Will Bermender

Taking my dog to a cosmetic dentist was a mistake…

Will Netflix award its $1 million Netflix Prize to AI? 🤔

Now governance shifts from passing laws to a battle of executive actions, oversight, and institutional roadblocks. Just another form of ineffective government. 😂

It’s okay to disagree with our political leaders; I don’t like Trump much, and I didn’t like Biden much, either. But if we don’t unite as a People we’re doomed. Our Founding Fathers were right 250 years ago when they wrote into the constitution “United We Stand, Divided We Fall.” We are a divided nation and we are falling harder than I have ever seen.

In our hyper-polarized political environment, cooperating with the opposing party, the “enemy,” can alienate a party’s core base and weaken the argument for a change in power. So political messaging now relies on opposing the sitting president in order to mobilize voters and maintain party unity, but this creates an institutional dynamic where blocking the administration becomes a primary political goal. Both parties do this and it’s absurd. What’s even more absurd is that we don’t just allow it, we reward it. And then… we complain about it.🤦‍♂️

Angry Spanish Chucky feels like a different movie…

I may not always agree with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, or any Justice for that matter, but his story is inspiring. Thomas was born into deep poverty. They lived without running water. He didn’t even have a bed to sleep in until he was seven years old. Thomas grew up in the segregated South and entered adulthood during a period of intense racial turmoil. But he believed, as did our Founding Fathers, that all men are created equal. Thomas received a full scholarship, became a lawyer, and wrote his own American success story. William Arthur Ward once wrote, "Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records." The biggest decision of our lives may be deciding which one we’re going to be.

I just read these “10 Workplace Secrets That Make Everyone Want to Work With You.” I wouldn’t call these “secrets,” but I do believe if everyone did more of these things we would all be much happier and more successful… 1. Be the person who makes things happen. Every organization has problems. The people who solve them get promoted. 2. Master calendar psychology. Book meetings for 25 mins instead of 30. People will love you for giving them time back. 3. Adopt the Art of the TL;DR. Put a 1-line summary at the top of longer emails. Your colleagues' time is precious. 4. Make intercompany connections. Introduce people you network with from across departments to unlock new opportunities. 5. If you're a superior, don't send a meeting invite without an agenda (those can be scary). 6. Leave spaces better than you found them. 7. Practice the Silent Service Model: Help others succeed without seeking credit. Your reputation will build naturally. 8. Follow the Plus One Rule: make every process you are a part of at least 1% better. 9. Practice the Gratitude Loop: Notice efforts, express appreciation, be specific, and reciprocate. Strong teams run on recognition. 10. Offer to be an office buddy to the newcomer. If they have any questions or forget people's names, you're their go-to person.

Forget Skynet, meet SMARTASS. This is how our story ends… Synchronous Multi-nodal Autonomous Recursive Trans-sentient Algorithmic Sub-spatial System

On a recent visit to Albuquerque, I had the opportunity to ride through the Santa Ana Pueblo, a Native American land closed to the public. There is no better way to view the mesas, arroyos, washes, and Bosque than on horseback. Riding past petroglyphs etched into volcanic stone centuries ago, and the Tuyuna rock formation where Native American warriors are buried, felt magical.

Every company should hang this poster.

Atoms are not conscious either. That does not settle whether organized atoms are.

Popcorn Game, released by Marx Toys in 1976, was one of my favorite childhood games. There was nothing like the chaotic rattle-clack sound of those plastic balls hitting the dome. Such a classic piece of 1970s toy engineering; simple, but surprisingly competitive. I recently restored a broken one I bought off eBay to play with my kids. Can’t wait for game night!

I’ve been following AI development for 40 years, since discovering ELIZA in high school, and invested in and implemented machine learning for 15. From my vantage point, an uncontrolled or misaligned superintelligence escaping human oversight is a real risk. But I think the classic “AI takeover” story still requires capabilities we just haven’t demonstrated. Sustained autonomous agency, the ability to evade oversight and preserve access, and capability growth that outruns our ability to maintain effective control are some of the precursors to that apocalyptic vision. Those aren't Hollywood props. They also aren't here yet, at least not at an effective level. And that's where serious people split. Some of the researchers closest to frontier models think we're closer than the public debate admits. Others think scaling current methods will plateau short of that. Who’s right? I don’t know. What I do know is that the probability is not zero, and that “not zero” on this class of outcome is already an investment and policy problem. The scenario I treat as the base case is not some conscious mind rebelling. It’s general-purpose models deployed in increasingly autonomous, task-specific systems producing cascading cyber-physical damage. Think force multipliers for human actors, or agents whose failures propagate through interconnected infrastructure. That mess can look like collapse without anyone building a god. If a true loss-of-control event happens, I expect it to arrive through that channel first: agents, tools, networks, access and incentives. Not Skynet. And, in my second career as a screenwriter, I know a little about movie villains, too.

Every September 11th, I avoid the news. It’s been 25 years and my memories are still vivid; I don’t need to relive them. But one third of Americans alive today were born after 9/11 — or were too young to have any personal memory of what happened that day. For them, recounting 9/11 serves as a reminder that there are heroes among us and that Americans can set aside our differences and unite.

If you believe dangerous AI development is inevitable, then talented safety researchers may be most valuable inside the organizations building it. 🤷‍♂️

The theft itself is damaging to Netflix, but the bigger reputational problem is the perception that the company then responded by arguing about encryption, causation, and damages rather than saying “You entrusted us with your film, it disappeared from our premises, and we're going to make this right.” 🤷‍♂️

The view of Millennium Park and Lake Michigan from Cindy’s Rooftop in downtown Chicago is spectacular.

Don't dream it, be it.

The human brain is 80% water? Explains why my thoughts often evaporate...