I’m obviously a tiny, insignificant data point as a solo freelance dev, but I watch this space closely and I canceled my Claude Code subscription today.
That chatbot you're interacting with is not your friend. I take it as a fact (assumption? axiom?) that it can never be your friend. A friend is a human - animals, in some sense, can be friends - who has your best interests at heart. But in fact, that chatbot "is" a megacorp whose interests certainly aren't your interests - often, their interests are at odds with your interests.
Google works hard with branding and marketing to make people feel good about using their products. But, at the end of the day, it's reasonably easy to recognize that when you use their products, you are interacting with a megacorp.
Chatbots blur that line, and there is a huge incentive for the megacorps to make me feel like I'm interacting with a safe, trusted "friend" or even mentor. But... I'm not. In the end, it will always be me interacting with Microsoft or OpenAI or Google or whoever.
There are laws, and then there is culture. The laws for AI and surveillance capitalism need to be in place, and we need lawmakers who are informed and who are advocates for the regular people who need to be protected. But we also need to shift culture around technology use. Just like social customs have come in that put guard rails around smartphone usage, we need to establish social customs around AI.
AI is a super helpful tool, but it should never be treated as a human friend. It might trick us into thinking that its a friend, but it can never be or become a friend.
I think the biggest problem with chatbots is the constant effort to anthropomorphize them. Even seasoned software developers who know better fall into acting like they are interacting with a human.
But a llm is not a human, and I think OpenAI and all the others should make it clear that you are NOT talking to a human. Repeatedly.
I think if society were trained to treat AI as NOT human, things would be better.
The fact that both offer a subscription is not ironic - it simply highlights the central point. In the end, those paying a subscription for thebaffler.com or for salesforce.com are paying for something very similar: they are paying for words and ideas.
People think that building a software program is like building a house. And, I grant, in some ways it is. But in the end, the customer is not paying for anything tangible. He's paying for words and ideas.
I got one of those too, and I got it because I didn’t want to worry about this kind of garbage from HP. It’s also a bonus that I haven’t had to refill the ink in a LONG time.
But oh my. The quality of the printing is terrible.
My daughter has a rare genetic disorder, cardiofaciocutaneous syndrome (CFC), and it was not until 2 years in that we were able to get a diagnosis after a whole gene sequence. It was game-changing to get the diagnosis, because it connected a to a community and to doctors who could help.
This is your big mistake: there is no “adding” authority. Authority is always there. I have started to think of it like the conservation of energy: it changes forms, but you can never get rid of it.
No there is consensus, and it is real. But the hierarchies within that group (based on sex, ability, wealth, knowledge, etc) are also there and are also in play.
I'm not sure we can have it both ways. In other words, I'm growing in my conviction that freedom and privacy on the web require increased balkanization.
Neil Postman (of whom I'm a big fan, to put my cards on the table) wrote very helpfully about the concept of "filters" (that may not be his word) in Technopoly, and I've been thinking about the concept a lot ever since. Certain things are inadmissable in court, and that is true because otherwise you'll just have bedlam. The analogy doesn't hold perfectly, but the same thing is true of other situations where people gather together to communicate, whether in person or online.
The other thing that's required to avoid total chaos is authority, and I think it's a common trait to be dismissive of the value and purpose of authority in this context. People have been dismissive about authority since, uh, forever, but I think there's something about the promise of the internet that makes people think we have finally arrived at the point where it is unnecessary. (Think blockchains and crypto, for instance.) But it's not.
The sooner we see that authority isn't a bug but a feature and begin to build for it in our tech tools, the better.
Lightpaper looks like a fantastic markdown editor! But the landing page makes me feel like it isn't getting much love from the developers. The copyright notice at the bottom, for instance, says 2019.
Keep in mind that every culture has blasphemy laws. What you're seeing here is not the removal of blasphemy laws, but the culture's switch from one god to another.
I really love Fastmail, but shared contacts have never seemed to work with the default Mac contacts app. According to Fastmail support as of a few years ago, the default Mac contacts app cant handle multiple address books (shared and personal) from the same account. Not Fastmail’s fault, but has anyone else had this trouble?
So, AFAICT, Hustle provides a service that's nearly as bad as robocalls. From their front page: "Hustle works because people read and respond to texts—and to communication that feels more human." So it's a bait and switch, just like a robocall: you contact me in a way that makes you feel personal, approachable and reasonable to me so that you can gain my attention.
Look, try to see this from my perspective. Without saying anything about the honor and motives of those behind Hustle, it's like I'm being attacked from all sides - Facebook, Robocalls, and now Hustle - to gain my attention. This has always been the case, perhaps, but our modern technology – coupled with a knowledge of human psychology – is a powerful tool (weapon?) for gaining access.
Here's an idea: I don't want to be assaulted all the time via the always-on electronic device I have in my pocket!
I still want to have access whenever I want it. Maybe I can't have it both ways?
I’ve been thinking about Stallman and Free Software recently, and there’s another point that doesn’t seem to get much air time. Ever since the Snowden revelations, we’ve been woke to the fact that “they” are collecting an enormous amount of infortmation about us. We’ve also learned since then that “they” include both state and non-state actors. Correct me if I’m wrong, but if you use a machine with even one small piece of non-free software, then you always have a “black box” running on your computer, with no idea what it’s doing. “They” could be using that black box to run their instructions on your computer. And there is nothing you can do about it. You are required to trust the company you bought it from that it isn’t doing something you don’t like.
To head off an objection, I realize that the fraction of the worlds population that can read code is minuscule. And so, just like I have to trust my mechanic with my car, I’d have to pay someone else to review the code and trust their report. So trust would still be necessary, even if every bit of software running on your computer was free. But, I’d have a much greater ability to decide who I trust.
I don’t really see a way around my basic point: if you have non-free software running on your computer, it could be doing anything. Why should we accept that as the status quo? It’s one of the most compelling reasons I’ve seen for advocating and using Free Software.
I love open source software, I hate Facebook and I dislike twitter. People in my community want to know what I think about technology, and I’m strongly inclined to recommend stuff that isn’t FB, Google, Apple, etc.
But a mastodon “tweet” is called a “toot”? Honestly? Am I insane? Is it just in the USA that that means “fart”? It truly is spectacularly bad. Branding and naming matters, and it’s not shareholders that care. Users care.
MBP-quality trackpads and MBP-equivalent battery life. I can't understand why battery life isn't higher on the list of "must haves" for people who want a nice linux laptop.