“For the love of God, please, someone grab the Jane Austens!”

I feel like part of my shtick on BlueSky is to point out that yes, AI is real and it is especially important for critics to realize it is real, since we need more good criticism of AI, rather than dismissals that it is hype

Well: the impact of Claude Code/CLIs & successors is going to be very large

I'm pro-union because I think workers should organize to balance the power that business owners have in various negotiations. It's true that unions have been weakened, but it's not because of multiculturalism. I would argue, it's because people seek to exploit divisions for their material interests.

But his assertion that diversity weakens unions ignores two things. First, labor unions have a long history of multiethnic coalitions. Second, it was the capitalists and political elites who tried to *exploit* ethnic divisions to maintain power. There is only one person here trying to stop unions:

AI would advance even if OpenAI disappeared. AI really actually does powerful things that will transform a lot of how we live and work even if AI did not advance further. The way to influence the future is not to pretend that AI is going to go away, but push for it to be used well & mitigate harms.

I don't know anyone who uses LLMs a lot who is not occasionally weirded out by what they can do. If you are not, you should be. They are weird.

Wolfram had a rather startling (at least at the time) theory after using ChatGPT. Understanding whether he is right seems important.

a friend of mine once suggested to me that it is rising prosperity, and not declining prospects, that leads people to indulge their prejudices at the voting booth. once you feel you're materially secure enough, you might decide that you want to vote for a psychological wage.

I am tired of media institutions and society saying there is a crisis among white boys and men when everyone else, especially Black women, have been taught their entire lives that they should simply accept stereotypes, mistreatment, fewer opportunities and unfair conditions in schools and workplaces