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AI isn't useless. But is it worth it?
AI isn't useless. But is it worth it?
So many reasons why not to use them.
Any place on the web that incentivizes high-volume, low effort text is being inundated by generated text
If you're using AI to write your emails, and your recipient is using AI to read them, could you maybe cut out the whole thing entirely? If mediocre, auto-generated reports are passing muster, is anyone actually reading them? Or is it just middle-management busywork?
If the internet's enshittification feels worse post-ChatGPT, it's because of the quantity and speed at which this junk is being produced, not because the junk is new.
I'm also not sure that generating a picture of a person with twelve fingers on each hand or text that reads as though written by an endlessly smiling children's television star who's being held hostage is altogether that much more useful than a bitcoin.
#artificialintelligence#mollywhite#blag#bitcoin
·citationneeded.news·
AI isn't useless. But is it worth it?
How the GOP Became the Party of Insurrection
How the GOP Became the Party of Insurrection
Three years after 1/6, the GOP reembraced the Big Lie out of cowardice and convenience
You have to either believe the election was stolen or pretend to believe it.
·messageboxnews.com·
How the GOP Became the Party of Insurrection
A 2024 Plea for Lean Software (with running code) - Bert Hubert's writings
A 2024 Plea for Lean Software (with running code) - Bert Hubert's writings
This post is dedicated to the memory of Niklaus Wirth, a computing pioneer who passed away January 1st. In 1995 he wrote an influential article called “A Plea for Lean Software”, and in what follows, I try to make the same case nearly 30 years later, updated for today’s computing horrors. The really short version: the way we build/ship software these days is mostly ridiculous, leading to 350MB packages that draw graphs, and simple products importing 1600 dependencies of unknown provenance.
Time pressure gradually corrupts an engineer’s standard of quality and perfection.
·berthub.eu·
A 2024 Plea for Lean Software (with running code) - Bert Hubert's writings
Game Developers Describe 'Smell of Death' Around Apple Arcade
Game Developers Describe 'Smell of Death' Around Apple Arcade
Some game developers are dissatisfied with Apple Arcade amid concerns about the subscription service's future, a new report claims. Sources...
games with shorter narratives and premium indie titles
·macrumors.com·
Game Developers Describe 'Smell of Death' Around Apple Arcade
Ghost Kitchens Are Advertising AI-Generated Food on DoorDash and Grubhub
Ghost Kitchens Are Advertising AI-Generated Food on DoorDash and Grubhub
Reality bending, AI-generated cheesesteaks and pasta dishes are flooding food delivery services.
considering that the Philly cheesesteak is one of the most commonly ill-prepared and overrated sandwiches in America (feel free to email me if you want to fight about this)
·404media.co·
Ghost Kitchens Are Advertising AI-Generated Food on DoorDash and Grubhub
Why Americans Love to Hate Harvard | Harvard Magazine
Why Americans Love to Hate Harvard | Harvard Magazine
The president emeritus on elite universities’ academic accomplishments—and a rising tide of antagonism
Careful studies have found that this tendency has not come about primarily through conscious discrimination in hiring professors but is chiefly a result of liberals’ being more attracted than conservatives to academic careers.
·harvardmagazine.com·
Why Americans Love to Hate Harvard | Harvard Magazine
Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power
Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power
Artificial intelligence, data centers and the boom in clean-tech manufacturing are pushing America’s aging power grid to the brink. Utilities can’t keep up.
The type of nuclear plants envisioned, for example, are not yet even operational in the United States. Fusion power does not yet exist.
·washingtonpost.com·
Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power
Models All The Way Down
Models All The Way Down
It contains less about how humans see the world than it does about how search engines see the world. It is a dataset that is powerfully shaped by commercial logics.
·knowingmachines.org·
Models All The Way Down
Suicide Mission
Suicide Mission
A bit biased article but still a good summary of how management beat out engineering culture.
Swampy was mired in an institution that was in a perpetual state of unlearning all the lessons it had absorbed over a 90-year ascent to the pinnacle of global manufacturing
outsourcing the vast majority of the development and engineering design of the brand-new, revolutionary wide-body jet to suppliers, many of which lacked engineering departments
there is no such thing as an accidental death during the commission of a felony
#boeing#suicide#whistleblowing#labor#stockmarket
·prospect.org·
Suicide Mission
When ‘ruthless’ Boeing cut costs, the damage spread
When ‘ruthless’ Boeing cut costs, the damage spread
So sad. A once great company brought low by financialization.
transformed GE into a financial conglomerate that incidentally made light bulbs, appliances and jet engines
“People who knew how to build an airplane were viewed as roadblocks. They slowed things down,” said Chandler. “The only word you could speak to executives was ‘yes.'”
#boeing#seattletimes#stockmarket#seattle#work#unions
·seattletimes.com·
When ‘ruthless’ Boeing cut costs, the damage spread
Ten Years Later, ‘Monument Valley’ Is a Monument to Mobile Gaming’s Bygone Era
Ten Years Later, ‘Monument Valley’ Is a Monument to Mobile Gaming’s Bygone Era
It is dire. Apple Arcade held so much promise for small premium games.
“It almost feels like a glimpse into a parallel existence,” he says. “One where we didn’t optimize for analytics, monetization, and attention capturing, but one where, somehow, as an industry, we optimized for quality and beauty instead.”
#apple#applearcade#videogames#iphone
·theringer.com·
Ten Years Later, ‘Monument Valley’ Is a Monument to Mobile Gaming’s Bygone Era
Models All The Way Down
Models All The Way Down
I knew it was bad but I had no idea how bad even the inputs are models upon models.
The concepts of what is and isn't visually appealing can be influenced in outsized ways by the tastes of a very small group of individuals, and the processes that are chosen by dataset creators to curate the datasets.
#artificialintelligence#art#ethics
·knowingmachines.org·
Models All The Way Down
The Future of ‘Star Trek’: From ‘Starfleet Academy’ to New Movies and Michelle Yeoh, How the 58-Year-Old Franchise Is Planning for the Next Generation of Fans
The Future of ‘Star Trek’: From ‘Starfleet Academy’ to New Movies and Michelle Yeoh, How the 58-Year-Old Franchise Is Planning for the Next Generation of Fans
Lots of exciting news about ongoing and potential Trek projects. Still feels like Paramount is floating this to help get bought...
At this point, is there a genre that “Strange New Worlds” can’t do? “As long as we’re in storytelling that is cogent and sure handed, I’m not sure there is,” Goldsman says with an impish smile. “Could it do Muppets?
“Visual effects people are a big, big ‘Star Trek’ fandom,” he says. “You naturally just get all these people who go a little bit above and beyond, and you can’t trade that for anything.”
#variety#startrek#television#hollywood#visualeffects
·variety.com·
The Future of ‘Star Trek’: From ‘Starfleet Academy’ to New Movies and Michelle Yeoh, How the 58-Year-Old Franchise Is Planning for the Next Generation of Fans