Again, I’m not sure copyright is the way to go in fighting immoral generative AI companies (that the ALA and EFF are on Anthropic’s side seems important to me), but “we have to be able to do this to be successful” still strikes me as such a hollow, self-serving argument.

Here’s Jacques Ellul on state funding of research:

The state demands that anything scientific enter into the line of “normal” development, not only for the stake of the public interest but also because of its will to power. We have previously noted that this will to power has found in technique an extraordinary means of expression. The state quickly comes to demand that technique keep its promises and be an effective servant of state power. Everything not of direct interest to this drive for power appears valueless.

This article is one more push in the direction of my finally subscribing to Kagi.

Yes, but AI will also save us time writing emails, so this seems like a fair tradeoff.

Okay, really don’t want to spend any more time writing about Grok, but let’s talk about this passage:

“With respect to academic questions, Grok 4 is better than PhD level in every subject, no exceptions,” Musk claimed during the livestream. We’ve previously covered nebulous claims about “PhD-level” AI, finding them to be generally specious marketing talk.

To return to my thoughts on AI and epistemology, I don’t think having a PhD is (or should be) a benchmark for content knowledge. Rather, I think it demonstrates (or should demonstrate) a commitment to the process of knowledge production, and LLMs cannot truly compete with humans there.

Karen Hao’s Empire of AI really emphasized for me how much stock is being put in AGI—especially as a motivator for AI companies. I am fine wirh concepts being hard to define, but I do think things get tricky when you can’t articulate how you’ll know when you’ve met the goal that serves as your raison d’être.

Disgusting and deliberate.

Aside from the headline-grabbing parts of Grok’s recent freakout, this story does a really good job of emphasizing that AIs don’t “think”… and that “truth” isn’t really a valid concept either, no matter Musk’s marketing.

Gotta keep asking ourselves whether we truly own our computers.

4chan has led such an interesting life.

I don’t personally need research funding, but I work in an academic ecosystem that’s highly dependent on it. Things aren’t looking good.

NCII enrages me, but I’m skeptical of this as a solution.

Sure this looks bad, but heaven forbid the U.S. lose AI leadership or whatever.

This seems… good? So good that I’m suspicious I’ve missed something.

Cory Doctorow’s The Bezzle continues to play out in real life.

This weekend, I visited family and complained to myself that their Amazon Fire sticks were emphasizing ad delivery over being a TV. I guess that’s the future for my Roku stick, too? What a sucky future we live in.

I believe that scraping the internet to profit off of generative AI is ethically problematic BUT I concede that it should be fair use BUT this is still a soulless and terrible argument.

Le sigh.

Government overreach is scary, but it can also be really, really petty.

Anyone who hasn’t should read one of two excellent books—Extremely Hardcore or Character Limit—on Musk’s takeover of Twitter, because I’m getting similar vibes here. Remember when Musk just refused to pay money Twitter owed because he didn’t feel like it?

What a mess.

More suckiness in the world of academic publishing.

What a stupid thing this whole “banning TikTok” thing has proved to be.

Well put:

TCL plans to get more into original content, fueled by a dystopian strategy that seems largely built around minimizing costs and pushing ads.

Interesting stuff here. I think most complaints about OpenAI “censorship” are hogwash, but it’s still fascinating—and worrying—to see how much control the company exercises over its product.