Phil Feldman, PhD

@philfeldman

For a turbulent and unruly people may be spoken to by a good man, and readily brought back to good ways; but none can speak to a wicked prince, nor any remedy be found against him but by the sword. - Niccolo Machiavelli

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Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· 22d

You can feed the image into a model and have it make a news story. In this case, the prompt was "Write a brief news story describing the protest captured in this image. It occurred earlier today"

Thousands Gather at Google Campus in Large Protest Earlier Today

Thousands of demonstrators gathered outside multiple Google office buildings earlier today, filling plazas, sidewalks, and nearby streets in what appeared to be one of the largest gatherings at the campus in recent memory.

Overhead imagery shows dense crowds concentrated around two office buildings labeled "Google 1965" and "Google 1875," with protesters extending across landscaped areas and pedestrian routes connecting the buildings. Several roadways appeared to be largely occupied by foot traffic, while nearby parking lots and surrounding streets remained accessible.

The reason for the demonstration was not immediately clear from the available imagery, and organizers' demands had not been independently confirmed at the time of publication. There were no visible indications in the image of widespread property damage or clashes, though the overhead perspective alone cannot establish the nature of interactions on the ground.

Authorities had not yet released official attendance figures. Based on the visible extent of the gathering, the crowd appeared to number in the several thousands, making it a significant public demonstration at the campus.

The protest's duration, any resulting disruptions to campus operations, and whether arrests or injuries occurred were not immediately known.

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Jul 13

Not sure what to do with this, but wow: scholar.google.com/scholar?cite...

Screenshot of a Google Scholar search results page. At the top is the heading "Sycophantic AI increases attitude extremity and overconfidence", with a checked option labeled "Search within citing articles." Below are six academic search results, each showing the title, authors, journal, year (2026), a brief abstract snippet, and links such as "Save," "Cite," "Cited by," "Related articles," and "All versions."

The visible results are:

1. Technological folie à deux: feedback loops between AI chatbots and mental health (Nature Mental Health)
2. Artificial intelligence-associated delusions and large language models: risks, mechanisms of delusion co-creation, and safeguarding strategies (The Lancet)
3. Intelligent systems, vulnerable minds: A framework for radicalization to violence in the age of AI (Personality and Social Psychology journal)
4. Principles for understanding trust in artificial intelligence (Nature Reviews)
5. Relationships in the age of AI: a review on the opportunities and risks of synthetic relationships to reduce loneliness (Computers in Human Behavior, Elsevier)
6. A rational analysis of the effects of sycophantic AI (arXiv preprint)

The screenshot emphasizes recent (2026) scholarly literature related to AI, mental health, trust, synthetic relationships, radicalization, delusions, and sycophantic behavior.

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· May 18

Soon, they will simply be expensive lawn ornaments

A photo of a wingless gulfstream sitting in a field behind a rusting jalopy

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Apr 14

Still from the movie "A Monster Calls" where the the monster is looking down at the boy, who is looking up. A church is in the distance. Hazy sunset light permeates the frame

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Apr 4

This is the funniest thing I've read in... months?

New York Times lede:

"No One at Waffle House Remembers FEMA Official Who Says He Teleported In

Gregg Phillips, who is in charge of responding to fires and floods, says the hand of God suddenly and mysteriously moved him to a 24-hour breakfast spot in Rome, Ga."

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Mar 9

A Cervelo S3 road bike propped up on an overlook of the local big climb

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Feb 7

Two panels from the Calvin & Hobbs comic where they sing the "Very Sorry Song," a key element of Calvinball

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Feb 4

"Law and Order" www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/accountabi...

Image shows a text block criticizing U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), stating that since 2005 one CBP agent or officer has been arrested every 24–36 hours. It cites CBP discipline reports claiming at least 4,913 CBP and Border Patrol agents were arrested between 2005 and 2024, notes that this number would equal the size of the Philadelphia Police Department, and claims CBP agents’ per-capita crime rate has at times exceeded that of undocumented immigrants.

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Jan 22

Remember this? Tears of submission are a pillar of their belief system

Xitter post from the White House showing an AI generating image of a stern ICE officer handcuffing a crying brown woman

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Jan 20

@wellerstein.bsky.social - I assume you've already seen this. Actual, audible lol that startled the cat:

A photoshopped image of a child playing cup-and-ball, but with the Demon Core

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Jan 2

Apropos of nothing, I have an urge to share a picture of some nice $400-sh Italian boots that I recently bought socialist collective:

A catalog picture of a Zamberlan 996 Vioz GTX men's hiking boot that I picked up at the local REI co-op. Great boot - 10/10 would buy again

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Dec 27

The moment I saw your post, this um... swam up from the depths of my memory

Cover from the children's book Creatures of the Deep by Lionel Bender

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Nov 9

Time for some serious cleaning

A very dirty and neglected bottom bracket and chain

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Oct 31

Scene from Star Trek's first episode, "The Man Trap", where Kirk is getting the salt sucked out of him

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Sep 29

What's your sign?

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Sep 14

This is Bennie. He's 11 lbs. But he's convinced he's twice my size :-)

A gray cat in his box, leaning on the opening in a casual, yet slightly nervous way

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Sep 14

This came across my feeds recently and also seems related: arxiv.org/abs/2509.05381

$A table titled "Catalogue of alignment laws" with two columns: "Law" and "Formal Statement." Each row names a law related to AI alignment and provides its corresponding formal or symbolic description. Below the table is a caption explaining that each law captures a recurring regularity in alignment, such as reward hacking, sycophancy, optimization saturation, or the alignment trilemma. The laws are described as consistent with Murphy’s Gap. **Laws and Formal Statements (as shown in the table):** 1. **Reward Hacking** – Δ grows with β when r ≈ U 2. **Sycophancy** – Proxy upweights agreement, Δ increases 3. **Overfitting to Noise** – β >> vm ⇒ divergence 4. **Optimization Overhang** – Scaling β faster than m ⇒ Δ → ∞ 5. **Annotator Drift** – Time-varying r\_t ⇒ oscillatory Δ 6. **Proxy Capture** – Raters adapt ⇒ instability persists 7. **Constitutional Loopholes** – Constraints shrink κ, not eliminate 8. **Alignment Mirage** – Δ, T ≥ Δ\_5 − cW(S, T) 9. **Rare-Event Blindness** – Absent tails ⇒ large Δ, T 10. **Preference Inconsistency** – Conflicts imply irreducible ε > 0 11. **Goodhart Revisited** – lim β→∞ Δ(r|β) = ∞ if r ≈ U 12. **Value Collapse** – Compressing plural U\_i ⇒ ε > 0 13. **Optimization Saturation** – Proxy gain plateaus, Δ grows 14. **Adversarial Amplification** – Adversarial p ⇔ ε\* = ε + Kp 15. **Shift Fragility** – Small shift ⇒ O(β|W|) misalign 16. **Corrigibility Erosion** – If U\_corr undervalued ⇒ Δ grows 17. **Instability Persistence** – As m → ∞, Δ ≥ cβϵ 18. **Trilemma Inescapability** – O + V + G impossible together *Caption* Catalogue of alignment laws. Each law captures a recurring regularity such as reward hacking, sycophancy, optimization saturation, or the alignment trilemma. These patterns are consistent with the structural mechanism identified by Murphy’s Gap.$

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Sep 1

Wow. Have to concur, though Francis Bacon is probably spinning like an alternator

(From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Study_after_Vel%C3%A1zquez's_Portrait_of_Pope_Innocent_X) Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X is a 1953 painting by the artist Francis Bacon. The work shows a distorted version of the Portrait of Innocent X painted by Spanish artist Diego Velázquez in 1650. The work is one of the first in a series of around 50 variants of the Velázquez painting which Bacon executed throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. The paintings are widely regarded as highly successful modern re-interpretations of a classic of the Western canon of visual art.

The painting itself is oil on canvas, and depicts a frontal, seated figure of a pope enclosed within a geometric, cage-like structure rendered in bright yellow. The figure is painted with expressive, gestural brushwork using layered oil paint, with heavy vertical strokes suggesting a curtain or veil in the background. The pope’s face is distorted in a scream, with paint applied in streaks and smudges to blur facial features, evoking a sense of motion or psychological tension. The garments are defined with contrasting textures—opaque purples for the robe and smeared whites for the vestments—applied with visible, dynamic brushstrokes.

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Aug 29

Every home should have one!

A card catalog that is part of a built-in bookcase. A drawer has been pulled out revealing a dense row of alphabetically arranged index cards. The drawer is labeled with classification numbers "HQ 792 - HQ 799.9" and drawer number "241". The card catalog unit has multiple drawers with metal label holders and pull handles. The shelf for taking notes has also been extended. In the background, a bookshelf filled with books and journals is visible.

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Aug 28

A photo of Jeff Koonz's "Split Rocker" which is a topiary sculpture of a rocking horse head. It's about 40 feet tall. More information is here: https://www.publicartfund.org/exhibitions/view/jeff-koons-split-rocker/

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Jul 24

ChatPDF's AI detector says it's a slam dunk

A screenshot of the attributed quote with a 100% AI generated score

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Jul 22

Credit sequence from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where those responsible for the subtitles are sacked. Along with those who sacked them.

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Jul 21

I'm somewhat convinced that the oil industry is helping the AI water narrative because it distracts from how much water is used in fracking and refining. This is from a January blog post where I was working through this. (phifel.com/2025/01/27/i...)

$A chart from Google Trends showing the plots of the words "Fracking + water" and "AI + water use." The fracking line trends steadily up from about 2010 to 2021, then levels out. From 2021 to present the AI trend line moves steadily up$

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Jul 16

I thought you might like this visualization - it's temperature readings from 13 years of bike rides mostly every day, mostly in Maryland:

A sinusoidal pattern of monthly temperature readings that slowly increase from 2013 - 2025. In 2013 the high was a bit over 25C and currently it's a bit over 30. Lows also show a trend, though not as clear. The chart uses data from Strava and visualized on VeloViewer.

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Jul 2

Good stuff! Great catch!

Screenshot of a paragraph from the paper which says:

'For the time being, I suggest we stop calling artificial intelligence “intelligent.” These systems show similarities to intelligence, but they are also different. Therefore, I suggest, as a perhaps temporary working term, to call them “paraintelligent” and speak of “paraintelligence” instead. We could use the corresponding term “euintelligence” for our normal intelligence, but I will stick with the familiar term “intelligence”. For reasons to be explained later, I will also speak of “creative intelligence” to denote our normal intelligence.'

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· May 19

Hey @silviolorusso.bsky.social - look what just showed up

Photo of Silvio Lorusso’s book ‘Essays on Design and Disillusion’ sitting on my coffee table

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· May 15

Paul Piff at Berkely has done some interesting work on the psychology of meritocracy as well. This is from my book, Stampede Theory:

A screenshot of text from my book, Stampede Theory:

The thing is, people will use anything to justify prejudice and discrimination. Paul Piff, an associate professor of psychological science at the university of California, Berkeley had 200 people play a rigged Monopoly game and found some remarkable things. “Rigged”
in this case meant that one of the two players got to be a “rich” player. This was decided by a coin flip. They got two times as much money; when they passed Go, they collected twice the salary; and they got to roll the dice two times instead of once. It was obvious they had an advantage.

They played this way for 15 minutes.

I’m going to repeat that for emphasis. This was not a full game. This was not a long game.

It was just 15 minutes.

Would you, dear reader, think that you were winning because you got twice as much money and were able to move twice as much? Most of us believe we would acknowledge this was unfair because the game was rigged. After 15 minutes, Piff and his colleagues asked the players about their experience during the game. Piff, in a TED talk, described how the rich players talked about why they had won in this rigged game of Monopoly:

“They talked about what they’d done to buy those different properties and earn their success in the game. And they became far less attuned to all those
different features of the situation – including that flip of a coin – that had randomly gotten them into that privileged position in the first place.”

We have a deep bias towards exploiting positions of dominance. If we are winning, we will rationalize that we are winning because of our inherent abilities. This deep bias is one of the reasons that we have stories that align with “The divine right of kings.” We are terrible about admitting that we might just be lucky.

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· May 12

Just came back from a lovely trip to Portugal, and I think I've found my favorite painting of The Ascension:

A painting of The Ascension of Jesus that I saw at the Museum of Evora in Portugal. It shows 10 very pious-looking people at the bottom of the frame, and at the top is the bottom of a robe and then two bare feet, about two meters off the ground. You know the scene at the end of Close Encounters, where the alien space ship lifts slowly off the ground? It's like that, only biblical.

Details of the painting from Wikimedia:

Ascension of Jesus (1530-1537) by an anonymous disciple of Gerard David; It is part of the Polyptych of Esporão Chapel (Cathedral of Évora) and now is on display at Museu de Évora, Portugal.
Português: Ascenção de Cristo (1530-1537) por um discípulo anónimo de Gerard David; É parte do Retábulo da Capela do Esporão (Sé de Évora) e atualmente está exposta no Museu de Évora, Portugal.

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Apr 21

<cough>

Phil Feldman, PhD@philfeldman· Apr 5