In a recent evaluation of AI models’ cyber capabilities, current Claude models can now succeed at multistage attacks on networks with dozens of hosts using only standard, open-source tools, instead of the custom tools needed by previous generations. This illustrates how barriers to the use of AI in relatively autonomous cyber workflows are rapidly coming down, and highlights the importance of security fundamentals like promptly patching known vulnerabilities. — Read More
#cyberAuthor Archives: Rick's Cafe AI
The Adolescence of Technology
There is a scene in the movie version of Carl Sagan’s book Contact where the main character, an astronomer who has detected the first radio signal from an alien civilization, is being considered for the role of humanity’s representative to meet the aliens. The international panel interviewing her asks, “If you could ask [the aliens] just one question, what would it be?” Her reply is: “I’d ask them, ‘How did you do it? How did you evolve, how did you survive this technological adolescence without destroying yourself?” When I think about where humanity is now with AI—about what we’re on the cusp of—my mind keeps going back to that scene, because the question is so apt for our current situation, and I wish we had the aliens’ answer to guide us. I believe we are entering a rite of passage, both turbulent and inevitable, which will test who we are as a species. Humanity is about to be handed almost unimaginable power, and it is deeply unclear whether our social, political, and technological systems possess the maturity to wield it. — Read More
Building Brains on a Computer
I first heard people seriously discussing the prospect of “running” a brain in silico back in 2023. Their aim was to emulate, or replicate, all the biological processes of a human brain entirely on a computer.
In that same year, the Wellcome Trust released a report on what it would take to map the mouse connectome: all 70 million neurons. They estimated that imaging would cost $200-300 million and that human proofreading, or ensuring that automated traces between neurons were correct, would cost an additional $7-21 billion. Collecting the images would require 20 electron microscopes running continuously, in parallel, for about five years and occupy about 500 petabytes. The report estimated that mapping the full mouse connectome would take up to 17 years of work.
Given this projection — not to mention the added complexity of scaling this to human brains — I remember finding the idea of brain emulation absurd. Without a map of how neurons in the brain connect with each other, any effort to emulate a brain computationally would prove impossible. But after spending the past year researching the possibility (and writing a 175-page report about it), I’ve updated my views. — Read More
The Duelling Rhetoric at the AI Frontier
At Davos 2026, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei told a room full of the world’s most influential investors that AI would replace “most, maybe all” of what software engineers do within six to twelve months. A few hours later, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis took the same stage and said current AI systems are “nowhere near” human-level intelligence, and that we probably need “one or two more breakthroughs” before AGI arrives.
Both men run frontier AI labs. Both have access to roughly the same benchmarks, papers, and internal capabilities data. Yet their public forecasts diverge so dramatically that at least one of them must be either wrong or strategically misleading. The interesting question is which, and why. — Read More
AI and jobs: The decline started before ChatGPT
You’ve probably seen the headlines: AI might be killing jobs for the young. A widely-shared academic paper – the “canaries in the coal mine” paper by Stanford colleagues – found a 16% employment decline for young workers (ages 22-25) in AI-exposed occupations since ChatGPT launched in November 2022. The implication seems clear: AI is already eliminating the first rung of the career ladder, and we’re witnessing the beginning of a massive technological displacement.
It’s a compelling narrative, and it matches our fears. After all, if AI can write code and answer customer queries, why would companies hire junior people to do those things?
But a new paper from the Economic Innovation Group looks more carefully at the data. And when you do, the story becomes a lot less clear. The paper is by Zanna Iscenko (AI & Economy Lead, Chief Economist’s Team), and Fabien Curto Millet (Chief Economist), both at Google. — Read More
Google’s Demis Hassabis, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei Debate the World After AGI
Introducing The Eleven Album
Today, ElevenLabs launches The Eleven Album, a landmark musical release created in collaboration with world-class artists and powered by Eleven Music, our model for generating fully original, studio-quality compositions.
Spanning rap, pop, R&B, EDM, cinematic scoring, and global sounds, the album brings together GRAMMY-winning legends, chart-topping producers, and next-generation creators to explore what’s possible when artists and AI create together. — Read More
The Man Behind Google’s AI Machine | Demis Hassabis Interview
Why We’ve Tried to Replace Developers Every Decade Since 1969
Every decade brings new promises: this time, we’ll finally make software development simple enough that we won’t need so many developers. From COBOL to AI, the pattern repeats. Business leaders grow frustrated with slow delivery and high costs. Developers feel misunderstood and undervalued. Understanding why this cycle persists for fifty years reveals what both sides need to know about the nature of software work. — Read More
The A in AGI stands for Ads
Here we go again, the tech press is having another AI doom cycle.
I’ve primarily written this as a response to an NYT analyst painting a completely unsubstantiated, baseless, speculative, outrageous, EGREGIOUS, preposterous “grim picture” on OpenAI going bust.
Mate come on. OpenAI is not dying, they’re not running out of money. Yes, they’re creating possibly the craziest circular economy and defying every economics law since Adam Smith published ‘The Wealth of Nations’. $1T in commitments is genuinely insane. But I doubt they’re looking to be acquired; honestly by who? you don’t raise $40 BILLION at $260 BILLION VALUATION to get acquired. It’s all for the $1T IPO. — Read More
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