Author | Lightnews

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · 1d

One of the first times I've wanted to stop reading an aphyr piece before the end...I didn't, though, and neither should you.

(He might not be a journalist, but he's a fantastic writer. Not sure why OP here starts out with what reads like a backhanded compliment.)

Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 2d

Kyle Kingsbury is not a journalist. He is not an op-ed writer.

He is a computer safety researcher.

And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.

In under 1600 words.

aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...

I Want You to Understand Chicago
Politics Chicago
2025-11-08

I want you to understand what it is like to live in Chicago during this time.

Every day my phone buzzes. It is a neighborhood group: four people were kidnapped at the corner drugstore. A friend a mile away sends a Slack message: she was at the scene when masked men assaulted and abducted two people on the street. A plumber working on my pipes is distraught, and I find out that two of his employees were kidnapped that morning. A week later it happens again.

An email arrives. Agents with guns have chased a teacher into the school where she works. They did not have a warrant. They dragged her away, ignoring her and her colleagues’ pleas to show proof of her documentation. That evening I stand a few feet from the parents of Rayito de Sol and listen to them describe, with anguish, how good Ms. Diana was to their children. What it is like to have strangers with guns traumatize your kids. For a teacher to hide a three-year-old child for fear they might be killed. How their relatives will no longer leave the house. I hear the pain and fury in their voices, and I wonder who will be next.

Understand what it is to pray in Chicago. On September 19th, Reverend David Black, lead pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, was praying outside the ICE detention center in Broadview when a DHS agent shot him in the head with pepper balls. Pepper balls are never supposed to be fired at the head because they can seriously injure, or even kill. “We could hear them laughing as they were shooting us from the roof,” Black recalled. He is not the only member of the clergy ICE has assaulted. Methodist pastor Hannah Kardon was violently arrested on October 17th, and Baptist pastor Michael Woolf was shot with pepper balls on November 1st.

Understand what it is to sleep in Chicago. On the night of September 30th, federal agents rappelled from a Black Hawk helicopter to execute a raid on an apartment building on the South Sho…

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · 7d

Glad someone else found that segment as ridiculous as I did. Might be the first time I've heard someone say that yes, we have a problem, but only because Republicans haven't put any effort into solving it. If only we could put them all in a room together and harness their formidable abilities.

3

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · 19d

I dunno...sure looks like the purse strap changed. And is there an unmasked agent in any of the other photos?

1 1

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Sep 12

(Sorry, bsky devs; I like what you've done here, but it's clear our species' brains aren't ready for the medium in general.)

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Sep 12

If the only thing "AI" actually accomplishes is to flood social media with astroturfed propaganda, eventually making it so that no one believes anything on these sites was written by a human and hollowing them out of actual human participation...

...I'll call that a win.

1

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Sep 9

You built a pattern generator, not a consciousness. It has no way to tell fact from fiction. What did you *think* would happen?

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Sep 9

It can't possibly have taken them this long to figure this out.
openai.com/index/why-la...

Why language models hallucinate

OpenAI’s new research explains why language models hallucinate. The findings show how improved evaluations can enhance AI reliability, honesty, and safety.

openai.com

1 1

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Aug 31

I'd like to propose a novel disorder: pathological anthropomorphism
www.psychopathia.ai

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Aug 27

You're telling me an AI researcher is myopic and almost completely uninformed about other fields of study that could complement their own? No way; that bunch is famously multidisciplinary and supportive of the humanities.

Matt Spike @matspike.bsky.social · Aug 13

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAALHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAALHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAALHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Tweet from Joscha Bach

@Plinz

"Al is the only academic field that has committed itself to studying the nature of intelligence." – Kristinn Thorisson, AGI2025

4

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Aug 12

I get that the underlying intent there is a bad faith argument, but...what if the words themselves are accurate? The real "ambient social disorder" is the rampant misinformation about cities/other people that results in terrified, jumpy people carrying AR-15s around.

1

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Jul 23

It takes someone truly ignorant about how this technology works to attempt to regulate "objectivity" and "top-down bias" — but that's been broadly true about government regulation of the tech industry for decades now.

Natasha Bernal @natashabernal.bsky.social · Jul 23

New: Trump's AI Action Plan continues the crusade against “woke” AI, recommending that federal procurement guidelines are updated so that only AI companies that “ensure that their systems are objective and free from top-down ideological bias” are given contracts. www.wired.com/story/trumps...

Trump’s AI Action Plan Is a Crusade Against ‘Bias’—and Regulation

The Trump administration’s new AI policy blueprint calls for limited regulation and lots of leeway for Big Tech to grow even bigger.

www.wired.com

3

Reposted by Josh

Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · Jul 1

one insidious thing about evil is that it makes thinking about anything else difficult, not only crowding other things out but also making them seem meaningless; it drains all but a sliver of the world of colour and saps the will to live outside that sliver — unless you ignore it, which is giving in

3 20 92

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Oct 25

It was the worst of times, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of darkness, it was the winter of despair.

Point Blank Sandwich Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social · Oct 25

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a Republican party no longer in possession of a its senses or values, must be in want of a speaker.

Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · Oct 24

To lose one Speaker may regarded as a misfortune. To lose four looks like carelessness.

1

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Aug 8

If you win, you get these shiny points made of diamond, but if you lose...well, actually, either way the devil gets your soul.

1

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Aug 8

Calling all Faustian bargain hunters!

TikTok is (almost certainly) creating a proprietary singing TTS model and would very much like you to donate some training data.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/07/tiktok-live-music-competition-gimme-the-mic/

TikTok seeks aspiring artists to show off their talent in live music competition | TechCrunch

TikTok is hosting a virtual talent show, Gimme the Mic, to reward aspiring artists and is giving them up to 500,000 Diamond rewards.

techcrunch.com

1 1

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Jul 18

Spotify's "AI" DJ is an underrated productivity hack.

Every time that obnoxious TTS voice pipes up, I immediately un-distract myself from whatever I'm doing to hit "next track", and then I can get back to actual work.

So I guess it does have *one* redeeming feature.

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Jun 25

I agree that the consumerist version of travel described in the essay is a net negative, for a number of reasons, but attempting to pull all travel experiences under that umbrella is reductive and narrow-minded, exactly the accusation the author levels at "travelers".

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Jun 25

"In order to prove my point that this thing is not worth doing, allow me to quote some people who never did it."

1

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Jun 25

This is not a case against travel; it's a case against tourism, and it says more about the author than it does the subject:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/the-case-against-travel

The Case Against Travel

It turns us into the worst version of ourselves while convincing us that we’re at our best.

www.newyorker.com

1

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Jun 22

Dying and coming back as a lazy Web 2.0 marketer looking for a domain name, call that reinkrnation

Point Blank Sandwich Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social · Jun 22

Dying and coming back as a Pontic nomad, call that reinsarmation

John Scalzi @scalzi.com · Jun 22

dying and coming back as a spotted dog, call that reindalmatian

1

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Jun 22

Came here to see if this had already been done. Was simultaneously satisfied and disappointed.

1

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Jun 22

The further I get into the album, the more I wonder if it's not so much that the songs have aged well, but that I'm enjoying yelling along in nostalgia as if they're sea shanties, swinging my water glass like a flagon.

brb, reconsidering some life choices.

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Jun 22

I wasn't sure I was going to scream that particular question into the void, but then I saw this post, and it was as if the universe was saying, "Ask, my child. These are your people; they will know."

https://bsky.app/profile/wapplehouse.bsky.social/post/3jyr53k7c2w2l

Kristi Yamaguccimane @wapplehouse.bsky.social · Jun 22

1 1

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Jun 22

Is it just me, or has some of Dashboard Confessional's early stuff, particularly The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most, not aged as poorly as it could have?

1 1

Josh @joshz.bsky.social · Jun 14

With nothing to tell the system, "Hey, it's cold enough; you can take a break", it just...keeps on refrigerating.

Can't wait for the electric bill.

1