LIGHTS GO ON, AGAIN 2024.05.10-12 📽 #하이라이트# #HIGHLIGHT# #LIGHTS_GO_ON_AGAIN# #비스트# #BEAST# #하이라이트X비스트# #HIGHLIGHTXBEAST# #윤두준# #YOONDUJUN# #양요섭# #YANGYOSEOP# #이기광# #LEEGIKWANG# #손동운# #SONDONGWOON#

HIGHLIGHT: LIGHTS GO ON, AGAIN IN CINEMA The Japanese release of the film is only about a week away! The online novelty of the Moviechiche smartphone wallpaper will be changed from today. Moviechicke will be available until 27 March (Thu). Please get the gorgeous novelty! 💡 ▼For more information, please visit #하이라이트라이츠고온어게인인시네마# #하이라이트# #HIGHLIGHT# #비스트# #BEAST#

In Japan, almost nobody learns to drive from their parents. You go to a driving school. A man in a company jacket teaches you on a pretend road, inside a fence, with pretend traffic lights. You pay him. You thank him. You never see him again. Your father is not in the car. Your mother is not in the car. Nobody you love is ever in that passenger seat. So last month, I asked every American I know in Tokyo one question. "Who taught you to drive?" Twenty-three people. Twenty-two of them smiled before they answered. "My grandpa. On the farm. I was eleven. My feet didn't reach the pedals, so he put a phone book behind my back." (Nebraska, 38) "My mom. Dad said he 'couldn't take it.' Mom pressed her imaginary brake so hard for three months, she wore a hole in the floor mat." (Georgia, 29) "First lesson, Dad made me change a tire. Second lesson, check the oil. Third lesson, he handed me the keys and said, 'Now you can drive.'" (Texas, 52) "First snow of the year, Dad took me to the empty high school lot and told me to slam on the brakes. On purpose. 'Now you know what the car does when it stops listening to you.'" (Minnesota, 33) "My stepdad. He wasn't my dad yet. By the end of that summer, he was." (Oklahoma, 35) "The day I got my license, I drove home by myself. My dad followed me the whole way in his truck. He said he was 'just going the same way.' He was not going the same way." (Tennessee, 44) "Every day after school, Dad let me drive the truck to the end of our road to get the mail. I was nine. It was a quarter mile. Best quarter mile of my life." (Wyoming, 46) "My dad. Three hours in his pickup. He said one word the whole time: 'Easy.' I'm forty-two. I still hear it at every yellow light." (Iowa, 42) Not one of them talked about a class. They all talked about a person. Japan pays a professional so that nobody's parent ever has to sit in that seat. In America, a parent hands a fifteen-year-old the keys to a two-ton machine, sits down on the passenger side, and puts their own life in that kid's hands. You call it a driving lesson. I think it's the first time someone says to you, without saying it: I trust you with my life. And then there was the twenty-third. Colton. Kentucky. 38. He didn't smile when I asked. He looked at his coffee for a while first. His dad died when he was twelve. The truck sat in the barn for three years. A stick shift. Nobody touched it. His mom couldn't drive stick. The winter he turned fifteen, she started walking to the barn after he was in bed. Every night. The owner's manual open on the steering wheel. The dome light on. She stalled that truck, he figures, about four hundred times. He could hear it from his bedroom. He never said anything. Neither did she. One morning in March, she set the keys next to his cereal and said, "Boots on." She taught him in his father's truck, up and down their gravel lane. She sat on the passenger side, where her husband used to sit. He stalled it forty times. She never once mentioned it. "She learned the hardest thing she ever learned," Colton said, "so a stranger wouldn't have to teach me." Colton has a daughter now. She's fifteen. This summer, he started teaching her. Same truck. Same gravel lane. His mom insists on coming along. She sits in the back seat. She says somebody has to supervise. Somebody sat in that passenger seat for you. Who was it? (If it was your mom with the imaginary brake, she counts twice.)

1/ On p (doom) tl;dr a) Everyone is making up the numbers b) nobody knows anything (least of all the experts), c) don't worry about it d) there is nothing you can do to stop it e) most things you can do if you "worry" will end up being deeply counter-productive to your own interests f) on the margin, there are a couple of things you may consider 2/ p (doom) is the probability that the AGIs/ASIs kill us all People in the AI space have a lot of estimates about this, ranging from very low to absolute certainty that it is going to happen. You see them quoted in the news like this "Famed AI safety researcher / economist thinks that there is a 33% we are going to die but a 66% chance we will live in luxury techno-communism" 3/ I am here to reassure you that the number is definitely between 0% and 100% but other than that, all the other numbers are completely made up. 4/ True ASI is a gap in intelligence relative to us that is larger than you have from your favorite pet. Your pet may love you, may cuddle with you, may have some type of understanding that you are their "human" but has no useful views on LLMs or NFTs 5/ Likewise, if ASI is real which is what all these p (doom) scenarios assume, then a human economist's assessment (circa 2026) of p(doom) is about as useful as your cat's view on how Saylor is going to wiggle himself out of his empire of vibe-coded financial instruments. If your analyst insists otherwise, you can just tell them "well, it seems like you are not a true believer in ASI, if you think you can model an uber-intelligence of 600 IQ with your puny 140 IQ" 6/ Separately, people have estimates about which models may be dangerous to bring into the world. This is actually more useful because it allows you to see how well predictions age. Famously, Dario thought GPT-2 was "too dangerous" to release to the world and the OpenAI Board got all worked about the safety of GPT-4 class models and fired/unfired Sam broadly, putatively for that reason. I have no doubt these are all very smart people who know a lot about AI and mean very well, but obviously in retrospect that idea that GPT-2 and GPT-4 were some super danger to the world was, well, "extremely not true" 7/ Again, this is not a criticism. I sympathize with the people who are ushering in perhaps the most important technology in human history. It is a large responsibility, obviously risk is not zero, and they are naturally at some level worried at a personal, human level about the consequences if things go wrong. I am not sure I would want that level of responsibility. And because they are mathematically oriented people, one way to deal with this anxiety is to try to tame it with numbers and formulas. It is a math whiz's way to get comfortable with uncertainty, a form of coping mechanism. It is fine, just don't take any of the specifics seriously. 8/ I have been very tech-forward in general for a long time, I use $50K of inference each month and so naturally people ask me about AI. Mostly they ask me "6529, aren't you worried?" My answer is: "and what good would it do if I was worried?" Will Xi get a report that I am not sleeping so well in my (air-conditioned, thank you very much) southern European bedroom and change China's industrial strategy? Will Elon notice that I am stressed and cancel the data centers in space? No, none of this will happen. All that will happen is that I will be less happy, less productive and less of a contributor to my friends, family and society at large. 8/ This is the most important societal technology in human history, for both economic and military purposes. Nobody is going to stop working on it, nobody can risk stopping unilaterally and the dynamics of testing/verifying make it hard / impossible to enforce a global ban. 9/ If you get worried, you will do many things that are counter-productive to your own interests, such as: a) lobbying against data centers in your country b) lobbying for regulations to limit AI in your country c) not using AI yourself in your life 10/ By analogy, will be doing the following: It is 1850, some European has shown up in your country with a gun and you are still at the "bow and arrow" stage of military technology. You naturally get alarmed by guns (they suck and are scary) and decide to: a) ban production of guns in your country, b) ban Europeans from selling you guns and c) ban yourself from learning how to use a gun. 11/ Obviously all of this is deeply against your interests, but very welcome by the European with a gun. I remember when GPT-4 came out and the Italian regulator threatened to ban OpenAI from selling it in Italy. And all I could think was "FFS, your real risk is that the US government will ban OpenAI from selling you GPT 8; you should be lobbying for an access agreement, not a banning agreement" Turns out I was wrong and this has happened with GPT 5.6 12/ If you think that ASI/AGI is scary (like guns) and your geopolitical opponents have ASI/AGI, I regret to inform you that the correct move is to learn as quickly as possible how to use, deploy and ideally make your own ASI (the latter now out of reach for most countries) 13/ "6529, this is defeatist, if the people just unite, we will elect officials that will put ASI in a proper regulatory framework" Yes, we will build on humanity's long-standing success in getting everyone to turn in their knives, guns, tanks, fighter jets, ballistic missiles, drones and nuclear weapons to the 3rd grade schoolteacher by recess. You go ahead and let the Pentagon and PLA to turn in their AIs 14/ Also, since we mentioned regulation, your cat and your dog and your goldfish are pleased to inform you that they have developed a new regulatory framework for DeFi and look forward to Uniswap coming under their control and jurisdiction 15/ "Wait, do you think there should be no regulations on AI" - no, I have no doubt the Pentagon and NSA will have plenty of discussions with the frontier model providers on a variety of topics above my pay grade. What I am saying is that you specifically are unlikely to have the security clearance to productively contribute to those discussions, unless that you are currently involved in fighting nuclear proliferation and bioweapons. 16/ What I mean is this: I see that >50% of people in Europe and some very large % elsewhere are going to read these p (doom) type essays and also a bunch of gross mathematical errors about how much water data centers use or whatever and conclude that they specifically should not use AI and they should discourage their co-citizens from doing the same Which is very counter productive for them and the organizations they work for and their countries and will do literally absolutely nothing to change p (doom). 16/ You see, I don't know what p (doom) is but I can tell you what p (someone-is-going-to-compete-with-you-with-AI) is and that p is 100%. That someone may be a personal "competitor" or a "company" or a "nation-state" 17/ As with all major technology change (and if ASI is real, this is the biggest one of all), going early may be a big win, going fast follower may be ok and going late could lead to "extinction" History has not been kind to companies or countries that "missed" an industrial revolution. The EU has missed the internet altogether and is no longer a techno-economic peer to the United States. 18/ If the hard case, the doomer case of ASI is real, then no non-ASI-enabled organizations and societies will survive. It is impossible to compete without ASI with a competitor with ASI. You have to have your own and you have to believe in a world of balance of power. Should ASI be real, one sole ASI is extraordinarily dangerous to the world. A vast bazaar of ASIs may possibly generate some balance of power. 19/ We will find all this out in time, but in any case, it is hard to imagine that it is "your" personal / corporate / national interest to be the one without AI capabilities in that world. The very best case is that you will be a charity case in that world of gods-on-earth. The worst case is you will get a sympathetic paragraph in the future history books about how it was not very neighborly when the drone swarm disabled your national infrastructure and you had to accept very unpleasant terms to keep the lights on. 20/ I think my view is probably closest to OpenAI's view if I had to pick - that models should be deployed and diffused often, giving society the change to absorb change incrementally and as broadly as possible. And the open-source models are a good check on the ecoysystem. 21/ So, what can you do personally? Two things: a) Learn and use, as discussed above. It can only help you personally, there is no chance it will hurt you personally b) the number #1# medium-term risk from AGI/ASI is an engineered respiratory virus. that is this weekend's thread. hardening your life systems for that scenario is probably helpful on the margin 22/ tl;dr we are going to live the most interesting time in human history together, it is going to be a wild ride, it is better to be a proactive participant, and given all the above, you might as well decide to enjoy the ride 🫡😀

(One of Two) An Open Letter to the Kips Bay Community About the Future of AMC Kips Bay 15 in New York City “AMC Does Not Want to Go. We Want to Stay.” ——-/////——-/////——-   To the Kips Bay Community,   Since news first broke that our popular AMC Kips Bay 15-screen movie theatre located at 570 Second Avenue in Manhattan will soon be forced against our will to close its doors, I’ve been struck by the extraordinary support that this AMC theatre has received from within the local surrounding community.        So many moviegoers and neighbors, and importantly so many of your elected officials, have rallied around our theatre. (Given the central role that movie theatres play in the lives of so many New Yorkers, perhaps it is much better and more accurate to say that so many of you have rallied around YOUR theatre.)  On behalf of everyone at AMC, thank you. Your support means a great deal to us, and especially to our theatre team members at AMC Kips Bay 15 who work tirelessly day-in and day-out to put smiles on your faces.   In thinking about this theatre, which has been a cultural icon and entertainment lifeline to so many nearby residents for decades and decades since its opening on May 14 1999, I want to make one thing absolutely clear:   AMC Theatres does not want to go. Not one little bit. AMC Theatres wants to stay in Kips Bay.   Operating under long term leases, there was a time that the monies headed each month to the theatre’s landlord had risen to become so high that the theatre’s long-term viability was uncertain. But, we were fortunate to have been successful in addressing those concerns in recent years. Today this theatre (one which has been in continuous operation for more than twenty five years) has a bright future — if we would be allowed to keep it. Indeed, every day, thousands of guests watch a movie at AMC Kips Bay 15. It has become so popular of late that on several days this past summer, AMC Kips Bay 15 was repeatedly among the ten most attended movie theatres across the entire United States, out of the more than 500 theatres operated by AMC nationally. In that light, this is a theatre that should not be even close to a permanent shutting off of its lights. Of course, AMC wants this AMC movie theatre to stay in place. And remembering how much and how often Americans love watching movies in theatres, a tradition in Manhattan that dates back more than a full century, we have heard from so many of you that you too want us to stay open for your benefit. Apparently, NYU Langone Health does not share that view, not ours or not yours.  Unfortunately, the decision to retain or end AMC’s tenure in Kips Bay is not ours to make. The nearby NYU Langone Health facility wants to expand, seems to be in the process of buying the building in which your (our) theatre now operates, and it wants us gone. In anticipation of such a transfer to NYU Langone, the current building’s owner has terminated our lease. We have engaged with NYU Langone, suggesting any number of alternatives — including that it enlarge the current low-rise building to satisfy its desires for a growth of its medical facility but also leaving a theatre in place for you. Or alternatively, we offered that our theatre could get smaller, so that at the very least we could leave something remaining in place to continue to serve you. Sadly, any and all variations that we have proposed have fallen on closed minds.  We call on NYU Langone Health to open their minds, to think creatively, and come up with a solution that will give the Kips Bay community BOTH of the two things that is wanted most of all: expanded facilities offering the world class medical care that is the hallmark of NYU Langone Health AND a fully functional AMC Theatre on Second Avenue.

Made with seedance 2.5 Prompt: Create a 30-second, 1080p ultra-realistic personal home-video of a young Korean woman confidently attempting to learn a viral TikTok dance trend in her tiny apartment, with her furniture and coordination working against her the entire time. No reference image. **MAIN SUBJECT** Young Korean woman in her early 20s, casual and determined energy, natural makeup, expression that shifts from focused confidence to flustered embarrassment. Hair in a messy half-up bun, a few strands sticking to her face as she gets more flustered, small stud earrings. Wearing an oversized band t-shirt tucked loosely into biker shorts, white ankle socks, no shoes, phone propped up against a stack of books on the floor to "record for practice." Maintain the same face, hairstyle, clothing, body proportions, and appearance throughout the entire video. **SETTING** A small, cluttered studio apartment living room, evening, warm lamp light mixed with the cool glow of a laptop screen playing the dance tutorial video. A coffee table pushed slightly out of the way but not far enough, a floor lamp standing a little too close to her "stage area," a pile of laundry on the couch, a half-full water glass on the side table, string lights on the wall, and a roommate's bike leaning against the wall in the background. Cramped, real, an apartment clearly not built for dancing. **CAMERA / VISUAL AESTHETIC** Raw personal footage, filmed by her roommate on a phone propped up at first, then grabbed handheld once things go wrong — strong handheld vlog shake for the second half. Static, slightly low-angle framing for the "practice" shots, mimicking a phone-on-a-stack-of-books setup. Frame is imperfectly centered, cutting off the top of her head slightly. Once the roommate grabs the phone, autofocus hunts, motion blur kicks in during the collision moment, exposure shifts as she moves between lamp light and shadow, visible digital noise in the dim room. No stabilization, no gimbal smoothness, no cinematic camera moves — it should feel like a real phone recording that was never meant to be watched by anyone but her. --- **00:00–00:05 — THE CONFIDENT SETUP** She props her phone against a stack of books, steps back into frame, and shakes out her arms like an athlete warming up. She points at the laptop screen playing the dance tutorial, then back at herself, deadly serious. *"Okay. I've watched this like twenty times. I got this."* **00:05–00:10 — FIRST EIGHT-COUNT** The music starts. She nails the first few moves surprisingly well, sharp and confident, clearly proud of herself mid-move. Roommate's voice from off-screen, genuinely impressed: *"Wait, okay—?!"* The camera stays static, catching her in full frame, a rare clean moment. **00:10–00:15 — THE FIRST WOBBLE** A quick turn in the choreography catches her off guard — she spins a half-second late, arms flailing to catch up, and clips the edge of the coffee table with her shin. She yelps, hopping on one foot, still trying to keep the rhythm going through gritted teeth. *"I'm fine — I'm fine, keep going—"* **00:15–00:20 — LAMP INCIDENT** Recovering, she throws herself into the next big arm movement — her hand clips the floor lamp, sending it tilting dangerously. Her roommate lunges into frame to catch it, grabbing the phone off the books in the process, camera suddenly handheld and shaking. *"THE LAMP—"* **00:20–00:25 — FULL CHAOS** With the lamp saved but the camera now shaky and handheld, she tries to pick the choreography back up from memory, increasingly out of sync with the music, arms going in directions the dance never intended. She knocks the water glass off the side table with her elbow, doesn't even stop, just grimaces and keeps dancing through the spill. Roommate, laughing hysterically behind the now-unsteady camera: *"You're literally destroying the apartment—"* **00:25–00:30 — FINAL MOMENT** The song ends. She strikes a triumphant final pose — chest heaving, one hand on her hip, completely out of breath, water pooling near her sock. She looks into the camera, dead serious despite the disaster around her. *"...Post it. That was clean."* Her roommate, still laughing, pans the camera slowly down to the spilled water and tipped lamp before swinging back to her unbothered face — and the footage cuts abruptly to black. --- **AUDIO** Natural location sound only: The tutorial/dance track playing tinny from the laptop speakers, her footsteps and fabric movement, the thud of her shin hitting the table, the lamp wobbling and roommate's scramble to catch it, glass tipping and water spilling, her roommate's genuine off-camera laughter throughout, and handheld camera noise once it's picked up. No added music beyond the in-scene laptop track. No narration. No artificial sound effects. Spoken lines: *"Okay. I've watched this like twenty times. I got this."* / *"Wait, okay—?!"* (roommate) / *"I'm fine — I'm fine, keep going—"* / *"THE LAMP—"* (roommate) / *"You're literally destroying the apartment—"* (roommate) / *"...Post it. That was clean."* **FINAL FEEL** Chaotic, cramped-apartment energy — the universal experience of confidently trying a viral dance and immediately losing a fight with your own furniture. Funny, physical, unscripted-feeling, with a deadpan ending that lands harder because she genuinely doesn't acknowledge the destruction around her. No exaggerated slapstick beyond real physical missteps. No professional dance skill required — the comedy comes from real momentum, real near-misses, and her total refusal to admit defeat.

Made with seedance 2.5 Prompt: Create a 30-second, 1080p ultra-realistic personal home-video showing a young Korean woman attempting to film an "aesthetic" café vlog for her social media and everything comically not going to plan. No reference image. MAIN SUBJECT Young Korean woman in her early 20s, trendy and put-together look, dewy makeup, confident expression that keeps cracking into laughter. Straight black hair with curtain bangs, small gold hoop earrings, soft pink lip tint. Wearing an oversized cream sweater, a plaid mini skirt, chunky white sneakers, and a small quilted shoulder bag she keeps adjusting for the "shot." Maintain the same face, hairstyle, clothing, body proportions, and appearance throughout the entire video. SETTING A charming autumn café street in Seoul on a crisp, sunny afternoon. A cozy corner café with outdoor seating, string lights, a chalkboard menu, falling ginkgo leaves, a latte art station visible through the window, a bicycle propped against a brick wall, pedestrians occasionally walking through frame, and a small tree dropping leaves onto the sidewalk table. Warm, golden, Pinterest-looking — until it isn't. CAMERA / VISUAL AESTHETIC Raw personal footage, filmed by her friend who keeps trying (and failing) to make it look cinematic, strong handheld vlog shake throughout. The video oscillates between deliberately "aesthetic" attempted shots — slow pans, artful angles, soft focus — and sudden chaotic handheld jolts when things go wrong. Autofocus hunts comically between her face and the latte. Camera tilts and overcorrects. Exposure blows out when it swings toward the sun. Mild motion blur during quick recoveries. Slightly warm, oversaturated color grade like a try-hard Instagram filter that keeps slipping back to raw reality. No stabilization, no real cinematic polish — the "aesthetic" is aspirational, the execution is not. 00:00–00:05 — THE PERFECT LATTE SHOT (ATTEMPT) She sits at the outdoor table, carefully positioning a latte with foam art, trying to casually "candid" sip it for the camera. The camera does a slow artful pan down toward the cup — then a leaf falls directly into it with a soft plop. She freezes, staring at the ruined latte art, deadpan. 00:05–00:10 — REACTION She looks up at the camera, unimpressed, leaf still floating in the foam. "...Are you kidding me right now." The friend behind the camera bursts out laughing, shaking the frame violently. 00:10–00:15 — THE "CANDID" WALK She gets up to attempt a slow-motion aesthetic walk past the café window, hair flowing, sunglasses going on in one smooth motion — sunglasses immediately get caught in her hair. She stops mid-stride, wincing, trying to untangle them one-handed while still smiling for the camera. The camera zooms in awkwardly close on the tangled sunglasses, then yanks back out. 00:15–00:20 — BICYCLE MISHAP She leans against the parked bicycle for a "casual candid lean" pose, one hand in her pocket. The bicycle kickstand gives way and it slowly tips sideways, taking her balance with it. She stumbles but catches herself, laughing hard, one hand up defensively toward the lens. "Okay, delete that, delete that!" 00:20–00:25 — GINKGO LEAF CHAOS She tries to recreate a "leaves falling around me" cinematic moment by tossing a handful of gathered ginkgo leaves into the air above her head. A gust of wind blows them straight back into her face instead. She spits out a leaf, blinking, completely unbothered and giggling. The camera shakes as the operator nearly drops it laughing. 00:25–00:30 — FINAL MOMENT She gives up on the aesthetic altogether, plops back down at the café table, and grabs the leaf-ruined latte anyway, taking a defiant sip through the foam. She looks dead into the camera, deadpan, leaf still stuck to her sweater. "This is the content. This is it. Post this one." She gives an exaggerated thumbs up as the frame shakes with the friend's laughter, and the footage cuts abruptly to black. AUDIO Natural location sound only: Café ambience, cup clinking, leaves rustling, wind gusts, bicycle clattering, footsteps, her friend's audible laughter throughout, fabric rustling, and handheld camera noise. No music. No narration. No artificial sound effects. Spoken lines: "...Are you kidding me right now." / "Okay, delete that, delete that!" / "This is the content. This is it. Post this one." FINAL FEEL A self-aware, comedic behind-the-scenes of someone trying to film an aesthetic vlog and getting completely humbled by reality at every turn — warm, golden autumn light paired with genuine, unscripted chaos and laughter. No posed perfection sustained for more than a few seconds before something goes wrong. No exaggerated slapstick acting — the comedy comes from real reactions, real mishaps, and the gap between the "vision" and what actually happens on camera.

My friend Kuroki has taught welding for 26 years, at a technical high school in Japan. Last spring, he watched six hundred people in Mississippi stand up and scream for a welder. He still can't tell the story without stopping halfway. Here's why. In Japan, your life gets sorted at fifteen. One entrance exam. The top kids go to academic high schools. The kids who don't make it go to schools like Kuroki's. Nobody says it out loud. Everybody knows. Every spring, high schools hang banners: how many seniors got into which university. Kuroki's seniors go to shipyards and factories. Nobody hangs a banner for that. For 26 years, he has watched his students cross the graduation stage in silence. Head down. A small bow. Like they were apologizing for where they were going. Last spring, his school sent him to a high school on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. A town that builds ships. His job was to study their welding program. Three days in, the welding teacher, a big man named Boone, said, "You picked a good week. Thursday's Signing Day." Kuroki had seen Signing Day on TV. A star quarterback. A table. Three college hats. That is not what he saw. The gym was packed. The band was there. The cheerleaders were there. At the front was a long table with a red tablecloth. No college hats. Welding helmets. Hard hats. A pipe wrench. An electrician's tool belt. Behind every chair stood a man in work boots and a necktie he clearly did not enjoy. The shipyard. The electric company. A plumbing outfit. An air conditioning company. The principal took the microphone and read the first name like an NFL draft pick. "TYLER KREBS. Pipe welder. Signing with the shipyard." Air horns. Cowbells. Tyler's grandmother held up a poster board: MY GRANDBABY BUILDS SHIPS. The football coach was in the front row, screaming louder than anyone. For a welder. Next was a girl, maybe five-foot-one. Kinsley Ladner. Electrician. The old electricians in the bleachers were on their feet before the principal finished her name. Kuroki leaned over to Boone. "These are your top students?" Boone didn't answer right away. "Buddy, these are the kids who keep the lights on. Who else are we gonna stand up for?" Then came a boy named Jace. Everybody in that gym knew two things about Jace. He was the best welder in the county. And he couldn't read very well. He'd been held back in third grade. Kids had called him things ever since. He sat down. He picked up the letter. He stared at it. Six hundred people went quiet. Boone walked over, crouched down beside him, and read it into his ear. Quietly. Line by line. The whole gym waited. Nobody looked at a phone. Nobody coughed. Jace nodded. Picked up the pen. Signed his name. Kuroki says he has never heard a sound like the one that gym made. He felt it in the bench. Jace's father, a shipfitter for thirty years, came down out of the bleachers in his work shirt, pulled off his own welding cap, and put it on his son's head. Afterward, Kuroki shook Jace's hand and asked him how it felt. "Sir," Jace said, "that's the first time anybody ever clapped for me in a school." Kuroki excused himself and went outside to stand by his rental car for a while. In Japan, high school seniors who are going to work get their job offers in the fall. Last month, Kuroki's seniors got theirs. So he held his school's first Signing Day. In a classroom. With a red tablecloth from the 100-yen shop and three welding helmets. The principal agreed to read the names. Kuroki asked him to read them like a draft pick. The principal practiced in his office. Everyone could hear him through the wall. The parents came in work clothes. They didn't know the rules. They bowed. They clapped politely. Like at a funeral. Then the principal read the name of a boy going to the same shipyard where his father has welded for 31 years. The father stood up. He is not a loud man. He had skipped every school event for three years. Work. He shouted his son's name. Once. Full volume. For one second, nobody moved. Then the whole room was on its feet. His son looked at the floor. Then at his father. Then he did something Kuroki had not seen a student do on graduation day in 26 years. He lifted his head. Afterward, the boy came up to Kuroki and said, in Japanese, almost exactly what Jace had said. "Sensei, nobody has ever clapped for me at school." Kuroki excused himself and went outside to stand by his car for a while. Again. He had also ordered twelve air horns from America. The vice principal confiscated eleven. Nobody knows how the twelfth one got into a grandmother's purse.

$NVDA $MU $SNDK $LITE (Bloomberg) -- Massachusetts lawmakers are seeking to establish the nation’s most stringent state-level safeguards for artificial intelligence, a proposal that’s divided an industry the governor’s office is concurrently seeking to woo. An economic development bill passed by the state Senate last month included a requirement that leading AI labs undergo independent reviews of the catastrophic risks posed by their frontier models at least once every 120 days, a first for a US state. The findings would be made public, though the state couldn’t use them to halt AI development. The provisions go further than other recent laws in California, New York and Illinois and come as Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey and other leaders seek to build up the region’s AI sector and curb the outflow of startup talent. Healey, a Democrat running for reelection in November, didn’t include the AI safeguards passed by the Senate in her initial economic development proposal. Both she and House lawmakers still must agree to the provision. Leading AI developer Anthropic PBC has advocated for states to adopt more stringent AI regulation in the absence of a federal standard and calls the Massachusetts proposal “the clearest and strongest AI legislation in the country.” OpenAI, on the other hand, is warning that the reviews will slow the release of cybersecurity models that might protect against the very risks lawmakers fear and prefers states adopt a uniform standard in line with the Illinois law. Inconsistency “doesn’t mean safer. It just means confusion,” said Donnie Fowler, OpenAI’s head of US state policy and partnerships. While Illinois now requires a third-party audit, it’s only once a year and geared toward ensuring labs are following their own safety guidelines and making disclosures mandated under the law. The Massachusetts proposal includes a similar annual compliance review, but separately empowers outside organizations to make evaluations of a model’s dangers, independent of the developer’s guidelines, every few months. The evaluators would assess the potential for catastrophes that kill or seriously injure at least 50 people or lead to $1 billion or more in property damage. Fowler likens Illinois’ audits to an annual car inspection, the equivalent of making sure the brake lights and windshield wipers are working. Massachusetts’ more frequent evaluations would be akin to dismantling the engine and then putting it back together again, he said. Anthropic believes the more intensive third-party evaluations are needed because “we ultimately don’t think the industry should grade its own homework,” said Cesar Fernandez, the company’s head of US state and local government relations. While Anthropic endorses the Massachusetts proposal, states may need to adopt even tighter oversight in the future as the technology advances, he said. Anthropic and OpenAI are jostling to shape the final legislation. Anthropic hired Boston lobbying firm Tremont Strategies Group earlier this year, while OpenAI brought on local firm Benchmark Strategies as its lobbyist in recent weeks. The broader bill is likely to pass before the November election because it also contains funding for projects in lawmakers’ districts. A six-member group of House and Senate negotiators are working to iron out the details, including the AI rules. State Senator Barry Finegold, one of the negotiators, said independent evaluations are needed to ensure frontier models won’t cause significant harm. If Massachusetts adopts the safeguards, other states will follow, he said. “We were behind on social media. We allowed too much to go by without putting in guardrails, and now we’re playing catch-up. We don’t want to do that again,” Finegold said. AI safety has taken on more urgency in the past month after OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta Platforms Inc. each reported instances in which their models inadvertently hacked into third-party systems in testing environments. Federal oversight is limited: President Donald Trump has taken a largely hands-off approach and bipartisan AI safety legislation that would preempt state laws is stalled in Congress. States are starting to fill the gap. At the same time, they’re also competing with each other for a piece of the AI boom that’s driving an outsize portion of the country’s current economic growth. In February, Massachusetts announced a partnership with OpenAI and became the first state to give its entire executive branch access to a ChatGPT-powered AI assistant. Announcing the collaboration, Healey said it would make the government “faster, more efficient, and more effective.” Early this spring, Healey and her economic development secretary, former venture capital executive Eric Paley, spoke with Anthropic President Daniela Amodei about the company potentially growing its Massachusetts presence and partnering with the state in areas like cybersecurity and workforce development, according to emails obtained through a public records request. Fernandez, the Anthropic government relations executive, invited Healey and Paley to its San Francisco headquarters, in part to discuss “responsible governance frameworks that serve as a national model.” In a follow-up message, Paley suggested other partnerships to explore, including on biotechnology and AI literacy in schools. He told Fernandez that “we all need to share more clear examples of how AI is enhancing humanity and offer positive inspiration to combat all of the fear mongering.” Paley offered to reach out to a state legislator about collaborating on AI oversight. The Healey administration will work with lawmakers on finalizing the legislation this fall, with a goal of setting “appropriate safeguards on AI development while continuing to support our innovation economy, jobs and competitiveness,” a spokesperson for the state’s economic development arm said. The topic is likely to feature in the upcoming governor’s race. Michael Minogue, a former medical device executive who’s the leading contender for the Republican nomination, dismissed the proposed third-party evaluations as overregulation. “How would a non-expert advise an expert building something every 120 days?” Minogue said in an interview at Bloomberg’s Boston office last week. “If you’re an AI company, I’m not coming here now.” Under the Massachusetts proposal, evaluators would have the ability to interrogate AI labs and obtain access to “all materials reasonably necessary” to assess catastrophic risks. The attorney general would create standards for outside organizations to serve as evaluators. The bill allocates no government funding for this task, instead allowing developers to pay evaluators. Only AI labs with annual gross revenues over $500 million would be subject to the evaluations. Like the California, New York and Illinois laws, the Massachusetts measure would also establish whistleblower protections for AI-lab employees and require developers to disclose safety practices and report safety incidents. Should an AI developer fail to report an incident or adhere to its own safety plan, the attorney general could pursue a fine of as much as $1 million for an initial violation and as much as $3 million for additional ones. The proposed safeguards strike the right balance by keeping officials and the public in the know about risks without compromising the AI industry’s long-term success, said Ben Snyder, a policy adviser at Encode, an advocate for AI safety limits. “The risk assessments are really essential to helping governments keep up and have real conversations with companies,” he said.

When my friend's daughter Rina was seventeen, she spent a year as an exchange student on a cattle ranch in West Texas. Her host father was named Hank. Hank was 56. Built like a fence post that had survived something. Hands like they'd been left out in the weather for thirty years. A white straw hat he took off only for church and supper. Hank spoke about nine words a day. On her first day, he picked her up at the airport in Lubbock. He looked at her for a long time. Then he said: "You Rina?" "Yes." "Truck." That was the whole conversation. Two hours of highway. The radio was off. The dog in the back seat was named Dog. That night, Rina locked herself in the bathroom and cried, very quietly, so no one would hear. She was sure he hated her. She was sure she'd made a terrible mistake. She counted the days to June on her phone. There were 311. His wife, Lori, found her the next morning. "Sugar, he doesn't hate you. He's just built that way. Hank talks with his hands. You'll see." She did see. Slowly. Her bike had a flat on Tuesday. On Wednesday, it was fixed. Nobody said anything. Her room was cold. A week later, there was a space heater by her bed. Nobody said anything. At dinner, she mentioned once, very quietly, that the dark out there scared her. The ranch was twenty miles from the nearest streetlight. The next night, there was a flashlight on her pillow. New batteries. The tag still on it. Nobody said anything. The silence in that house wasn't cold. It was like a barn in winter. Something warm was breathing in the dark. Then she noticed the truck. Every morning at 4:30, before the sun, before the cattle, Hank's headlights went down the long dirt road and disappeared. He was back by six. Every single day. One morning in October, she was waiting by the truck when he came out. He looked at her. She looked at him. "Get in," he said. They drove forty minutes to a nursing home in a small town. Hank walked down a hallway that smelled like bleach and coffee, into a room where an old man sat by the window. His father. The old man looked up at the giant in the doorway, a little afraid. "Morning, sir," Hank said. He filled a little bowl with warm water. He put a towel around his father's neck. And with those enormous, wrecked hands, he shaved him. Slowly. Carefully. Like he was painting something. He hummed while he did it. Some old hymn. Rina had never heard him make a sound like that. His father watched him in the mirror the whole time. When it was done, the old man touched his own smooth face, and said: "You're a nice fella. Do I know you?" Hank wiped the razor clean. "No, sir. I'm just the man who shaves you." He'd been doing it every morning for three years. His father hadn't known his name for two. On the drive home, Rina stared out the window so he wouldn't see her face. Hank didn't say anything. But he turned on the radio, very low. For the first time. In February, the phone rang at midnight. Her grandmother in Japan had died. Her grandmother had raised her while her parents worked. Walked her to school every day for six years. Had held both her hands at the airport and said, "Go see the world. I'll be right here when you come back." Rina had promised to come home in the summer. The funeral was in three days. Her parents said there was no way to get her home in time. Stay. Finish the year. Grandma would want that. So Rina did what Japanese girls are taught to do. She said she was fine. She thanked everyone. And she went to her room and didn't come out. She didn't eat. She didn't sleep. All she could think about was a funeral on the other side of the world, and an empty space in a row of people in black, where she was supposed to be standing. On the third night, at ten o'clock, there was a knock. Hank was in the doorway. Coat on. Keys in his hand. "Get your coat." She didn't ask. She was too tired to ask. They drove into the dark. Hours of it. West Texas at night is the emptiest place on earth. Sleet ticked against the windshield. Dog slept in the back. Hank didn't say a word, and for once, Rina understood that it wasn't because he had nothing to say. At three in the morning, they pulled into a quiet street in Dallas, in front of a small building with a curved roof and a single light on. A Buddhist temple. The nearest one he could find. Five hours away. He had called that afternoon. He had told the monk, an old man from Vietnam, that there was a girl at his house whose grandma had died in Japan, and she couldn't go home, and could they please, please open the door tonight. The monk was waiting on the steps in a sweater over his robes. And Rina looked at the clock in the truck, and her breath stopped. 3:00 a.m. in Dallas. Six in the evening in Japan. The exact hour her grandmother's funeral was beginning. Hank had done the math. Inside, it was warm and smelled of incense. There was a small altar and a golden Buddha and candles. The monk didn't know the Japanese way. Rina showed him. He nodded, and stepped aside. She lit the incense. She bowed. She pressed her palms together and closed her eyes. She told her grandmother she was sorry she wasn't there. She told her she'd seen the world, like she'd promised. She told her about the ranch, and Dog, and a man who said nine words a day. When she opened her eyes, Hank was beside her. He had taken off his hat. He was holding it against his chest. He was copying everything she did. Clumsily. A beat too late. The ash from his incense fell on his boot. He bowed too deep and his bad knee cracked like a branch in the quiet. He got down on that knee anyway, on the hard floor, a six-foot-four rancher in a Buddhist temple at three in the morning, praying for a Japanese grandmother he had never met, in a way he did not understand, because a seventeen-year-old girl under his roof needed someone to stand next to her. That's when Rina finally cried. Not quietly this time. All of it. Every day she'd been holding it in. Hank didn't say anything. He just put one hand on her back. A hand so big it covered her whole back, like a roof. And he left it there until she was done. The sun was coming up over the plains when they drove home. Pink, then gold. Dog woke up and put his head on her shoulder. Somewhere near Abilene, Hank spoke. It was the longest thing Rina ever heard him say. "My dad don't know me anymore. I go anyway. You don't stop showing up for people just 'cause they can't see you. Your grandma couldn't see you tonight. Don't matter. You showed up." Then he turned the radio back on, low, and didn't say another word for the rest of the day. Rina is 24 now. She lives in Tokyo. She went back to Texas twice. She stood in the back of the church at his father's funeral. She called Lori "Mom" before she even realized she was doing it. And every year, on the day her grandmother died, at three in the morning Texas time, her phone lights up. A photo. A stick of incense burning in an old coffee can on a porch rail, the sun coming up over the pasture behind it. And one message. Always the same. "Lit one for your grandma. Still showing up. Hank." Every year, she counts the words. Nine. He has never once gone over.