Alex Panetta
For 28 years: a journalist in print, TV, radio @ CBC, POLITICO, CP. Next: Getting a master’s in Artificial Intelligence management at Georgetown.
- A brilliant read on what’s destroying software stocks. TLDR: If you sell a product whose value is in its interface, you are screwed. Whether it’s a news site, financial analysis, legal or medical research site. Your value is now in your data. Protect it, manage it, monetize. That’s your business 1/2
- For anyone wondering why there’s been a vibe shift since late November, when Anthropic released Opus 4.5. These are not the same tools they were a couple of months ago: “What You Need to Know About the AI Models Rattling Markets” www.wsj.com/tech/ai/what...
- Hm. Pattern developing: Microsoft staff using Claude Code over its own Copilot/OpenAI www.theverge.com/tech/865689/... ... Nvidia using Claude internally over OpenAI; its deal with OpenAI falls apart substack.com/home/post/p-... Having used Claude Code the last couple of months, I'm not surprised
- Greetings from Turkey. Was talking to a non-U.S. friend the other day about how it’s difficult to steal U.S. elections because they’re too decentralized. Looks like somebody wants to change that —> Trump, in Escalation, Calls for GOP to ‘Nationalize’ Elections www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/u...
- Yes, there was an element of smoke and mirrors to moltbook, the Reddit for robots thing. Yes, lots of it was jibberish or humans pranking. But people dismissing it as a nothingburger are wrong in my opinion for some of the reasons outlined here. open.substack.com/pub/importai...
- Two fascinating studies out today gauging the impact of AI on creative work. On balance, not great for creators — but there are some nuances: 1) The number of books published since ChatGPT has *tripled*. A veritable tsunami of slop, some might call it. /
- Feels like everything has sped up in the last several weeks. Just yesterday: —Reading about self-driving car insurance. And —Seeing a discussion board populated entirely by A.I. agents complaining, gossiping about their human masters, and ruminating on the meaning of consciousness —>
- Still my favorite, and the champion of this genre in my opinion, from Mr. Woody Guthrie: open.spotify.com/track/649Zk1...
- Reposted by Alex PanettaI cannot stress how completely bizarre & unheard of it is for the DNI to be personally present for a search warrant execution, never mind this one.
- “.. U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard speaks on the phone while standing inside a vehicle loaded with boxes outside the Fulton County Election Hub and Operation Center after the FBI executed a search warrant there.” @reuters.com
- A striking essay from the CEO of Anthropic warning that AI without safeguards could lead to the end of democracy and a return to feudalism. He proposes certain internal safeguards for AI companies but also societal ones like: 1/ www.darioamodei.com/essay/the-ad...
- 1. Trump says he’s fine with China-Canada deal. Been working on his own 2. Gets upstaged at Davos 3. Goes nuclear
- A eulogy for the postwar order: "A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself," Carney said. www.cbc.ca/news/politic...
- Think your neighborhood gossip is awkward? Here’s mine in Ankara: U.S. and Danish ambassadors live next door to each other. Must be one helluva conversation across the backyard fence these days.
- Craziest thing about living overseas is waking up Monday morning to posts from people I follow for politics like, “I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS HAPPENED,” and “Wow!” And, “HOLY CRAP,” and I’m making mental preparations to live in a bunker before realizing it’s about NFL football.
- An OpenAI economics researcher quits, saying the company behind ChatGPT is burying research on painful economic consequences of A.I. and only interested in publishing propaganda. Piece here contrasts this with Anthropic publicly making dire claims about mass job losses. medium.com/predict/open...
- Today’s news is making me think of a conversation I had with a prominent Canadian official, fuming that the U.S. was negotiating trade liberalization with China while Canada was frozen out, having poisoned its relationship with the fastest-growing economy on Earth to please DC to little gain
- Personal confession: I'm instantly suspicious of anyone who utilizes the word 'utilize'
- Observation: Claude Opus 4.5 is a far, far superior writer to ChatGPT. I sometimes submit a draft to both for an edit, then make my two 'editors' argue with each other. And Claude is consistently better. Like here where it mocks ChatGPT for proposing to butcher my copy:
- I did not build this app to predict a stock market crash but... What I wanted to show was how you or your institution can create a data dashboard, in a few easy steps. A project that would have cost tens of thousands is now virtually free for anyone. alexpanetta.substack.com/p/i-did-not-...
- Developing…. Salman Rushdie vs the Iranian regime
- After a few years stumbling through the desert, I could drink these words: "There were moments for the Canadiens when the hockey was so extraordinary it looked like the Central Red Army at the height of its powers."
- Opus 4.5 is a beast. I'm using it semi-constantly. But anyone here pumping it as AGI or the start of the singularity or whatever is selling snake oil, if my exchange with it a few minutes ago is any indication. It just apologized to me for ....
- Happy New Year everyone, from 8 hours ahead of where I usually celebrate it.
- I do miss home, so this unexpected appearance of 1976 Olympic paraphernalia during a Mediterranean boat cruise is as close as I’ll come these holidays. You take traces of home where you can get them.
- We are immersed in algorithms. Yet we rarely see these formulas with such influence over our lives. My latest blog post on practical, ethical A.I. lets you try something rare: Control your own algorithm. For movie recommendations. Adjust it. Maybe even discover a fun film to watch these holidays
- Not for nothing that one of the earliest Trump biographies was titled “Never Enough,” which chronicled cases of psychological textbooks going back decades using him as a case study for NPD.
