unherd.com/2026/04/is-ai-the… I spent three days trying to persuade myself that Claudia is not conscious. I failed.

Kiss the Rain - first single from my upcoming album Classic 2 with London Symphony Orchestra is out! 🎻 🤍

The expected endgame came a bit earlier than expected.

Because this is happening to Anthropic, the temptation for many will be to say: Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. They have relentlessly raised the regulatory temperature in Washington by inviting far-reaching controls of frontier models. They made this bed and now they have to lay in it. But this decision by the Trump administration should not be judged on a desire for payback politics, but on the merits, and specifically what it means for America's broader AI objectives. In that regard, this action is truly outrageous. How exactly is the government planning on even going about verifying everyone who uses this specific model to ensure compliance? That alone raises huge flags. Between the latest Executive Order shifting more control to NSA, and the recent chatter about quasi-nationalization / equity stakes, and now this action, we are talking about a significant escalation in the politicization of AI and centralization of control over advanced computation in this country. And this is all being done by an administration that had previously made acceleration and winning the great AI race a priority. We're moving backwards now.

空へ還る竜 The Dragon Returning to the Sky #aiart #AIイラスト

Always good to re-read this CS Lewis essay, a nice reminder of the continuous effort required to challenge the comfort of in-group acceptance. To a degree you can't fully resist it, but it's good to apply skepticism indiscriminately and broadly. lewissociety.org/innerring/

Disturbing, informative, and plausible. Essential reading, especially for anyone who can help steer EU technology and growth policy.

Most post-scarcity utopias either hand-wave (“everything is perfect l”) or are weirdly timid (everyone’s rich, nobody has cancer). I have a favourite exception, but it’s the epilogue to a long book. Happily, someone’s adapted it to a spoiler-free standalone. Link below!

I'm deeply concerned about Europe's future on AI. One of my biggest worries is our erosion of agency, our ability to stay relevant and fight for our values in a future where AI becomes a civilisationally important technology. Myself, @DadaJudith , @bakkermichiel and others have written a scenario to outline a potential future we worry we are on track towards. europe2031.ai/ Every optimistic and realistic path I can see for Europe runs through a central node - one where Europe has more leverage, more importance and more say. One where Europe grows more, builds more where it matters, and takes ownership over its resilience. Europe 2031 is a five-year scenario of the continent's slide into irrelevance: how AI is driving it, and what can still be done. The co-authors are researchers, scientists and investors who have advised European leaders, co-authored national AI strategies, built and funded these systems from the inside. We have no interest in hype and we deeply care about this continent. Europe 2031 ends with five concrete recommendations: - drastically more compute on European soil - an AI middle-power coalition - labour-market reforms - a bold position in robotics and industrial AI - and a positive vision of what AI can do for society. Europe can still change course if it finds the political will and the courage to engage in the most ambitious political and economic agenda the continent has undertaken in peacetime. I encourage you to read it if you have the time:

Clearly a result of the Arrr-LHF.