ai – Page 9 – Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3

Sunday Morning Reading

Fall is creeping in and things are creeping me out.

The world continues its whirl, the vultures continue circling, and down here on the ground we keep working hard to turn the tide on the ignorant before it’s too late. Still, it’s time to sit down, breathe and enjoy if you can some Sunday Morning Reading.

Perhaps you aren’t aware of the Second Circuit of Appeals decision rejecting the Internet Archive’s fair use defense. You can check out info on the decision here. Reading beyond that check out Matthew Ingram’s post The Second Circuit’s Decision in the Internet Archive Case is Bad. It is bad news for all of us. As a side note, Matthew has recently struck out on his own and you might want to check out his writing on The Torment Nexus. It promises to be a great place to read about issues in the intersection of technology, media, and, well…life.

Politics, or what passes for it these days, continues to dominate much of our attention even as it gets darker and more stupid with each passing day. Springfield, Ohio found itself the unwelcome center of the political world with all of the talk about eating pets and immigration. Isabel Fattal has a very good piece in The Atlantic titled The Springfield Effect. FWIW I don’t think Springfield is going to catch a break anytime soon, but then neither are the rest of us.

Voting is just around the corner, but the discussions and machinations around it now dominate our lives all the time. Check out Eli Saslow’s 3 Georgia Women Caught Up in a Flood of Suspicion About Voting.

Sanewashing is just a new name in a long line of new names for ignoring the crazy, idiotic, and dangerous ways of the decaying orange convicted felon/child rapist and his followers. Parker Malloy tells us Why The Atlantic’s Critique of Sanewashing Doesn’t Hold Up. There’s a link to the Atlantic piece in Malloy’s article. When a thing becomes a thing to criticize it becomes just another excuse for ignoring the truth.

There’s sadly a chance of some sort of carnage, physical or psychic, post-election. Certainly there will be political casualties. Perhaps that’s why we should read Ian Rose’s piece The Hidden Value of Vultures. Let’s hope the vultures doing the cleanup are only feasting on those who caused the mess.

Karen Hao takes a look at Microsoft’s Hypocrisy on AI when it comes to Microsoft working with fossil-fuel companies while purporting to fight climate change.

In a world full of what feels like willful ignorance, Daniel R. DeNicola takes a look at Plato’s Cave and the Stubborn Persistence of Ignorance.

Elizabeth Laura Nelson has a very poignant piece called Friends for 16 Years. Lovers for One Night. Don’t let moments and opportunities pass you by.

Before you clear your palette and move on to whatever you move on to, take a brief trip along with NatashaMH to Bangkok City in When The World’s Your Oyster.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. You can also find me on social networks under my own name.

The AI Bubble Won’t Burst. It Will Just Flatten Into a Puddle.

Put on your waders.

Artificial Intelligence in some form or the other continues to dominate tech and the markets around it, though there are some clouds on the horizon. Even the gold rush seems to show signs of slowing with the realization that AI might not be all it’s cracked up to be.

It’s still exciting technology and there will certainly be some aspects that stick and enhance the way we do things. There will also be quite a bit that doesn’t, even more that’s controversial, and all causing trouble for that which does stick, and generally mucking everything up.

If you’ve paid attention to the comments and reviews during this recent Apple beta season and Google’s latest releases, it’s pretty easy to discern that the general temperature of the responses is lukewarm at best.

Advocates say it’s still early in the game.. That’s true. It’s also true that that putting bets down on an NFL team based on what seems like a good draft and undefeated pre-season is, well, more than a bit premature. (*Cough* *Chicago Bears* *Cough*)

Take the 5G rollout. Though the technologies aren’t comparable, the hype certainly is. 5G got its beginnings before 2020, but that was the year of the big push, arguably led by Apple. I’ve done a lot of driving over quite a few major highways large and small this summer and I’m still amazed at how little 5G coverage (and often LTE coverage) there is along these well traveled arteries between large population centers in the South, Midwest and on the East Coast.

What’s intriguing about that is that while there is a push by Apple and Google to have large chunks of AI operation happen locally on device, there will still be quite a few of those operations that will need higher bandwidth when they do need to call home to the mother ship for a response.

If we fast forward a decade or so and put a query into some LLM to summarize the rise of Artificial Intelligence, I’m betting it will spit out something along the lines of “yet another new promising technology, launched as a product before it was really ready, and spoiled by the hype.”

The book that will eventually be stolen by scraping Internet posts like this one is still to be written, but in these early chapters it is feeling more and more like the bubble might have currently reached it’s outer limits of expansion. There’s pushback on a number of fronts and quite a few enthusiasts always easily seduced by the thrill of a new technology seem to be chilling, if not chafing a bit.

Is there gloom and doom on the horizon? No, just storms and cloudy skies. I don’t think the AI bubble will ever burst, but I do think it will flatten into a puddle with not enough rising tides to lift all boats.

We’ve seen this story before. We’ll see it again. Only this time around the summaries will all sound more and more alike.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Sunday Morning Reading

Summer begins to fade into fall with this week’s Sunday Morning Reading.

It’s Labor Day weekend here in the states, which means a three-day weekend, yielding more than a little extra time for some Sunday Morning Reading during the last lake visit of the season. Kick back and enjoy.

I’m a Shakespeare geek so my senses perked up when one of my favorite writers, Natasha MH. revealed her reasons for not appreciating the bard in Much Ado About Nothing, Something, and Everything. Excellent read and I know she’s not alone. But then lots of folks are wrong about lots of things.

Jeff Jarvis tells us How Murdoch Makes a Meme (and how the rest of the media helps it spread). No real secrets here. Jarvis is correct about Rupert Murdoch’s malign influence. The single most destructive human on the planet during his lifetime of muckracking.

Preetika Rana takes a look at how the political moment is ruffling the feathers in the halls and salons of big tech in Clash of the Tech Titans: Silicon Valley Fractures Over Harris vs. Trump.

Ted Chiang explores Why A.I. Isn’t Going To Make Art. I agree with the thesis, but I’ll add that it’s going to screw up a lot while trying.

Why are software glitches and problems called bugs? Check out Matthew Wills’ The Bug in the Computer Bug Story.

Private Equity continues to gobble up everything it can get its teeth into. Apparently Private Equity Is Coming for Youth Sports according to Ira Boudway.

And to close out this week as summer begins to fade into fall, Mike Tanier gives us The Amusement Park Falls Cold and Dark.

Sunday Morning Reading

Fiction, fears, dreams, and Chicago Corruption dot this Sunday Morning’s reading.

Good Sunday morning. I’m in Memphis for a few days to participate and celebrate in The Ostrander Awards in which my recent production of The Lehman Trilogy was nominated for seven awards, so this will be an abbreviated version of Sunday Morning Reading.

Designer (3). There was lots of joy at the Democratic Conventon in Chicago nominating Kamala Harris as candidate for the presidency. There was also lots of joy (and some disappointment from the media) that this year’s convention didn’t turn into 1968 all over again. Nevertheless, Chicago is still Chicago. Rick Kogan gives us a terrific look at some of Chicago’s colorful and sordid history of corruption in Boodlers, Bandits, and Notorious Politicians. Fun read.

No One’s Ready For This by Sarah Jeong takes a look at the question we’re all going to be asking more frequently in the age of AI: “What the hell is a photo these days anyway? That question has been around for awhile, but in the wake of Google’s release of its Reimagine Tool for the Pixel 9’s Magic Editor, that question might be asked with a bit more urgency in the near future. Or not.

Joan Westenberg tells us Why We Need Fiction.

David Todd McCarty wanders into our dreams or rather how we might be able to realize them by overcoming our fear of failure in The Magic of Failure And The Perils Of The Very Good.

Sunday Morning Reading

From James Joyce to finger painting, some Apple spoiling, some Peter Falk, some politics and what will the LLMs spit out next?

“Every life is many days, day after day.” But Sundays are for reading. Here’s a mix of politics, tech, and culture into what I hope is a tasty smorgasbord of good writing and good reading. Also some good fun. Enjoy this edition of Sunday Morning Reading.

There aren’t many areas of interest I follow that don’t seem to be fraught with tension and turmoil these days. Apple, its technology and business practices, is certainly one of those. One of the best recent pieces I’ve read on how the tides of popular and populist opinion may be shifting against the folks in Cupertino is one written by Matt Birchler. Check out Is This The Slow Decline of Apple’s “Cult”?

This is a terrific read and a terrific piece of theatre and entertainment history. Wayne Lawson’s When Peter Falk Was My Roommate, and Theater Ruled NYC is a trip down a memory lane most of us probably never were aware of.

Joan Westenberg takes a look look at The Bruised Egos of the Intellectual Narcissists that want to populate our thoughts. Joan also takes a good look at Truth Social, Twitter and the Loneliest Reich.

David Todd McCarty thinks we should rekindle some of what we lost as we pass through the years and recommends borrowing a four-year-old to help us see the world through their eyes in Finger Painting Through Life.

On the politics front, Marc Elias is doing the work for us all in his legal efforts to secure voting rights and the all important counting and certifying of the vote. Best piece of political news I’ve heard this week is that Elias has joined the Harris campaign’s legal team. Check out The Fight To Certify Elections Has Already Begun. We can’t say we haven’t been warned.

Perhaps you remember when the Nord Stream Pipeline exploded earlier in the war between Russia and Ukraine. Bojan Pancevski gives us one helluva story in A Drunken Evening, A Rented Yacht: The Real Story of the Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage.

It’s easy to think this tempest of a political moment we’re in is something that’s suddenly sprung upon us. Aaron Timms reminds us that it’s been brewing for awhile in The Decade That Mangled The American Right.

Artificial Intelligence may be losing some of its luster as its purveyors continue to lust after our data. For those who enjoy seeing this play out, Aaron Drapkin gives us AI Gone Wrong: A List of AI Errors, Mistakes and Failures. I wonder how the LLMs will incorporate Drapkin’s work and spit it back out.

If you don’t recognize the quote that begins this week’s Sunday Morning Reading, perhaps Natasha MH gives us a clue in her piece Reading James Joyce Ulysses Will Be Fun, They Said. Tackling Joyce may or may not be worse than a trip to the dentist, but you can risk being “embalmed in spice of words.”

Sunday Morning Reading

Steering clear of politics (mostly) here’s some Sunday Morning Reading to share.

It’s a tough weekend to put this Sunday Morning Reading column together in the wake of last week’s U.S. Presidential debate. I’ve never seen so many knees jerk so violently at once leading me to assume there are quite a few bruises caused from crashing them against computer desks. So, I’ll be avoiding politics this morning. Perhaps. Maybe. We’ll see.

Did you know that milk is the latest front in the culture wars dividing America? Tony Diver tells us how.

Yes, it’s political but no, it isn’t about recent events specifically, so once again I highly recommend you check out The Split by Steve Radlauer and Ellis Weiner. The Split, now up to Chapter 34, is a terrific serialization of all things political, social, and well… all things.

James B. Stewart and Benjamin Mullen take a long look at the future of streaming in The Future of Netflix, Amazon and Other Streaming Services. It’s a worth your time kind of read even though it takes awhile, but it more than hints that none of the titans of this industry has a clue.

The entertainment industry isn’t the only place run by folks without a clue. Check out The Federal Reserve’s Little Secret by Rogé Karma. Apparently those folks pulling the strings on interest rates don’t have much of one either.

And speaking of titans of industry and god-like powers David Todd McCarty thinks If Someone Asks If You’re A God, You say Yes.

On the Artificial Intelligence front Wired has been doing some good work lately reporting on on that front. Check out Lauren Goode and Tom Simonite’s This Viral AI Chatbot Will Lie and Say It’s Human.

Also check out Elizabeth Lopatto’s Perplexity’s Grand Theft AI. Sounds human to me.

Joan Westenberg has an interesting think piece on the misconstruing and appropriation of the message of George Orwell’s 1984 in “This Is Just Like 1984.” Great piece.

I said I’d avoid the political hot potato of the presidential debate. It’s not that I lied, or changed my mind, it’s that this piece is too good to not recommend. Check out Natasha MH’s view in The US Presidential Debate Reminded Me of My Divorce.

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.You can also find me on social networks under my own name.

Sunday Morning Reading

Some Sunday Morning Reading and mourning insights to share.

Another sweltering summer Sunday morning so it’s time for a little Sunday Morning Reading with a host of topics mostly dealing with the myriad challenges ahead of us and mourning some that are behind us.

Natasha MH reminds that in the midst of tough times there are ways to conjure magic that’s actually within our power to control in When Space Meets Stoicism. A lovely piece that hits home. Good advice in these unsettling times. Or even settled ones.

Speaking of unsettling, Cody Delistraty takes a look at how we Americans do and don’t deal with grief in It’s Mourning in America.

Artificial Intelligence remains a hot topic this summer and will remain so for quite some time. There’s been some excellent points made on all sides of the issues involved and I can’t wait to be a few years down the road and see how that’s all rolled up and regurgitated by some generative AI engine that probably doesn’t exist today. In the meantime check out some interesting thinking on the matter from Wenzel in Apple Intelligence and the DMA, Dan Henke’s take in Beardy Guy Musings, and Tim Marchman and Dhruv Mehrotra’s chronicling of Wired’s adventures with Perplexity, Plagiarism and the Bullshit Machine here and here.

Most of the above centers on the issues surrounding AI and its potential for abuse of creators. Sadly, history proves the heat around that issue will eventually cool down. Perhaps we should examine the heat all of this “compute” needed to power this abuse takes on the planet. Check out Bloomberg’s AI’s Insatiable Need for Energy Is Straining Global Power Grids.

David Todd McCarty gives us an artist’s guide to learning how to listen in It’s Not All About You. It’s not just advice for artists.

As crazy as the political and tech worlds are these days, the entertainment world is just as nuts, especially when it comes to the covering of it. Winter of Content by Kevin Nguyen is a rich piece focusing on print media’s transition to the Internet from within the crazy explosion of coverage of Game of Thrones. Great read.

And speaking of entertainment coverage and mourning, it’s a fun game for this older guy to track the sad news surrounding an artist’s death. You can tell when a typically young writer knows very little about an artist’s body of work by the ludicrous title choices of that artist’s work they choose to run in the lede of the obituary. I doubt AI summaries of this will be any better than the quick scans of Wikipedia these interns obviously do now. With this week’s passing of Donald Sutherland it was particularly entertaining given the breadth and complexity of his career. However, there was one piece that grabbed my attention that bucked the trend. Amber Haley tells her remembrance of working with Donald Sutherland as a young set decorator proving that not only do small details matter, they tell the bigger story. Check out The Set Decorator and Donald Sutherland.

Apple and the EU Squabble Over Inclusion of Apple Intelligence and Other New Features

Apple and the EU squabbles continue now over new features.

It’s a Friday free-for-all between Apple and the European Union. Miffed at, or stymied by, the EU’s DMA regulations, Apple announced in the Financial Times that all of the ballyhooed (but still not seen in the real world) Apple Intelligence features along with a few others might not be coming to the EU when they launch in the U.S this fall or even this year.

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John Gruber of Daring Fireball has the full statement from Apple as reproduced here:

Two weeks ago, Apple unveiled hundreds of new features that we are excited to bring to our users around the world. We are highly motivated to make these technologies accessible to all users. However, due to the regulatory uncertainties brought about by the Digital Markets Act (DMA), we do not believe that we will be able to roll out three of these features — iPhone Mirroring, SharePlay Screen Sharing enhancements, and Apple Intelligence — to our EU users this year.

Specifically, we are concerned that the interoperability requirements of the DMA could force us to compromise the integrity of our products in ways that risk user privacy and data security. We are committed to collaborating with the European Commission in an attempt to find a solution that would enable us to deliver these features to our EU customers without compromising their safety.

Apple PR is obviously hard at work here and I’m sure the EU’s PR operations will be following suit shortly. I’m particularly entertained by the phrase “we do not believe.” It’s also fascinating to watch the sideshow of reactions that might turn into something more: how Apple users on their respective sides of the pond are responding to this. Generally speaking from the early reactions I’ve seen the majority of American sympathies tend to lean towards Apple, while it’s just the opposite in Europe. But it’s early and it’s a Friday.

The timing of this suggests an opening salvo in further negotiations given that none of the features in question have been rolled out yet. However, according to Gruber a few of the non Apple Intelligence features (iPhone Mirroring and SharePlay Screen Sharing) are scheduled to roll out in the next betas to be released. iPhone Mirroring is one of the sexier features announced, so it will be interesting to see how that is handled with the next round of betas.

It is obvious that at some point down the road there will be some sort of compromise. Apple doesn’t want to lose the EU market no matter what those who suggest Apple should just pull out of the EU markets might say. And somehow I doubt EU Apple users will exert enough pressure to change any strong position the EU might cling to.

In the meantime the sideshow commentary in addition to the news will make for an interesting Summer beta season.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.

Sunday Morning Reading

AI, politics, culture and a bit of history in some Sunday Morning lake time reading to share.

We’re on lake time this weekend, but there’s always some Sunday Morning Reading to share. Especially when you get to share it from a lovely morning looking over the lake. Lots of AI, some polticis, some culture, and some just fun this Sunday. Enjoy.

It’s Father’s Day weekend, which prompts delving back into memories for me and also comes at a time when the debates around Artificial Intelligence touch a bit on how we collect, save, and share what may have once been memories but might be hallucinations. While this piece from Natasha MH isn’t aimed specifically in either of those directions, it struck some of those chords when I read it. Check out No Proof of Existence.

Speaking of AI, Miles Klee thinks Brands Are Beginning to Turn Away From AI.

Holy moly. Even the Pope is getting into the AI discussion. Antony Faiola, Cat Zakrzewski and Stefano Pirelli take a quick look at How Pope Francis Became the AI Ethicist for World Leaders and Tech Titans. The AP also has a larger report here.

I’ve compiled a large reading list on Apple’s move into AI that it has now branded as Apple Intelligence. It’s way too early in this game to understand or predict the technology and financial games ahead, but as the previous link suggests perhaps not the ethical. Check out Eshu Marneedi’s Why Apple intelligence is the Future of Apple Platforms.

Fascinating piece by Renée DiResta on how online conspiracy theorists turned her into “CIA Renee.” Check out My Encounter with the Fantasy Industrial Complex.

Joan Westenberg does some comparing of our political life between the 1850’s and now in A Republic, If You Can Keep It: How 2024 Rhymes with the 1850’s. The parallels are black and white. The ability for too many to see where this will all lead not so much, as evidenced by this piece from Gregory S. Schneider and Karina Elwood: A School Board Reinstated Confederate Names. It Split The Community Again.

Anna Spiegel reports for Axios on The Folger Shakespeare Library’s Reimagining. This institution is a treasure and worth a visit. I’m looking forward to seeing it again after the new reopening.

Apple Intelligence Crawling Under the Skin for Some

Apple Intelligence is the latest AI effort upsetting web publishers.

As we learn more about Apple Intelligence how Apple is training its AI efforts is crawling under the skin of some web publishers. Apple has been reasonably transparent about how it’s crawling the open web and using data it can grab for its efforts. Even so that’s not sitting well with everybody. But that’s been an uneasy road we’ve all been on with AI in a general sense since those gates were thrown open by OpenAI in 2022.

Screenshot%202024 06 10%20at%2011.36.33%E2%80%AFAM. This is a sticky wicket. Web publishers justifiably don’t feel great about having their content grabbed, regurgitated and spit back out without some consent or control. The other side of that coin is that the info is on the open web and by and large folks can access it through a variety of methods. There’s also the reality that the horse is already far from the barn because most of these AI models have been doing the same thing Apple is doing. AI has a been both a cash grab and a content grab from the get go, because without the content there’s diminishing returns on the cash.

There are methods to exclude a website from being crawled. Dan Moren at Six Colors has posted a good piece on how to do so and what that could mean here. Keep in mind any method used for this only excludes content and data going forward. Federico Viticci at MacStories has already stated that he’ll be excluding his website going forward.

Also keep in mind that this isn’t the only way Apple will be putting Apple Intelligence to work. Regardless, this is going to be an issue to follow as we continue to learn more about Apple Intelligence, which is just the latest in these Artificial Intelligence efforts that we all need to pay attention to. Like it or not it’s here and a fact of life. AND this isn’t the only issue getting under some folk’s skin since Apple made its announcement.

As a side note, my reading list on Apple Intelligence continues to grow with both punditry and technical info that I discover along the way. I imagine that list will just keep growing.

You can find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. I can also be found on social media under my name as above.