Monday AI Brief #11

First, an administrative note: I’m starting to write longer pieces on specific topics. I’ll link to them in each week’s newsletter, but you can subscribe to them directly if you like.

We have so much to talk about this week. The internet is taking a break from losing its mind over agents to instead lose its mind over Moltbook. Dario Amodei has an important new piece about the dangers of AI. Boaz Barak considers Claude’s Constitution. And more. There’s always more.

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My writing

I’m skeptical about wearable AI pins

Jan Leike: alignment increasingly looks solvable

Jan Leike left OpenAI because he’d lost confidence in their safety culture—I am inclined to believe he takes safety seriously and is less prone to convenient self-delusion than the average person. Here he explains why he’s increasingly optimistic that alignment is a solvable problem. It’s a great piece with lots of interesting information, including this:

We are starting to automate AI research and the recursive self-improvement process has begun.

He means it, and I believe him.

Moltbook

Moltbook is a lot of things at once: a really cool technology demo, a vile cesspit of hype and crypto scams, an interesting exploration of emergent social dynamics among agents, and a warning shot for where we’re headed at breakneck speed. I’ll write more about it soon, but for now I recommend Scott Alexander’s second piece about it and Zvi’s article.

Pay more attention to AI

I did not expect to find myself recommending a Ross Douthat article about AI, but this is 2026 and the world is getting weird. This is a particularly good piece for introducing civilians to the magnitude of what is happening in AI ($).

Thoughts on Claude’s Constitution

Some of the most interesting commentary on Claude’s Constitution comes from Boaz Barak, who works on alignment at OpenAI. Although the approaches taken by both companies are in many ways similar (and there’s significant collaboration between them), he notes two significant differences.

He’s uncomfortable with how hard Anthropic anthropomorphizes Claude. I think Anthropic’s approach makes sense, but his concerns are valid. As he says, this is uncharted territory and there are definitely risks to that approach.

OpenAI relies more on rules, while Anthropic emphasizes teaching Claude to use its own judgment. This one is tough: he correctly points out that a rule-based system is in some ways more transparent and predictable, although I think it’ll prove dangerously brittle as we approach superintelligence. When your kids are small, you give them clear rules that they may not understand or agree with. But by the time they reach adulthood, all is lost if you haven’t given them the ability to make their own choices.

The Adolescence of Technology

Dario Amodei’s Machines of Loving Grace is a seminal work that lays out many of the possible benefits of superintelligence. It’s the origin of “a country of geniuses in a data center”.

His latest piece, The Adolescence of Technology does the opposite: it maps out the major risks from superintelligent AI and explores solutions. It’s pretty much required reading for anyone who wants to understand these issues. The reception has been mixed: a lot of people took issue with how he portrays people who are highly pessimistic about alignment. I don’t entirely disagree, but overall I think it’s a strong piece.

Predicting AI’s Impact on Jobs

I enjoyed this conversation between AI Policy Perspectives and economist Sam Manning about AI’s impact on jobs. There’s lots of good discussion of empirical methods and their limitations, how AI might change jobs, and life after work.