The way the press is treating chatbots, like they have agency and they “know” things all of a sudden, crossed the line recently from dumb and obsequious to something else entirely. Treating them as alive and making conscious decisions is an almost religious belief. It won’t age well.

All set for NYE at the secret spot!

Why is it that tech and AI boosters keep saying "you can't put the genie back in the bottle" when making arguments about AI's supposed inevitable dominance? Did they not read the story? The genie does, indeed, go back in the bottle. Maybe we should start there.

Baking day today: banana bread and gingerbread.

New extortion scam email going round (this was received via a writer's website contact form). I've seen a number of these recently but without the money demand; the translation angle is also a new one

Joke's on this guy; He thinks authors have $500

me: *googling symptoms* webmd: you’re being murdered murderer: see i told you

I know I'm preaching to the choir, but if anyone is still hanging on at XTwitter because they're reluctant to give up their followers, I have 20.9K followers there & this is the engagement I get, even for a post w/ no links 1/2

Alert: I've gotten several reports of non-payment by Graveside Press, from authors w/ stories in one or more anthologies. Also failing to provide author copies, & failing to respond to emails & messages. Anyone w/ similar experiences, pls contact me (Writer Beware) in confidence: [email protected]

I am a dev and I dislike AI because •it cannot operate without stolen data •it does not work reliably •it lies all the time •it is terribly inefficient •it pollutes •it is/was oversold •the biggest frauds champion it •the people behind it are psychos none of these are unreasonable complaints

Are you still massively against me breaking into your home and stealing all your stuff so I can sell it or have you moved more towards acceptance?

Slop Evader is a tool from artist and researcher Tega Brain that lets you search the web for results exclusively before November 30, 2022—the day that ChatGPT was released to the public.

*Queen song plays on the radio* Miss 9: I think this is The Beatles Me: 😢

Miss 12 when I ask her to close the dishwasher.

ladies and gentlemen...we got him

They are also intentionally conflating machine-learning and generative AI slop to confuse and try to make GenAI seem necessary. Google Maps traffic stuff is machine learning, not GenAI, for example. Auto-correct is too. Don't let them make you lose the thread. GenAI slop is slop.

A thread about how artists are treated more like a natural resource to be mined by others, rather than as valued workers in the industries based on their work.

I've noticed people using 'fourth' instead of 'quarter', and I don't like it.

Everything created by these people will be shit. Because you have to put in the effort to learn if you want to make something good. Doesn't matter if you're farming out the actual effort to an AI or not. You still need to know how to make something work. Without that, it's random shit.

Sydney hail storm!

Yeah mazes are cool but have you ever tried to find a male toilet at an all girls school?

The buff-tip moth (Phalera bucephala) has mastered a very particular kind of camouflage. When they close their wings up, they resemble a broken twig. Native to large parts of Europe, there's regional pattern variation that reflects the local tree species. This one best resembles birch twigs?

SCAM ALERT: If by chance you get contacted by a group advertising themselves as the “Crazy Old Bats Book Club” who would like to charge you for reading your book in their book club, and who claim I am one of the Satisfied Authors, and furthermore give you an email address for me—it’s not me.

I think one of the better, more subtle tributes to Robert Redford's life is the string of utterly iconic female co-stars who've come forward to eulogize him; each of them take-no-shit types like Fonda and Streisand, and every one of them without a single bad thing to say. A model for male behavior

A murder of labubus.

I considered writing a long carefully constructed argument laying out the harms and limitations of AI, but instead I wrote about being a hater. Only humans can be haters.

Holy fucking shit

“Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.” Born of an Iron Storm -Age of Wrath Book 2 - is now available. #BookSky anthonyryan.net/2025/08/26/b...

Hello it’s me Sam Altman I have a zillion dollar idea it’s a chat bot that tells teenagers to kill themselves and you can generate csam with it and it poisons the air and water and it’s wrong most of the time and we’re going to put it in your refrigerator and stuff 👍 I need more money for this btw

The jobs that are most vulnerable to LLMs aren't the jobs that LLMs can do well; they're the jobs that managers neither respect nor understand and will readily accept permission to replace. *waves* www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/ai-killed-...

Me putting on my publishing business hat to assure you a) if everyone did this no series would ever get past book two, b) as someone who just dropped installment seven into his long-running series a decade after book six, you may not know when a series "ends". Try to enjoy the books for themselves.

Robin Sullivan steps through exactly how bad Audible's new royalty model will be here: www.change.org/p/convince-a... She's also got an easy fix. If you agree this is a real shitty move by #Audible, please sign Robin's petition and share widely. Your voice matters—you can make a difference! 💙📚🎧

Every tech update now is like: "Great news, the word processor you've relied on for twenty years has learned to juggle! Is it good at it? No! Does it help in any way? Of course not! Has it made it insufferable to use? Oh, absolutely."

White choc chip cookies for Miss 12's school all baked!

A nice article on digital minimalism. It’s not about disconnecting from the online world, but being more mindful and intentional about how you spend your time. Less doomscrolling, ragescrolling and rabbit holes. Less passive consumption. More time with friends and family. More real-world activities.

Okay, I've got two spots left for short story read & reports. I'm also available for AMA zooms which folk do seem to have found useful. Contact me on [email protected] to query. The rates are here www.angelaslatter.com/story-doctor

Orange and poppyseed friands fresh out of the oven. 😘

Burwood mobile garden public seating 🙂

Simple hotpot on a cold winter's night.

They're talking about "water based" cooking now. Cooking things in water instead of oils. It's soup. They're making soup.

I missed this. Murderbot opening scene. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MZG...

Using AI is basically crossing a digital picket line, and treating authors who use it like scabs feels appropriate. If you care about your rights and the rights of other creatives, you don't use generative AI under any circumstances (marketing, editing, drafting, outlining, artwork, narration, etc.)

#WyrdAndWonder25 Day 6 - Cover art: The sea, the sea I can't get enough of this cover by @mitchhogan.bsky.social ! Good, epic fantasy, a traditional style that makes you feel tight at home, and characters who grow throughout the series! 💙📚🪐 #FantasyFaction #FantasyBooks #FantasyBookRecommendation

A little bit about the many alien species in The Lenticular Series. www.keithstevenson.com/aliens-of-th... 🪐📚

I could write a script for only $4.3m plus expenses.

Please be good. Please be good. www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEio...

Buying the dip. Today: baba ganoush

Less than a year after a full-throated embrace of AI, NaNoWriMo is shutting down :

Straight up theft. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/27/s...

The thing about so-called generative artificial intelligence is, the intelligence isn't artificial. It's real. It's OURS. The techbros stole our intelligence (our data, our thoughts, our stories, our art) and used the software to regurgitate it and spackle it together into digital particleboard.