so there's a company that makes AI that will call your elderly parent every day to check on them ...

... I was going to add, "if you can't be bothered" ...

... but I guess if I were to steel-man the argument of this AI's creator, the goal of the AI is to fill in on the days when, say, you're at work etc and can't

but honestly it still feels like this is gonna be used by people who can't be bothered

https://www.404media.co/i-tested-the-ai-that-calls-your-elderly-parents-if-you-cant-bothered/

I've been reading a lot about oracles and knowledge, and I've been reading a lot about social media and digital life, and then this morning's Convivial Society by @lmsacasas dropped neatly into that mix.

https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-waters-of-lethe-flow-from-our

»The enclosure of the commons is the name given to the centuries-long process by which lands available to the many were turned into a resource to be managed and extracted by the few. My claim is that structurally similar processes are unfolding with the aim of enclosing the human psyche and transforming it into a resource to be managed and extracted.« @lmsacasas

https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-enclosure-of-the-human-psyche

"We need a compelling account of silence, solitude, attention, disciplined engagement, well-considered restraint, vulnerability, and risk. But not for their own sake or for the sake of nebulously resisting the lure of digital technologies, and much less out of a misguided reactionary impulse. Rather, we must come to see these as the necessary skills and requisite virtues for the pursuit of our well-being and that of our neighbors."

@lmsacasas
über “dopamine culture.”

https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/desire-dopamine-and-the-internet

“Machines, pretending to be humans, talking to other machines that also pretend to be humans: I had not expected our technological future to be scripted by Samuel Beckett.”

My column on the “boring apocalypse” of large-language-model AI: https://clivethompson.medium.com/the-boring-apocalypse-of-todays-ai-6365345444a8

A “friend” link in case you’re not a Medium subscriber: https://clivethompson.medium.com/the-boring-apocalypse-of-todays-ai-6365345444a8?sk=d3fc1a0c86c558e0bf22dcfdbdcead52