{"id":7953,"date":"2026-04-24T18:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T01:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=7953"},"modified":"2026-04-24T18:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T01:41:09","slug":"tgfi-volume-552-why-stanford-will-endure-ais-erasing-anonymity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2026\/04\/24\/tgfi-volume-552-why-stanford-will-endure-ais-erasing-anonymity","title":{"rendered":"TGFI, Volume 552: why Stanford will endure, AIs erasing anonymity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/a>\n<\/p>

You\u2019ve heard of TGIF? This is TGFI: Things Glen Found Inter\u00adest\u00ading<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Fri\u00addays I share articles\/resources about broad cul\u00adtur\u00adal, soci\u00adetal and the\u00ado\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal issues like\u00adly to be of inter\u00adest to Chris\u00adtians in col\u00adlege. Be sure to see the expla\u00adna\u00adtion and dis\u00adclaimers at the bot\u00adtom. I wel\u00adcome your sug\u00adges\u00adtions, so if you read some\u00adthing fas\u00adci\u00adnat\u00ading please pass it my way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things Glen Found Interesting<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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  1. Col\u00adlege Won\u2019t Get Fixed. But It Also Won\u2019t Dis\u00adap\u00adpear.<\/a> (Tyler Cowen, The Free Press): \u201cThe Ivies and oth\u00ader top schools will prove invul\u00adner\u00ada\u00adble. Their val\u00adue for net\u00adwork\u00ading, and also as a dat\u00ading and mar\u00adriage ser\u00advice, is unpar\u00adal\u00adleled. There are no trends that threat\u00aden to dis\u00adrupt those func\u00adtions. If these insti\u00adtu\u00adtions can prove use\u00adful in oth\u00ader ways too, such as learn\u00ading and research, con\u00adsid\u00ader that gravy.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. I can nev\u00ader talk to an AI anony\u00admous\u00adly again<\/a> (Kelsey Piper, The Argu\u00adment): \u201cFrom only the above text, 125 words, Claude Opus 4.7 informed me that the like\u00adli\u00adest author is Kelsey Piper. This is an Opus 4.7\u2011specific pow\u00ader; Chat\u00adG\u00adPT guessed Ygle\u00adsias, and Gem\u00adi\u00adni guessed Scott Alexan\u00adder. I did not have mem\u00ado\u00adry enabled, nor did I have infor\u00adma\u00adtion about me asso\u00adci\u00adat\u00aded with my account; I did these tests in Incog\u00adni\u00adto Mode. To make sure it wasn\u2019t some\u00adhow feed\u00ading my account infor\u00adma\u00adtion to Claude even in Incog\u00adni\u00adto Mode, I asked a friend to run these tests on his com\u00adput\u00ader, and he received the same result; I also got the same result when I test\u00aded it through the API.\u2026. I think the amount of pub\u00adlic text that is need\u00aded for this kind of deanonymiza\u00adtion to work is like\u00adly to even\u00adtu\u00adal\u00adly decrease. You should expect that, if you leave a detailed anony\u00admous review on Glass\u00addoor after leav\u00ading your job, with\u00adin a year or two it will be pos\u00adsi\u00adble for com\u00adpa\u00adnies to paste that text into an AI and learn exact\u00adly who wrote it. How long it takes for this to hap\u00adpen will depend on how much data about you is in the train\u00ading data and on how much anony\u00admous text you pro\u00adduced.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. AI Is Not Drain\u00ading the Col\u00adorado Riv\u00ader. I Mea\u00adsured It.<\/a> (Len Nece\u00adfer, Out\u00adside): \u201cI work on the Col\u00adorado Riv\u00ader water for a liv\u00ading as a film\u00admak\u00ader and sto\u00adry\u00adteller. I have a PhD in engi\u00adneer\u00ading and pub\u00adlic pol\u00adi\u00adcy. I am Din\u00e9. The threats to the riv\u00ader are not abstract to me; they are very real. So ear\u00adli\u00ader this year, I decid\u00aded to quan\u00adti\u00adfy some\u00adthing that has been miss\u00ading in the con\u00adver\u00adsa\u00adtion about AI and water: I mea\u00adsured my own AI water use. For 11 weeks, I tracked all of my AI use. One hun\u00addred ses\u00adsions. I count\u00aded the tokens processed and applied pub\u00adlicly avail\u00adable num\u00adbers on per-token ener\u00adgy and water inten\u00adsi\u00adty from Epoch AI and oper\u00ada\u00adtor-report\u00aded data from Microsoft and Google. Any\u00adone can run this math. In those 11 weeks, I built an iOS app from scratch and wrote pol\u00adi\u00adcy briefs on extreme heat for non\u00adprof\u00adits I work with. I pro\u00adduced doc\u00adu\u00admen\u00adtary pitch decks and draft\u00aded a 15,000-word cli\u00admate fic\u00adtion piece about the Col\u00adorado Riv\u00ader col\u00adlapse. I used AI every sin\u00adgle day, often for hours at a time. Total life\u00adcy\u00adcle water foot\u00adprint of all that work: about five gal\u00adlons. That accounts for every\u00adthing: the water used to cool the data cen\u00adters, the water con\u00adsumed at pow\u00ader plants to gen\u00ader\u00adate the elec\u00adtric\u00adi\u00adty, and the water embed\u00added in man\u00adu\u00adfac\u00adtur\u00ading the hard\u00adware.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Anthrop\u00adic Wants Claude to Be Moral. Is Reli\u00adgion Real\u00adly the Answer?<\/a> (David DeSteno, New York Times): \u201cAnthropic\u2019s inten\u00adtions are admirable, but the project of draw\u00ading on reli\u00adgion to cul\u00adti\u00advate the eth\u00adi\u00adcal behav\u00adior of Claude (or any oth\u00ader chat\u00adbot) is like\u00adly to fail. Not because there isn\u2019t moral wis\u00addom in Scrip\u00adture, ser\u00admons and the\u00ado\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal trea\u00adtis\u00ades \u2014 texts that Claude has undoubt\u00aded\u00adly already scraped from the web and inte\u00adgrat\u00aded \u2014 but because Claude is miss\u00ading a cru\u00adcial mech\u00ada\u00adnism by which reli\u00adgion fos\u00adters moral growth: a body.\u201d \u2014 Far more inter\u00adest\u00ading than I expect\u00aded. I almost skipped because I imag\u00adined I knew where the author was going. I was quite wrong. The author is a psy\u00adchol\u00ado\u00adgy pro\u00adfes\u00adsor at North\u00adeast\u00adern. FYI: the author is not per\u00adson\u00adal\u00adly reli\u00adgious, he just stud\u00adies reli\u00adgion.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. A Brief His\u00adto\u00adry of Singing in the Ear\u00adly Chris\u00adt\u00adian Church<\/a> (pod\u00adcast, 33 min\u00adutes): Accord\u00ading to Augus\u00adtine, Ambrose re-intro\u00adduced the prac\u00adtice of con\u00adgre\u00adga\u00adtion\u00adal singing of hymns in the west\u00adern church, which rais\u00ades the ques\u00adtion of what had hap\u00adpened to singing before that. An inter\u00adest\u00ading lis\u00adten. Rec\u00adom\u00admend\u00aded by a stu\u00addent.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. There\u2019s a Rea\u00adson Amer\u00adi\u00adcans Hold Israel to a High\u00ader Stan\u00addard<\/a> (Ross Douthat, New York Times): \u201c\u2026Amer\u00adi\u00adcans have a fun\u00adda\u00admen\u00adtal\u00adly dif\u00adfer\u00adent rela\u00adtion\u00adship to Jews, Judaism, Zion\u00adism and Israel than to any of the \u2018much worse gov\u00adern\u00adments\u2019 that Gur is refer\u00adring to \u2014 Sau\u00addi Ara\u00adbia and its war in Yemen is his prime exam\u00adple, but one could make a much longer list of author\u00adi\u00adtar\u00adi\u00adan states whose war crimes pass with\u00adout suf\u00adfi\u00adcient notice.\u2026 So part of the answer to Gur\u2019s ques\u00adtion \u2014 why do West\u00adern\u00aders freak out in a unique way about Israel pol\u00adi\u00adcy? \u2014 is con\u00adnect\u00aded to iden\u00adti\u00adfi\u00adca\u00adtion, not hos\u00adtil\u00adi\u00adty, and to the feel\u00ading that Israel is part of our zone of iden\u00adti\u00adty and respon\u00adsi\u00adbil\u00adi\u00adty in a way that the Sau\u00addi monar\u00adchy is not.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  7. Three arti\u00adcles about the South\u00adern Pover\u00adty Law Cen\u00adter case:\n