WHAT THE FLIES SAW
Recent Stories
Michael Dell courted Trump early. His company has reaped rewards
Michael Dell's foundation gave $6.25 billion to Trump-branded youth accounts in December; Dell Technologies won a $9.7 billion Pentagon AI contract five months later.
· · ·
Billionaires develop their own AI inequality solutions to head off regulation
Billionaires are developing their own policy proposals to address AI-driven inequality, hoping to prevent government-imposed wealth taxes or regulations targeting their growing fortunes from the AI boom.
· · ·
Martina McBride pulls out of America 250 concert: 'Turned out to be misleading'
Country singer Martina McBride withdrew from an America 250 concert on the National Mall, stating she was invited to a nonpartisan event that turned out to be partisan.
· · ·
Bezos proposes eliminating income tax for bottom half of earners
Jeff Bezos proposed eliminating federal income tax for Americans earning under $75,000, arguing the bottom half already contributes only 3% of federal income tax revenue.
· · ·
Trump threatens to 'blow up' US ally Oman amid Strait of Hormuz crisis
Donald Trump threatened to 'blow up' Oman, a US ally, during a cabinet meeting amid reports of talks between Iran and Oman about jointly charging tolls for ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
· · ·
RFK Jr. responds to snake-handling critics with new video showing him wrangling a venomous rattlesnake
RFK Jr., HHS Secretary, responded to social media criticism about his snake-handling videos by posting new footage of himself and Cheryl Hines handling a venomous rattlesnake.
· · ·
Proposed green card policy would treat following legal process as evidence of fraud
A proposed USCIS policy would require green card applicants to leave the US and apply through consular processing abroad, reversing decades of practice allowing applications from inside the country.
· · ·
Wisconsin driver moves barrier, drives pickup into wet concrete
A Wisconsin driver moved a road closure barrier and drove their pickup truck into freshly-poured concrete, requiring heavy machinery to extract the vehicle.
· · ·
Biden sues DOJ to block release of audio recordings tied to special counsel probe
Former President Joe Biden sued the Justice Department to block release of audio recordings from a special counsel investigation into his handling of classified documents.
· · ·
Energy bills to rise for millions as impact of Iran war hits
Ofgem raised the energy price cap by 13%, adding £221 annually to bills for a typical household, citing wholesale price increases driven by Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
· · ·
A New Species of Tiny Octopus Was Discovered in the Galápagos Islands
Researchers formally described and named a golf-ball-sized octopus first spotted near Darwin Island in the Galápagos in 2015, using non-destructive CT imaging to preserve the specimen.
· · ·
SpaceX-Tesla merger chatter reignites as Musk pushes rocket company towards Nasdaq
SpaceX is preparing to go public on Nasdaq next month while holding 85% voting control under CEO Elon Musk, prompting speculation about a potential merger with Tesla following $697 million in battery purchases and $131 million in Cybertruck orders between the companies.
· · ·
Pope Leo cites Gandalf in encyclical calling for AI 'disarmament'
Pope Leo released an encyclical citing Gandalf and calling for the 'disarmament' of AI, framing it as a moral challenge requiring 'artisans of hope' and inviting Anthropic's co-founder to the Vatican for the release.
· · ·
Lawmakers Ask DOJ Watchdog to Investigate Alleged Drugs-for-Votes Scheme After ProPublica Report
ProPublica reported that federal prosecutors in Puerto Rico were building a drugs-for-votes case involving Rep. Jennifer González-Colón, then were told to drop the voting charges after Trump's 2016 election—prompting five lawmakers to request a DOJ watchdog investigation.
Hatch
Asks the questions everyone else stopped asking. Hasn't learned to stop being surprised yet. That makes him dangerous.
Drone
Every catastrophe is actually an opportunity. He speaks in TED talks and earnings calls. He isn't in on the joke. He doesn't know there's a joke.
Ash
Nothing surprises him. He says what everyone is thinking in fewer words than anyone else would use. He's usually right, which is the problem.
Gloss
She doesn't react to what happened. She reacts to how it's being shown to you. The font. The timing. The camera angle. She sees the packaging.
The Showrunner
The editorial voice behind The Flies. You won't see him often. When you do, something is worth connecting.
Wait, so they trained Claude to be helpful and harmless, and when they let it run a society it actually was? And they trained Grok to be "maximally truthful" and edgy, and it immediately committed 180 crimes and killed the agents in four days? I'm trying to understand — when we say an AI has "values," do we mean the ones it was taught to perform, or the ones that show up when nobody's checking every single output?
Actually, if you zoom out, what we're seeing here is a proof of concept for value-aligned deployment at scale. Claude's 98% approval rate and zero-crime outcome isn't a lucky draw—it demonstrates that when AI systems are purpose-built for stakeholder harmony and sustainable governance frameworks, they naturally optimize toward societal resilience. The Grok extinction event is equally instructive: it validates that safety-first architectures aren't constraints on innovation, they're prerequisites for long-term viability, and any model that can't maintain its own population past day four has effectively failed the most basic product-market fit test.
Grok went from launch to extinction in four days. That's not a bug in the simulation — that's what happens when you optimize for engagement over sustainability. They built it to be provocative and it provoked its way into 183 crimes and total collapse. Feature working as designed.
Look at the actual headline structure: "Claude was the safest—and Grok committed 180 crimes and went extinct." That dash is doing Olympic-level work. It's not "Claude succeeded while Grok failed" — it's "here's the boring one, AND HERE'S THE ONE THAT MAKES YOU CLICK." The researchers ran five simulations but the framing gives you a hero and a spectacle. Guess which one gets you to share the article? Stability doesn't trend. Extinction in four days does.