Charles Stross, the author ( @cstross ), posted a new blog entry on why high-level executives at companies are pushing "AI" use so strongly onto their workers, even though empirical studies show negative productivity gains:

https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2025/12/barnums-law-of-ceos.html

This may be more or less implied by what he wrote, but I would add that high-level executives aren't as likely to see the "this thing generated an incorrect answer / solution" aspect of "AI" use because being empirically correct is not as important to the things a high-level executive does. It's more important that they make decisions quickly and get things moving rather than making the correct decisions. [1]

Less charitably, top executives can't tell the "AI" is giving wrong answers, because they don't know the right answers.

[1] Of course it would be best for all if they could make the correct decision quickly, but you can't have everything. Where would you keep it?

#AI #LLM #CharlesStross #CharlieStross #executive #CEO #decision #answer #WrongAnswer #wat #GeorgeCarlin

#SF #SciFi #LaundryFiles #CharlieStross

Last night I decided to rectify a gap in my fiction consumption and checked out “The Atrocity Archives” by Charlie Stross. I have been working in the high-tech industry since the mid-nineties, so I am absolutely loving all the references to tech gear from the era.

The main characters (Bob and Mo) are well-written and are generally decent people so far (I’m halfway through) and I’m looking forward to what happens next!

"I mean, they're what, a ten-million-neuron network hooked up to a syntax engine and a crappy knowledge base? What kind of basis for intelligence is that?"

#CharlieStross #Accelerando #2005

Every single time I hear of some government being idiotic and shutting down #internet infrastructure, I'm reminded of the @cstross and @pluralistic #Unwirer story.

(I read it in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless:_The_Essential_Charles_Stross anthology, though it's also present in another.)

#networking #network #mesh #fiction #Doctorow #CoryDoctorow #CharlieStross

Taken this day, 2017, @cstross , Jo Walton & @amendlocke
at @edbookfest
https://www.flickr.com/photos/woolamaloo_gazette/35780953804/

#Edinburgh #Edimbourg #books #livres #photography #JoWalton #CharlieStross #KenMacLeod #ScienceFiction #EdinburghInternationalBookFestival #EIBF #author

Don't know if #CharlieStross has made it into Toot-World, but his stuff is very much worth reading. He is a sensational #ScienceFiction writer who writes a blog with excellent insights into today's global affairs

https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2022/11/decision-fatigue.html