James Vincent
@jjvincent.bsky.social
journalist and writer. author of BEYOND MEASURE, a history of measurement; a New Yorker, Economist, Times book of the year. former senior editor / AI reporter at The Verge. you can buy my book here: https://linktr.ee/BeyondMeasureBook
i wrote about humanoid robots - both the hype and the very real progress being made in this sector - for @harpers.bsky.social. read all about it here: harpers.org/archive/2025...
Kicking Robots, by James Vincent
Humanoids and the tech-industry hype machine
harpers.org
November 19, 2025 at 6:03 PM
i wrote about humanoid robots - both the hype and the very real progress being made in this sector - for @harpers.bsky.social. read all about it here: harpers.org/archive/2025...
Reposted by James Vincent
THE ASSET CLASS, my first book, will be published by @wnbooks.bsky.social on 9 April 2026. It’s a narrative investigation of private equity, a secretive and relentlessly destructive wing of finance that penetrates almost every aspect of our lives - and it’s available to pre-order now!
November 18, 2025 at 12:00 PM
THE ASSET CLASS, my first book, will be published by @wnbooks.bsky.social on 9 April 2026. It’s a narrative investigation of private equity, a secretive and relentlessly destructive wing of finance that penetrates almost every aspect of our lives - and it’s available to pre-order now!
Reposted by James Vincent
This is the most cursed idea I’ve ever seen and it’s immediately obvious that this is where we’re headed
not too hard to imagine a comprehensively gambling-obsessed political media, maybe soon nymag.com/intelligence...
November 13, 2025 at 5:21 PM
This is the most cursed idea I’ve ever seen and it’s immediately obvious that this is where we’re headed
if you feel your day has been missing variety, flavour, an “event,” did you know you can always lie down in pitch black room and listen to Beethoven’s emperor concerto. it will take 40 minutes and you may walk out the same room a different person
November 13, 2025 at 6:00 PM
if you feel your day has been missing variety, flavour, an “event,” did you know you can always lie down in pitch black room and listen to Beethoven’s emperor concerto. it will take 40 minutes and you may walk out the same room a different person
"The trucks, the trains: this cursory, free-associative language is not how a person who experienced the war would recall it; it is how someone with only a very limited knowledge of the war would fail to imagine it." - good (damning) review of Laing's latest here www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
The Silver Book by Olivia Laing review – a thin line of beauty
The world of 1970s Italian cinema is the glossy backdrop for an elegantly wrought but shallow novel
www.theguardian.com
November 13, 2025 at 1:37 PM
"The trucks, the trains: this cursory, free-associative language is not how a person who experienced the war would recall it; it is how someone with only a very limited knowledge of the war would fail to imagine it." - good (damning) review of Laing's latest here www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...
Reposted by James Vincent
⚡📮Nice work @royal-mail.bsky.social, who have just announced the launch of a new fleet of over 100 micro electric vehicles, replacing 52 vans.
Better for the climate and for deliveries. This is exactly the kind of move we need to see for cities free of diesel vans!
#ElectrifyLondon
Better for the climate and for deliveries. This is exactly the kind of move we need to see for cities free of diesel vans!
#ElectrifyLondon
November 13, 2025 at 12:22 PM
⚡📮Nice work @royal-mail.bsky.social, who have just announced the launch of a new fleet of over 100 micro electric vehicles, replacing 52 vans.
Better for the climate and for deliveries. This is exactly the kind of move we need to see for cities free of diesel vans!
#ElectrifyLondon
Better for the climate and for deliveries. This is exactly the kind of move we need to see for cities free of diesel vans!
#ElectrifyLondon
“Bad snooker would be painful to watch; mediocre snooker is notoriously boring; but great snooker is sublime.” - Sally Rooney on Ronnie O’Sullivan www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
Angles of Approach | Sally Rooney
What makes Ronnie O’Sullivan the greatest player in the history of snooker? It isn’t just statistical dominance—it lies in his style, in the difference between thinking and acting.
www.nybooks.com
November 11, 2025 at 3:55 PM
“Bad snooker would be painful to watch; mediocre snooker is notoriously boring; but great snooker is sublime.” - Sally Rooney on Ronnie O’Sullivan www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
Reposted by James Vincent
Most of the discussion around America's AI strategy abroad has focused on the AI Action Plan - but perhaps more important was the Executive Order on exporting the AI stack.
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November 10, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Most of the discussion around America's AI strategy abroad has focused on the AI Action Plan - but perhaps more important was the Executive Order on exporting the AI stack.
🧵
🧵
"before starting work [Herman Melville] would feed his cow a pumpkin – he lived on a 160-acre farm in Massachusetts – ‘for it’s a pleasant sight to see a cow move her jaws – she does it so mildly & with great sanctity.’" www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2013/oc...
Nick Richardson | Benefits of a Hangover
Writing drunk rarely works. Writing hungover, on the other hand, can be surprisingly effective. A bastard behind the...
www.lrb.co.uk
November 8, 2025 at 2:49 PM
"before starting work [Herman Melville] would feed his cow a pumpkin – he lived on a 160-acre farm in Massachusetts – ‘for it’s a pleasant sight to see a cow move her jaws – she does it so mildly & with great sanctity.’" www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2013/oc...
i bet that we're going to see AI terrorism inspired by belief in a specific model's sentience before we see any violence from the doomer crowd. devotion will move people more powerfully than fear, i think.
November 8, 2025 at 10:35 AM
i bet that we're going to see AI terrorism inspired by belief in a specific model's sentience before we see any violence from the doomer crowd. devotion will move people more powerfully than fear, i think.
Reposted by James Vincent
brilliant piece (and brilliantly visualized) on the scale, ambition, and colossal failure of The Line — the saudi megaproject that was never going to be ig.ft.com/saudi-neom-l...
End of The Line: how Saudi Arabia’s Neom dream unravelled
Mohammed bin Salman’s utopian city was undone by the laws of physics and finance
ig.ft.com
November 7, 2025 at 4:05 PM
brilliant piece (and brilliantly visualized) on the scale, ambition, and colossal failure of The Line — the saudi megaproject that was never going to be ig.ft.com/saudi-neom-l...
I reviewed a new biography of Palantir CEO Alex Karp and his co-authored manifesto, The Technological Republic for @newstatesman1913.bsky.social. Karp is marketing as Silicon Valley's philosopher-CEO, but what actually guides his business?
www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...
www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...
All your data belongs to us: the rise of Palantir
A biography of the tech company’s founder Alex Karp reveals the philosophy behind its troubling conquest of the world
www.newstatesman.com
November 7, 2025 at 3:46 PM
I reviewed a new biography of Palantir CEO Alex Karp and his co-authored manifesto, The Technological Republic for @newstatesman1913.bsky.social. Karp is marketing as Silicon Valley's philosopher-CEO, but what actually guides his business?
www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...
www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...
lovely frontispiece from william gilbert's de magnete (1600). not sure of the symbology, but it looks like a caduceus representing hermes/mecury and knowledge, and the clasped hands perhaps refer to sympathy/affinity - fitting for a book on magnetism
November 4, 2025 at 5:06 PM
lovely frontispiece from william gilbert's de magnete (1600). not sure of the symbology, but it looks like a caduceus representing hermes/mecury and knowledge, and the clasped hands perhaps refer to sympathy/affinity - fitting for a book on magnetism
The clip immediately preceding the day today one is Gerry Adams talking about how colonial dynamics require dehumanisation and demonisation of the subject… that is hardly “no indicator” though admittedly it requires you pay attention to what’s being said
bsky.app/profile/andr...
bsky.app/profile/andr...
This New Yorker documentary about the 1988 UK government ban on broadcasting the voices of Sinn Féin and I.R.A. leaders is pretty good but they show *that clip from The Day Today with no explanation and no indicator that it is satire.
www.newyorker.com/video/watch/...
www.newyorker.com/video/watch/...
The Ban
www.newyorker.com
November 3, 2025 at 2:53 PM
The clip immediately preceding the day today one is Gerry Adams talking about how colonial dynamics require dehumanisation and demonisation of the subject… that is hardly “no indicator” though admittedly it requires you pay attention to what’s being said
bsky.app/profile/andr...
bsky.app/profile/andr...
Reposted by James Vincent
spotted a rather bleak epitaph on this gravestone while taking the cat for a walk - “She hath done what she could”
November 3, 2025 at 11:44 AM
spotted a rather bleak epitaph on this gravestone while taking the cat for a walk - “She hath done what she could”
"People often wonder how to get back to the vibes of the early, heady days of the internet. It’s easy: Crash the global economy and leave lots of young people with keyboards and spare time. Make it boring. That’s what’s interesting." www.wired.com/story/ai-nor...
The Argument for Letting AI Burn It All Down
When the AI bubble bursts, the nerds will do their best work.
www.wired.com
October 31, 2025 at 5:25 PM
"People often wonder how to get back to the vibes of the early, heady days of the internet. It’s easy: Crash the global economy and leave lots of young people with keyboards and spare time. Make it boring. That’s what’s interesting." www.wired.com/story/ai-nor...
The aphantasia/hyperphantasia essay is v good, but I find most fascinating what it reveals only in relief: the vast disparity in human comprehension and experience of the world - and how we are still exploring this spectrum www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Some People Can’t See Mental Images. The Consequences Are Profound
Research has linked the ability to visualize to a bewildering variety of human traits—how we experience trauma, hold grudges, and, above all, remember our lives.
www.newyorker.com
October 31, 2025 at 3:54 PM
The aphantasia/hyperphantasia essay is v good, but I find most fascinating what it reveals only in relief: the vast disparity in human comprehension and experience of the world - and how we are still exploring this spectrum www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
finally listened to the andrej karpathy dwarkesh interview and it really is very good. AI skeptics overindex on current failures but karpathy is, i think, correct: AI agents are bullshit rn, but the problems they face are tractable and will be solved in 10 years
www.dwarkesh.com/p/andrej-kar...
www.dwarkesh.com/p/andrej-kar...
Andrej Karpathy — AGI is still a decade away
"The problems are tractable, but they're still difficult”
www.dwarkesh.com
October 31, 2025 at 10:50 AM
finally listened to the andrej karpathy dwarkesh interview and it really is very good. AI skeptics overindex on current failures but karpathy is, i think, correct: AI agents are bullshit rn, but the problems they face are tractable and will be solved in 10 years
www.dwarkesh.com/p/andrej-kar...
www.dwarkesh.com/p/andrej-kar...
deepfakes are being used more in European elections. i think we'll definitely see more of this in the UK in the coming years considering how much the talking points of the right and far-right are driven by online agitators
www.politico.eu/article/elec...
www.politico.eu/article/elec...
The week that AI deepfakes hit Europe’s elections
Dutch and Irish elections show voters now have to worry if the political content they consume is real.
www.politico.eu
October 31, 2025 at 10:11 AM
deepfakes are being used more in European elections. i think we'll definitely see more of this in the UK in the coming years considering how much the talking points of the right and far-right are driven by online agitators
www.politico.eu/article/elec...
www.politico.eu/article/elec...
it's definitely a milestone for 1X to take Neo pre-orders but my god people are ignoring the fact every complex job requires teleoperation. in this (great) WSJ video, the company doesn't demo a single autonomous task
youtu.be/f3c4mQty_so?...
youtu.be/f3c4mQty_so?...
I Tried the First Humanoid Home Robot. It Got Weird. | WSJ
YouTube video by The Wall Street Journal
youtu.be
October 29, 2025 at 10:21 AM
it's definitely a milestone for 1X to take Neo pre-orders but my god people are ignoring the fact every complex job requires teleoperation. in this (great) WSJ video, the company doesn't demo a single autonomous task
youtu.be/f3c4mQty_so?...
youtu.be/f3c4mQty_so?...
Reposted by James Vincent
We tried to place this story - very expensive polling, the first of its kind, strong quantitative data about what trans people feel about Britain: bluntly there is no better way to tell the story - with the BBC but it said it was "too weak".
But it will pick up any old piece of transhating garbage.
But it will pick up any old piece of transhating garbage.
In @yougov.co.uk polling of the trans community, to the best of our knowledge the first of its kind ever conducted, an astonishing 84% said Britain is “fairly unsafe” or “very unsafe” for trans people.
goodlaw.social/ncfw
goodlaw.social/ncfw
‘Abject terror’: survey shows 84% of trans people feel Britain is unsafe
YouGov poll reveals safety crisis for trans people in the UK
goodlaw.social
October 28, 2025 at 8:00 AM
We tried to place this story - very expensive polling, the first of its kind, strong quantitative data about what trans people feel about Britain: bluntly there is no better way to tell the story - with the BBC but it said it was "too weak".
But it will pick up any old piece of transhating garbage.
But it will pick up any old piece of transhating garbage.
a lawsuit against an AI chatbot maker now turns on the question of whether or not AI produces legally-protected speech — a fantastic and important report here:
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/m...
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/m...
October 27, 2025 at 12:47 PM
a lawsuit against an AI chatbot maker now turns on the question of whether or not AI produces legally-protected speech — a fantastic and important report here:
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/m...
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/m...
This is the patent age of new inventions / For saving bodies, and for killing souls / All propagated with the best intentions
October 26, 2025 at 10:56 PM
This is the patent age of new inventions / For saving bodies, and for killing souls / All propagated with the best intentions
Reposted by James Vincent
