If AI disappeared tomorrow, the only change in my life would be that google search suddenly got better again.
Ayo@darrylayo.bsky.social · 19h agoGuys like this don’t realize that they are the freak
Duncan Jones
@naracances.bsky.social
Duncan Jones was an archaeologist. He gave it up.
Ayo@darrylayo.bsky.social · 19h ago
As a reader, my enjoyment of your novel is the same whether it was dictated, typed on an Underwood Noiseless, keyed into a word processor, or scratched out with a fountain pen: nealstephenson.substack.com/p/writing-by... 5/
Writing by Hand is Good for your Brain - Here's how to do it
Because I am known to write using a fountain pen on paper, a number of people have pointed me to this post and its underlying research. I won’t rehash what is said in those sources, but the gist of it...
nealstephenson.substack.com
For writers worried that they won't be able to "prove" their work isn't Spicy Autocomplete--worry not. You thought about every choice and will be able to talk about those choices easily and clearly. Folks who used the slop machine didn't make choices and won't have anything to say about why
Neoclassical econ assumes rationality. The corollary of, "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" is "you're rich, so you must be very smart!" Thus, people assume that if powerful, well-compensated CEOs insist that "AI is changing everything," well then, *AI must be changing everything*. 1/
people should be taught situational awareness in schools: don't stop in the middle of a trail/sidewalk if others are around, have your money ready, don't walk abreast a path if you're a slow-ass group, pay attention to the stoplight, etc.
Zach Weinersmith@zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 10mo agoDo you have any extremely niche, but serious, ethical stances?
*Trojan historian watching as the Achaeans break down the gates* Wow, my civilization is undergoing a complex transformation from a heavily centralized and stratified administrative society to a more socially-fragmented modality of living in which material culture is dispersed amidst smaller sites.
NEW BLOG POST! Some thoughts on Christopher Nolan's adaptation of The Odyssey, the historical context of the Bronze Age Collapse, the Sea Peoples, and the legends of the Trojan War, and whether Nolan's movie is "historically accurate" or not, and what that even means.
Did Odysseus Cause the Bronze Age Collapse?
We were all set for The Odyssey to be our summer discourse. Battle lines had been drawn, takes had been prepared. Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s 8th century BCE epic poem was…
nathangoldwag.wordpress.com
Cities dismantled their tram networks to become “motor cities of the future”. The result? You could travel further within 30 mins via public transport in 1957 than you can in 2026. Cities are seeking billions to rebuild networks. Incredible piece of work this.
The Exchange@theexchangeleeds.bsky.social · 2w agoIf you stood on Briggate at 8am on a weekday in 1957, and stood there again in 2026, in which year could you reach more of the city in half an hour? Samuel Bancroft has crunched the numbers. Since the 1950s, Leeds has got bigger - but the city has effectively shrunk.
Quick thinking having a tablecloth handy. I didn’t even notice the twitching from that dead robot.
This is kind of an incredible website: Why your stuff stopped lasting, who profited, and what's still built right.
Worse on Purpose
The brands you trusted quietly gutted quality to protect margins. Investigative essays on corporate enshittification. Free newsletter.
worseonpurpose.com
Thinking about how Osprey, a publishing house almost entirely devoted to publishing military uniform/equipment fetish material disguised as dry but picture heavy non-fiction tomes, put out a book dismantling the right wing mythologization of Sparta with an absolute all-timer table of contents.
It is impressive that AI might actually scale *worse* than Blockchain.
Carl Quintanilla@carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 3w ago“.. I asked a few AI researchers whether they could name any other real-world software that scales so poorly. None of them could think of any. “.. By economic and engineering measures, generative AI might be the worst technology ever deployed.” @theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
We're mainly sharing the link to the rather more digestible blog post, but if you want to jump to the straight our AI report:
The Machines Are Coming For Your Masthead — AI Report — Bona Books
🤖📚 *Small Press Publishing in the Age of AI* Bona Books' research reveals the hidden risks of Generative AI in the slush pile. This report exposes how AI fraudsters infiltrate small presses and prov...
bona-books.com
Thank you so much for all of your happy birthday wishes. Honestly, I don’t really feel 100. I feel pretty good. I feel like I’m only 98!
Ford has rehired hundreds of senior engineers after replacing them with AI backfired and has cost the company billions of dollars. AI adoption is blamed for Ford being the most recalled automaker in the U.S. with 51 recalls covering over 11 million vehicles in the first half of 2026 alone.
"So, if I use ChatGPT you think less of me?" Yep. Hope this helps.
Me: its time to open up this pit! Construction Contractor: please, no
Hugely important story from Queensland where Indigenous people are being dropped from any positions of influence. This is just the start. www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06...
Qld minister tight-lipped about 'Project Invisibility' Indigenous sackings
Under the direction of Arts Minister John-Paul Langbroek, eight Indigenous directors have disappeared from the boards of south-east Queensland's cultural institutions.
abc.net.au
The number of dipshit writers thinking they are being clever or profound by interacting with AI and then writing about it is getting a bit much. Not a single one has been non-stupid. You sound pathetic. Just do not use it, full stop.
The problem with late capitalism is that eventually you run out of other people's money
‘Running out of money’: Kraft, McDonald’s, Whirlpool CEOs all issue same dire warning about US consumers. Get ready now
“We’re seeing negative cash flows in the lower-income brackets where they’re dipping into savings.”
finance.yahoo.com
This has been something I've been meaning to write for quite some time and the Homer contretemps gave it the opportunity. The thing I most wanted to draw out is that it isn't one fool on Twitter with a helmet, but a radicalization pipeline designed to lead antiquity-curious young men into fascism.
The Bulwark@thebulwark.com · 2mo ago"It’s unfortunate that almost none of the people behind these accounts know very much about the ancient world." Unfortunately, ignorance is not the only thing wrong with them. @bretdevereaux.bsky.social on Elon Musk's X and the fascist statue accounts: www.thebulwark.com/p/why-stone-...
"The only reason to have an LLM emit sentences like 'I understand' is to make it more appealing than a search engine and increase the likelihood that a user will return; that is, it’s another way of maximizing customer engagement." 1/2
No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious
Taken to its logical conclusion, this line of thinking is absurd—and damning.
theatlantic.com
Laptops don’t improve outcomes. iPads don’t improve outcomes. AI doesn’t improve outcomes. What improves outcomes? More and better trained teachers!! Smaller classrooms! We’ve KNOWN this FOREVER
This is why AGI isnt happening. Sense perception, movement, and memory are chemistries coupled to each other and all coupled to direct matter exchange with the environment, like a centrifugal governor. Nothing is representation, interpretation, “info processing”, or math.
Corey@kh0rish.bsky.social · 3mo agoWe understand a scene because we can distinguish between the molecules and electromagnetic radiation within it. We can do that because we create molecules that REACT differently to everything in it. No one feeds us “training data“ about all the matter and energy in the universe
it’s because LLMs have no relationship to the truth. LLMs do not and cannot think or evaluate or decide or understand anything. the only things LLMs do is make sentences that seem like sense-making sentences, by choosing the most statistically likely next word in their input data set. THAT IS ALL.
"Why are people so negative about the economy?" Consider this. There are two possibilities: 1) He's right and my livelihood is screwed. Maybe not 18 months but soon. 2) He's full of shit, it won't happen, and AI is a giant bubble that will crash the economy. Why would I feel good about either?
Here's the serious bit for anyone who'd rather skip the 4000 words of jokes
