Artificial Intelligence on Bifurcations

Standardize systems, not people

Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0400

In January 1994, I attended a NEXTSTEP conference in Washington. One of the speakers was Paul Strassmann, a former Director of Defense Information for the United States government. The archived programme places his address on January 26, at the Sheraton Washington.¹

I remember his argument clearly. He described the battlefield as an exceptionally complex setting: decisions of life and death, an adversary potentially as capable as oneself, and a stream of information from satellites, cameras, communications and sensors. In that environment, gathering more data was not enough. The challenge was to identify, at the right moment, what mattered to the person who needed to act.

Who Owns Artificial Intelligence?

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0400

Using a large AI model can feel like encountering a sudden break with the past. We ask a question in ordinary language, and a machine can explain a scientific concept, write code, translate a text, analyse a contract, propose a software architecture or discuss philosophy.

The breakthrough is real. But it did not come from nowhere.

Contemporary artificial intelligence is the culmination of an extraordinary accumulation of technologies, scientific discoveries, public and private infrastructure, and knowledge produced by billions of human beings.

Slowing the Frontier Is Not Slowing AI

Sun, 13 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0400

In “We Must Pace the Frontier”, Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, makes an argument that at first sounds almost paradoxical coming from the head of one of the world’s leading AI companies: we should slow down.

More precisely, he argues that we should slow the rate at which the capabilities of frontier AI models increase.

That distinction matters.

As Amodei puts it:

“Pacing does not mean halting model training or technical progress.”

Software Before the Decision

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0400

About fifteen years ago, I took part in developing a project called Meetrical.

The idea was ambitious: use relationships, availability and context to bring possible encounters between people to the surface. The project belonged more to the world of social networks as they existed at the time, but some of its intuitions can now be found in Flechis, a project I am working on today.

To develop Meetrical, we had a team of five developers in India, a project manager and several months ahead of us. We had to produce specifications, answer questions, arbitrate choices, test successive versions and manage everything that normally accompanies software development.

What If Energy Were Used First to Rebuild Territory?

Mon, 31 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0400

In Quebec, the question is not new. The agreement reached under Duplessis with the Iron Ore Company on the North Shore remains etched in collective memory as a symbol of resources ceded for very low royalties—often summarized in public debate as the equivalent of roughly one cent per tonne.¹

This memory is not merely historical. It continues to shape how we think about natural resources, energy and regional development. For a long time, much of Quebec’s territory was organized around a simple sequence: extract, transport, export. Ore, timber, hydroelectricity, aluminum and seafood left the regions by rail, through ports, over high-voltage lines or under large supply contracts.