AI

We, as humans, sometimes receive streams of tokens and produce tokens in response, forming words, sentences, lines of code ... but always with the ability to peek outside the stream and check in with ground-floor reality. We pause and consider: does this word really stand for the thing I intend it to stand for? Does this sentence capture the real... See more

Novel technologies like artificial intelligence or neurotechnology are expected to have social implications in the future. As they are in the early stages of development, it is challenging to identify potential negative impacts that they might have on society. Typically, assessing these effects relies on experts, and while this is essential, there... See more

The more I use language models, the more monstrous they seem to me. I don’t mean that in a partic­u­larly negative sense. Frankenstein’s monster is sad, but also amazing. Godzilla is a monster, and Godzilla rules.

Lawsuits from major publishers against Suno and Udio are not, as libertarian boosters, VCs and Tech Bros would say, an attack on innovation. They are a warning shot against a business model that turns creative labor into raw machine fuel under the pretense of fair use.

all of this information, plus your appearance and voice, are used to create a moving, talking version of yourself that sits in a little screen above the phone’s main screen. You summon it by pressing a square button on the side of the phone, then you ask it to do things.

Anyway, I don’t want to seem like I’m arguing that the internet of 2023 is “fine” or “healthy”--it’s obviously not. Rather, I’d like to make the case that the internet of 2010 (or wherever you would place the peak of “fun” internet) wasn’t particularly healthy or fine, either, and it’s easy to mistake a sense of ease and comfort under bad... See more