SJÄMSÅRA

I think I speak for everyone when I ask how this will be used to sell advertisements.

Ever seen a news story about AI and thought “this could be an episode of Black Mirror”? We're running a research study where we ask people to imagine generative AI futures and pitch their own science fiction story. More detail at the link and please share! www.internetruleslab.com/black-mirror...

perhaps the most important choice you can make in life is what you pay attention to. personally i recommend choosing to focus on posts by the most unlikable people on the planet

I’ve gotten the same comment about our 1990s era fridge. Keep it, do not upgrade, because the new ones are flimsy and near impossible to repair.

Here's Ted Chiang on the idea that LLMs can be conscious Link: www.theatlantic.com/philosophy/2... Unpaywalled just in case: archive.is/bcpZl

On writing about A.I. that simulates people: "The longer this story went on, the more tired I was... It was the feeling of being at a computer all day. It was a dehydration of human interaction... It was the subject matter. It was trying to dig to the depths of something and not finding any."

State Consumer Privacy Laws Are Being Corrupted by Lobbying danielsolove.substack.com/p/state-cons... My thoughts on the tragedy of Vermont’s privacy law and how Rep. Monique Priestley’s valiant attempt to create a good law was undermined by lobbyists.

Paradox Paradox, CO

we'll do commemorative shirts for anything now

biblically accurate robot unit

AI companies are letting anyone with a credit card use their models to make products for kids - the same models that the #AI companies themselves have said are not for children. A video version of our recent research: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbG0...

one of my favorite facts about the US coal industry is that it employs less people than Broadway

I wanted a book my public library didn't have, so I asked them to buy it, and they did. @bpl.boston.gov is truly magic

I’m realizing reading the replies that my dog may be on the simple side. At least he’s entertaining

adaptive lawn sign

Now that OpenAI is in the targeted ads business, hard to imagine your bank account data not being used to decide how expensive of crap they should try to get you to buy

Appreciated the chance to chat w/ @sophiecharara.bsky.social about our newest #AI toys research - AI companies don't vet the toy companies using their models at all. After all my time messing w/ these little weirdos, I'm in the same place as this piece: "Or, you know, there’s always 'dumb' toys."

This is unhealthy, irresponsible, and is going to get people stalked if not killed

Consumer-facing AI chatbots are consumer products - they don't magically get a pass because they're high tech. Will be important to watch these cases!

Now that this is in the news, I'm excited to finally announce that I am starring in "Paper Rush: A Fast and the Furious Tale" for NBC, which tells the story of the brave loan officers who help the heroes of the franchise buy all of their Skyline GT-Rs at 27.9% APR

Inappropriate content, confusing social play, voice cloning, subscription shilling - it's all happening in AI kids toys thanks to @ejgoodacre.bsky.social @rj-x.bsky.social @claudio-teixeira.bsky.social & Kitty Hamilton for speaking to me for this piece

Kids don’t get snow days but they do get Canvas hacks

sitting outside googling “is it allergies or a cold” as a visible layer of pollen accumulates on my phone

zen concept 'first rodeo mind'

Went Offline all weekend with someone who can’t read (pictured) and I can’t recommend it enough

something about being in my late 30s really has me sitting at the window watching the birds jumping in the little dishes of water i set out for them in the garden, i can’t get enough of this shit despite having no preexisting interest in the business of birds.

NEW: we @consumerfed.bsky.social are suing Meta in DC for knowingly facilitating massive scam losses through ads and misleading consumers about what they're doing to stop it www.wired.com/story/meta-i... thanks to @tyckozavareei.bsky.social @techjusticelaw.bsky.social for repping us.

Thank god SoftBank is making A Mirror Your Child Can See Dead Family In. Harry Potter was obsessed with his

This year I'm feeling exhausted by the transfer portal. Losing your entire roster to replace it with all new faces is making the players seem more and more like hired mercenaries than college kids every year. #ncaa

Huh. Non-U.S. residents have to pay an extra $100 per person to visit a national park now. Kind of seems like a lot!

Re: nostalgia for VHS tapes and other analog media, I saw someone say like "a VHS tape never sold my information to a nazi" and yes that's true! But the reason it's true is actually because Congress passed a law in 1988 specifically making it illegal for video stores to sell your rental history

"Effective immediately, Fisher-Price will exit the 'child development toy' vertical and re-emerge as Mattel·igence AI Defense Systems, a fully integrated autonomous weapons manufacturer focused on AI-enabled lethality solutions for the modern battlefield. Our stock is up 4000%."

Met a psychiatrist recently whose hot take is screen addiction is worse than alcohol/drugs. We have AA and rehab, but no infrastructure for "softer" addictions making them much harder to escape. I know I am being serious in response to a joke post rn but this thought has been haunting me a little

Voters in a small Missouri town, unhappy with the city council’s approval of a $6B data center, ousted all four incumbent council members running for reelection

I've been trying out the @skywatch.blue moderation labels & I'm really liking it. It flags posts & accounts exhibiting strange behavior. Idk if its methodology is perfect, but it feels like it's making invisible manipulation tactics (like engagement hacking) more concretely visible, and that's neat

THE DALAI LAMA IS WEAK ON MONETARY POLICY.

This really was tremendous reporting from @mharrisondupre.bsky.social and the Futurism team

NEW: The NYT said that the AI-powered GLP-1 middleman startup Medvi — which is reportedly on track to do $1.8b in sales — cleaned up its act after taking deceptive marketing "shortcuts." But it didn't. More on: fake Medvi clients, fake doctors, and an FDA warning... futurism.com/artificial-i...

An example of why pro-housing (and climate) people need to disassociate from Abundance(TM) ASAP. It provides no tools to differentiate b/w a data center and (e.g) affordable housing, and, philosophically, will tend to favor the former over the latter.

Ok NOW can we have an HBO Silicon Valley reboot

Once again @kashhill.bsky.social with mindbendingly insightful reporting (note to self: if ever looking for youth to interview, be sure to introduce myself as "an old")

Had a fun convo w/ @cyberguy.bsky.social about #AI companies letting 3rd parties use their models -that aren’t for kids- in kids’ products & not vetting the people doing it. If you've got kids in your life (or just find this stuff as wild as I do), this one is fun: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trwr...

Happy OkCupid/FTC privacy data sharing settlement day. No penalties for OkCupid sharing your data & saying it didn't, so pretty lame. But here's funny a deep dive I did into data apps being sketchy with your data, anyways www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1Lw...

Fell into a rabbithole. Spoke with interesting people. Wrote this piece about the saga of Moxie, the robot friend for children. Please enjoy. pirg.org/articles/mox...

That the person at the top's hand is outreached for you to take and pull, too

2008, but make it crypto www.wsj.com/real-estate/...

H.211 just passed the Vermont House. It updates data broker fees, fines, and definitions and replaces outdated entity/data-level exemptions with use-case level Right to Delete exemptions. Grateful to everyone who helped get it here. Long road ahead. 🌱 #dataprivacy