I read a lot. It’s so ingrained in me it’s become part of my DNA. Good writers and writing are like magnets. I’m drawn to it. I live to read something that strikes me upside the head, or cuts deep in the heart. Om Malik’s piece, We Are Living In Pinocchio’s World, struck hard and cut deep. Go read it.
Om is a writer I’ve paid attention to for quite a while. What he thinks and writes is alway informative. Typically his topics are tech related. But in this piece he’s done what I often attempt to do, (not nearly as well as he), weaving together the common threads about tech and politics, or more importantly the people behind them both, that bind one to another into a whole with the precision of a finely tuned instrument. In this case, a pen. You have to read it.
Here’s an excerpt:
Most people remember Pinocchio as a story about lying. The nose grows. You get caught. Lesson learned. But that reading misses almost everything Collodi was actually doing. The book is a close study of a society where deception has gone ambient, woven into every institution, every transaction. Courts punish victims. Authority figures perform competence without exercising it. Experts are decorative. Society holds together through spectacle and habit rather than accountability. Into this environment, a naive creature is released, constitutionally unable to resist a good story about easy reward.
The nose is the least interesting lie in the book. The interesting lies are the ones that work.
You need to read Om’s piece to discover which are the lies that work. If you’re a fan of the story you can probably guess or recollect, but the writing here takes you there in wonderful ways. Either way, you’ll come away thinking that they are as plainly visible as the nose on your face. Yet somehow our gaze always seems focused to look past that.
Pinocchio is a favorite story of mine. I’ve directed a play version in the past. Perhaps Malik’s piece hit me so squarely because I spent time with the book during my preparation for that gig. It was a production for young audiences. The kids always loved it. Their parents or accompanying adults always seemed a little agitated after the performances. Thought of as the children’s story it was originally written as, it contains truth we adults conveniently forget or choose to ignore. Even in the much reduced stage version for young audiences the theme reveals its mark as squarely as it hits it.
As Malik puts it “Pinocchio is a story about a society organized around deception.”
He’s dissected the story, originally published in serial form, and reassembled and animated the core of its humanity in ways that not only meet our moment, but distill the chaos into a sublime simplicity. Much the way any skilled wood carver and maker of puppets would be envious of.
I won’t say any more. I’ll just say again, go read it.
You can also 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. This site does not use affilate links.
That’s the summary of my thoughts for Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference this year. That event happens next week. The waiting and seeing will happen over the summer, possibly all the way until this time next year.
I’m not talking about what Apple will talk about at the conference and in the keynote. I’m talking about what they actually deliver down the road and when they deliver it for the numerous operating systems with 27 tagged on at the end. Some will get love. Some won’t. That’s nothing new. (Ask iPad users.) For a company with so many resources each year’s releases always seem to curiously remind me that Apple picks a platform to focus on, and seems content to let others wither on the vine for a time.
To be fair, I’ve always had a wait and see attitude towards most tech announcements, because what looks sexy and is hyped in the demos, press releases, and podcasts, sometimes makes it into the hands of users, sometimes not. Prior to 2024, Apple usually delivered on what it promised. But that changed with Apple Intelligence. A name I bet they wish they’d never let see the light of day. They didn’t deliver then and haven’t since. They promise they will this time, although who knows what that will really mean. The weight of wait and see has become heavier.
This also comes at a time when there’s a burgeoning backlash building among consumers against anything related to Artificial Intelligence. So the climate is not nearly as inviting as it was two years ago. For what’s it worth, I think it’s becoming harder and harder to sell any product or feature that guarantees its inaccuracy up front, promising to do better in the future. But there sure seem to be enough takers and talkers thinking different on that than I.
Curiously, Apple seems to be hedging its bets, apparently set on using Google’s AI as the foundation. Some say that’s a place holder until Apple rolls its own AI after it’s mistaken first rollout, the way it did with Maps. Some say it’s a wise move for the future because it might save Cupertino some cash and more blowback from having to build out its own data centers. I say, wait and see.
From what I read Google may be reinventing itself and the Internet with its efforts, but those efforts aren’t meeting with thunderous applause and accolades. At least compared to Google’s competitors. Besides effectively putting Google in the catbird (chatbot?) seat driving all AI chatbot activity on the majority of handsets sold on the planet (Android and iOS), who knows how it will turn out. No chatbot can predict, nor can any human. That said, the marketing puzzle about what’s Apple and what’s Google is going to be fun to watch play out, even in the end it’s going to be meaningless to most consumers.
There’s also word that this year’s OS releases will also focus on fixes and not new features the way Snow Leopard did for Leopard on Macs back in the day. Intriguingly there were quite a new features for Macs in that release. Speaking of Macs, there’s also talk that they will see more of Liquid Glass than we saw the first time around. To be honest, I’m grateful for last year’s comparative neglect of Liquid Glass on the Mac. I’m waiting and seeing with a bit of trepidation how attention is focused on that this year. I’m also waiting on the day when someone finds a way to sell me on rounded corners on rectangular displays.
I would welcome fixes. Boy, would I welcome fixes. I’ve long maintained that the cadence of Apple’s OS release cycles is too rapid to allow it to effectively address problems. I get that there’s a long view and a necessity to look ahead, but when you’re hearing leaks about the next year’s efforts before this year’s are announced I think the tempo is too fast and it becomes too tempting to push things off until the next year.
I’ve written about a number of things that bug me off and on. Because they bug me off and on. I’ll list some that stand out that I wish would get attention. That said, most seem to fall back on issues with iCloud. Hearing talk that however Apple rolls out the new Siri or chatbot feature will allow that feature’s chat history to sync across devices via iCloud gives me a shutter. I’m guessing that will lead to more unexplainable stops and stutters in iCloud syncing in general.
So, here’s a small list of things I hope, but am not counting on, seeing addressed.
iCloud syncing. Just make it reliable and give us Sync Now buttons. We get one is Messages. How about the rest of the core apps?
Perpetual Betas: I know, and respect that Apple is continuing to work on each new operating system throughout the year. Kudos. It can’t be easy. That said, find a way to keep from mucking things up on the backend for users who don’t participate in betas. Perpetual beta weirdness is hell for normal users.
Phone app. Apple made significant changes last year. They need to make more. There’s no reason in the world I can see for not going all in to help users more efficiently get rid of unwanted or fraudulent calls.
Error Messages. Tell us more. Yes, I know something failed. Tell me more about what failed and point to a solution or information that can help me find out more.
Apple Mail. Rules in Apple Mail need to work consistently, or just be done away with. Features in Apple Mail on iPhones and Macs need to be brought into line with each other. It makes a mockery of trying to unify things between iOS and macOS.
Shortcuts. Yesterday’s future is probably some tomorrow’s further fading feature. Shortcuts are great when Apple doesn’t change things behind the scenes that cause them to break. That happens too often. Rumors that you’ll be able to create them via a chatbot sounds potentially promising. But if they are still going to randomly break, what really is the point?
Contacts. A small amount of attention could do wonders with this seemingly forgotten, yet essential app.
Apple Music on the Mac. Why is this app so bad for a company that says over and over again that it loves music?
Reminder Notifications for Shared Reminders. There has to be a way to programmatically dismiss a shared reminder notification once it has been completed and marked off. Fix it. It is just simply annoying. Especially in the context of all of the improvements in the Reminders app the last few years.
App Store. For a company that spends untold amounts of money on its brick and mortar stores, I remain shocked at how they can be proud of the software versions of any of its App Stores.
watchOS Software UI: We’ve already heard there won’t be much in the way of changes for the Apple Watch this year. But at least pay attention to some of the software design.
Settings. Find a way to clean up this mess. There has to be a way.
Note that many of the issues listed above are still hanging around and are the same as in my list last year.
As much as the attention will be on whatever Apple attempts with Apple Intelligence after WWDC 26, attention will also quickly pivot to the fall when new devices are announced. Given that we’ve heard countless times that devices like Apple TV and HomePods, and other home related products, are waiting in the wings for software focused on AI features to catch up, it will be curious to see what attention, if any, they get during WWDC. I don’t think those devices will be announced until the fall. I don’t expect any hardware announcements of any kind next week.
Speaking of waiting in the wings, much will also be made about this being Tim Cook’s final WWDC as CEO with John Ternus due to take spotlight this September. Much attention will be paid to the semiotics surrounding all of that during WWDC and after. That will be interesting to watch, but since WWDC 2026 feels more and more like a catch up year all around, I’m guessing next year’s event might be more telling. We’ll have to wait and see.
So, there’s my thoughts. That and nickel won’t buy you anything.
You can also 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. This site does not use affilate links.
Biker heroes, cheese thieves, and stupidity checklists
Sunday Morning Reading time with stories and good writing about crime, incompetence, technology, shifts and changes, and cheese. There’s also hope in and amongst the chaos. Add a slice of cheese to your morning repast and give a read.
Starting this week’s edition with a surprising feel good story that reminds us we shouldn’t judge books by covers. Marlon G. Baxter tells the tale of young hearing impaired child who was saved from being trafficked in a Walmart by what appeared to most as an unlikely hero. You need to read “Heroes Wear Leather Too”: How A Deaf Child And A Biker Stopped A Trafficking Plot.
UPDATE: This pisses me off. Apparently the feel good story linked above is fake. I and several others have looked into it and it’s not holding up. Pardon my swearing, but this is so goddamned frustrating. I’m leaving the link and my description in for two reasons. Pointing out that we can’t trust a damn thing on the Internet anymore. Secondly, that really sucks given we’re all in a posture of looking for hope whenever we can find it.
In the wake of what’s happening at the ICE Delaney Hall detention center internment camp in New Jersey, Josh Kovensky recounts the story of what happened in the courts after similar battles over humanity happened earlier in Chicago. Check out How The Broadview Six Fought The Trump DOJ—And Found Massive Wrongdoing In The Process. Tough to see hope in these horrible moments as they occur, and it’s hard to believe we have to rely on the incompetence of evil doers after the fact, but here we are.
On the arts and politics front, a court has ruled Trump has to take his name off of the Kennedy Center and not close it down for renovations. Sounds like a victory. In the long term it may be, but Janay Kingsbury tells us that in the immediate future the damage may already have been done in Trump Hasn’t Left Much Kennedy Center To Stay Open. So much of what’s happening these days hurts my heart, but this misadventure hits me where I live.
Everything is changing, like it or not. Sonny Bunch thinks Hollywood is standing on the doorstep of yet another pivotal moment. Check out Hollywood’s About To Change (Again).
As far as pivotal moments go, there are quite a few happening all around us. Especially regarding searching the Internet. Google is reinventing itself and the Internet, leaving an opening for companies like DuckDuckGo and Kagi. Doc Searls writes How DuckDuckGo Can Be A Hero. Let’s hope these search companies seize the moment that’s before them.
And while we’re on the topic of tech, John Siracusa has published The EV Stupidity Checklist, suggesting ways the EV industry might get back on track. John could and should publish one of these for so many things in the tech sector. Perhaps also for so many other sectors of our lives.
I’m a cheese fan, and I’ve been known to nick a slice or two off of the hors d’oeuvres tray before the guests arrive. Olivia Potts tells us how organized crime fell in love with cheese in The Grate Cheese Robbery. Who knew cheese was the most stolen food in the world?
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. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. This site does not use affilate links.
Bottom lines are where everything sinks to eventually
Money talks. Bullshit walks. Bubbles pop, and the world just keeps on burning while the big wheels just keep on turning. Pick a vibe. Pick a cliché. Pick a metaphor. Pick and mangle a song lyric. Just don’t try to pick a winner in the big AI race when it comes to dollars and cents. Or sense. The racers are running in circles, burning the planet and dollars trying to figure out how to keep things on a track no one has figured out quite yet.
Hint: It’s a circle, jerks.
From the beginning the hype about Artificial Intelligence has felt like it’s all about the vibes. So many vibes. I define “the beginning” as when OpenAI took the wraps off of ChatGPT and kick started the race. Maybe they should have just done a Kickstarter.
Those were heady days. I remember everyone thinking ChatGPT would replace Google. Now we’re at the point where Google is trying to replace itself.
Today, chatbots are replacing human connections, and all sorts of crustaceans are being installed on computers, causing some havoc in the hardware markets along the way. Things have now progressed to a point that folks are vibe coding up a storm, now that it seems more doable. And it’s interesting to see and hear some who were initially skeptical about the broad scope of AI now embracing it. For what it’s worth, the current vibe feels to me like AI is heading into its GUI phase of computing, only you need a keyboard or a microphone instead of a mouse to get around on a screen or without one.
And yet, when it comes to the money game, the vibe feels like the math behind all those 0’s and 1’s might not add up.
Corporations are starting to scale back usage now that the bills are coming in. Microsoft and other tech companies are pulling plugs, in most cases for third party access among the employees they haven’t let go. At the same time there’s whispers that AI costs are beginning to exceed the costs of human employees. Corporations are starting to adjust because the beans they are counting don’t look like they will add up and no one has vibe coded an accounting app yet to project when, of if they will.
Consumers are looking at that $20 month subscription cost and backing off while trying to choose which, if any, of the constantly updating models that still promise inaccuracy will give them the best monthly bang for a double sawbuck. To make the math sting even more, Google, OpenAI, Claude, etc… are tossing around $100 a month (and higher) plans for the latest and supposedly best features that make $20 a month feel like a poor man’s vibe.
There’s a technology intersection that has always been on the roadmap for computing technology since the dawn of the personal computer. To an extent, enterprise computing always subsidized consumer technology. The vibes I’m sensing hint that roadmap may be changing, and it won’t just affect the costs of using AI, computer memory, and chip production. It potentially may filter into every facet of life from medical bills, to insurance premiums, to any wholesale or retail concern that might employ AI. Don’t think for a minute that any company is going to simply eat the rising costs of AI usage, or cut back prices should using it somehow actually produce savings from cutting employees.
Call me when you hear the first company touting that they are cutting costs due to AI. Trust me, I won’t be waiting by the phone.
If a vibe has a bottom line, here’s how I see this one. We’re heading into a moment where what we think of as computing and the Internet is going to run on two diverging tracks. It’s becoming obvious that whether someone is running any of the AI robots on their own device or somewhere on the Internet that the costs are more than anyone could have predicted, or thought might become sustainable.
The $20 a month marker was a big hint early on. We were all used to the Internet come on of getting in free, being swamped with ads, and then having to eventually subscribe so our data could be collected. That $20 a month heralded a change, but only at the point of entry.
Given that we all know that advertising is coming to AI, we’re escaping the orbit that we’ve been in for quite some time that most of the Internet was free but required a level of tolerance for advertising. I’m guessing that those who can only afford the $20 a month price tag with ads will think back on the ways we’ve complained about the streaming entertainment services and their ad proliferation as quaint by comparison.
The Circle
That $20 entry fee will rise. So will the more expensive options. I’m actually surprised we haven’t see that already. The fact that AI has to continually train itself to remain relevant means it’s going to continue to need new computing cycles to consume whatever is generated in the future, whether by humans or robots. I don’t think you can build enough data centers on the surface of this planet, under the sea, or in space to afford the churn and burn. That’s the circle. In the end it’s a real estate play that yields only cul-de-sacs.
Take a look at this article from Simon Willison. Unlike my pessimistic vibe on this, Willison seems to think Anthropic and OpenAI have found their product-market fit. He’s spending $200 a month ($100 to each) and considers that a bargain since his usage of the two generated $2,180 change in token use for a month. That math certianly adds up as a good deal in the current moment. Until you consider that at some point the difference between what he’s paying and what he’s using is going to have to be put on somebody’s balance sheet in some way. These companies can’t run at a loss forever.
It’s a good piece by Willison that informs quite a bit on this discussion and worth your time, because I think that’s what the discussion is going to inevitably come down to. Set aside all of the debates about accuracy, copyright, and environmental issues. Set aside the rising consumer backlash. Bottom lines are where everything sinks to eventually.
I admire and am grateful for folks like Willison, Federico Viticci, and others who are exploring this frontier and think we should be paying attention to their efforts and learn from them. Viticci has crafted a few interesting bits of software of late and spent some coin in doing so. I’m enjoying reading about his efforts.
I may be wrong, but it feels like we might be headed to a point that to use some software in the future we’re going to need one of these ever changing and increasingly expensive AI engines on our computers to run some of the software that will be generated in the future. That will certainly come with a price tag. If, (actually in my opinion when) that happens, it will become another border defined by costs, dividing users between those who can afford the entry fee, and those who can’t.
It will also affect far more than our computing lives.
You can also 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. This site does not use affilate links.
Two weeks. We’re all more familiar than we’d like to be with Donald Trump’s announcing anything and telling us it will manifest in two weeks. It’s become a joke worth laughing at, but without a punch line. It’s become mundane.
We’ve also become accustomed to hearing promises from tech companies, that a safer and perhaps smarter course of action is to look askance with a skeptical eye, or perhaps turn a deaf ear. Autonomous driving is one of those, (as is anything Elon Musk promotes) and so too are most of the promises about achieving some sort of Generative Artificial Intelligence that might lead us all into some future where we all don’t have to work, money becomes no object, and all of our problems are solved. Let’s not forget curing cancer.
If we’re standing in the “foothills of the singularity,” I’m guessing those enjoying that view drove there instead of climbed.
It’s one thing for politicians and anyone trying to sell a product to make promises. It’s quite another when the world’s economy turns on the hype, yet never seems to suffer ill effects when deadlines are missed, ignored, or just punted down the road again and again.
Apple caught much deserved grief over its Apple Intelligence promises in 2024, as of yet still unrealized. But that seems to be one of the rare occasions when failure actually left a mark. Even so, that gigantic mistake seems to be have been quickly forgotten. It certainly doesn’t seem to have affected Apple’s bottom line. Even a class action settlement between Apple and those who bought into the promise when they bought a new iPhone doesn’t seem to have caused much of a ripple.
Even when software products are released, it feels like we’re too often in a perpetual beta, always waiting for the next update. When it comes to AI, there are so many bets being made on it being our future, even with all of the products today warning us that they are imperfect and capable of mistakes. When will someone pushing that hype tells us that those warnings will one day be gone? I’m guessing never. At least if the lawyers have a say.
I guess I’m showing my age when I say I grew up in a time when if you announced a product you were judged on whether or not you delivered. If you didn’t, how you handled the broken promise mattered.
They say all good things come to those who wait. These days there are times when I wonder if any of it is worth any of the wait. The promises sure aren’t.
You can also 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. This site does not use affilate links.
Wandering through the Internet, disregarding along the way
We live in interesting times. I’m spending a lot of my time being interested in watching my grandkids develop, and watching everything around how I thought they might grow up change. In my opinion, change not necessarily for the better. They won’t know what things changed from necessarily, unless they choose to look into it. That assumes they’ll be able to do so the way we can now. I have my doubts about that. Regardless, that’s tomorrow. Here are some links to share in this edition of Sunday Morning Reading.
Terry Godier says the Internet is dying. I’m not sure if it’s dying, morphing, collapsing in on itself, or just in the midst of growing pains, but I take the point. Check out The Boring Internet. (That’s a link to the text version. There’s also an animated version here. Quite nicely done.
JA Westenberg believes Nobody Is Destined For Greatness. I happen to agree. Shakespeare gave his greatest comic villain, Malvolio, lines about being born great. I wish I could label our current day villains as comic. Perhaps one day.
Derek Sivers reminds us that Geography Is Four-Dimensional. How true. There’s a reason Shakespeare more often than not capitalized the word “Time.”
Stories about religion occasionally get shared here. Mostly they are stories about how it’s really not religion, but a cover for grift and abuse. This is one of those. He Remade The Southern Baptist Convention In His Image. Then Came The Abuse Allegations by Robert Downen chronicles yet another of those tales we seem to hear far too frequently these days.
For another take involving religion, check out Neil Steinberg’sBeing Formed By Christians Does Not A Christian Make. He quotes Thomas Jefferson’s “It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” I’m not sure we can say either of those things any more.
There was a bit of a funny fracas after Google’s all in on AI announcements this week at its annual I/O conference. Apparently for a short time after Google announced big changes to Search, you could not Google the word “disregard” and expect the usual quick definition. Google quickly fixed that. The root of the problem? “Disregard” is an AI command that you have to put in a prompt to keep the AI demons from you know, making a mistake. Check out Russell Brandom’s quick story, You Can No Longer Google the Word ‘Disregard.’
Speaking of Artificial Intelligence, the talk is all about agents. (Actually that’s been the talk for a while, the volume is just increasing.) Hayden Field thinks If Google Can’t Make AI Agents Useful, Maybe No One Can. FWIW, I think Hayden is spot on.
In an article The Economist credits as anonymous, someone thinks Vladimir Putin Is Losing His Grip On Russia. Perhaps that’s true. I don’t know about you, but I’m as tired of hearing about autocratic oligarchs losing their grip as I am about hearing all of the promises about generative AI and autonomous driving being just around the corner.
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. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. This site does not use affilate links.
The way I’m feeling things, Google is essentially repaving what we’ve been referring to as The Information Superhighway, better known as the Internet.
Gone (or soon to be gone) is the Google most Internet pedestrians think of when they think of Google. Google has decided it’s ready to quit A/B testing and slowly spoon feeding us Artificial Intelligence, and chosen to bulldoze new paths ahead that will be all AI, all the time, everywhere.
From what I’m seeing if you want to use Google’s products, whether it’s on a Google device, Samsung or other Android device, or even an Apple device, you’re serving Google in larger ways, while serving yourself.
This has and continues to be a race that Google has always had the resources to win, and for the next few laps at least it feels like they will. Frankly, I don’t see the others being able to compete on that scale, for the simple reason that like it or not, Google is far more entrenched in users minds as a go to than any of the others.
Also, the other competitors may be good at creating code, but they appear far more incompetent at selling what they offer. Google has become pervasive enough, that it doesn’t need to care as much.
As to feelings, this does feel bad as it feels inevitable. I liken it to the days of Interstate construction that spread across this country. Entire generations have grown up not knowing how to drive great distances without traveling along an Interstate. Sure, there are folks who avoid them and take their time along more conventional routes, but that’s a very distinct minority.
Eventually there will be entire generations that will never know what the verb “Google” meant, the way those understand it today, just like those pre-Interstate generations of drivers. Even so, I’m guessing using it as a verb will probably mean the same to those down the road in the same way my grandkids don’t distinguish driving to grandpa’s house any differently than I do, when what today would take less than an hour, back then took at least two, often three.
But like many communities that slowly died out when Interstates and expressways bypassed towns, depressing changes will come to the Internet as Google owns more of the traffic and shares less, and essentially has to charge tolls to head down it’s superhighway, that used to be free.
I’m still digesting the news from this week, and I don’t think the story has been completely told yet. There’s also no way to know that if any of these promises will ever pan out. (Google is as famous for announcing what might never come to pass as it is for search.) That’s why this is a feelings post. Perhaps one of the most unsettling feelings I have about all of this is that Apple, by adopting Google’s approach to AI, in lieu of its own failing efforts, is helping create an Internet universe that for most users, will essentially be controlled by Google. Samsung is already all in, Apple as of this fall will be too. That essentially means that buying a smartphone from one of the largest two sellers, or any other that uses Android, is buying a ticket to travel on Google’s superhighway.
The various theories that suppose Apple is doing this as a stop gap until it can come up with its own solution the way it had to with Maps back in the day, don’t hold much water in the vessel that is my brain. There’s money to be made certainly, but there’s money (lots of money) that needs to be spent to construct all of whatever Google thinks it has going. My hunch is Apple will let Google spend the dough, take the credit and the blame, (there will be plenty of both) and happily collect a percentage as long as it can still sell iPhones and other hardware.
You can also 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. This site does not use affilate links.
Oh, ye brave intrepid adventurers trodding through the frontier, trod on. Carve your way into uncharted territory, knowing not what lies beyond the bend. The rest of us will wait. I’m guessing the rest of us are going to be quite content doing so.
News popped today that OpenAI wants users of ChatGPT to provide access to their bank accounts and other financial data.
Read that again.
The chatbot that’s famous for telling us it might make a mistake, and delivering on that promise, wants users to turn over access to their banking accounts to help them better understand their finances.
The article from The Verge I saw pop across my feeds begins its lede with “Your trust in AI is about to be put to the test.” It could have just as easily said, “OpenAI is looking for suckers.”
I’m not going to get into the whys and wherefores of the tech behind this. The article linked above gives you some of that info. TechCrunch has another if you care to look. There does seem to be a list of well known financial institutions that are willing to let there customers connect to the service including Schwab, Fidelity, Chase, Robinhood, American Express, and Capital One. Apparently there are over 12,000.
Quoting from the TechCrunch article:
With the new financial tool integration, users can get detailed answers to questions such as “I feel like I’ve been spending more recently. Has anything changed?” or “Help me build a plan to be ready to buy a house in my area in the next 5 years.”
Tell me you didn’t read that and immediately think that the minute a user enters that prompt they will immediately start receiving offers from those 12,000 financial institutions. That’s where this is headed. And as far as the history of the Internet is concerned, AI or not, that’s what it’s all turned into.
The reality is that just like with the health data that OpenAI also wants, whether users turn this type of info over or not, the data is going to be delivered to some data center at some point. Don’t think the three credit bureaus aren’t just waiting for the right offer to turn over your data, much the same way insurance companies are with your health data. Users donating their data will just provide another point of triangulation, and a more direct access to their inboxes.
If you ask me, this is just another exercise taking advantage of human curiosity and gullibility and turning that into more vectors to sell, sell, sell.
If those willing to head out into this new frontier of finance are willing to take that gamble, I say go for it. Let us know what you find.
My hunch it won’t be anything new.
(Image from OpenAI)
You can also 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. This site does not use affilate links.
Here’s something I’ve been recently thinking about software. There’s really nothing new under the sun. And the skies have been cloudy for a good while. It feels like we’ve reached a point where the only difference between apps within a category boil down to execution and design. Often not even then.
Perhaps we’ve exhausted all of the ideas for what software can do and we’re just looking for a better iteration of what we already have at hand.
I’m talking on a consumer level. Beyond whatever AI supposedly offers, and the explosion of social media apps that happened when Twitter x-ed itself out, I can’t name an app or piece of software in the last few years that wasn’t a different version of something that already existed. Even AI software feels like it’s more of the same, just at a quicker pace.
Certainly there are nuances. But over time they tend to blur. As an example, take weather apps. They’ve all recently followed the leader (I don’t know which app that was) to display variable forecasts from different weather sources. It’s a good feature given that weather services can offer different forecasts. But as most weather apps have quickly adopted similar features, once again there isn’t much of a differentiator between them. Unless Carrot Weather’s bell weather use of insults is your cup of tea.
Don’t get me wrong. Execution and design can (and should) go a long way. Even more so when all things seem much the same or serve the same purpose. Beyond price, that’s really the only big differentiator.
It’s why I’ll try out an app that looks like it doesn’t offer anything beyond what I already have. Within that personal scope, let me say that the new social media browsing and crossposting app Indigo is worth your attention if its functionality fits how you use social media.
Indigo is the creation of Soapbox, the developers who created crossposting app Croissant. (I wrote about it when it released.) While Croissant allows you to cross post to Mastodon, Bluesky, and Threads, (functionality I find useful), Indigo is meant primarily to merge and scroll through a single timeline of your Mastodon and Bluesky feeds. You can also crosspost to both if that’s your desire. Threads isn’t included, as it doesn’t allow for viewing its timelines in the same way, which is curious as it is supposedly federated with Activity Pub.
If scrolling social media feeds is your thing, Indigo is certainly worth a look. It’s very well designed, and easy to discover its functionality.
It’s a first version of the app, and as one of the developers, Aaron Vegh says on his blog, “The Indigo we’re shipping today is going to be the worst version.” For the worst and first version, I believe Aaron and Ben McCarthy have done an excellent job. (You should read both Aaron’s and Ben’s blog posts. Ben’s describes the functionality quite well.) Having followed the development of Croissant since its release, I’ll say that the care they’ve used in the past with that app points to the same for the future of Indigo.
If you use both Mastodon and Bluesky, once you sign in to both through Indigo, you see your feeds merged together. You don’t need to use both social networks. The functionality is the same if you prefer only one of the two social networks. So, if you’re user of only one, it could replace whatever app you might currently be using.
One of the nicest design touches, and obviously an essential one, is that it’s easy to distinguish where things are coming from if you merge your timelines. Mastodon links are purple and those from Bluesky are, well they’re blue.
You can tell if a post is crossposted between the two networks, and another nice feature is that Indigo will merge the two in some cases (timing plays a part) so you don’t see them twice. You can switch between each version and take actions like quoting or replying to both at the same time.
If you’ve used Croissant to crosspost, doing so on Indigo will feel very familiar. Notifications, should you choose to receive them on your device, work as you would expect. The Notification tab in the app is quite well done and easy to understand.
The app is available for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and a single subscription covers you across devices. There is a free tier that’s read-only. If you’re interested in Indigo, the free tier is read only. That’s good way to determine if the excellent design of the app appeals to you.
If you use both social networks and would like to combine your feeds into one timeline I think Indigo is worth a look. Let me say this about Indigo and my social media usage. The single merged timeline feature has its attraction, but it’s not something that’s a high priority for me and that brings me back to the beginning of this post.
I like to keep my eye out for developers who focus on good design and good functionality. That’s the case with Indigo. As in this case, an app may not fit my needs, but I’ll remember the developers or company behind it. It’s much the same way I follow good theatre or film directors, and good writers.
I don’t see many new ideas or new needs to fill coming down the software or app pike in the near future. That may say more about me than it does the software market these days. Even so, that view of mine has me paying even closer attention to those who care about the look and feel of what they produce.
(image from the author)
You can also 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. This site does not use affilate links.
A promise not made is easier to avoid than a promise made
There’s an issue out there that could change the way people think about a nuisance we all increasingly live with. That issue is spam. Emails, texts, phone calls, you name it. We’re swarmed with it like with mosquitos at dusk. And every effort you hear a tech company make to try and make unwanted calls and messages less of a problem is essentially a sop, soon to be defeated. The bad guys are better at this game, and quite frankly, the good guys don’t really care.
I’ve often said that any politician running for national office promising to end spam in all forms as we know it would instantly find a constituency. I still believe that.
Politicians won’t do it, because, hey, they are part of the spamming problem. Note that they’ve exempted themselves from any soft shelled regulations they’ve legislated in the past.
These days, Tech CEOs also have an opening they’ll never take advantage of it. Not that they don’t care the way politicians don’t, but spam is good for their business. Take the AI push and the reactions to it. The folks pushing Artificial Intelligence are worried about a backlash spoiling their game from consumers, corporations, and maybe a government or two. And that backlash appears to be growing.
Who knew that if your CEO discovered that they weren’t wracking up bottom line savings by dismissing the workforce that they’d be a bit peeved?
Who knew in what AI-induced downsizing law firms that feeding legal advice or sensitive information into an AI chatbot removed attorney client privilege?
Who knew that folks watching in plain sight as local politicians took cash to push through new data center construction that would increase their utility bills that folks would shockingly rise up in anger?
Who knew that employees of AI companies would be so concerned about how governments might use AI for surveillance and war fighting that they would petition their CEOs to stop government contracts?
Here’s a small hint. Everybody knew. Everybody knows. It sounds like for the most part the chumps are catching on.
While there are spheres where AI might actually be of benefit to society AI might not get that chance unencumbered. So far on a consumer level its time saving and life altering benefits seem to have boiled down to sorting through emails and calendars, creating nonconsensual porn, making music and podcasts that nobody wants, dishing out bad therapy advice, and creating conversational partners for those who can’t converse with others in real life.
Essentially the same promises that computer technology has always promised. Only this time around the wheel it’s becoming exponentially easier to collect data from anyone using the computers. And that’s the end game.
Even with this growing backlash, tech CEOs aren’t going to make a promise to use this new super intelligence that can schedule a flower delivery, or spit out your calendar, to derail the possibility of them controlling that game. It is funny though that no one seems to have created a chatbot or LLM that can solve PR problems.
I don’t pretend to understand all of the technological ins and outs of chatbots, LLMs, MCPs, and other terms that seem to change each time a new version comes out or something goes wrong. I do suspect that the technology they are promising could fix the spam problem if that was the desire. In the same way, politicians could do so with regulation.
There’s a part of me that thinks these are actually political promises with technological problems that could actually be solved, or at least ameliorated. But promises not made are easier to deal with than keeping promises made.
There’s money to be made, and plenty of suckers willing to pony up. So why upset the game by pandering to sentiment?
You can also 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. This site does not use affilate links.
Om is a writer I’ve paid attention to for quite a while. What he thinks and writes is alway informative. Typically his topics are tech related. But in this piece he’s done what I often attempt to do, (not nearly as well as he), weaving together the common threads about tech and politics, or more importantly the people behind them both, that bind one to another into a whole with the precision of a finely tuned instrument. In this case, a pen. You have to read it. 
