It’s very hard to take the AI bros’ sudden embrace of UBI seriously when they are simultaneously cheering Trump’s destruction of the welfare states, tbh

This is what provoked my last post.

I'm pissed off about these things, and I'm sure it shows. I have sympathy for people who are desperately overworked; I suspect a chatbot would have produced better marketing copy than my publisher did. None of that changes the unethical nature of current LLMs.

And lest I get accused of being a polarized thinker: I'm well aware some usages are far more damaging than others, and that some people must use them for work in order to remain employed.

In a different world, where data providers were properly compensated, there would be some reasonable use cases.

Just a reminder that so-called "non-public" chatbots are also built off stolen work.

These things are a scourge, head to toe.

1999
Them: Software update time.
Me: Oh, yes, please! Patch me up!

2026

Them: Software update time.

Me: *sigh* What the fuck are you going to break this time?

I’m glad I signed up, but it’s still appallingly little, and too many stolen works were exempted. I won’t celebrate until all these thieving companies have been dissolved.

Thomas Dolby (@thomasdolby.bsky.social) This is Thomas' official account on BlueSky

Amazing concert by @thomasdolby.bsky.social in Plymouth, MA last night. I could have just sat there listening to him forever. Wish we could absorb music like warmth and carry it within us longer.

This strikes me as a) every CEO's dream; and b) a way for MZ to present who he thinks he is, rather than who he actually is.

Would be a potentially interesting psych study if the guy weren't so destructive.

Loved it. Fun cyberpunk heist caper with a widely diverse cast and terrific characters.

OH MY GOD the nonsense of this.

Me, in a cardigan, looking punk as fuck

It's a nice day for a
Light sweater
It's a nice day for a
CARDIGAN

Luckily, mRNA research still continues in the EU and elsewhere. But this is still a terrible blow to medical science.

I found patient zero for like 90% of the terrible writing advice that's gone viral in the last six months and it turns out to be an "AI-assisted writing service" who crosspost-spam their terrible memes aggressively in all the writing subreddits

To be completely fair, I think some people just can't get out of their own heads. My dad was like that - I learned to say, explicitly, "yes, but that doesn't work for ME." Sometimes it worked. :)

But self-pub? There's a large minority who seem to engage defensively every time. I do not get it.

I tried asking them and they just looked worried and kept talking at me. :)

Honestly, most of them can't do it, either.

I dunno if prologues and epilogues are part of the main story but I do know your publisher must be contractually prohibited under penalty of damage payments from utilizing generative AI during the production of your book in any way, including and especially editing and cover design/creation.

HAH I'd never heard them called that before :)

Why Do We Tell Ourselves Scary Stories About AI? | Quanta Magazine Our tales of AI developing the will to survive, commandeer resources, and manipulate people say more about us than they do about language models.

"Suddenly, I understood the racing heart of the modern AI horror genre. It’s not intelligence we fear, but desire." www.quantamagazine.org/why-do-we-te...

There're plenty of great books from new authors. Plenty.

It's just hard to find them in the waves of new books, while it's easier to find good books from the past since, well, they're still available.

This is why I like when people post a list of their new favorites. I liked X. Y is new. Read Y.

People, talk to your librarians! There are tons of books and they can help you find books based on your preferences! They're doctors for your soul, imo. Trial and error book medicine.

Or Fandom groups, I have gotten great suggestions for better books to get over others.

I struggle to keep up with releases these days. Like, "I love books by X", but there's no way to find out when author X publishes a new book, unless I follow them on Bsky and even then it's easy to miss

I feel like a lot of the sentiment is really just “I wish I could enjoy this one specific book for the first time again”

I have a list of these. :)

I subscribe to a few author newsletters, which can help. But I've run across a few authors who - as far as I can find - don't even have web sites.

Have web sites, y'all! We want to find you!

I would not knowingly use AI tech to find a book.

It's worth it to keep looking. :)

I want (a bit) to defend self-pub, while acknowledging that a lot of people do sell their unrevised first drafts! But the *really* unpolished self-pubbed books don't tend to sell. IMO the bigger problem is the different market - self-pub loves a series, and that can clutter discoverability.

AFAIK, on Amazon, at least, it's all based on "this is what other folx who bought this bought." I have found books that way, but I've missed a lot, too. (And don't readers have such fascinatingly diverse tastes!)