About messages
German philosopher Heidegger argued that technology is neither the machine nor the way people use that machine. Technology is the truth that the machine reveals about us and about the world around us (and how it conceals the parts of our lives that are hard to value). I worry that AI technology is showing that the average person is just lonely and ... See more
On Founding in the Age of AI
The experiment of social media was: build a virtual room, let everybody in, reward the people who scream that loudest, and then see what happens. The experiment of AI seems to be: build an interlocutor with specific ideology and élan, scale it infinitely across the Internet, and see what happens.
The Looming Social Crisis of AI Friends and Chatbot Therapists
Good enough has been keeping me up at night. Because good enough would likely mean that not enough people recognize what’s really being built—and what’s being sacrificed—until it’s too late. What if the real doomer scenario is that we pollute the internet and the planet, reorient our economy and leverage ourselves, outsource big chunks of our minds... See more
AI Is a Mass-Delusion Event
The Venn diagram – best experienced here – is a visual representation of the News Alchemists' vision: our journalism must create value for people and society to mean anything (the light blue circle on the left); and we also need to get people's attention and make money to support what we do (the purple circle on the right).
A question worth asking:
When there is so much on the web, it is easy to fall prey to the impression that this has been done before when you come up with an idea. When this happens, ask: ‘What is my take on this?’
When there is so much on the web, it is easy to fall prey to the impression that this has been done before when you come up with an idea. When this happens, ask: ‘What is my take on this?’
A writing example: when I look back in my notes I realize so much of what I write about today I was ruminating about 2-3 years ago. I always knew what I was going to say. I just didn’t have the tools, I didn’t have the maturity, I didn’t have the language or sensitivity to beauty to recognize what that was. So much of what I learned was latent, une... See more
Nix 🕊 • things that take time
Replicating taste with AI seems impossible because our real preferences hide in the shadows—we read without liking, enjoy without sharing. The platforms that know us best guard their data like dragons. And taste itself shapeshifts through lived experience: A chef's palate emerges from years of burnt soufflés and perfect reductions, from connecting ... See more
Has AI Gotten Good Enough to Predict My Taste? I Had to Know
Choose-your-own-reality governance is a threat to the most basic principles of liberal democracy. If economic statistics can be distorted, and climate data can be canceled, and vaccine analysis can be politicized, where exactly is the line? Transparency, trust, and public truths are essential to the functioning of liberal democracy. We’re all learn... See more
Trump, the BLS, and Our Age of Choose-Your-Own-Reality Governance
reverse strategy for using ChatGPT