016 — The Takedown, The Banana Cake, and Fire

Friday evening, at 5:21 PM Eastern Time, the US CommerceDepartment ordered Anthropic — the company behind Claude — to immediately disable its two most powerful AI models for any foreign national, anywhere on earth. The practical effect was simple: they had to disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for every customer, every country, within hours. Both models had launched just three days earlier.Whether the government was right or Anthropic was right is the second question. The first question is much bigger. Until Friday evening, the power of a government to take an AI model offline was theoretical. Friday evening, that power became real. One government. One letter. Two of the mostpowerful AI models in the world — gone for everyone, within hours. That's a precedent. And precedents, once set, get used again.Plus — a banana cake you can make in your mixer (yes, the same one you grind chutney in), and a poem.— TODAY'S RECIPE —Easy Mixie Banana Cake. Into the mixie: 3 ripe bananas + 2 eggs + ½ cup sugar + ½ cup vegetable oil + 1 tsp vanilla. Blend 30 sec until smooth. Add 1½ cups plain flour + 1 tsp baking powder + ½ tsp baking soda + ¼ tsp salt. Pulse 3-4 times only — do NOT overblend. Optional: ¼ tsp cinnamon, ¼ cupchopped walnuts or chocolate chips. Pour into greased 8-inch tin. Bake at 170°C for 35-40 min until a toothpick comes out clean.— TODAY'S POEM —"Fire" — from Fifty Rooms of Silence by Linu Conil,published by Romanson, with an endorsement from Dr. Shashi Tharoor.📖Get the book on Amazon:https://www.amazon.in/Fifty-Rooms-Silence-Linu-Conil/dp/9348314556—Six Minutes of Silence is hosted by Linu Conil and produced byThe Bandrum Circuit in Trivandrum, Kerala. New episodes every weekday at 7 AM IST.Got a thought? Write to [email protected]