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Month: February 2024

THIMK!

THIMK!

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 That’s not a typo. It was a Mad magazine cover – Mad having been the Onion or Babylon Bee of its day – and according to dpgreatlife, “Thimk” was a poke at Thomas J. Watson, Sr., who was once at NCR and later IBM. Watson’s simple mantra was “Think.”

The Atlantic recently ran a piece entitled THE RISE OF TECHNO-AUTHORITARIANISM Silicon Valley has its own ascendant political ideology. It’s past time we call it what it is.

In the relatively early days of Web 2, we wrote an editorial warning that the age of social was creating companies with greater populations than have most countries on the planet. In fact, we called them as nation-states, and warned back then that they could  become more powerful than any government on the planet. It might have taken them 10+ years, but it seems at least the Atlantic seems to be catching on. Read More...

Is Software Trying to Take Too Big a Bite Out of the World?

Is Software Trying to Take Too Big a Bite Out of the World?

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Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

Valentine’s Day just passed, and as we know, at least some humans always seem to go looking for love in all the wrong places. Thank heavens for AI hitting the love space, where people finally can meet someone literally tailor-made for them, but you know love: is anything really as it appears?

This just in:  Your AI Girlfriend Is a Data-Harvesting Horror Show “The privacy mess is troubling because the chatbots actively encourage you to share details that are far more personal than the typical app, Gizmodo reported. “According to a new study from Mozilla’s *Privacy Not Included project, AI girlfriends and boyfriends harvest shockingly personal information, and almost all of them sell or share the data they collect.

“To be perfectly blunt, AI girlfriends and boyfriends are not your friends,” said Misha Rykov, a Mozilla Researcher. “Although they are marketed as something that will enhance your mental health and well-being, they specialize in delivering dependency, loneliness, and toxicity, all while prying as much data as possible from you.” Read More...

Investor Winter: Lessons from Nature

Investor Winter: Lessons from Nature

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Ten months ago, a feral cat showed up in our backyard. He’s a young cat: Harry can’t be more than a few years old, doesn’t meow like felines who are raised by humans. A veterinarian member of the family told us it’s a sign that he’s been feral since birth.

We have no idea where Harry calls home. When we first spotted him in Spring, we started leaving him food. Despite the fact that he’s shown up almost daily since, he hasn’t warmed up to us at all. He shows up for food at least twice a day – very early morning and evening – but always keeps his distance.

And won’t eat any processed food, mind you: he knows better. And hisses at us if – heaven forfend! – we don’t bugger off and give him his space while he’s dining. Read More...