Rarely was a quote so clearly destined to show up in transformation/design pitch decks

“To be entirely clear: most AI problems that fail, do so because there was no service design involved, rather than because the AI wasn’t good enough.”

From puntofisso.net/blog/posts/t...

Services: The New Software The next $1T company will be a software company masquerading as a services firm.

Services are big this year

sequoiacap.com/article/serv...

Ha yes. Bread AND tokens (for now)

I think Google have been doing that for a while?

(Writers have had this problem/benefit since literacy became widespread, of course.)

On genAI: Was prototyping really a bottleneck? I keep hearing folks claim that the fact we can ‘prototype’ so quickly now is a good thing (thanks to modern genAI). But what if the slow parts about prototyping are actually what makes it worth doing...

One of the arguments I’ve been looking for

www.frank.computer/blog/2026/03...

Thought this was a beautiful post, thank you for writing!

”Without APIs being accessible to individuals like me, countless websites, passion projects, and even art, would never exist.”

Do you and @harrisonpim.com know each other? Introducing you if not :)

Yes! So good. Couldn’t agree more.

And it’s a much more intuitive way of showing the value of well-designed APIs than the ones we previously had (hands up if you’ve had to depend on Citymapper as the best example in the past 🙋🏻‍♀️)

Also one of the better ways of talking about why data governance matters, which has been SO HARD to get buy-in for:

”LLMs consume data, but they don’t understand what it is without good descriptions and context. So it starts with good data governance.”

Yep. It also reminds me that the explicit policy aim of child care and social care was to give women time to work, largely in manufacturing. There’s no way anglophone centrist governments are going to be that focussed, especially when there’s a jobs shortage

💯 I’d add that I’ve experienced some automated systems now responding to ”speak to a person”, though that might be a US thing

Plus, to frame it in a non-snobby way, having worked as an editor/ghost writer:

Even when tools improve, the TRICKY bit is that to use instagram well, you still need to be able to take great photos, have a clear aesthetic, stories to tell and do all of these consistently. Surprisingly rare

I think instagram had 10+ filters, and even then those early timelines were pretty samey. So perhaps not so surprising that the writing we’re seeing feels v derivative and dull

I don’t think you’re being snobby!

At the moment, the retail LLMs are pretty much at the level of quality that the first instagram filters were for photo editing. But there’s only 3 mainstream options, and people tend to use the one that’s the weakest stylistically (ChatGPT)

Google Blog Search - Wikipedia

Blog search (if only as a reminder of a different web) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_...

My condolences!

Banning Dissection: Where California Goes, So Goes the Nation In 1987, Jennifer Graham, a 15-year old California high school student, refused to dissect a frog because she believed doing so would be immoral. She asked her teacher for an alternative assignment, b...

I imagine it could be, in a parallel to the case of California students being allowed to choose an alternative form of assessment when it came to dissecting animals in biology class: stanforddaily.com/2019/04/29/b...

I’m so sorry about all of this!

I’ve found lawyers to be pretty careless abt what information is shared — legally covered, as in your case, but not careful

The alt text is poetry 🚲💕

Or barring that, just a functionality that lets you export your chats with the chatbots and ”live agents”.

So you have a trusted record that the gov has told you to ignore their emails

A practical application of the ”ethical tech” debates we’ve seen in the UK public sector: a single log of all the communications you’ve received from the government about your case

Far too self-critical :) ”Like a comedian, Chomsky knows what material works and he knows when to use it,” is an especially good observation. Sounds like a fascinating day!

How was interviewing Chomsky??

I checked out interviews and panels with the examiners I suggested, to screen for academics whose interpersonal behaviour seemed cruel/dismissive/unreasonable

Was worth the effort — most of my PhD experience was dreadful, but viva was by far one of the best parts

I’d add:

- start early, because scheduling can take time (mine took 11 months)
- find people whose research you respect but don’t idolise
- if difficult to find examiners with exact match of discipline/area, go for tangential ones whose approaches you agree with

Also: it’s meant to be a lottery for people who live in LA.

There should be an option to prove this, eg with state ID. The software and infrastructure for this exists!

Instead, there’s just a threat that if you put in a fraudulent zip code you might lose your tickets 🤷🏻‍♀️

Registered!

But LA28 need to begin hiring some service designers:

* random email the other day changing Terms and Conditions undermines trust

*FB/insta dependence locks people out

* reminders for registration arrived several hours after it opened

* weird you’re in/no you’re not loop

The waiting list for the waiting list for the LA Olympic ticket draw

”Hanging tight” but not hopeful