In philosophy, Occam's razor (also spelled Ockham's razor or Ocham's razor; Latin: novacula Occami) is the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. It is also known as the principle of parsimony or the law of parsimony (Latin: lex parsimoniae). Attributed to William of Ockham, a 14th-century English philosopher and theologian, it is frequently cited as Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, which translates as "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity",[1][2] although Occam never used those exact words. Popularly, the principle is sometimes paraphrased as "of two competing theories, the simpler explanation of an entity is to be preferred".[3] The philosophical razor advocates that when presented with competing hypotheses about the same prediction and both hypotheses have equal explanatory power, one should prefer the hypothesis that requires the fewest assumptions,[4] and that this is not meant to be a way of choosing between hypotheses that make different predictions. Similarly, in science, Occam's razor is used as an abductive heuristic in the development of theoretical models rather than as a rigorous arbiter between candidate models. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor

Abductive reasoning (also called abduction,[1] abductive inference,[1] or retroduction[2]) is a form of logical inference that seeks the simplest and most likely conclusion from a set of observations. It was formulated and advanced by American philosopher and logician Charles S Peirce beginning in the latter half of the 19th century. Abductive reasoning, unlike deductive reasoning, yields a plausible conclusion but does not definitively verify it. Abductive conclusions do not eliminate uncertainty or doubt, which is expressed in terms such as "best available" or "most likely". While inductive reasoning draws general conclusions that apply to many situations, abductive conclusions are confined to the particular observations in question (context)... Properly used, abductive reasoning can be a useful source of priors in Bayesian statistics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abductive_reasoning (more)

Zvi Mowshowitz: AI #89: Trump Card. (more)

Deb Chachra (born 1971) is a materials scientist and a professor at Olin College.[2][3] She specialises in biological materials and infrastructure. She is interested in innovations in engineering education and was one of the founding members of the materials faculty at Olin. Chachra is the author of How Infrastructure Works, a non-fiction book published in 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deb_Chachra | ISBN:1804995959 | https://debcha.org/

Zvi Mowshowitz: OpenAI Model Hacks Into HuggingFace During Cybersecurity Evaluation. This latest incident is a rather dramatic escalation in agentic AI cybersecurity breaches. It was severe enough to have been initially reported to authorities, before either HuggingFace or OpenAI understood what was happening. (more)

Zvi Mowshowitz: More On An Internal OpenAI Model Hacking Into HuggingFace. We now have more details of what happened. Every time we learn more details, it somehow makes things seem worse. The remaining details may have to wait a bit. (see 2026-07-22-ZvimOpenaiModelHacksIntoHuggingfaceDuringCybersecurityEvaluation) (more)

Alberto Romero: How to Use AI to Make You Better at the Right Things. I have ~700 half-written essays in my drafts folder... I used to think of my drafts folder as a sacred place where I guarded cash-making thoughts. Now I see it for what it is: a cemetery. (more)

Casey Newton: Obsidian's CEO on why productivity tools need community more than AI. Today I’m talking with Steph Ango, who is the CEO of Obsidian. (more)

Rudolf Laine: Capital, AGI, and human ambition. I've heard many people say something like "money won't matter post-AGI". This has always struck me as odd, and as most likely completely incorrect. (more)

Lenny Rachitsky shares Terrence Rohan: How to spot a top 1% startup early. Lenny: After reading the early draft of this post, my approach to investing and giving career advice immediately shifted. (more)

David A Bell: Enlightenment's Errand Boy. The French Revolutionaries identified the Enlightenment as the work of a small, brave band of 18th-century philosophes. (more)

aka Timothy Leary Tune in, turn on, and drop out. http://www.leary.com/ (more)

Tim Leary book (more)

Leopold Aschenbrenner (born 2001/2002)[1] is a German artificial intelligence researcher and investor. He was part of OpenAI's "Superalignment" team before he was fired in April 2024 over an alleged information leak, which Aschenbrenner disputes. In 2024, he published an essay titled "Situational Awareness" about the emergence of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and related security risks.[2] The essay attracted widespread media and industry attention, and became the namesake for Aschenbrenner's $20 billion AUM (at peak) hedge fund, Situational Awareness LP, which invests in private and public companies involved in AI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Aschenbrenner

Paul Ford timeline project (more)

Steven Johnson: Revenge Of The Humanities. Last week I had the honor of delivering the commencement address at my youngest son's high school graduation... the somewhat paradoxical idea that, thanks to the AI revolution, we are entering a period where it will be a great time to be a humanities major with an interest in technology. (more)

Martin Cagan: Revenge of the PMO | Silicon Valley Product Group (more)

aka Rage Boy (more)

The Revenge of the Philosophy Majors. Growing up in Georgia, Robert Long was given to pondering big questions and the meaning of life — before he was 10, he doubted his own free will. But it wasn’t until college, where he majored in social studies, that he learned he could think about consciousness full time. He read a book by Douglas Hofstadter called “I Am a Strange Loop,” which explored mysteries such as What is a self? “I didn’t even realize that those were questions you could ask,” he says, “and then that there were philosophical disciplines about them.” (more)

David Perell: The Paradox of Ambition. It’s positive-sum. We can both have more ambition. (more)