Even if ChatGPT could be trusted to do this task, “let’s remove books from libraries with less work” is a good example of how efficiency isn’t always a good thing.

Look, if an automated process could save human moderators from the awful work they have to do, I’d be all for it. I’m unconvinced that GPT-4 could do it, though.

I think this is two weeks in a row that I’ve shared Casey Newton’s Platformer column, but that’s because it’s two weeks in a row he’s written something important.

Good coverage of a worrying development. I’m sympathetic to authors’ worries here, but I also think they’re wrong. If digital is different than the physical, copyright considerations need to be more generous, NOT stricter. The Internet Archive is an important service, and I’m worried about the future.

There’s so much inane blathering about free speech on the internet that it’s easy to sometimes forget that it can be a real concern. Here’s one such example.

So many important points in this piece.

This is not a future I look forward to (or a present I want to live in).

This… just keeps getting worse. All justices, regardless of political stripes, need to ensre they aren’t being influenced.

Lots of good stuff in here.

I’m not thrilled about AI’s ability to do this, but let’s be clear: Amazon is as much to blame here, and I like them even less.

Casey Newton has some good insight here.

This is a welcome step, but I’m concerned it’s an empty, distracting gesture—it certainly doesn’t solve the deeper issue.

Zoom’s responses to this are meaningless, empty corporate speak. I’m not concerned about owning my content, I’m concerned about others using it while affirming my ownership. And yes, I “consent” to it in the sense that I use Zoom, but that is meaningless consent and Zoom knows it. What a garbage response.

Facial recognition software is gross. What a good—but terrible!—example that just because it comes from an algorithm doesn’t mean it’s right. When will we learn that the risks of wrong decisions outweigh the purported promise of the right ones?

This is dumb. Copyright is important, but this example shows how much we’ve made it overreach.

Difficult read but an important one.

This is ridiculous.

Haven’t read this yet, but I’m bookmarking for my classes.

So many of our conveniences depend on someone else doing work we wouldn’t want to do ourselves.

Guns in schools are bad, but adding surveillance to schools is not the solution.

Interesting stuff from Doctorow. If I can, I want to work it into my data science textbook for next semester.

This is a fun glimpse at the humble beginnings of one of my favorite TTRPGs. I’m trying to get a new solo Starforged campaign off the ground right now, and it seems like this is an appropriate time to do so.

Everyone excited about generative AI needs to account for this kind of thing. We don’t pay enough attention to digital labor and the dehumanizing aspects of content moderation.

I think this is a much bigger deal than any purported security risk.

We read Cory Doctorow’s “Unauthorized Bread” in my class on computer fundamentals, and I try to share actual examples of how tech companies going bankrupt can create actual problems like in the story. Bookmarking this for next time I teach.