This book deserves all the honors, and if it gets made into a movie(?!), I would be thrilled.

Mormon Stories has never been my thing, and the more I learn about Dehlin, the less sure I am about him—but I couldn’t agree with him more here.

Discourse in the modern American right often understands free speech as protecting the right to say objectionable things but not the ability to criticize people who say objectionable things. While a “one true church” mentality is less problematic than racial slurs or transphobic language (though there’s also some of the latter in Oaks’s full remarks, according to the Church Newsroom release), this excerpt strikes me as embodying a similarly selective view of religious freedom:

Recently, I’ve been thinking about Jacques Ellul’s image/word dichotomy as more broadly applicable than to media—as applicable to the whole technical phenomenon that he criticizes. That is, by virtue of its seeming objectivity, the technical phenomenon enjoys trust that is not warranted when one digs into the details and sees the fuzziness and subjectivities and artifice that prop the whole thing up. Doctorow’s critique here seems firmly in that vein.

Had no idea this book was going viral, and I was just gushing about it last week. One of my favorite pieces of fiction ever, and it deserves all the accolades.

Important update on Grok nonsense.

Pretty compelling example of digital labor issues (both subtle and explicit) related to AI. Surely letting Google shape our questions and provide all the answers won’t be an issue?

Walking disaster.

I concede that appeals to the environmental costs of AI sometimes feel knee-jerk and lacking nuance. However, you can always count on Musk to provide a clear example of the harms of AI, and this is a particularly compelling one.

20,000 accounts is a hell of a “bug.”

Don’t love the idea of AI as coparent, but gendered divisions of labor also suck.

Pretty disappointing.

“Scale” and efficiency aren’t always good, and digital blackface is a good example.

I don’t mind being a broken record when pointing out Ellulian vibes. Check this paragraph out:

These are unfortunate examples of how AI can lead to mistreatment of people because of technical flaws as well as misplaced human faith in the technology’s supposed objectivity. These cases involve different tools, but the underlying issue is the same. AI systems produce probabilities, and people treat them as certainties.

I dunno, seems bad.

Very gross stuff here. I remember downplaying the connection between “alien” as an immigration term and “extraterrestrial” in a conversation in college, chalking it up to etymology and dismissing the idea of ill intent. This is definitely ill intent, and it’s all kind of dumb and gross,

Digital labor is, imo, the fundamental problem with AI, and I think this story shows why: It’s not just the AI use here that’s exploitative, it’s kind of everything.

Uh, no.

Don’t love this.

Do Lexington next! Also, Flock’s statement is so gross.

I hate that I get this joke, but it’s also very funny.

One of the things I’ve had to wrestle with while engaging more and more with Jacques Ellul is that Ted Kaczynski thought he was pretty cool, too.

This Mauro Lubrano quote in the piece sums up a lot of my same feelings:

While anti-technology violence is unacceptable, it should not be used as an excuse to securitize AI and emerging technologies, thereby silencing those who are critical of the current trajectory.

This piece hits hard.

Another good take on Leo and Tolkien.

What wild times we live in that it sounds plausible that the pope might me throwing shade at a billionnaire with LotR references.