“How do I put out a fire?”

I'm not sure this is the answer

Yesterday, a CEO sent me some copy to consider while we drafted a response to the fires eating L.A.

“I asked Claude. It’s not bad, right?”

It’s not. I see worse writing every day. It’s just that using AI to reach wildfire victims is sort of like lighting them all cigars. It may offer some comfort, but it’s going to make the problem worse.

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It’s true that every technology creates its own little wave of despair. The radio will turn us into an idle nation, the car will fracture our communities, the internet will drive us apart, social media will warp our reality. All true, maybe, but not intentionally. On some level, each technology was invented with a desire to reach people.

Look at me, nostalgic for the guy who just wanted to call his classmates ugly on the internet.

We know how all of those are going: misinformation and rising individualism. If that’s what happens when we design for connection, what do we think the unintended consequences will look like when we design for optimization?

I am not, unfortunately, an AI naysayer. It’s good, it’s going to get better, it’s probably not going to kill us, and it will always be a hair uncanny — just enough that it can’t make art. I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about where it leaves us. Because while we debate its interpretation of cubism, the money is looking to wedge it in anywhere a person might have gone.

AI will make a lot possible, but we have to decide what becomes real. And right now, we’re using it to automate our condolences.

Links to things that are more fun

An essay on how small compromises only make the strongman stronger ← Still more optimistic tbh!

The absolute biggest balls I have ever seen, tanking the U.S. economy, getting away with it, and then suing because you don’t want to prove you’re not going to do it again.

Pointing to the real date that tech gave up on content moderation, four years before Mark Zuckerberg’s complete abdication of responsibility.

Before there were “community notes” and AI-generated answers, there was Wikipedia, a place where beautiful nerds could actively work to stomp out misinformation. Now The Heritage Foundation is planning to dox those volunteer editors.

Speaking of moderating and volunteer labor, might be time to move this newsletter.

Everything we do right now is political speech. At least the Chicago Transit Authority understands.

If you ever worry about looking too “desperate” in the job application process, just know that the new head of the FTC, Andrew Ferguson, actively campaigned for the role, all the way up to bending the knee at Mar-a-Lago. Congratulations, it worked! Now you get to decide what to do with Ticketmaster.

OpenAI says it already knows how to make artificial general intelligence. I say that I know how to shovel snow, but the distance remains between theory and reality.

There is something so funny about Bing dressing up as the competition when people search for “Google.” So glad we have these big companies around to drive innovation, truly, no one does it like them.

If you’re going to spend any time thinking about Jimmy Carter — and you absolutely do not have to — do it while reading his Georgia Law Day speech. Come for the moral reckoning, stay to see exactly how genteel a southern “fuck you” can be.

But really, why are you reading this when you could be watching Tremors?

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