Bless and Praise Anthropic

You might recall that the Pentagon used and AI model from Anthropic to help capture Venezuela's Nicolas Madero. Anthropic reminded the Pentagon of the company's guardrails, suggesting AI should not be used for mass surveillance of the public and it must not be given power to kill without a human control.

The Trump administration did not like that, so it terminated Anthropic's Pentagon work and banned other federal agencies from using Anthropic. Anthropic sued, and a judge blocked the government from blacklisting Anthropic. 

From its start, Athropic’s entire identity is built upon a foundation embedding safety principles directly into AI behavior. The company should be lauded, praised and honored for placing such moral in its AI models. Other companies—OpenAI, Google, xAI—accepted government contracts lacking the guardrails that Anthropic requires.

Checkpoints for Violent Immigrants

Too often, immigrants come to the U.S. and commit heinous crimes, Opponents of immigration use this to argue for deportation and for keeping the immigrants from coming in the first place. They argue that for every 10 good immigrants, there will be one who will pull off terrible crimes and thus we should lock them all out.

I'd hate to see that. For the good part, these are people seeking the freedom of the U.S., and to join families, and to work.

I'm wondering if some kind of checkpoint program might catch such criminals. Traffic-stop checkpoints? Checkpoints at bars? Checkpoints at grocery stores? I'm not sure. For one thing, you do too much of this and the average citizen might feel hassled.

But I would like to believe such a system would work, even if it had to be done on a scaled-down basis.

 

 

Fewer Deaths in Iran War

The Iran War boasts the lowest opening‑month U.S. soldier fatality count of any major conflict American conflict.

Just 13, just 13.

Compare that to some other conflicts: World War II lost thousands in the first month; The Vietnam War lost hundreds; The Korean War, thousands; the Gulf War,147, mostly during the first month; The Iraq War, 139; the Afghanistan War, dozens; the war on ISIS, more than 13 in opening months; the Revolutionary War, unknown, but still far higher than 13; the American Civil War, 500-1,000; World War I, from hundreds to thousands in the first month of it becoming a major conflict.

We can be glad more lives have not been lost in Iran.

 

Same Old Sergeant

It's the same old sergeant in the same old town—

the same old shouts and commands.

His power continues to rise;

it just expands and expands.

He barks at the privates— that's you and me.

He orders us to stay in line:

“Just do as I say,” he says,

“and everything will turn out fine.”

The commander, the king—

whatever you want to call him—

I've had my fill;

I've had it to the brim.

He's the same old sergeant in the same old town,

except he's getting worse and worse.

How I wish, and how I pray,

we could get rid of this curse.