Links: Week of 25 Jul 2026
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We now live in a digital age. If perfect reproductions of our best efforts as creators are free, how can we keep going? To put it simply, how does one make money selling free copies?
I have an answer. The simplest way I can put it is thus:
When copies are super abundant, they become worthless and stuff which can’t be copied becomes scarce and valuable.
When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.
Well, what can’t be copied?
Originally written at the dawn of the internet era but it becomes even more relevant in the age of AI. I wonder if this is part of the reason FIFA World Cup tickets were so expensive this time - LIVE can't be copied.
An OpenAI Model Escaped Its Sandbox and Hacked Hugging Face A good and short summary of the events at OpenAI and Hugging Face. Comprehensive coverage here. This would have been stuff of science fiction less than 5 years ago. I expected stronger political reaction to this than we have seen so far. Maybe OpenAI is doing a better job of "managing" the situation than Anthropic did a few weeks ago. I would still bet on some very strong restrictions on release of new models from here on at the minimum and controls on development and testing too.
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hello there the jacobian conjecture is false thanx to my close friend akhil for asking about it and my other close friend fable for working during the world cup final
((1+xy)^3 z + y^2 (1+xy) (4+3xy), y + 3 x (1+xy)^2 z + 3 x y^2 (4+3xy), 2 x - 3 x^2 y - x^3 z): \C^3\to \C^3, has jacobian determinant -2, and sends (0, 0, -1/4), (1, -3/2, 13/2), and (-1, 3/2, 13/2) to (-1/4, 0, 0)and
SWMany such tweets over the last few days. Clearly AI has disrupted Mathematics. Time for denial is past - it is coming for us all. To use a strong cliche, remember this is the worst it will ever be.
This is the third straight week of light posting. I wonder what is going on? Surely I read more than three interesting things last week but I seem to not be saving them. Losing interest in the blog or just busy? I guess we will find out.
That reminded me of this post from Ethan Mollick: An opinionated guide to which AI to use to do stuff
If you turn on the “computer use” option in Code or Codex, the AI can literally take over your mouse, browser, and computer. Yes, this is a security concern, so you should proceed carefully, yet the results can be amazing. I asked ChatGPT-5.6 Sol in Codex to download a 3D modelling program and use it to create a very particular design: “Download Blender and make an otter using a laptop on an airplane.” Here is a sped-up video of the AI doing exactly this.
Watch that video - I couldn't link to it directly. Not that it wasn't before, but this is starting to look like magic more and more. To repeat myself, it is coming for us all. And all the more reason to read that first link.