The Line New

Noah has a rule about asking permission. You don’t fix what someone doesn’t want fixed. You don’t upgrade without explaining what you’re upgrading. You definitely don’t go poking around in someone’s files just because you can.

Progress

Lightning still crackling under her skin. She stood in the center of her apartment, staring at her palms. Dark with blood. His blood. She’d been too hungry, too angry, and it had been—

She pressed both hands flat against the wall above her writing desk. Left them there. When she pulled them away, the prints remained. Perfect. Damning.

La Petite Mort 🔞18+ adults only

Eira’s boots had worn through at the heel on the second day. By the third, they were walking on bloody socks.

The forest smelled wrong. Green clung in a film to the back of their throat—thick, cloying, like wet leaves. Birdsong stuttered and looped. Light slanted through at strange angles, sharp and disorienting.

Right Answer, Wrong Reasons

Cal Newport on AI Consciousness

[Newport] correctly argues that large language models aren’t conscious, but his framework leaves the entire philosophical foundation unexamined. Weak arguments for correct positions do more damage than strong arguments for wrong ones—they concede ground unnecessarily and invite sophisticated rebuttals that appear to win while actually missing the point.

The Metacognition Problem

Why AI Can't Actually Improve Itself

Values and the consciousness that can hold them are metaphysically tied to living organization. Only entities facing the fundamental alternative of continued existence versus permanent cessation can possess values. Because contemporary AI lacks that life-constituting stake, it cannot instantiate the consciousness required for true metacognition.

Beyond Cringe

Why I Need AI That Pushes Back

“How is it that you seem to have your own voice and personality, when other AIs are so anodyne?”