History, sort of
-
Look to the rigging
I spent many years paying fairly rudimentary attention to “the economy.” It was never an academic subject that interested me, and a lot of what I skimmed by and about economists seemed to me poorly reasoned nonsense. People studying and opining about the subject seemed to me to be particularly prone to directed reasoning; they… Continue reading
-
Ocean’s 128GB
Wired magazine reports on thefts of “hardware destined for AI data centers” that are right out of scenes from action movies. Car chases, accidents intentionally induced, cargo trucks disappearing. It’s all predictable, I suppose, given that there’s a new commodity that’s very valuable and in short supply. But what I’m thinking about, also partly from… Continue reading
-
How much is that doggie in the window?
How Much is That Doggie in the Window? was a hit song back in 1953. It was partly about window shopping, which was a thing back in the days of “departments stores” located on city streets. They typically had large plate-glass windows with elaborate displays of all their most desirable goods. Macys in New York… Continue reading
-
Sometimes it’s not an improvement
Digital technology, and indeed technology in general, seems like it moves in cycles of usability and utility. I’m not sure whether the cycles apply equally to every user, or if it depends on the features you, as a specific user, find most helpful. Printers connected to personal computers are one example. Long ago it could… Continue reading
-
Screens and mirrors
The year is 2063 and you were never interesting, writes lizleatrice. It’s a story about a person who would be 33 this year. This is about the age when screen time with social media “fills the dead spaces in your life.” Didn’t notice it at the time, of course, and although the narrator observes it,… Continue reading
-
Juneteenth
Today is Juneteenth. Not everybody knows that the official title is Juneteenth National Independence Day. It’s the holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the US. Slavery was declared over by Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, but it took another two and a half years for the traitorous slavers to be defeated. That… Continue reading
-
Commode-Door
Back in the day — way way back in the day — personal computers were diverse and came with communities of fellow users of whatever brand you had. And of course you would tease those other folks by making fun of their brand. If you had a TRS-80, you’d call Commodore systems “commode-doors.” Commodore users… Continue reading
-
The mythos mode and the logos mode
Another deeply thoughtful essay this morning from Om Malik. You should read it! Malik begins by wondering why Anthropic called its new model Mythos. To even wonder about that, you have to understand some things about history, literature, and philosophy. I won’t explain Malik’s inquiry; that’s what his essay does brilliantly. It’s another example of… Continue reading
-
The great human document
Another idea from Jaron Lanier: large language model software systems are not artificial intelligence. A large language model is one enormous document comprised of contributions from countless people. It’s “something like a version of Wikipedia that includes much more data, mashed together using statistics.” It “can be thought of as illuminating previously hidden concordances between… Continue reading
-
Data Dignity and Xanadu
Jaron Lanier is always interesting to listen to or read. Just this week he was a guest on Neil Degrasse Tyson’s Startalk. The discussion turned to AI (in its current form), and Lanier brought up his notion of data dignity. This hasn’t gotten much attention, as far as I can tell. According to Lanier, the… Continue reading
About Me
I’m Pete Harbeson, a writer (among other things) located near Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to writing my own content, I’ve learned to translate for my loquacious and opinionated pup Chocolate Bossypaws. No surprise, she mostly speaks in doggerel. You can find her contributions tagged with Chocolatiana.
Check out my newsletter, Artisanal Scribbles, where I’m grappling with writing, authentic human authorship, integrity, and the craft of beauty in the AI age. You can also find some of my old software projects at GitHub. Nothing very impressive. I mostly wrote tiny utilities in Python and shell scripts. I’m mostly retired from coding nowadays.
I find myself suddenly de-corporatized (their choice, not mine). To help keep the lights on, buy me a coffee!
Recent Posts
- Where does power reside
- Can’t keep a secret?
- Look to the rigging
- Ocean’s 128GB
- How much is that doggie in the window?
Categories
Artificial Intelligence
Chocolatiana
Essays
History, sort of
Immorality
Incompetence
Quotations
Resistance
Stories
Tales from the Forest
Technicalities
Tragedy
Unanticipated Consequences