"I do not know why the conclusion that human-level AGI may be unattainable is troublesome for some people. What is wrong with humans having powers and talents no machine can have?" cacm.acm.org/opinion/taci...

"In my book I write, 'Can a bridge decide to collapse?' The whole “Oh no, our models went rogue” thing … When a bridge collapses, you don’t analyze why it decided to collapse. You ask, who is the person who built this bridge to be so flimsy?" www.wired.com/story/one-of...

One of AI’s Fiercest Critics Says All the Doom Talk Is ‘Meant to Distract Us’

Timnit Gebru argues that AI companies are stoking fears of extinction to avoid discussing actual harms, like autonomous weapons.

wired.com

(paywall) "The public reputation of the big AI companies is an absolute dumpster fire." www.ft.com/content/115c...

Fixing the AI industry’s PR problem

Doomers will say it’s hopeless but here are five ideas to put out the fire

ft.com

“The housing supply is too small... the difference right now, quite frankly, is it’s touching a population that’s not used to being poor,” she said. sfstandard.com/2026/08/08/s...

The $4,000 one bedroom apartment is here — and the hunt is brutal

When one bedroom apartments are $4000 and most inquiries go unanswered, the apartment search turns into a case of renter fatigue.

sfstandard.com

Jitter: "Small edits to such documents can sometimes shift Pangram’s score by a large amount — a problem known as ‘jitter’. " www.nature.com/articles/d41...

AI-detection tools have made huge leaps forward — how good are they?

Scientists and publishers are testing a new breed of software that promises impressive accuracy at spotting AI-written text.

nature.com

This reads like parody: "We’re introducing ChatGPT for Teens, an experience designed to help teens learn, think critically, deepen understanding, and use AI with confidence." openai.com/index/chatgp...

Introducing ChatGPT for Teens: Built for learning, backed by protections

ChatGPT for Teens helps teens learn, think critically, and use AI with confidence, with stronger built-in protections, healthy-use features, and additional controls for parents.

openai.com

"Friday night, once a central site of social activity, now looks like a typical weeknight. Saturday remains elevated but less so than before. Overall, time with friends has fallen by more than half." marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevo...

The End of Friday Nights with Friends - Marginal REVOLUTION

This study examines how Americans’ time with friends has changed over the week, focusing not on how much social interaction has declined but on when it has. Using American Time Use Survey data from 20...

marginalrevolution.com

You have to read the full blog post to appreciate this glimpse into our AI future! "The lateness continued, but Luna didn’t act; the policy she wrote had simply vanished from her memory." andonlabs.com/blog/ai-boss...

"At some of the fast-growing unicorns, ageism starts at age 30. It gets worse as you get older. As you approach 40, there are only a few roles people can gracefully age into." jowyang.beehiiv.com/p/the-techno...

The Technology Career Funnel

In tech, career options narrow every year. Manage your career deliberately.

jowyang.beehiiv.com

"realizing the promise of AI tutoring will require getting students to use it, not just giving them access." www.nber.org/papers/w3562...

One Click Away: AI Tutoring with Khanmigo in a Two-Year School Experiment

Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

nber.org

False equivalence: "It didn’t bother them that a food-distribution center came to Gilroy without their engagement, but now it bothers them that a data center is coming to Gilroy without them having the possibility of engagement," Mayor Greg Bozzo said. www.wsj.com/us-news/how-...

How Amazon Built a Data Center in a California Town Without Anyone Noticing

The company and Gilroy, Calif., officials spent years quietly negotiating a $2 billion project that few residents knew about until construction began. Now, locals are upset.

wsj.com

This is extremely good. So, so good.

Duke University Press@dukepress.bsky.social · last mo.

In "Content Machines," @sarahbrouillette.bsky.social considers how short-form, platform-based, and social media writing on digital mediums like Wattpad and TikTok has reshaped the modern reading and writing landscape. Read the intro for free now: buff.ly/Tip538L

In "Content Machines," @sarahbrouillette.bsky.social considers how short-form, platform-based, and social media writing on digital mediums like Wattpad and TikTok has reshaped the modern reading and writing landscape. Read the intro for free now: buff.ly/Tip538L

Very well paid ($157,000 - $200,000) for a book publishing job that's only partly about AI. www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/44...

"If you love an em dash the way I do, or you like flowy run-on sentences like I do, if you grew up reading Proust to let the words flow over you..., if you memorized sonnets so the iambic pentameter would soak into your bones, you’re gonna sound like a fucking bot." hughhowey.com/the-end-of-a...

The End of an Era - Hugh Howey

We knew this day would come. Some of us have known for decades, have been writing and pontificating about this since Ken Jennings lost at Jeopardy and Kasparov lost at chess. The writing was on the wa...

hughhowey.com

New #WriterBeware blog post: The AALA has made major revisions to its Canon of Ethics. What's changed, where I think the changes fall short, and questions about the future of the agent profession raised by the issues the Canon has been revised to address writerbeware.blog/2026/07/31/t...

The AALA Makes Significant Updates to Its Canon of Ethics - Writer Beware

For the second time in four years, the Association of American Literary Agents (AALA) has updated its Canon of Ethics. The last time, in 2022, the major changes related to packaging and producer fees ...

writerbeware.blog

Sorry I don’t think I have the time to do that. I also think you are advocating for use of AI to write books & morally that’s not okay with me so I can’t engage further. In terms of ebooks all these books are lawfully acquired. Most books are Kindle Unlimited so you can access full text at 11$/month

I feel if you understand academic fair use once you can access a book you can screenshot and do AI detection. We have done this through months using crowdworkers so its pretty unethical you suggest there were “other ways”

KU books are on average a lot cheaper and not 6.99$

If you read the paper you know several of them were KU. Anyway good luck trying to use AI to write and publish. Don’t expect me to conform to your ethics and don’t criticize our paper just because we our world view doesn’t align with yours. If there are technical issues, happy to chat

I've posted an extensive review of Tuhin Chakrabarty et al. “Generative AI floods and dilutes the market for books.” The methodology appears solid, but I think that they miss the mark. thefutureofpublishing.com/2026/07/is-a...

Is AI flooding the market for books, and diluting their value? — Thad McIlroy - Future Of Publishing

There’s a new scholarly paper available, published July 22, 2026, titled “Generative AI floods and dilutes the market for books.” It might have remained obscure, as academic papers often do, except th...

thefutureofpublishing.com

“You can say, This probably isn’t a publisher, this is three LLMs in a trench coat,” Tamblyn said. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/28/b...

How A.I. Books Sneak Their Way Into Stores

Big booksellers are taking different approaches to dealing with the deluge of titles generated by artificial intelligence.

nytimes.com

"Being bookish is now sexy, we’re told." www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

The rise of the ‘hot literati’: how reading became sexy

Celebrities are hosting literary clubs and designers are launching products emblazoned with the classics – but does reading’s trendy turn have a darker side?

theguardian.com

The world is complex and breathtaking, but life is short — way too short to read Atlantic articles I can tell at a glance are useless clickbait.

I see that the latest listing of what constitutes a genre, via Amazon, includes "Epistolary", "Immigration" and "Sea Stories." www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers...

End of the month nl post has a bunch of bangers on AI and fiction, two by @mariaa.bsky.social in fact 😀. Also the usual web toys and games, some AI video contest winner links, Krea 2 LoRAs, and some fun games things. open.substack.com/pub/arnicas/...

TITAA #80: Fitting a Hot Manifold

Proc & AI Gen Scenery - AI Fiction Findings - Krea 2 LoRAs - AI Video Winners

open.substack.com

55,000 copies of the French edition of 'Heated Rivalry' are being pulped, because of a typo -- two 't's in 'Heatted' on the spine of the book. rhollick.wordpress.com/2026/06/19/w...

Waste

Photo: Actualitté Publishing Perspectives reports that 55,000 copies of the French edition of Heated Rivalry are being pulped. The book is described rather charmingly at Actualitté as a “saga…

rhollick.wordpress.com

@joshgans.bsky.social "Predictably, this led to every single country other than the US saying that it had to have its own sovereign AI. Nice, I’d like my own sovereign AI too, along with a pony." joshuagans.substack.com/p/the-big-mess

The Big Mess

Straight out of Magic

joshuagans.substack.com

“The fox can’t guard the henhouse,” said DeVaan, who has studied the donations of the ultra-rich. “They can’t be responsible for their own regulation or for their own definition of what their altruistic mandate is....” apnews.com/article/anth...

Anthropic announces 'Claude Corps' to teach nonprofits to use AI more effectively

Anthropic will donate $150 million to launch a fellowship program called Claude Corps that plans to help nonprofits effectively use artificial intelligence by embedding 1,000 trained fellows in variou...

apnews.com

Note within the first comments, from Seth Godin, "We agree, Tim. Well said. (and I’m seeing the same data)" tim.blog/2026/06/12/h...

Has AI Already Killed How-To Nonfiction? Sales Trends, My Personal Data, and What It Might Mean for the Future - The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss

My head has been spinning after getting a spreadsheet roughly a week ago. Before we dive into my dirty laundry, let’s state the obvious: millions of people have a vague sense that AI is changing thing...

tim.blog