Nonfiction

“The first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control.” I. J. Good, Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine (1965)1 Sixty years on, Good’s footnote has become the operating assumption of three of the world’s most capitalised research labs. What was once a thought experiment for cyberneticists in Hawaii is, by 2026, a quarterly capex disclosure. The question is no longer whether such a machine will be built. The question is whether the race to build it will run faster than the institutions meant to govern it. ...

“To accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate with that system,” Martin Luther King Jr. once wrote. Today, as AI threatens to flood our information ecosystem with synthetic content, this warning resonates with new urgency. The question isn’t whether AI will replace journalism – it’s whether we’ll passively accept the degradation of our shared truth-seeking institutions. Let’s be clear: the fundamental role of journalism in democracy cannot be automated away. When Jürgen Habermas described the public sphere, he wasn’t envisioning a network of language models – he was describing the very human process of collective sense-making. This is why journalism, real journalism, will persist regardless of AI’s capabilities. ...

I have recently read Jaron Lanier’s newest book: Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now (2018). It makes some great arguments for those who are in a position to do so to remove themselves from social media platforms. As a result I am exporting my data off of Facebook and Google, Instagram, and moving everything to my own blog. I highly recommend the book and would love to encourage and help others to move to a platform that gives them full control of the content they publish and the content that they consume. ...

My Europeans friends often wonder how so many Americans can be so effing stupid. Trump is a result of decades of media distortion. Radio is the leading media consumption source and talk radio (in a commuter country) is skewed far far further to the right than even #FauxNews. #Propaganda works, folks! ...

#jaronlanier is right! #tenargumentsfordeletingyoursocialmediaaccountsrightnow #facebook #instagram #whatsapp #twitter

“Donald Trump’s presidency threatens much of what is good about this country.” Considering the content of this book, the investigation into Trump and his obstruction of justice, and the rumored pardoning of Scooter Libby who was himself convicted for obstruction, perjury and lying to investigators, any supporter or member of the GOP has got to ask themselves just exactly what level of criminality they are comfortable with. You don’t get a pass for merely liking GOP policies, because civic duty now requires collective action to support our system of government and the rule of law. The RNC has made its decision already. They are going to the mats against the Department of Justice. ...