Category: Tech
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Apocalyptic Myths And The Horrible Reality Of AI
A mythology of artificial super intelligence has dominated the conversation about AI since the 80s. Constant media coverage of AI as if it’s a dark and threatening abyss likely to usher in an apocalypse is impacting how AI is developed, clouding the discourse when people bring up real flaws in the current generation of AIs.
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How Gawker Media Once Kept Silicon Valley In Check
At one time, Valleywag part of Gawker served as a tattletale hall monitor for the startup community. But since Peter Thiel sued the publication out of existence, the startup world has run amok without media coverage until hundreds of millions of dollars are involved. That’s a problem for the entire ecosystem.
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Why Google Search Sucks And A Tribute To Neil Gaiman
Google grants access to information kings didn’t have 50 years before. I have consumed so much content, books, podcasts, movies, articles, songs, and possibly the Ph.D. thesis of a woman from Chesapeake. I cannot remember it all. Like most, I’ll occasionally use Google to find a specific but only half-recalled crumb of content. Increasingly I…
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AI-Generated Articles: A Party Trick With Dangerous Consequences
AI is far from the science fiction vision. But generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) AIs like ChatGPT are now mainstream. GPT processes a tremendous amount of existing text, essentially reading millions of articles and books, “learning” how to generate human-like writing. For an example of how it works and how far into general awareness the tech…
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Media Literacy: The Musk Emerald Mine & Andrew Tate’s Arrest
We will discuss Andrew Tate’s arrest and Elon Musk’s father’s emerald mine. But those are ancillary to the real story about how to navigate mainstream media. I’m Mason Pelt, and I’ll be your soyfaced-cuck or guide; I don’t care how you think of me. My travels in the weird corners of cyberspace have shown over…
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My Writing About Musk Isn’t About Musk
It seems like I’ve been writing a lot about Elon Musk. Objectively I, and most other writers have been. I cannot speak for others, but for me Musk is just an object lesson in the bad part of startup land. I’ve been around startups since I was a teenager. I’ve seen so many gallons of…
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Hey Elon Musk, Tinder Imperfectly Cracked Verification, So Can Twitter
If you were on the internet over the last week you probably heard that Elon Musk bought up stock in Twitter to the point he is now the largest single shareholder. Musk started Tweeting, like a college kid who decided to try the big Adderall for the first time, turned down a board seat, deleted…
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The Metaverse Is Stupid, I Think
Sure, it’s possible the metaverse could have a utility I don’t yet understand. It took a global pandemic for me to consider QR codes useful for general consumers. But the best applications I can think of are essentially digital screens, and a VR whiteboard in a VR room isn’t so different from a digital display.
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Looking At Conspiracy Theories From Inside Someone Else’s Foil Hat
Walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, they say, is the best way to understand them. Last week, I donned a foil hat and took to Twitter. I wasn’t out to understand conspiracy theorists – I was sarcastically mocking them. But now I do better understand how the fringes are drawn to conspiracy theories. In…
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In A Decade, Devices of Twenty Years Ago Will Be The Hot New Gadgets
In ten years, devices from twenty years ago will become the hot new gadgets of the day. They will be improved, shinier, and better with technology advancement. But limited function devices, that just play music, help you navigate or wake you up in the morning will be all the rage. Not only among the same…
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Not Every Company Is A Tech Company
MIT, CNBC, Wall Street Journal, and others are declaring every business is a tech company now. Technology is pervasive in all businesses and saying “every company is a tech company” makes a sexy headline. It’s like the new version of pronouncing email dead; while untrue, it’s easy to build a case for the claim. I’m…
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Should I Use Twitter? A 2019 Risk-Benefit Analysis Of Using Twitter
Periodically I try to make Twitter work for me, a productivity tool! Or if not productivity, a way to be informed, entertained… just to promote things I care about, perhaps? It’s failed for me, at the very least the way I was using it has not been working to any of these ends. Productivity on…
