| website | https://tommorris.org/ |
We’re at the “Long Island Iced Tea renaming itself Long Blockchain” stage of AI nonsense. That went great after all, if you ignore the stock getting delisted from the NASDAQ and multiple convictions for insider trading.
Age verification is going great.
One bit of Mozilla gave another bit of Mozilla money in order to make a new shiny AI thing.
Why, yes, that is money they could have spent on Firefox—a piece of software people actually use—but that's boring and doesn't look as good on someone's CV as a new shiny AI thing, so a new shiny AI thing is what you get.
The same politicians who have decided AI is the future and have bet the entire economy on building some data centres in Wales will definitely meaningfully regulate Big Tech.
If you believe that, let me share that Zoopla listing I saw for the Brooklyn Bridge.
If you buy a chainsaw or a bicycle or a power drill, and you don’t spend time learning how to operate it properly, harm may come to you. If you give your child a chainsaw or a bicycle or a power drill without imparting said understanding, great harm may come to them too.
Somehow we’ve decided computers are different and this is a problem we need the government to fix by breaking computers for people who do know how to use them.
Sigh, thanks to AI scrapers, a site I use frequently has just implemented methods to block anyone from programatically retrieving data from them.
My little script that gets data from it to format citations doesn't work anymore (without spinning up a proper browser using something like Selenium).
The open web has to take defensive measures against AI parasites and causes collateral damage to legitimate, respectful users in the process.
If you went to the French Open and lost nine out of ten matches, people may conclude you aren't gonna be the next Djokovic or Federer.
If you won one election by fluke, then flamed out in the next nine, people might suggest other vocations than politics.
If you passed one GCSE and failed the other nine you were sitting, school teachers are likely to suggest a less academic route might suit you better.
The more I think about it, the stranger the whole venture capital model becomes.
Charlie Stross
i’m The Spinch, Baby!