On the one hand, Google’s still the dominant search engine, having used every dirty trick in the book to reach that position and maintain it. If you aren’t on Google, you arguably might as well not exist.

On the other hand, Google’s already under heavy scrutiny since being officially declared an illegal monopoly, and the public is pissed with how Google’s declined in search quality - and deliberately so.

Part of me says we’re about to see some truly wild shit go down.

But bullshit like trying to throw data at an LLM is going to negatively impact the investment and adoption of the actual useful shit.

I vaguely recall hearing how Theranos’ fraud getting revealed set back the field of bloodwork a fair bit - seems we may be seeing history repeat itself.

Ran across an impressively strong sneer whilst looking through Baldur Bjarnason’s link list for the week:

A JUST TRANSITION MEANS RESISTING A.I. (from Scottish Left Review)

Gonna copy-paste the quote Baldur used because god damn:

AI isn’t simply a problematic technology but an apparatus that is shaped by the injustices of our existing social relations and which, in turn, reshapes and intensifies them.

Also got an interesting Tweet from Ed Zitron:

This is entirely my gut instinct, but there is boiling resentment against big tech. Something is shifting, and it’s shifting violently, both in the general public and the media. Blood in the water. People are ready for a change.

I’ve had that same gut instinct before - I’ve kinda had it since Baldur noted tech’s disconnect from the public a month ago. Feels like we’re entering an era where working in tech is treated as a red flag, a sign you’re a money-hungry asshole willing to hurt innocent people to make a quick buck.

In other news, Procreate put out a damn good sneer aimed at AI art:

Creativity is made, not generated.

Generative AI is ripping the humanity out of things. Built on a foundation of theft, the technology is steering us toward a barren future. We think machine learning is a compelling technology with a lot of merit, but the path generative AI is on is wrong for us.

We’re here for the humans. We’re not chasing a technology that is a moral threat to our greatest jewel: human creativity. In this technological rush, this might make us an exception or seem at risk of being left behind. But we see this road less travelled as the more exciting and fruitful one for our community.

Unsurprisingly, they’re getting a standing ovation from artists for doing the right thing.

I dunno, after 4 years of happily proclaiming that this is the thing we’re going to sell, why have these guys never considered that fraud is bad, actually. Is fully automated luxury gay space fraud really so enticing?

It is if you expect to make an absolute crapload of money off of it and have absolutely zero soul. And, well, its the AI industry - anyone with a soul probably left a couple years ago.

Something you always have to consider, even if it is a shitty doctor for our standards, it might still be better than no doctor.

No doctor means your shit doesn’t get treated. A false doctor (e.g. alternative medicine) gives you a false sense of hope at best and ruins your health at worst.

I’d be happy to see it, this place could do have a notawfulmusic sub

In other news, someone caught a former NFT artist using AI. Not shocked in the slightest an NFT grifter jumped on the AI train.

Witnessed an AI doomer freaking out over a16z trying to deep-six SB1047.

Seems like the “AI doom” criti-hype is starting to become a bit of an albatross around the industry’s neck.

Look on the bright side - we at least got some potential sci-fi gadgets out of it.

The temporal echo chamber sounds like the seed of a good story - you could really get some character analysis out of it if used well.

…I mean yeah that’s a pretty obvious use case - if Elon’s given you a checkmark against your will, might as well use the benefits to cause him as much grief as possible.

(Also, loved your series on Devs - any idea when the final part’s gonna release? Seems its gotten hit with some major delays.)

Update: Whilst the the story’s veracity remains unconfirmed as of this writing, it has gone on to become a shitshow for the AI industry anyways - turns out the story got posted on Twitter and proceeded to go viral.

Assuming its fabricated, I suspect OP took their cues from this 404 Media report made a year ago, which warned about the flood of ChatGPT-generated mycology books and their potentially fatal effects.

As for people believing it, I’m not shocked - the AI bubble has caused widespread harm to basically every aspect of society, and the AI industry is viewed (rightfully so, I’d say) as having willingly caused said harm by developing and releasing AI systems, and as utterly unrepentant about it.

Additionally, those who use AI are viewed (once again, rightfully so) as unrepentant scumbags of the highest order, entirely willing to defraud and hurt others to make a quick buck.

With both those in mind, I wouldn’t blame anyone for immediately believing it.

You’re not wrong. Precisely how this AI debacle will strengthen copyright I don’t know, but I fully anticipate it will be strengthened.

It hasn’t been hashed out in court yet, but I suspect AI mickey will be considered copyright infringement, rather than public domain.

Is it just that these AI programs need no skill at all?

That’s a major reason. That Grok’s complete lack of guardrails is openly touted as a feature is another.

I’ve already seen people go absolutely fucking crazy with this - from people posting trans-supportive Muskrat pictures to people making fucked-up images with Nintendo/Disney characters, the utter lack of guardrails has led to predictable chaos.

Between the cost of running an LLM and the potential lawsuits this can unleash, part of me suspects this might end up being what ultimately does in Twitter.

Oh, that is beautiful to hear.

There’s gonna be laws passed as a result of this - calling it right now.

If this turns out to be real, I suspect its gonna be a major shitshow - not only for the publisher, but for the AI industry as a whole.

For the publisher, they’re gonna be lambasted for endangering people’s lives for a quick AI-printed buck.

For AI, its gonna be yet another indictment of an industry that’s seen fit to put technology, profits, basically everything over human lives - whether in the “AI Safety” criti-hype which implicitly suggests culpability for bringing about an apocalypse straight out of sci-fi, or in the myriad ways they are making the world worse right now.

I dunno, I know that legally we don’t know which way this is going to go, because the ai people presumably have very good lawyers

You’re not wrong on the AI corps having good lawyers, but I suspect those lawyers don’t have much to work with:

• Pretty much every AI corp has been caught stealing from basically everyone (with basically everyone caught scraping without people’s knowledge or consent, and OpenAI, Perplexity, and Anthropic all caught scraping against people’s explicit wishes)

• Said data was used to create products which, either implicitly or [explicitly]((https://archive.is/jNhpN), produce counterfeits of the stolen artists’ work

• Said counterfeits are, in turn, destroying the artists’ ability to profit from their original work and discouraging them from sharing it freely

• And to cap things off, there’s solid evidence pointing to the defendants being completely unrepentant in their actions, whether that be Microsoft’s AI boss treating such theft as entirely acceptable or Mira Murati treating the job losses as an afterthought

If I were a betting man, I’d put my money on the trial being a bloodbath in the artists’ favour, and the resulting legal precedent being one which will likely kill generative AI as we know it.