The author confesses a persistent sadness triggered by rapid AI advances, despite being well-positioned to benefit from them. Nights spent watching peers chase high-paying roles at big AI firms provoke a sense of loss: craft, control, creativity. Prompting Codex or Claude for a living feels like voluntary obsolescence, evoked by a Chaplin-in-Modern-Times image of humans swallowed by machines. Startups that once rewarded technical craft now appear to be “AI startups” anyone can emulate with a prompt, and future models like GPT-7 promise to widen that gap. The writer also objects to the cultural effects: AI-generated art and music becoming dominant aesthetics, verified accounts and bots flooding Twitter/X with meaningless replies, and companies like SpaceX/Xai/Grok failing to stop the spam. After billions spent on AI, everyday apps look unchanged apart from chatbot buttons, which heightens the frustration.
Still, the author finds reasons for hope and a path forward. Institutions can be rebuilt; technological turbulence often leads to clearer roles for tools and humans. Painful industry shifts are expected and might be the corrective needed to restore meaningful work and human-centered craft. The writer longs for an industry that makes sense rather than one that sells nothing to nobody for huge sums, and imagines a satisfying reckoning - a bubble burst that would create space for durable, sensible practices and professions.
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Nipples are proposed as the most intuitive interface for human interaction due to their natural and instinctive qualities. The discussion explores designing technology that aligns with innate human behaviors and biological features. (greenend.org.uk)
Leaving a 15-year career in tech, including almost 11 years at one company, the author is shifting focus to personal growth and new life pursuits. They highlight their community involvement, professional development, and the importance of personal fulfillment beyond work. (hey.georgie.nu)
Dutch computer museums offer diverse experiences, from interactive collections of 1980s computers to large warehouses of vintage machines and a barn with 1970s digital equipment. These regional museums showcase unique artifacts and local computing history outside of America. (aresluna.org)
Dependence on large language models is eroding critical thinking, as many rely on AI for writing and decision-making, mistaking AI outputs for real judgment. This trend risks making humans passive and losing essential cognitive skills, raising concerns about a future where we no longer exercise independent thought. (yusufaytas.com)
The Internet Archive’s DLARC collections celebrate over 100 years of student radio history, highlighting early college radio clubs and broadcasts from Harvard, Dartmouth, and Milwaukee School of Engineering. These materials include historical documents, station licenses, and recordings that trace the development of college radio from amateur experiments to campus broadcasting. (blog.archive.org)
Chinese social media is highly curated and culturally distinct from Western platforms, with a focus on face and social reputation. Chinese nationalism is rooted in collective insecurity stemming from historical humiliation and perceived Western dominance. (lesswrong.com)
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