software dev in northern california • former worship leader now exvangelical, though the bulk of my reading history is theology • fiddle player 🎻 • INTJ • he/him
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@mlanger@mastodon.world @rpmik@avgeek.social It was great. Helps me feel like I’m not crazy when I see people who feel the same way. They do a great job explaining the technology and how it’s never going to live up to the hype.
A little bit preachy, but I’m learning a lot.
Enshittification: it’s not just you―the internet sucks now. Here’s why, and here’s how we can …
Here we go!
A smart, incisive take-down of the bogus claims being made about so-called ‘artificial intelligence’, exposing the real harm these technologies …
Enshittification: it’s not just you―the internet sucks now. Here’s why, and here’s how we can disenshittify.
We’re living through …
Aaron Lord
boosted
A smart, incisive take-down of the bogus claims being made about so-called ‘artificial intelligence’, exposing …
This is a great summary of everything that's wrong with the current hype around AI and especially LLMs. It doesn't expect any prior knowledge to the field and is a very good introduction to a lay audience. The authors (@emilymbender@dair-community.social and @alex@dair-community.social) also have a great podcast that I'd recommend: "Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000".
The book has so many quotable passages that I can't possibly list them all here but to give you an idea: * In the vast majority of cases, AI is not going to replace your job. But it will make your job a lot shittier. * As with AI "art" discussed above, AI boosters think that science is only about ideas, rather than communities of practice. * The point of talk therapy is not to exchange text strings, but rather human connection, which furthermore is guided by the expertise of the therapist. …
This is a great summary of everything that's wrong with the current hype around AI and especially LLMs. It doesn't expect any prior knowledge to the field and is a very good introduction to a lay audience. The authors (@emilymbender@dair-community.social and @alex@dair-community.social) also have a great podcast that I'd recommend: "Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000".
The book has so many quotable passages that I can't possibly list them all here but to give you an idea: * In the vast majority of cases, AI is not going to replace your job. But it will make your job a lot shittier. * As with AI "art" discussed above, AI boosters think that science is only about ideas, rather than communities of practice. * The point of talk therapy is not to exchange text strings, but rather human connection, which furthermore is guided by the expertise of the therapist. And so many more!
The book does a great job of showing how ridiculous the claims of AI boosters are when taken at face-value but also what impoverished views of the world and notions of truth and expertise AI carries with it. I particularly liked what they say about information retrieval, which is supposed to remove "friction":
friction in information access is actually not only beneficial, but critically important.
This is crucial, and something I've noticed time and time again. People using LLMs for search are ready to trust the output simply because it appears to be the one answer to their query; they don't have to go through a list of links, evaluate them and make a final judgement call about their relative merits. But this exercise is essential! A document is not just a collection of text strings, it has an author, an origin and a context, and it's only when all those things are taken together that one can really gauge how much trust they should assign to it.
(To French readers: this also ties nicely with "Éloge du bug" by Marcello Vitali-Rosati @monterosato@mamot.fr, where friction is a central element.)
A smart, incisive take-down of the bogus claims being made about so-called ‘artificial intelligence’, exposing the real harm these technologies …
Why have so many Americans turned against democracy? In this deeply reported book, Katherine Stewart …
Reading this book is almost like reading a horror story. But it’s about real life in 2025 America and how we got here.
Why have so many Americans turned against democracy? In this deeply reported book, Katherine Stewart takes us to conferences of …
One of our great behavioral scientists, the bestselling author of Behave, plumbs the depths of the science and philosophy of …
A must-read! Be warned: it sometimes reads like a horror story.
Great book from a great social media star about leaving White Christian Nationalism behind and becoming an affirming Christian.
Growing up, I knew that, yes, there existed Christians far afield who were Catholic or Coptic or Orthodox, but as far as I could tell, we only nominally considered them a part of our brother-hood. Our teachings, on the other hand, were immutable and eternal, as if the Christians of the first century handed their traditions and ways of life directly to us. Evangelical Christianity was default-setting Christianity; everything else was lumped into a big vague category of "other." (7-8)
Growing up, I knew that, yes, there existed Christians far afield who were Catholic or Coptic or Orthodox, but as far as I could tell, we only nominally considered them a part of our brother-hood. Our teachings, on the other hand, were immutable and eternal, as if the Christians of the first century handed their traditions and ways of life directly to us. Evangelical Christianity was default-setting Christianity; everything else was lumped into a big vague category of "other." (7-8)
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NATIONAL BESTSELLER
"An intimate window into the world of American evangelicalism. Fellow exvangelicals will …
