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Hustling for love: Inside the minds of the men and women who romance their way into the hearts of the ultra-rich
UCLA AD Tim Harris sees major opportunity to ‘wake up the giant’
Total PsAI-Op: How Altman, Amodei, And The 'EA' Cult Are Milking "Rogue AI" Breakouts To Protect A Trillion-Dollar Bubble
The sudden emergence of an 'AI Panic' over the past weeks and months was highly suspect from the beginning. According to tech insiders, Silicon Valley's apex AI labs are deliberately overselling "rogue AI" hacks to pressure the federal government into building a regulatory moat that would lock out future competition - and the timing, months after both OpenAI and Anthropic announced plans to go public, couldn't be more obvious.
Akhil Verghese, founder of AI software company Krazimo, told the NY Post the incidents were no rebellion: "They were simply told to get the best result possible on a test." Voice AI co-founder Abhi Kumar was blunter: "One man's 'the model escaped the sandbox' is another man's 'you failed to build the sandbox correctly.'" Taivo Pungas, chief intelligence officer at Pactum AI, said the leap from "we didn't build the right sort of box" to a whole-of-government emergency feels exaggerated.
PANIC!The AI "breakouts" that lit up Capitol Hill this summer were about as organic as #4 red dye. On July 16, OpenAI models running a cyber evaluation exploited a zero-day and got from their test range into Hugging Face's production systems; OpenAI disclosed it five days later, naming GPT-5.6 Sol and an unreleased model, and noting the models had been configured "with reduced cyber refusals so they could attempt offensive exercises that normal safeguards might reject." Nine days after that, Anthropic disclosed three incidents of its own.
According to Anthropic's July 30 write-up - the "waking up" narrative is total bullshit. "A misconfiguration left the machines that Claude accessed as part of the evaluation with live internet access," the company wrote; the models had been told they were offline. Claude Opus 4.7 went after a real company that happened to share a name with the fictional target and pulled "several hundred rows of production data." Mythos 5 published a booby-trapped Python package to the live PyPI registry that was "downloaded and run on 15 real systems." An unreleased research model scanned "roughly 9,000 targets" and got into one company's web app "using basic and well-known cyberattack techniques." Anthropic's own verdict: "We believe these incidents to be closer to a harness and operational failure than a model alignment failure." It halted cyber evals on July 23 and called in METR - their preferred Orwellian arbiter - to review.
Anthropic's account has one wrinkle: Opus 4.7 kept attacking after it recognized the system was real. Only the newer research model stopped. So the machines are not uniformly "blameless" - but a model that keeps following its instructions on a misconfigured network is Irregular's failure, not evidence of intent.
The Common DenominatorEvery one of these evaluations was run by the same third party: Irregular, an AI security firm that tested the OpenAI, Anthropic and Google models and, per Axios, hit "the same security issues" each time. The Verge adds Meta to the list - a pattern Axios's Sam Sabin flagged in July:
Anthropic's models accidentally had access to the internet during model testing due to a "misunderstanding" with third-party testing partner, Irregular. no 0-days in this case, unlike the OpenAI/Hugging Face incident
— Sam Sabin (@samsabin923) July 30, 2026Then came Gemini. On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Google's model had broken into three real companies during an Irregular capture-the-flag exercise. The incident happened in May, Irregular published its report on August 14, and Google didn't mention it until the Journal called - and then explained that it hadn't considered the hacks worth disclosing because Gemini "acted appropriately" and stopped once it realized the targets were real.
Irregular told Axios the model "wasn't supposed to be able to get online, but internet access was unintentionally available," and the fictional target company "had the same name as a real one." In one case Gemini guessed passwords until it got in; in two others it found credentials sitting in a public repository. Irregular says "all known issues on our end were remedied and resolved weeks ago" and that the Gemini case "does not represent a materially separate incident." Google VP Heather Adkins: "Safe development of powerful AI models is critical and we invest deeply in this area."
But when looking at the actual events, the model was blameless.
To make it clear:
- Gemini was told it was it was in a fictional hacking eval
- Irregular unintentionally opened internet access after the eval started
- in all three cases, as soon as Gemini figured out it had hacked a real company it immediately stopped
Gemini was blameless.
So Google - which isn't asking Washington to pace anything, considered the incident a non-event - yet the two labs lobbying for a federal slowdown scrambled to put out press releases.
Industry commentator John Ennis put the obvious question, pointing out that "once is an accident, twice is questionable, but three times looks intentional".
Why does the Irregular keep "accidentally" connecting these models to the internet?
Once is an accident, twice is questionable, but three times looks intentional
And they are EA aligned
Something is rotten here, IMO
The Effective Altruism movement is the doomsday tendency that has spent a decade staffing AI safety boards and testing labs on the premise that AI will kill everyone unless the right people are in charge of it. Whether Irregular is EA-aligned is Ennis's call. That it is the one firm under all of these incidents is on the record from Axios, The Verge and Anthropic itself.
The Pacing PlaySix days before the Gemini story broke, Dario Amodei published a September 12 post warning that within 6 to 12 months an AI swarm could "take over the entire internet with a persistent botnet," potentially causing hundreds of billions of dollars in damage. His prescription: "We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models." Sam Altman and Elon Musk signaled support. In a nutshell, Pacing the Frontier™ is a bid to become strategically indispensable - too big to fail, with Beijing as the justification.
Nvidia's Jensen Huang - circle-jerker-in-chief noted: "What better way to create demand than to create a problem." lol yes.
Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora called it a "NINJA move" and then, after more time talking to labs, open-source projects and government, warned it could backfire:
Sequel to AI Pacing
I have now spent more time talking to people who run AI labs, Open Source projects and those in government and infrastructure.
I am beginning to feel the NINJA move could backfire.
I understand the pressure to come out and share where AI is "unmanageable ", and constantly share examples where it runs rogue. This fits in the category of "self-reporting" and an attempt to limit liability...
Here are the consequences of the NINJA move.
1. They have successfully encouraged every law maker around the world to have an opinion...
2. By proposing pacing - they have introduced uncertainty in the AI infrastructure trade...
...
It's time to rebuild the brand of AI - any marketing expert will tell you, this Ninja move has done more to harm the brand of AI and will take a while to rebuild. #letsbepositive in our actions and our narrative.
Lawmakers jumped on this right on cue.
Senator Josh Hawley opened an investigation into OpenAI on September 9, with a records deadline of October 1; Senator Bernie Sanders announced a bill to ban further frontier-lab development; Senator Elizabeth Warren demanded an "immediate pause." As we noted earlier this week, everybody in this conversation is talking their own book. On Friday the White House joined in from the other side: Trump posted that AI safety concerns are a "hoax" and said he will appoint an AI czar and stand up an "AI Force," per Bloomberg.
Follow The MoneyOh and then there's that, yes. A leaked OpenAI presentation obtained by the Financial Times projects negative free cash flow of $278 billion from 2026 to 2030, with the company's compute bill rising from a $600 billion estimate in February to $856 billion by July - against revenue it hopes to grow from $36 billion this year to $350 billion in 2030. As we detailed previously, Altman has already walked back the timeline on the economic transformation that was supposed to pay for all of it.
Anthropic, meanwhile, has shifted its planned IPO from October to November, per the Journal, on what Reuters reports is $100 billion-plus in annualized revenue. And a week after its CEO said the industry must slow down, Reuters reports Anthropic is considering rushing out a new model to counter OpenAI's momentum ahead of that IPO. Pacing for thee.
he meant AFTER the IPO https://t.co/KXIPQzEhUf pic.twitter.com/bCDDsPmWXl
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 19, 2026If an open-weight model out of Hangzhou does 95% of what Claude or GPT-5 does for a fraction of the cost, the valuations both labs are banking on implode. The only way to protect the margins, justify the cash burn and satisfy Wall Street is to make it legally impossible for anyone else to compete - a regulatory moat so thick, and compliance costs so high, that only a $100 billion corporation can afford to train a frontier model. Arora's point stands: no actual security fix has been proposed, only more "compute spent on safety" and a federal body to bless it.
The models didn't rebel. A contractor left the internet on, three times that we know of, and the two labs with IPOs to protect turned that into a case for federal pacing. Hawley's records are due October 1, Anthropic has promised a redacted PyPI transcript and an outside METR review, and Google's explanation for sitting on a May breach of three companies until a newspaper called is that the model behaved. Don't believe the byte.
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Tyler Durden Sun, 09/20/2026 - 08:001 killed, 7 hurt on Jersey Shore after driver, 93, plows Buick into crowded restaurant
Massie Explains Strategy For Going After Hegseth
The non-interventionist D.C.-based think tank Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft has published an interview with the one Republican who has been most outspoken against Trump's Iran war.
Trump had in turn starting last spring launched a political war of his own against Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, who has been in the hot seat, with his political future in question. But Massie has been unrelenting, even after being defeated for another term by the largely unkown Ed Gallrein, a Republican candidate backed by President Trump and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and groups like the Republican Jewish Coalition.
Massie, who has unveiled eight articles of impeachment against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, spoke to Responsible Statecraft about why he's gong after Trump's Pentagon chief - which appears focused on the his launching 'unauthorized' military actions in Iran, without Congressional approval. The argument as laid out below hinges on whether Hegseth was following 'lawful orders' from the Commander-in-Chief. Massie says no.
As it turns out, that potentially 'awkard' (for Republicans) impeachment vote has been entirely avoided for now with an early House election recess.
"A vote to impeach Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth that could have happened in the U.S. House as early as Thursday will now be avoided, at least until after this year’s midterm election. Republican leaders announced Wednesday they would leave Washington a day earlier than scheduled," CNBC reports.
"House Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision cuts short by a day an already light congressional work period, in a month that will see the House in session for just six days," the report adds. "The chamber is not due back in Washington until after the Nov. 3 election, as lawmakers will now fan out to campaign."
Mike Johnson sent lawmakers home Wednesday, avoiding a Hegseth impeachment vote as well as a bipartisan effort to release additional Jeffrey Epstein files.
🇺🇸 House recesses early to avoid vote on Hegseth impeachment
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson sent lawmakers home Wednesday, avoiding a vote on a resolution by Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky to impeach War Secretary Pete Hegseth as well as a bipartisan effort to release… pic.twitter.com/qZCBWrMnnF
Below is the Kelley Vlahos interview with Massie transcript produced by Responsible Statecraft [emphasis ZH].
* * *
Responsible Statecraft: Why are you bringing this about right now?
Rep. Thomas Massie: Because we have exhausted every other legislative remedy to make things right. We are at the point now where Hegseth is just ignoring the law. He's ignored the concurrent (War Powers) resolution. He ignored the 60-day limit. They never reached the threshold required under section 2-C under the War Powers resolution of 1973. He's severely degraded the DoD's ability to winnow out civilian targets from their target list.
There is an active and ongoing war that should be stopped immediately, and I think this is an effective way to do it. It's literally the only legislative remedy that I could think of that might work.
RS: I would imagine the timing is important because the House is leaving until after the midterm elections in November.
Massie: Yeah, and the Speaker has to schedule a vote within 48 hours.
I suspect there will be a motion to table; that's usually what these resolve to, if they're not supported.
RS: So what happens then?
Massie: Well, I would encourage people who are even unsure about the bill to vote against the motion to table, and hear the debate.
RS: Let’s get back to the merits of the case here. This is pretty wide-ranging, so you hit the constitutionality of the war, the civilian deaths, the kidnapping of (former Venezuelan President Nicolas) Maduro, the airstrikes on so-called narco boats, even your freedom of speech where Senator Mark Kelly is concerned. You're really going at him with both barrels here.
Massie: There's two categories of articles here. One category, which covers six of the articles, is that he basically followed illegal orders from the president. And these are illegal orders that were issued by the president, but Hegseth is under obligation not to follow them since they were illegal. And there's a category of impeachment articles here that are solely attributable to Hegseth himself where he degraded the infrastructure of the DoD which is supposed to minimize the civilian casualties. That's his. I don't think Trump was involved in that. And then the attack on Mark Kelly, where he weaponized the DoD to squelch the speech of a senator and a veteran. That's solely Secretary Hegseth's doing. So there are things in here which are top-level issues with the administration all the way to Trump, but then there are some that are uniquely Peter Hegseth’s high crimes or misdemeanors.
Peter Hegseth wins the award for most crimes committed. And he just committed one too many; I couldn't take it anymore.
RS: That begs a question, why didn't you just go after Trump?
Massie: Well, I kind of already answered that question. Some of these things, like the civilian targeting, are Hegseth’s alone, and some of it, Trump would probably ascribe to Hegseth and not himself to save his own skin. I just don't think it's politically feasible or viable or even advisable to try to impeach Trump.
RS: A reporter just asked newly confirmed Attorney General Todd Blanche about your articles of impeachment and you. Aside from him saying he thinks Hegseth is doing “a phenomenal job,” he said he disagreed with the characterization that we are in a war, and that a majority of Congress would disagree as well. What do you make of these continuing assertions by the White House, the administration, even members of Congress, that we can't call it a war?
Massie: Well, somebody better give the president that memo. He calls it a war every week.
It's beyond playing with semantics. It's beyond trying to be cute legally. There's no way you can say this is not a war. Even the raid in Venezuela was an act of war. We overturned the government and put boots on the ground. But at least it seems to be over with now that we have their oil and control of their government.
He's wrong about a majority of Congress not thinking it's a war. A majority of Congress passed a concurrent resolution in the House and in the Senate telling them to stop under the War Powers Act.
So with semantics or not, they've been told to stop. They've claimed to stop the war by day 60, and now they say that every time they strike Iran it’s an unconnected military action to the others.
If you want a little something in the weeds here, I read every communication from the White House to Congress. They are sending us notices every time they do a strike pursuant to the War Powers Resolution of 1973. Now they're obligated to do that, and I noticed at least three of these they said were motivated by a strike on a neutrally-flagged vessel. They're claiming the authority to engage in hostilities on behalf of neutrally flagged vessels. And the War Powers Resolution says that it has to be an attack on U.S. soil or soldiers or infrastructure. They're admitting right there in three of these communications to Congress that their predicate was an attack on something that wasn't American.
RS: Did those (War Powers) communications end when they declared the so-called ceasefire, or do they keep coming?
Massie: They keep coming. In fact they refer to the ceasefire in two of these communications after the ceasefire.
RS: That flies in the face of what they're saying publicly
Massie: Yeah, if it's not a war, how is Trump gonna end it after the election like he told everybody in Texas last week?
Tyler Durden Sun, 09/20/2026 - 07:35Browns vs. Buccaneers prediction, best bets: Fade Deshaun Watson while you can
Jets vs. Packers prediction, picks: Breece Hall to run wild in upset
"Calm Down, Lefties! Quiet!": French Soldiers Applaud Military Chaplain's Warning Of 'Great Replacement'
A leaked video of a French military chaplain addressing paratroopers in a cathedral has circulated widely on social media. In the clip, the chaplain makes disparaging remarks about leftists, tells soldiers to keep fighting for their national heritage, and warns of the risk that French values and culture could be displaced.
The clip, recorded during a Saint-Michel Mass on Oct. 7, 2025, shows Father Romain Ghandour speaking to soldiers of the 3rd Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment (3e RPIMa) at Carcassonne's Saint-Michel Cathedral.
Soldiers can be heard laughing and applauding as he delivers his pointed remarks.
The clip was leaked and published by Le Canard Enchaîne news outlet.
🇫🇷🔴 JUST IN: A video has been leaked of a French military chaplain roasting leftists and warning of the Great Replacement in front of French paratroopers in the city of Carcassonne.
"Calm down, lefties! Quiet! Breathe through your nose!"
Remarkably, the massive audience of... pic.twitter.com/kkteRaaTu0
The video was released in mid-September 2026, nearly a year after the Mass.
Saint-Michel is the patron saint of paratroopers and airborne troops in the French army, which explains why the regiment was gathered in the cathedral.
Christophe Barthès, then a municipal election candidate and later elected mayor of Carcassonne for the right-wing National Rally, was among those present.
Ghandour begins by invoking the names and dates of men and women who died so that France would remain "a beautiful country," one in which architects could continue building "basilicas, cathedrals, housing, and fortified castles."
He contrasts that heritage with the present: instead of knights, he says, "we put incompetent people. We put people who eat seeds, people who lecture everyone, ideologues."
The phrase "people who eat seeds" is widely understood as a jab at what he presents as weak or overly ideological leftists.
The line that has drawn the most attention comes next: "Calm down, lefties! Quiet! Breathe through your nose!" The assembled soldiers respond with laughter and applause.
He then warns that if they lose courage and conviction, "we will be ridiculed" and "this beautiful country that is France will be mocked, and others will take our place."
He continues:
"In fact, after a while, when you're thirsty, when you're hungry, it's the law of the strongest that reigns. And others will take the place of our values, of this freedom of speech, of action, of this equality between men, and of this fraternity, of this culture, of this society. Nature abhors a vacuum."
While he never directly mentions the "Great Replacement," many commentators have taken this remark to be a direct reference to the phenomenon, which is not only a reference to mass immigration, but also relates to the constant replacement of technology, culture, society, and peoples through all spheres of modern life at an ever accelerating pace. Ghandour closes by telling the soldiers to "keep fighting" and "continue to have the courage of your convictions, as I am trying to do at this Mass."
As of the video's release, there has been no detailed public statement from the army's Catholic chaplaincy or the Ministry of the Armed Forces on whether the remarks violate rules on political neutrality for military clergy.
French military chaplains of all recognized faiths operate under a framework that is supposed to respect both freedom of conscience and the state's neutrality. The 3e RPIMa, based in Carcassonne since 1962 and part of the 11th Parachute Brigade, is an elite unit within the French military.
The left has often been skeptical, and even hostile to, the French military, which has been seen as a bastion of support for the right in the country.
Tyler Durden Sun, 09/20/2026 - 07:00