Werd I/O

“There’s a reason big car companies were open to taking down AM radio … let’s be clear: big business doesn’t like things that are overwhelmingly conservative.” Adding to the list of organizations people think don’t like conservatives: [checks notes] big business. #Media

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“Auto-generating text based on other people’s discoveries and then automatically summarising that text by finding commonalities with existing text creates a loop of mechanised nonsense. It’s a prayer wheel for capitalism.” #AI

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“Meta, which owns Facebook, has been making repeated concessions to Vietnam’s authoritarian government, routinely censoring dissent and allowing those seen as threats by the government to be forced off the platform.” #Technology

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“The 19th spoke with health care professionals who provide gender-affirming care to adults and adolescents — as well as trans young adults who were comfortable sharing their experiences — to answer those questions.” #Health

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Rest in peace, and thank you for everything you did. #Democracy

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“Google has made millions of dollars in the last two years from advertisements misdirecting users who were seeking abortion services to “pregnancy crisis centers” that do not actually provide care, according to a new study.” #Technology

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A cathartic read that would be a great back-to-back pair with Matthew Desmond's Poverty, by America. I took some exception to his skepticism towards renewable energy, but the core message and diagnosis of what he calls The Mindset is right on. Now we have the diagnosis, the key part - left to us to determine - is what we do next. #Nonfiction

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“Human reviewers may read the chats, and researchers found that similar AI could reproduce the data it absorbed during training, creating a leak risk. Alphabet also alerted its engineers to avoid direct use of computer code that chatbots can generate, some of the people said.” #AI

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Unfortunately, I agree with every word of this. #Technology

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“While none of the platforms achieve a passing score, Twitter is worst in class, with its score plunging 12 points compared to the prior year, to 33%. The company’s owner, Elon Musk, has used the platform to promote “bigoted and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric,” according to the watchdog group Media Matters for America, and the GLAAD report chronicles changes to Twitter’s policies under Musk that further endanger LGBTQ safety.” #Technology

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“Nobel peace laureate Maria Ressa has claimed Oxford University’s leading journalism institute is publishing flawed research that puts journalists and independent outlets at risk, particularly in the global south.” #Media

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“8% of all transgender people have already moved out of their community or state as a result of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. An additional 43% of transgender people are likewise considering moving.” #Society

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“Metablogging is something any team can and should do.” I very much like this practice. #Technology

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“BUT WE DON’T WANT TO GO VIRAL. WE JUST WANT THE BASICS: TO MAKE WORK WE’RE PROUD OF WITH PEOPLE WE RESPECT AND WHO RESPECT US THAT’S TRUE TO OUR INTENTIONS AND WHO WE ARE AND ARE NOT” #Culture

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““This report reveals what we feared most,” says Sean Vitka, a policy attorney at the nonprofit Demand Progress. “Intelligence agencies are flouting the law and buying information about Americans that Congress and the Supreme Court have made clear the government should not have.”” #Democracy

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“Wind and solar generated more electricity than coal through May, an E&E News review of federal data shows, marking the first time renewables have outpaced the former king of American power over a five-month period.” #Climate

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“More than 3,000 subreddits have joined the protest, and will go “private” on Monday, preventing anyone outside the community from seeing their posts.” Over 87% of subreddits joined the protest. #Technology

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Raw, personal, and honest: a memoir of transition and survival by someone who has been in the public eye for most of his life but never really seen. There's no sanitized veneer to his writing, and my life is better for having read his story. I hope his life is better for having written it. #Nonfiction

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“At the current rate of progress it will take 186 years to close gaps in legal protections. It also explains why, while there has been some progress on enacting laws that advance women’s rights, social norms continue to be deeply entrenched and pervasive.” #Society

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“When tested, "Over 90% of 1,008 generated jokes were the same 25 jokes.”” We have a lot in common. #AI

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“After the collapse of communism and the end of the Cold War in Europe, many countries abolished compulsory military service. But in the wake of the war in Ukraine, several are considering bringing it back.” #Democracy

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“I have to remember that my health is more important than my job. And the pain that you’re used to is still a pain you should run away from.” #Labor

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“The code generated by Copilot is often wrong, but always subtly so, which means that when I let it fill in any non-trivial suggestion for me, I spend a considerable amount of time doing ‘code review’ on the code it emits.” #Technology

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“Even most of the emergent gestures in our interfaces are tweaks on tech-first features—@ symbols push Twitter to implement threading, hyperlinks eventually get automated into retweets, quote-tweets go on TikTok and become duets. “Swipe left to discard a person” is one of a handful of new gestures, and it’s ten years old.” #Technology

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“Each of us has the freedom to determine our path in life, each of us has the right to make decisions about our medical care and our bodies without government interference.” #Democracy

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