."
OK, maybe the key is not saying that sentence tho.
OK, maybe the key is not saying that sentence tho.
Reposted by David Raikow
oh yeah the new york city subway is so fucking scary, you never know what kind of weirdo you'll have to share a train with
November 19, 2025 at 11:49 PM
oh yeah the new york city subway is so fucking scary, you never know what kind of weirdo you'll have to share a train with
Reposted by David Raikow
always be there
November 19, 2025 at 4:00 PM
always be there
Reposted by David Raikow
"No, see, your 'Alpha' is just a violent, narcissistic control freak. In reality, high status wolves tend to be the parents of the rest of the pack, so they should really be more nurturing..."
November 19, 2025 at 4:13 AM
"No, see, your 'Alpha' is just a violent, narcissistic control freak. In reality, high status wolves tend to be the parents of the rest of the pack, so they should really be more nurturing..."
Reposted by David Raikow
Looking forward to a future where people use AI to complete surveys (the focus of the linked paper), researchers use AI to analyse the results and write the paper, and readers use AI to TL;DR summarise it...all while consuming huge amounts of resources.
osf.io/preprints/so...
osf.io/preprints/so...
OSF
osf.io
September 25, 2024 at 9:07 AM
Looking forward to a future where people use AI to complete surveys (the focus of the linked paper), researchers use AI to analyse the results and write the paper, and readers use AI to TL;DR summarise it...all while consuming huge amounts of resources.
osf.io/preprints/so...
osf.io/preprints/so...
Reposted by David Raikow
Time to post the Tony Hoagland November poem again
November 18, 2025 at 12:36 AM
Time to post the Tony Hoagland November poem again
I’ve lived for extended periods in places that de facto had no formal government policing or prisons. As truly horrible as broken policing systems are, systems without any real government police at all are much worse.
I‘m tired of being nice about this; “abolitionism” has had years to develop a non-idiot policy program and the best they’ve come up with is ”murder without even the pretense of juridical process.” And I am not nut-picking; this is all over abolitionist writing.
November 17, 2025 at 4:14 AM
I’ve lived for extended periods in places that de facto had no formal government policing or prisons. As truly horrible as broken policing systems are, systems without any real government police at all are much worse.
Reposted by David Raikow
Unspoken rule of judicial ethics: if you have a Dog Case in a court where you are a judge, you need to take judicial notice of the fact that it is a Very Good Boy/Girl/Dog.
VC David gets an entry in the unofficial Delaware Footnote Hall of Fame
November 14, 2025 at 8:20 PM
Unspoken rule of judicial ethics: if you have a Dog Case in a court where you are a judge, you need to take judicial notice of the fact that it is a Very Good Boy/Girl/Dog.
Reposted by David Raikow
[To the tune of Pretty Woman by Roy Orbison]
🎵Baba Yaga
🎵Walking down the street
🎵Baba Yaga
🎵House with chicken feet
🎵Baba Yaga
🎵Baba Yaga
🎵Walking down the street
🎵Baba Yaga
🎵House with chicken feet
🎵Baba Yaga
November 14, 2025 at 1:24 PM
[To the tune of Pretty Woman by Roy Orbison]
🎵Baba Yaga
🎵Walking down the street
🎵Baba Yaga
🎵House with chicken feet
🎵Baba Yaga
🎵Baba Yaga
🎵Walking down the street
🎵Baba Yaga
🎵House with chicken feet
🎵Baba Yaga
Reposted by David Raikow
I like how full text search of every book and human thought ever was a SOLVED PROBLEM in 2001, and now dicks at search engines and my own phone – a piece of silicon faster to respond than God was ever imagined in scripture – prevent it from working, _as a retroactive infantilizing design choice_.
November 14, 2025 at 12:42 AM
I like how full text search of every book and human thought ever was a SOLVED PROBLEM in 2001, and now dicks at search engines and my own phone – a piece of silicon faster to respond than God was ever imagined in scripture – prevent it from working, _as a retroactive infantilizing design choice_.
Entirely reasonable! But counterpoint:
The way most of the world interacts with written language today bears very little resemblance to the way it did even 100 years ago. If large parts of the population read 10,000+ words/day, consistency in spelling becomes a significant cognitive load issue.
The way most of the world interacts with written language today bears very little resemblance to the way it did even 100 years ago. If large parts of the population read 10,000+ words/day, consistency in spelling becomes a significant cognitive load issue.
Incidentally, this is why I’m against strict spelling. Words should be spelled the way they sound & we spell words as if we’re speaking Middle English for ridiculous class reasons
In ME you’d pronounce the k in “knight” but some dumbass needed to prove he was cool & now we have a literacy problem
In ME you’d pronounce the k in “knight” but some dumbass needed to prove he was cool & now we have a literacy problem
ever since I learned about three-cueing I've developed infinitely more patience for replies on social media. mfers literally do not know how to read. people are walking around conjuring random meanings into words they don't know, and they don't know a lot of words. it's crazy
November 13, 2025 at 2:50 AM
Entirely reasonable! But counterpoint:
The way most of the world interacts with written language today bears very little resemblance to the way it did even 100 years ago. If large parts of the population read 10,000+ words/day, consistency in spelling becomes a significant cognitive load issue.
The way most of the world interacts with written language today bears very little resemblance to the way it did even 100 years ago. If large parts of the population read 10,000+ words/day, consistency in spelling becomes a significant cognitive load issue.
To the extent that there’s an answer, I’m pretty sure it’s this:
This is what the NYTimes is, and what it has been for a very long time. By any reasonable standard it should have failed completely generations ago. Its vaunted credibility and objectivity have always been a myth.
This is what the NYTimes is, and what it has been for a very long time. By any reasonable standard it should have failed completely generations ago. Its vaunted credibility and objectivity have always been a myth.
Stop me if you've heard this before:
If the NYT still had a public editor, that person would have official standing to ask, WTF???
They axed the public editor. So it's up to the rest of us to ask, unofficially, WTF???
If the NYT still had a public editor, that person would have official standing to ask, WTF???
They axed the public editor. So it's up to the rest of us to ask, unofficially, WTF???
To recap: Jeffrey Epstein offered a NY Times reporter photos taken in Epstein's kitchen of Donald Trump and girls in bikinis *and* implored the NYT reporter to put this information in the public discourse in 2015
What did the NY Times editors know about this offer?
What did the NY Times editors know about this offer?
November 13, 2025 at 1:17 AM
To the extent that there’s an answer, I’m pretty sure it’s this:
This is what the NYTimes is, and what it has been for a very long time. By any reasonable standard it should have failed completely generations ago. Its vaunted credibility and objectivity have always been a myth.
This is what the NYTimes is, and what it has been for a very long time. By any reasonable standard it should have failed completely generations ago. Its vaunted credibility and objectivity have always been a myth.
Reposted by David Raikow
It didn’t go far enough. It never went far enough.
Today is a good day to remember, and to say, that the #MeToo movement was right, and was righteous, and has been vindicated over and over again. There was no overreach. There was no excess. There was no they-went-too-far.
So much work remains to be done.
So much work remains to be done.
November 13, 2025 at 12:19 AM
It didn’t go far enough. It never went far enough.
Context:
Back channels like this are pretty much standard procedure.
The interesting parts of this story are
1) The channel was at a very high level, and
2) The Russians publicly burned the channel, essentially a very blunt middle finger to the Brits and Powell in particular.
Back channels like this are pretty much standard procedure.
The interesting parts of this story are
1) The channel was at a very high level, and
2) The Russians publicly burned the channel, essentially a very blunt middle finger to the Brits and Powell in particular.
UK national security adviser Jonathan Powell tried to open a back channel to Putin as Britain and its closest EU allies feared the Trump administration could sideline their interests over Ukraine. The Kremlin confirmed our reporting on the outreach.
Scoop w/ FT comrades
on.ft.com/4nWDWnX
Scoop w/ FT comrades
on.ft.com/4nWDWnX
UK’s Jonathan Powell contacted Moscow in bid to build back channel to Vladimir Putin
One-off phone call between national security adviser and Russia’s foreign policy aide said to have ‘not gone well’
on.ft.com
November 12, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Context:
Back channels like this are pretty much standard procedure.
The interesting parts of this story are
1) The channel was at a very high level, and
2) The Russians publicly burned the channel, essentially a very blunt middle finger to the Brits and Powell in particular.
Back channels like this are pretty much standard procedure.
The interesting parts of this story are
1) The channel was at a very high level, and
2) The Russians publicly burned the channel, essentially a very blunt middle finger to the Brits and Powell in particular.
The fear that keeps me awake at night is the possibility that Oates and @dieworkwear.bsky.social will somehow end up in some sort of posting war. I’m pretty confident that Derek would win decisively, but the fallout could leave the world a smoking chunk of ash.
My theory about Joyce Carol Oates is that all her bad posts are her charging up like Godzilla's spines until she lets loose with a radioactive blast that leaves the world's richest Nazi a pile of ash
November 9, 2025 at 8:59 PM
The fear that keeps me awake at night is the possibility that Oates and @dieworkwear.bsky.social will somehow end up in some sort of posting war. I’m pretty confident that Derek would win decisively, but the fallout could leave the world a smoking chunk of ash.
I don’t remember having ever done (9), but it’s entirely possible I did at some point in my youth and have blacked it out. I’ve done all the rest.
November 8, 2025 at 10:58 PM
I don’t remember having ever done (9), but it’s entirely possible I did at some point in my youth and have blacked it out. I’ve done all the rest.