I think "It is always more complicated than it seems" is a good rule of thumb for life.

Shorter @AnthropicAI: "Now that we have made significant advances in building a market, it is now time to enact regulatory barriers that will prevent others from following us and reducing our market share."

Fable is as capable as Codex 5.5 (or more). However, it triggers ridiculous limits verifying basic bug fixes. Evidently fixing bugs now requires restricted cybersecurity access.

I packaged up my agentic coding assistance system for anyone to use: github.com/VanL/agent-guidan…. What this is: I have been doing a lot of AI-assisted development recently, and I have found that I frequently get better results than some others. I think that part of it is the structured system I use for managing agent context and guiding agents away from common pitfalls. Agent-guidance makes agents use a more highly-structured specification-plan-implement cycle than the basic planning mode will get you. In combination with github.com/VanL/agent-mcp, plans and implementations get a competitive review from a different agent, helping eliminate blind spots. If you are a user of @garrytan's gstack, @every's compound engineering, and @obrajesse's superpowers, agent-guidance will work with those skill stacks to make implementation easier and higher-quality.

We open-sourced 99% of US caselaw on @huggingface. Both AI and legal tech companies are selling this data for a high premium. You can simply just build a wrapper around it and freely compete with them now. That is why we love open-source. huggingface.co/datasets/comm…

The day before Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter was fired, the Copyright Office quickly and quietly dropped a major report on AI and fair use. I break down the timing, the fallout, and my 5 biggest takeaways—up now on Copyright Lately copyrightlately.com/copyrigh…

Pity the four of us who used em-dashes naturally. Now everyone thinks we're ChatGPTing everything.

The Japanese government has fully committed to advancing AI. The Personal Information Protection Commission has amended privacy laws to permit the use of personal data—both domestic and foreign—for AI training purposes without requiring individual consent in principle.

Vice President @JDVance is in Paris for the AI Summit and just gave one of the most pro-innovation speeches I've ever heard from an elected politician. Below is an AI-transcribed version of the speech. Bold is mine. ___ Thank you for the kind introduction, and I want to start by thanking President Macron for hosting the event and for the lovely dinner last night. During the dinner, President Macron looked at me and asked if I would like to speak. I said, Mr. President, I'm here for the good company and free wine, but I have to earn my keep today. I want to thank Prime Minister Modi for being here and for co-hosting the summit, and for all of you for participating. I'm not here this morning to talk about AI safety, which was the title of the conference a couple of years ago. I'm here to talk about AI opportunity. When conferences like this convene to discuss cutting-edge technology, our response can often be too self-conscious and too risk-averse. However, I have never encountered a breakthrough in tech that so clearly calls us to do precisely the opposite. Our administration believes that AI will have countless revolutionary applications in economic innovation, job creation, national security, healthcare, free expression, and beyond. To restrict its development now will not only unfairly benefit incumbents in the space, but it would also mean paralyzing one of the most promising technologies we have seen in generations. With that in mind, I'd like to make four main points today. Number one, this administration will ensure that American AI technology continues to be the gold standard worldwide. We aim to be the partner of choice for foreign countries and businesses as they expand their own use of AI. Number two, we believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry just as it's taking off, and we will make every effort to encourage pro-growth AI policies. I appreciate seeing that deregulatory flavor making its way into many conversations at this conference. Number three, we feel strongly that AI must remain free from ideological bias and that American AI will not be co-opted into a tool for authoritarian censorship. Finally, number four, the Trump administration will maintain a pro-worker growth path for AI, so it can be a potent tool for job creation in the United States. I appreciate Prime Minister Modi's point; AI will facilitate and make people more productive. It is not going to replace human beings. I think too many leaders in the AI industry, when they talk about the fear of replacing workers, miss the point. AI will make us more productive, more prosperous, and more free. The United States is the leader in AI, and our administration plans to keep it that way. The U.S. possesses all components across the full AI stack, including advanced semiconductor design, frontier algorithms, and transformational applications. The computing power this stack requires is integral to advancing AI technology. To safeguard America's advantage, the Trump administration will ensure that the most powerful AI systems are built in the U.S. with American-designed and manufactured chips. Just because we're the leader doesn't mean we want to or need to go it alone. America wants to partner with all of you. We want to embark on the AI revolution with the spirit of openness and collaboration. To create that kind of trust, we need international regulatory regimes that foster the creation of AI technology rather than strangle it. We need our European friends in particular to look to this new frontier with optimism rather than trepidation. The development of cutting-edge AI in the U.S. is no accident. By preserving an open regulatory environment, we've encouraged American innovators to experiment and make unparalleled R&D investments. Of the estimated $700 billion to be spent on AI in 2028, over half will likely be invested in the United States. This administration will not snuff out the startups and grad students producing groundbreaking applications of artificial intelligence. Our laws will keep big tech, little tech, and all other developers on a level playing field. With the president's recent executive order on AI, we're developing an AI action plan that avoids an overly precautionary regulatory regime while ensuring that all Americans benefit from the technology and its transformative potential. We invite your countries to work with us and to follow that model if it makes sense for your nation. However, the Trump administration is troubled by reports that some foreign governments are considering tightening the screws on U.S. tech companies with international footprints. America cannot and will not accept that, and we think it's a terrible mistake, not just for the United States, but for your own countries. U.S. innovators of all sizes already know what it's like to deal with onerous international rules. Many of our most productive tech companies are forced to deal with the EU's Digital Services Act and the massive regulations it created about taking down content and policing misinformation. We want to ensure the internet is a safe place, but it is one thing to prevent a predator from preying on a child online, and quite another to prevent a grown man or woman from accessing an opinion that the government thinks is misinformation. For smaller firms, navigating the GDPR means paying endless legal compliance costs or risking massive fines. For some, the easiest way to avoid the dilemma has been to block EU users in the first place. Is this really the future we want? Ladies and gentlemen, I think the answer should be no. There's no issue we worry about more than regulation when it comes to energy. I appreciated the comments of many at the conference because they recognize that we stand at the frontier of an AI industry that is hungry for reliable power and high-quality semiconductors, yet too many of our friends are de-industrializing on one hand and chasing reliable power out of their nations on the other. The AI future will not be won by hand-wringing about safety. It will be won by building. From reliable power plants to the manufacturing facilities that can produce the chips of the future. At a personal level, what excites me most about AI is that it is grounded in the real and physical economy. The success of the sector isn't just a matter of smart people coding; it depends on those who work with their hands. Robotics will change our factories and improve healthcare, but it will also depend on the data produced by healthcare providers. AI cannot take off unless the world builds the energy infrastructure to support it. Tech innovation over the last 20 years has often conjured images of smart people staring at computer screens, engineering in the world of bits. The AI economy will primarily depend on and transform the world of atoms. We face the extraordinary prospect of a new industrial revolution, one on par with the invention of the steam engine or Bessemer steel. But it will never come to pass if over-regulation deters innovators from taking the necessary risks. Nor will it occur if we allow AI to be dominated by massive players looking to use the tech to censor or control users' thoughts. We should ask ourselves who is most aggressively demanding that we, political leaders gathered here today, do the most aggressive regulation. It is often the people who already have an incumbent advantage in the market. When a massive incumbent comes to us asking for safety regulations, we ought to ask whether that regulation benefits our people or the incumbent. Over the last few years, we've watched as governments, businesses, and nonprofit organizations have advanced unpopular and ahistorical social agendas through AI. In the U.S., we had AI image generators trying to tell us that George Washington was black or that America's doughboys in World War I were women. We laugh at this now, but we must remember the lessons from that moment. The Trump administration will ensure that AI systems developed in America are free from ideological bias and never restrict our citizens' right to free speech. We can trust our people to think, consume information, develop their own ideas, and debate in the open marketplace of ideas. We've also watched as hostile foreign adversaries have weaponized AI software to rewrite history, surveil users, and censor speech. This is hardly new. Some authoritarian regimes have stolen and used AI to strengthen their military, intelligence, and surveillance capabilities, capture foreign data, and create propaganda to undermine other nations' national security. This administration will block such efforts full stop. We will safeguard American AI and chip technologies from theft and misuse, work with our allies to strengthen these protections, and close pathways to adversaries attaining AI capabilities that threaten all of our people. Partnering with such regimes never pays off in the long term. From CCTV to 5G equipment, we're familiar with cheap tech in the marketplace that's been heavily subsidized and exported by authoritarian regimes. Partnering with them means chaining your nation to an authoritarian master that seeks to infiltrate and seize your information infrastructure. If a deal seems too good to be true, remember the old adage from Silicon Valley: if you aren't paying for the product, you are the product. Finally, this administration wants to be clear about one last point. We will always center American workers in our AI policy. We refuse to view AI as a purely disruptive technology that will inevitably automate away our labor force. We believe AI will make our workers more productive, and we expect they will reap the rewards with higher wages, better benefits, and safer, more prosperous communities. The most immediate applications of AI involve supplementing, not replacing, the work being done by Americans. Combined with this administration's worker-first approach to immigration, we believe that the U.S. labor force prepared to use AI to its fullest extent will attract the attention of businesses that have offshored some of these roles. To accomplish this, the administration will ensure that America has the best-trained workforce in the world. Our schools will teach students how to manage, supervise, and interact with AI-enabled tools as they become part of our everyday lives. As AI creates new jobs and industries, our government, businesses, and labor organizations have an obligation to work together to empower workers, not just in the United States, but all over the world. For all major AI policy decisions from the federal government, the Trump administration will guarantee American workers a seat at the table, and we're proud of that. I've taken up enough of your time, so I'd like to close with a quick story. This is a beautiful country, President Macron, and I know that you're proud of it. Yesterday, as I was touring Les Invalides with General Gravette and my three kids, he showed me the sword that belonged to America's dearest international friend from our own revolution, the Marquis de Lafayette. He let me hold the sword, but made me put on white gloves beforehand. It got me thinking of this country, France, and my own country, and the beautiful civilization we have built together with weapons like that saber. Weapons that are dangerous in the wrong hands, but incredible tools for liberty and prosperity in the right hands. I couldn't help but think of the conference today; if we choose the wrong approach on things that could be conceived as dangerous, like AI, and hold ourselves back, it will alter not only our GDP or the stock market, but the very future of the project that Lafayette and the American founders set off to create. This doesn't mean that all concerns about safety go out the window, but focus matters. We must focus now on the opportunity to catch lightning in a bottle, unleash our most brilliant innovators, and use AI to improve the well-being of our nations and their peoples. With great confidence, I can say it is an opportunity that the Trump administration will not squander. We hope everyone here today feels the same. Thank you, and God bless you all.

By Vetoing SB 1047, Governor @GavinNewsom helped the AI research community avoid a crisis. Here's our plan to stop another SB 1047 from happening: federal pre-emption for research and publishing. 🧵 Authored by @deanwball, @VanL, and @psychosort

Van Lindberg @VanL will be one of our Keynote for PyCon Colombia 2024. Van is Founder/CEO at OSPOCO. Lawyer Specialist on Software and Computer Law Issues and Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors at the PSF Experience the magic of PyCon with world-class keynotes 🌍

Paul R. Ehrlich::The Population Bomb as AI Doomers::P(Doom). Both feature confident assertions of quickly approaching apocalypse based on the idea that we have too much development. Ehrlich was wrong. Millions (possibly even billions) are poorer and unhappier as a result. Draw your own conclusions.

Empirically, people in positions like "director of customer success" create value. But listening to them almost always makes me want to pull my hair out.

I'm listening to a panel of speakers from different companies. The way they talk about AI safety makes it clear that it's all about mitigating *their* risks. Their "AI Safety" means "Safety from lawsuits."