Humanities majors shall inherit the earth
Things I'm thinking about 7/15/26
A school district on the Allegany Indian Reservation in Western New York is deploying a humanoid robot in the classroom this fall. It seems relevant that Salamanca, the only incorporated city in the United States located entirely within a Native reservation, has a median household income of $41,667, with 22.4 percent of Salamanca’s residents living under the poverty line.
More than 100 House Democrats voted to cut off aid to Israel today. This is a little less than half the Democratic caucus. While this is incredible progress, it remains to be seen whether those Democrats would vote the same way once they presumably retake the majority this midterm.
Tomorrow is the last day to get an NYC World Cup jersey. They sell out within minutes, so get there early and be prepared to wait on line.
Nobody is happy about the World Cup final halftime show. This World Cup has had an unprecedented amount of advertisements, with so-called ‘hydration breaks’ giving advertisers more airtime, and broadcasters’ choice to air the halftime show this year opens up even more airtime for commercials. What is this, the NFL?
Yesterday, New York became the first state in the country to impose a moratorium on data centers. It is hard to overstate just how big of a victory this is for activists that Kathy Hochul, of all people, willingly signed this executive order.
Former Google DeepMind employee Alex Trout wrote about his decision to resign after months of intensive effort to prevent Google from selling AI to the military without restrictions against fully autonomous killer robots or mass surveillance. What really stands out to me about Trout’s experience is just how many AI luminaries with ostensibly progressive politics stonewalled their way out of taking a public stance or using their position as leverage. As Trout points out, the AI industry is quite top-heavy, with the upper echelon of engineers being in-demand and hard to replace. What exactly did Google Chief Scientist Jeff Dean have to lose in using his power to stop the deal?
Anthropic is hiring a copy editor. This is a vindication of humanities majors everywhere. You’re telling me Claude can’t copy edit Anthropic’s website? A friend pointed out to me that someone in this position would probably be creating a style guide for Claude, which made me wonder if there is one to begin with. I looked into it and it turns out Gemini, Claude and ChatGPT all use the Oxford comma unless you specifically ask them to use AP Style. I’m encouraging every underemployed person I know to apply. Get in on that pre-IPO equity!
Speaking of which, some home sellers in San Francisco are accepting pre-IPO OpenAI or Anthropic equity as payment. I’ve written before that the SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI IPOs will almost certainly raise rent costs, exacerbating an already dire housing crisis in the Bay Area (and New York, as Anthropic is planning to double its workforce in the city). It seems like a very bad idea for real estate to tie itself even more directly to the AI bubble!
If you need to get in touch with me, DM me on the Jude Bellingham app. Stealing Jeremy Renner’s thunder for real….
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