Elephants don’t just communicate with sound—they gesture with intent. 🐘🍎 A new study shows elephants use deliberate trunk movements to influence others—a hallmark of complex cognition once thought unique to humans. 🔗 Learn more: nyti.ms/4o4NwWX

World comes full circle ✨

Crowing about debt but living in largesse is fundamentally criminal

“The big joke on democracy is that it gives its mortal enemies the means to its own destruction”

We are expanding our communication channels as we press on with our people-led campaign to #ResetRestoreRebuild Kenya.

I think people really, really overestimate the value of mandatory insurance schemes in general, and I don't feel good about this as an AI governance intervention. A thread. (this will just be based in a US context because that's what I know most about.)

Artificial general intelligence is not inevitable. My latest for The Guardian challenges one of the most popular claims made about AGI. Among those who believe AGI is possible, it's common to think it's unstoppable, whether you're excited or terrified of the prospect 🧵

Our Junior Research Scholar, Gathoni Ireri, is featured in a Semafor piece on African Universities in the AI era: semafor.com/article/07/28/…

Thought leadership!

Wow

I fear people unable to give an accurate appraisal of their merits are also unable to appraise their flaws

Verbal debates where people talk at each other are a terrible way to decide who is right about things or to learn about the issues they are debating. slowboring.com/p/the-case-aga…

That not a single one of these 8 scenarios is willing to entertain the prospect of cooperation globally, or between the US and China on AI safety, is profoundly depressing. A potent illustration of the power of imaginaries to frame possible futures: they can expand how we think

Why, like Matthew Yglesias, I rarely engage in formal Oxford-style debates. "Debate is just a skill that has a fundamentally tenuous relationship to ideas like 'actually being correct' or 'seeking out the truth.'" open.substack.com/pub/matthewygl…

This story makes me smile every time I get to tell it. Back when I was an undergrad, a bunch of my friends who were much smarter than me were getting into this thing called "research." So, I also cold-emailed a few professors and one got back to me, asking me to read some paper:

New IEBC team has started very badly. We already have a long list of enemies to keep an eye on and it looks like we’ll need to add them there. At least they’re giving us an early signal.

my soul literally left my body as soon as milchick hit those body rolls

False. linkedin.com/posts/yann-lec…