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what if every police patrol car had a bank of cameras that scan not just every number plate but every face within a hundred yards against a national database of outstanding warrants? What if the cameras in the subway do that? All the connected cameras in the city? China is already trying to do this, and we seem to be pretty sure we don’t like that, but why? One could argue that there’s no difference in principle, only in scale, but a change in scale can itself be a change in principle.

Generative AI is now creating a lot of new examples of scale itself as a difference in principle. You could look the emergent abuse of AI image generators, shrug, and talk about Photoshop: there have been fake nudes on the web for as long as there’s been a web. But when high-school boys can load photos of 50 or 500 classmates into an ML model and generate thousands of such images (let’s not even think about video) on a home PC (or their phone), that does seem like an important change. Faking people’s voices has been possible for a long time, but it’s new and different that any idiot can do it themselves. People have always cheated at homework and exams, but the internet made it easy and now ChatGPT makes it (almost) free. Again, something that has always been theoretically possible on a small scale becomes practically possible on a massive scale, and that changes what it means.

This might be a genuinely new and bad thing that we don’t like at all; or, it may be new and we decide we don’t care; we may decide that it’s just a new (worse?) expression of an old thing we don’t worry about; and, it may be that this was indeed being done before, even at scale, but somehow doing it like this makes it different, or just makes us more aware that it’s being done at all. Cambridge Analytica was a hoax, but it catalysed awareness of issues that were real

if you just think about the business model of the internet as — there’s a box that you can upload some content into, and then there’s an algorithm between you and an audience, and some audience will find the stuff you put in the box, and then you put an infinity amount of stuff into the box, all of that breaks.

more and more of the stuff that you consume is designed around pushing you towards a transaction. That’s weird. I think there’s a vast amount of white space in the culture for things that are not directly transactable.

We constantly ask huge amounts of the population to do things that are very rote. Keep inputting this data on forms, keep filling out this tax form. Some lawyers arguing for the Supreme Court, a lot of them just write up various contracts. And that’s a good job in the sense that it pays well, it’s inside work, but it doesn’t ask you to be that full of a human being.

I think a lot of organizations are not set up for a lot of people to use judgment and discernment. They treat a lot of people like machines, and they don’t want them doing things that are complicated and step out of line and poke at the assumptions in the Excel doc. They want the Excel doc ported over without any mistakes.

I think a lot of organizations are not set up for a lot of people to use judgment and discernment. They treat a lot of people like machines, and they don’t want them doing things that are complicated and step out of line and poke at the assumptions in the Excel doc.

I distinctly remember life before computers. It’s an experience that I had quite viscerally. And that shapes my view of these tools. It shapes my view of these companies. Well, there’s a huge generation now that only grew up in this way. There’s a teenage generation right now that is only growing up in this way. And I think their natural inclination is to say, well, this sucks. I want my own thing. I want my own system of consuming information. I want my own brands and institutions.And I don’t think that these big platforms are ready for that moment. I think that they think they can constantly be information monopolies while they are fending off A.I.-generated content from their own A.I. systems. So somewhere in there all of this stuff does break. And the optimism that you are sensing from me is, well, hopefully we build some stuff that does not have these huge dependencies on platform companies that have no interest at the end of the line except a transaction.

these models in their most reductive essence are just statistical representations of the past. They are not great at new ideas.And I think that the power of human beings sort of having new ideas all the time, that’s the thing that the platforms won’t be able to find. That’s why the platforms feel old. Social platforms like enter a decay state where everyone’s making the same thing all the time. It’s because we’ve optimized for the distribution, and people get bored and that boredom actually drives much more of the culture than anyone will give that credit to, especially an A.I. developer who can only look backwards.

the idea is, in my mind at least, that those people who curate the internet, who have a point of view, who have a beginning and middle, and an end to the story they’re trying to tell all the time about the culture we’re in or the politics we’re in or whatever. They will actually become the centers of attention and you cannot replace that with A.I. You cannot replace that curatorial function or that guiding function that we’ve always looked to other individuals to do.

I think as the flood of A.I. comes to our distribution networks, the value of having a powerful individual who curates things for people, combined with a powerful institution who protects their integrity actually will go up. I don’t think that’s going to go down.

The ability of generative AI tools to analyse huge datasets can also be used to help spark creative inspiration. This can help us if we’re struggling for time or battling writer’s block. For example, if a social media manager is looking for ideas on how to engage alumni on Instagram, they could ask ChatGPT for suggestions based on recent popular content. They could then pick the best ideas from ChatGPT’s response and adapt them. We may use these tools in a similar way to how we ask a colleague for an idea on how to approach a creative task.

We may use these tools in a similar way to how we use search engines for researching topics and will always carefully fact-check before publication.

we will not publish any press releases, articles, social media posts, blog posts, internal emails or other written content that is 100% produced by generative AI. We will always apply brand guidelines, fact-check responses, and re-write in our own words.

We may use these tools to make minor changes to a photo to make it more usable without changing the subject matter or original essence. For example, if a website manager needs a photo in a landscape ratio but only has one in a portrait ratio, they could use Photoshop’s inbuilt AI tools to extend the background of the photo to create an image with the correct dimensions for the website.

You want to order from a local restaurant, but you need to download a third-party delivery app, even though you plan to pick it up yourself. The prices and menu on the app are different to what you saw in the window. When you download a second app the prices are different again. You ring the restaurant directly and it says the number is no longer in service. You go to the restaurant and order in person. You mention that their website has the wrong number and the woman behind the counter says they have to contact the company who designed the site for changes, which will cost them, but most people just order through an app anyway.

You want to watch the trailer for an upcoming movie on YouTube but you first have to sit through an ad. Then you sit through a preview for the trailer itself. Then you watch the trailer, which is literally another ad. When it ends, it cues up a new trailer, with a new ad at the start of it.

The first page of Google results are links to pages that have scraped other pages for information from other pages that have been scraped for information. All the sources seem to link back to one another. There is no origin. The photos on the page look weird. The hands are disfigured. There is no image credit.

You can’t read the recipe on your phone because it prioritises the ads on the page. You bring your laptop into the kitchen and whenever you scroll down, you have to close a pop-up. You turn AdBlock on and the page no longer loads, then AdBlock sends you an ad asking for money.

You buy a microwave and receive ads for microwaves. You buy a mattress and receive ads for mattresses.

What we have now is a profusion of well-cast, sleekly produced competence. We have tasteful remakes of familiar titles. We have the evidence of healthy budgets spent on impressive locations. We have good-enough new shows that resemble great old ones.

Put these two forces together — a rising level of talent and production competence on the one hand, the pressure to deliver versions of something viewers already like on the other hand — and what do you get? You get a whole lot of Mid.

MID IS NOT the mediocre TV of the past. It’s more upscale. It is the aesthetic equivalent of an Airbnb “modern farmhouse” renovation, or the identical hipster cafe found in medium-sized cities all over the planet. It’s nice! The furniture is tasteful, they’re playing Khruangbin on the speakers, the shade-grown coffee is an improvement on the steaming mug of motor oil you’d have settled for a few decades ago.

Mid is fine, though. It’s good enough.

Mid TV, on the other hand, almost can’t be bad for some of the same reasons that keep it from being great. It’s often an echo of the last generation of breakthrough TV (so the highs and lows of “Game of Thrones” are succeeded by the faithful adequacy of “House of the Dragon”).

As more people drop cable TV for streaming, their incentives change. With cable you bought a package of channels, many of which you would never watch, but any of which you might.

So where HBO used to boast that it was “not TV,” modern streamers send the message, “We’ll give you a whole lot of TV.” It can seem like their chief goal is less to produce standout shows than to produce a lot of good-looking thumbnails.

Cities are commonly mapped and surveilled like the internet, said to be made up of “networks” and clusters of “users.”

A City Is Not a Tree can provide us with some answers. As Alexander argued almost 60 years ago, our minds are inclined to categorize the world as a tree, but an organic society and city actually resembles a semilattice. And just like with a city, organizing the internet like a tree stifles it completely.

The internet hasn’t become a tree, but there are certainly those who would like it to resemble one. Both leading tech platforms and governments believe themselves to be capable of containing information and separating its parts. The process started in earnest after the Arab Spring (2010-2012), when it became clear that online activity could produce shocks with real-world consequences. A growing pessimism about technology in the hands of the public developed at the top, as the interests of both “public safety” and profit converged to more deliberately plan the internet and mediate its branches. Simply put, complex systems are easier to surveil when information is neatly siloed into branches. It also simplifies data collection for advertisers.

Overlap on the internet is made possible through search and indexing which has, in almost all cases, badly declined.28 Google, as the leading indexer, has been the prime target of enshittification despite its market dominance increasing.29 Additionally, most platforms are walled gardens that are not easily searchable, their content only being found because it was reposted in another walled garden. Platforms have an interest in making sure users stay in their domain as much as possible. This makes overlap especially difficult by design, and so much of the internet now exists as islands on the periphery as a result. Effectively, that which would make a semilattice of the internet dynamic and alive is being dismantled.

Like a city, the internet is a receptacle for life, and how it organizes itself has consequences for the psychological well-being of its users.

If you pledge to “vote blue no matter who,” promising Democrats your vote no matter who they nominate, what leverage will you ever have over the party? Once you give away your vote for nothing, how do you get any of what you want?

If the number of people who feel the same way as you grows large enough, eventually it becomes very politically expensive to ignore you. Your individual vote is worth very little. But if enough of you feel the same way - well, you can do things like vote en masse for George W. Bush despite your Democratic registration and hand him the presidency. Or you might eventually get the Democrats to implement a policy agenda that broadens their coalition and enables a 50-state strategy instead of piecing together coalitions of disparate groups that you hope turn out in sufficient numbers.

So here’s the question: once you’ve pledged your vote to a party in perpetuity without any qualifications and with zero expectation of getting anything in return… how do you make that party do what you want? You’ve already promised to give them the only thing they care about. Your vote’s already committed, so why on earth should they move in the direction of your values the slightest bit?

People love to say that there’s no other choice than a worse choice. But what if the Democrats and Republicans just keep getting worse in tandem? What if the Democrats remain one inch better than the Republicans, forever? How does actual progress happen? How do you get an actually-good option, instead of just “better than the Republicans,” which is the lowest of low bars? I have no idea. I don’t think the people who insist on “vote blue no matter who” have any idea, either.

I’m prepared for these questions to have answers that I don’t like. They do however strike me as very sensible questions, and yet Democrats often react to them with anger. And if we’re going to be in the business of condescending to each other, allow me to point out that for all of the post-2016 election recriminations the Democratic party has still not done essential work in figuring out what went wrong, which of its fundamental assumptions about politics had led it astray, and whether it really benefits them to treat left-wing voters with such unbridled aggression.

Hillary Clinton was a uniquely bad candidate who earned the nomination thanks to a massive amount of insider advantage, which she received because it was “her turn.”

If leftists voting third party amounts to support for Trump on consequentialist grounds, doesn’t voting and advocating for Hillary Clinton also amount to support for Trump on the exact same grounds?

Haptic sensations feel rewarding, so users feel compelled to repeat these actions.What's the optimal length for vibrations? Try 400ms

But what if you sell products on desktop?Instead of using vibrations, try animating products upon selection. Move items into the basketShake from side to sideGrow and shrink

In an online grocery store, customers bought more items when they felt vibrations while adding items to their cart (Hampton & Hildebrand, 2021).

Classical Conditioning. Vibrations often co-occur with social messages. Therefore, vibrations feel good because these sensations have been frequently paired with hits of dopamine (Hampton & Hildebrand, 2021).Perceived Ownership. Vibrations mimic touch, as if you are physically touching an item on your device. And touch is key to ownership (Li, Cowan, Yazdanparast, & Ansell, 2024; Peck, Barger, & Webb, 2013).

People are taking issue with the claim that media apparatuses are controlled by Capital, but its literally true. The profit motive requires any media source to optimize based on what is profitable while also handing over editorial control to the owners of these media companies.If the main sponsor of a small town paper does something egregious, is it in the paper's interest to report on that if it means losing their funding? Of course not. That is the mechanism for control of media. Like social media censorship for ad placement, any media falls victim to the preferences of their patrons.

The language issues are indicative of the bigger problem facing the AI Pin, ChatGPT, and frankly, every other AI product out there: you can’t see how it works, so it’s impossible to figure out how to use it. AI boosters say that’s the point, that the tech just works and you shouldn’t have to know how to use it, but oh boy, is that not the world we live in. Meanwhile, our phones are constant feedback machines — colored buttons telling us what to tap, instant activity every time we touch or pinch or scroll. You can see your options and what happens when you pick one. With AI, you don’t get any of that. Using the AI Pin feels like wishing on a star: you just close your eyes and hope for the best. Most of the time, nothing happens.

I think the newest comfort is not exactly a relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord but the desire for routine, structure, rules, and the quiet, wholesome aesthetic of being church goers.

I really appreciate your input; there's a difference between Christianity and Churchianity. Hard to articulate, but can be felt quite obviously once you're in the faith

Design Engineers tend to work on products and systems that involve adapting and using complex scientific and mathematical techniques. In essence, they work on high technical challenges that requires strong design consideration

tech has a tendency to consolidate roles. Interaction Designers, UX Designers, UI Designers, and Visual Designers became Product Designers. Graphic Designers, Illustrators, Communications Designers, and Marketing Designers became Brand Designers.

Design Engineers have deep knowledge in technological systems while scaling interface quality. They naturally fit in design crit or reviewing code with engineering.

three core areas Design Engineering is the top candidate for leading: product architecture, design infrastructure, and 0-1 R&D.

Design Engineers have the right skills to explore aspects such as information architecture of a product and also understand the technical logic of how such things function.

contributing to component libraries, building internal tools to increase efficiency, or prototyping new patterns and interactions to inform the future of their software.

When you’re dealing with an interaction with a Language Server Protocol (LSP) or layout engine for a site builder, you have to build the prototype in code.

Exploring new product directions can be a need for an early stage company needing to pivot in direction or an established company looking for new growth opportunities.

It’s uncertain if every company needs a Design Engineer. However, I am confident authoring environments or work with complex interactions/ data need Design Engineers. Snap, Retool, Replit, Uber, Square, Open AI, and The Browser Company are a few examples of companies that have Design Engineers on their software teams.

The New Yorker contains empty frames that can be filled by whatever a series of unknown adtech companies decide is the best fit for me based on the slice of my browsing history they collect, like little spies with snippets of information. If it were a direct partnership to share advertising slots, at least we could imply that a reader of both may see them as similarly trustworthy organizations, given that they read both. But this is not a decision between the New Yorker and the Times. There may be a dozen other companies involved in selecting the ad, most of which a typical user has never heard of. How much do you, reader, trust Adara, Dataxu, GumGum, MadHive, Operative, SRAX, Strossle, TelMar, or Vertoz?

As important as it is for users to confirm who is collecting their data and for what purpose, it is more important that there are limits on the use and distribution of collected information. This sea of data is simply too much to keep track of.

Bloomberg reporters are evaluated and receive bonuses tied to reporting market-moving news. They’re incentivized financially to make mountains out of molehills, and craters out of divots, to maximize the immediate effect of their reporting on stock prices. And Bloomberg appends these stock price movements right there in their reports, to drive home the notion that Bloomberg publishes market-moving news, so maybe you too should spend over $2,000 per month on a Bloomberg Terminal so that you can receive news reports from Bloomberg minutes before the general public, and buy, sell, and short stocks based on that news

kjellsbells 33 minutes ago | next [–] I've often wondered if the traditions around warfare that we read about in ancient classics like the Iliad were intended to reduce PTSD. For example, after every military action, there are always games and feasts, with a lot of communal time with fellow survivors and some "play re-enactment" like boxing matches or running races. The soldiers never, ever just demobilize and go home to their homesteads. Mental phenomena like disturbing dreams are taken seriously (albeit through the lens of the religious practice of the time) and openly discussed.

when they aren’t hallucinating, what they’re capable of is still impressive, though it’s a bit like watching a dog walk around on two legs — fun, but not exactly an efficient way to get around.

It was my brother, the lawyer, who pointed out that what I had experienced sounded a lot like a coerced confession. “I read enough transcripts of bad interrogations in law school to understand that anyone can be convinced that they have a very narrow set of terrible options,” he said. When I posed this theory to Saul Kassin, a psychology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who studies coerced confessions, he agreed.

“If someone is trying to get you to be compliant, they do it incrementally, in a series of small steps that take you farther and farther from what you know to be true,” he said. “It’s not about breaking the will. They were altering the sense of reality.” And when you haven’t done anything wrong, the risk of cooperating feels minimal, he added. An innocent person thinks everything will get sorted out. It also mattered that I was kept on the phone for so long. People start to break down cognitively after a few hours of interrogation. “At that point, they’re not thinking straight. They feel the need to put an end to the situation at all costs,” Kassin said.