Jan 20, 2023 2 min read

You Should Read - Jan 20

Our New Robot Overlords

Scale Meet Claude: Anthropic's Rival to ChatGPT
--> Anthropic was founded by ex-OpenAI engineers. They appear to have a great concern for ethical use (if not necessarily ethical creation, see below), repeatedly using the word "harmless" to describe their bots.

Vice AI Isn’t Artificial or Intelligent: How AI innovation is powered by underpaid workers in foreign countries.

Time Exclusive: OpenAI Used Kenyan Workers on Less Than $2 Per Hour to Make ChatGPT Less Toxic: Content warning: this story contains descriptions of sexual abuse.
--> This is a general audience take on the issue raised last year in the Vice article linked above. Though I'm not sure what Time's readership looks like these days, we need this information to be more broadly read to make non-experts aware of what AI really entails; AI ain't "magic", though it often appears to be.

Interconnected Is the AI Sentience Question Useful to Ask?

The New Republic The Gamification of Everything Is No Fun

Vice Conservatives Are Panicking About AI Bias, Think ChatGPT Has Gone 'Woke': All AI systems carry biases, and ChatGPT allegedly being "woke" is far from the most dangerous one.
--> I mean, is there anything conservatives aren't concerned about going woke?

Collected Ephemera

The Cut Casey Johnston Turned Bulking Up Into a Business: The unlikely weight-lifting coach is making a killing arguing that pumping iron can be for everyone.
--> I find it super weird that this article makes absolutely zero mention of the fact Johnston is a long time and accomplished technology reporter who made a hard pivot to this weight lifting thing. And only in passing deals with the broader challenge of making a living as a journalist.

Very Finnish Problems 23 Fun Facts About the Finnish Language

It's Nice That Made Thought Launches Subscription Platform to Eradicate Plastic From Design Process: The “world’s first” tool is supported by the likes of David Chipperfield. Its aim? To prompt designers and leaders to “eradicate one trillion pieces of plastic waste” by 2025.

New York Times Why the Scary, Funny, Profane ‘FAFO’ Was 2022’s Word of the Year

Seattle Times Starbucks Employees to Go Back to Office 3 Days a Week
--> Starbucks' headquarters building is creepy as hell. There's a lot of competition, but I'm not sure there is a more out-of-touch billionaire than Howard Schultz. His self-delusion in his own goodness is kinda unmatched.

Tech Xplore Ex-Amazon Drone Manager Says He Was Fired for Raising Safety Concerns

Write Some Shit Dear White People, Before You Post Dr. King Quotes To Make Yourself Feel Good…

Indigenous Action Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex

In These Times There Were Only 12 Days Last Year When [US] Police Didn't Kill Someone

The Wabbit Hole

Selections from my Wikipedia searches in the past week...