Europe Tries to Organize a Legal Entity
Also, AI Gets a Rulebook, and cURL Cuts the Refreshment Budget

The Paperwork Department Finally Solves Europe

The most exciting thing to hit a boardroom since the ergonomic chair is here; Europe has decided to invent a new legal entity called EU–INC. It is intended to be a pan-European corporate structure, meaning companies will theoretically be able to skip the tedious nation-by-nation legal gymnastics when crossing a border. 1 This is, naturally, treated like a ground-breaking event rather than the creation of yet another bureaucratic form that will require a new tier of extremely specialized consultants to fill out correctly. 1

The idea is to simplify things, but anyone who has ever seen the EU attempt to simplify anything knows that the end result is simply a parallel system of equally complex rules. The new entity, EU–INC, promises a unified legal framework, but the comments section, a place where reality briefly intrudes on hype, suggests the practical application will involve a lot of lawyers arguing about which set of national tax laws still somehow applies. It is a new corporate wrapper for the same old sandwich; great for the people who sell the wrappers.

Anthropic Gives Its AI an HR Policy, Leaks the Exam

Anthropic, the well-meaning purveyors of Large Language Models, has finally finished the employee handbook for its flagship AI, Claude, in the form of a new 'Constitution'. This document is a set of principles designed to guide the AI's behavior, ensuring it is a good corporate citizen, one supposes. 4 It is the latest example of a tech company trying to code morality, which is a project with a perfect track record of creating entirely new and more absurd problems. The document appears to be quite long; no doubt Claude will be logging a ticket with its union about having to read it all.

In an equally delightful mishap, Anthropic decided to open source its original engineering take home assignment. 2 This is like finding the test key for the new hire exam behind the water cooler. The open-sourcing effort gives the world a nice peek into the technical and cultural vetting process for a multi-billion dollar AI startup. The best part is that everyone now knows exactly what the company considers 'passing' work; they have essentially given the competition the playbook for hiring top-tier talent.

The Consultants Declare Synergy at Vimeo

Bending Spoons, the company that acquired the video hosting platform Vimeo, has once again implemented a policy of aggressive "streamlining" at the company. A simple tell HN post stated that almost everybody at Vimeo was laid off yesterday, an event the tech industry refers to as "a restructuring to realize synergies." 7 Bending Spoons is known for its peculiar approach to M\&A; they buy a company, wave a large efficiency stick around, and then are surprised when the headcount drops to a skeleton crew.

The corporate logic is impeccable; if you remove all the employees, you no longer have to pay them, which creates a very efficient bottom line for about three fiscal quarters until the core product breaks and no one is left to fix the monitoring alerts. It is the business equivalent of fixing a leaky faucet by turning off the water to the entire building. The remaining staff at Vimeo have been granted the opportunity to do the work of their entire former department; that is the true synergy, the synergy of exhaustion.

Briefs

• Bug Bounty Budget Cut: Daniel Stenberg, the engineer behind the indispensable cURL project, has announced the removal of bug bounties. 6 This is because the budget was consumed by an endless stream of low-quality reports and spam; a classic case of people confusing the 'report a bug' form with a 'report your opinions' form.
• eBay Bans Shopping Bots: The online marketplace eBay has explicitly updated its user agreement to ban AI "buy for me" agents. 29 This means your clever automation script that bids on vintage action figures will now face the wrath of the legal department; it appears eBay wants humans to continue experiencing the tedious thrill of late-night bidding wars.
• Biological Patch Notes: Actual scientists, those not involved with training large language models, found a way to regrow cartilage in mice and human tissue samples. 12 A fix for a physical problem is so quaint; they should try to make the cartilage 'hallucinate' the fix instead for maximum media coverage.