The bit I enjoyed most, though, was the punchline at the end. “The irony”, wrote Claude, “is that by calling LLMs ‘artificial intelligence’, we’re not just mischaracterising what these systems do; we’re also impoverishing our understanding of what human intelligence actually is.
Refreshing, straightforward piece from yesterday’s Observer.
I’ve noticed a big uptick in followers on BlueSky in the days since the USA election. I do wonder if we are thinking this through. Moving from one silo to another might not be the best lesson learnt from X.
Why is joining Bluesky like buying an EV? | Memex 1.1 – John Naughton
So here’s the question. Here are two individuals who totally control two organisations – Facebook and X – that have had devastating impacts on the lives of some of their users (and in Facebook’s case, whole countries such as Myanmar), as well as polluting the public sphere and undermining democracy in the west. Why has neither been held accountable for the societal damage their organisations have wrought? The answer is simple: they have the impunity that their immense wealth provides.
John Naughton Our perverse respect for immense wealth allows Musk and Zuckerberg to run riot
The answer to many other questions too?
Second, companies rationalise these emissions by buying “Offsets”, which are the contemporary equivalent of the medieval indulgences that annoyed Martin Luther.
John Naughton
Memex 1.1 | John Naughton’s online diary is a great read, also a newsletter: Memex 1.1
