Ben Harris-Roxas

On the tail of a scammer

Really interesting reporting by Julian Fell, via The Sizzle

“We are witnessing a massive move [by the World Bank] to consider financing a range of large projects expected to have huge impacts on river basins, or that have already provoked huge, historic controversies… The World Bank is revisiting projects it once dropped because of obvious challenges and risks, but those risks did not go away.”

In a Major Reversal, the World Bank Is Backing Mega Dams – Yale Environment 360

The Enshittification of American Power: Under Trump 2.0, US statecraft is starting to mimic the worst tendencies of Big Tech – WIRED

The NIH Is Capping Research Proposals Because It’s Overwhelmed by AI Submissions – 404 Media

This was an interesting read: Billionaires Destroyed American News Media On Purpose

It seems self-evident to me, but I guess that’s because Australia, as a tiny duopolistic backwater in almost every sector and a Murdoch testing site, is 20+ years further along this path. Enjoy the ride America.

I appreciated this post on perfume reviews by Gwern.

I’ve been giving some a go lately and discovered I’m a sucker for oud and star anise, and agree with the post that Fragrantica reviews are some of the funniest writing in existence.

A prompt-injection vulnerability in the AI assistant (Gemini) allows attackers to create messages that appear to be legitimate Google Security alerts but instead can be used to target users across various Google products with vishing and phishing. – via Dan

It’s amazing that Netflix is becoming A.I. slop but you’re still expected to pay for it on even the ad-supported tiers: Netflix uses AI effects for first time to cut costs. People in the know always said that the cord-cutting endgame was a worse version of cable TV, but it’s shocking how much worse it is.

What kind of sad act would buy a bottle of wine just because the label looks like Sonic Youth’s Goo album?

Minister, two basic rules of government: Never look into anything you don’t have to. And never set up an enquiry unless you know in advance what its findings will be.

– Sir Humphrey Appleby

Victoria Police has incorporated generative AI into a self-service non-urgent crime reporting tool to summarise information in a way that frontline officers are accustomed to receiving it.

Imagine every process that required human attention being intermediated or entirely done by A.I.

We’re already there.

Thursday: Universities and artists face funding threat under antisemitism plan being considered by Australian government

Friday: Antisemitism envoy praises Elon Musk’s X for using AI to ‘root out hate’

I wouldn’t have guessed Australian universities are more antisemitic than x dot com 🤷

Measuring the Impact of Early-2025 AI on Experienced Open-Source Developer Productivity - METR via Hailey

We conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) to understand how early-2025 AI tools affect the productivity of experienced open-source developers working on their own repositories. Surprisingly, we find that when developers use AI tools, they take 19% longer than without—AI makes them slower. We view this result as a snapshot of early-2025 AI capabilities in one relevant setting

“Wow, This Is So Gay”: An Oral History of ‘But I’m a Cheerleader’ – Vanity Fair via Metafilter

A cult classic for queer people that deserves a wider audience as part of the Natasha Lyonnaissance.

>“Would you pay $169 for an introductory ebook on machine learning with citations that appear to be made up? If not, you might want to pass on purchasing Mastering Machine Learning: From Basics to Advanced, published by Springer Nature in April."