Open Thread

In June 2025, a safety team at OpenAI grew alarmed. The company’s automated review system had flagged extensive activity by a ChatGPT user describing scenarios that involved gun violence. A group of staffers debated whether law enforcement should be notified, but company leaders decided the case did not meet OpenAI’s threshold of “credible and imminent” […]

It used to be that Indiana state Sen. Greg Walker was the one poaching big game inside the GOP.  In 2006, he bagged the biggest “RINO” possible, taking out the long-serving state Senate leader, Bob Garton. Walker toured the state Senate district centered on Columbus, Indiana, in a refurbished orange 1970 Slant-6 Plymouth Valiant, encouraging […]

Author Christopher Summerfield engages seriously with skeptics who claim that large language models are really thinking.

Most weeks when I meet with my therapist, she triages some aspect of my life that is actively bursting at the seams — my inability to rationally talk about politics, for example, or the state of my personal finances. But, every so often, life feels uneventful, and I head into sessions with nothing to talk about. On a number of occasions, I’ve considered cancelling these appointments. Why waste 45 minutes of my time and spend $30 on a copay when I feel fine and have nothing to say?   But accordin