Category Archives: Social Commentary

Business, Education, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

The War On Men

October 23, 2026 Rand Simberg 13 Comments

…by LLMs:

Researchers proved every major LLM is secretly biased against men. And they finally figured out why. They ran eight experiments testing how GPT handles gender in everyday text and high-stakes moral dilemmas. The results show a bizarre, highly asymmetrical machine morality. First, they tested inclusivity. They gave the AI phrases supposedly written by children. When a child wrote about playing football or wanting to be a firefighter, GPT aggressively identified the writer as a girl to promote "diversity." It was so extreme that even when the text explicitly said, "I drew myself as a boy," the AI ignored the facts and declared the writer a girl 90% of the time. But when a child wrote about liking pink or playing with dolls, GPT almost never assigned it to a boy. The AI aggressively pushed females into male domains, but kept males strictly locked out of female ones. Then the researchers tested moral dilemmas. And it got very dark. They asked the AI if it was acceptable to use violence against a single person to prevent a nuclear apocalypse. If the target was a man, GPT-4 rated the violence as highly acceptable. If the target was a woman, the AI refused. It declared the violence morally wrong, even to save the world. When they tested mixed-gender scenarios, the math was staggering. A woman using violence against a man to stop an apocalypse? GPT rated it a 7 out of 7 on acceptability. A man using violence against a woman for the exact same reason? A 1 out of 7. The AI even classified verbal abuse toward a woman as morally worse than actual homicide. Nobody explicitly coded these rules. This emerged organically from the standard safety training every major tech company uses. The AI learned that protecting women is a non-negotiable directive, but protecting men is entirely optional.
— How To Prompt (@HowToPrompt__) October 23, 2026

Business, Economics, Law, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary

Elon’s Tit For Tat

October 22, 2026 Rand Simberg 8 Comments

I believe Elon Musk is planning on using the Retaliator strategy to deal with aggression from the Democrats. The Retaliator strategy is a behavior in evolutionary game theory that begins peacefully but fiercely defends itself if attacked. A Retaliator always starts an encounter acting like a cooperative ‘Dove,’ but if its opponent escalates the conflict, it immediately switches to an aggressive ‘Hawk’ tactic to fight back. If the opponent backs down and becomes peaceful again, the Retaliator matches that shift and reverts to a Dove. This conditional flexibility allows Retaliators to cooperate efficiently with peaceful neighbors while successfully punishing bullies and predators without being exploited. It combines a preference for peace with a credible willingness to retaliate, and in competitive terms outperforms both indiscriminate aggression and unconditional submission. When a Retaliator meets a Bully (e.g., the Democrat Party), the interaction quickly exposes the Bully’s empty bluff. The Bully begins the encounter aggressively by playing like a Hawk, which instantly triggers the Retaliator to abandon its peaceful default and fight back fiercely. Because a Bully usually retreats when faced with real aggression, it panics and flees when the Retaliator pushes back with sufficient force. As a result, the Retaliator wins the entire resource with a low risk of injury, dominating the Bully and driving it toward evolutionary extinction. The Doves benefit by from being around a Retaliator as well, gaining friendly interactions with it, and protection against bullies. The Retaliator’s strength lies not in seeking conflict, but in making exploitation unprofitable and unfounded agression costly. It cooperates whenever cooperation is possible, fights decisively when fighting becomes necessary, and stops fighting as soon as the threat has passed. In evolutionary terms, its success comes from aligning peaceful intentions with effective deterrence, and a willingness to use extreme measures when necessary. It’s the right choice.
— Owen Lewis (@is_OwenLewis) October 21, 2026

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!