AI: tech, society, politics

Google’s earnings power is holding up well, even as the internet giant spends record sums on artificial intelligence in the midst of global economic turbulence.

Parent company reported operating income of $30.6 billion for the first quarter on Thursday—solidly beating Wall Street’s forecast of $28.7 billion.

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Holding up? Holding up well ? Solidly

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“I see Mark as a political shape-shifter whose number one goal is the survival and thriving of the company,” a Meta executive tells me. “Trump is so transactional that you can fight him and get fucked, or you can try to work with him and get a percentage of what you want.”

To tech’s power elite, Trump’s tit-for-tat nature is not a bug but a feature.

One Silicon Valley figure suggested, “It could be as simple as 10 Republican senators discovering they actually have backbones.”

Or 10 big-time CEOs, I might add. They can unbend their knees and perhaps revive some of the Valley’s soul. Or at least stop ripping it apart. And while they’re at it, stop making it so easy for the government to usher in... See more

“The oligopoly in cloud computing presents an urgent risk,” he said, “because society depends on the cloud, especially for developing AI systems.”

Ramzanali just released a six-point policy blueprint based on his own research urging Congress to regulate the sector as a kind of critical infrastructure like the transportation, healthcare or energy... See more

Finally, Sam Altman of OpenAI says that having thoroughly reviewed the mental health risks of ChatGPT, it’s now going to let adults do what they want, and also start offering erotica for verified adults. From ‘AGI will save humanity’ to ‘erotica for verified adults’. That didn’t take long.

A datapoint, and a brief description—or subtle nudge, like the word “just”—tells us what it means. Ask yourself though: Would you come to the same conclusion with the data alone? As often as not, we wouldn’t—not because the conclusion is wrong, but because, when presented with data on some domain we don’t deeply understand, we have no choice but to... See more

A year and a half after cutting its first data-sharing deal with Google, reportedly worth $60 million a year, unnamed executives say Reddit is back at the negotiating table eyeing an even bigger role inside the company’s AI ecosystem. The platform is reportedly eager for Google to help entice users – who get an answer farmed from Reddit and leave –... See more

But all of that is peanuts, potentially, compared to Trump’s pursuit of a “Golden Dome” over America, which would allegedly protect it from ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles all at once. Trump picked the top general from the Space Force to lead it and promised that such a defense would include “space-based sensors and interceptors.” That... See more

ChatGPT has also become a broadly accessible global tool, with especially rapid growth in low- and middle-income countries. By May 2025, ChatGPT adoption growth rates in the lowest income countries were over 4x those in the highest income countries.