What's so bad about dogwater?
See: Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity by Bruce Bagemihl, 1999
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_B...
Biologists didn't openly talk about non-reproductive sex in animals until the late 90s/early 00s.
As a result, people widely believed that historically forbidden sexual practices were "unnatural"; that they were only practiced by humans.
That is shocking to me.
Regierungsentwurf des Gesetzes zur Durchführung der Verordnung über künstliche Intelligenz - Stand 09.03.2026
If you're curious about the current state of tech law and policy, I have spent the entire work day today commenting on "suicide kits" and AI-generated CSAM...
More thoughts on this one coming soon:
cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/me...
Another parallel: The belief that "information" must come from an "intelligent designer", which is never just non-living matter.
That's not addressed at educators who worry that their students won't engage with the subject and learn.
But we have known for a long time that essays are graded very subjectively, ie unfairly, so maybe change is long overdue.
Anytime some academic comes out against AI, I immediately suspect them of being an "intellectual impostor", in the words of Sokal.
If anything other than results matters to someone, then they are not interested in the facts, the truth, or what you will.
“Piracy is the most effective form of artistic distribution these days. So be it.”
-Werner Herzog on NPR just now 🔥
IP is not a new debate.
Greek gods were all like, “YoU WoUlDnT DoWnLoAd A FiRE” and Prometheus was all like “watch me!” and then a giant eagle/legal was like, “you must pay $100 million or your liver.”
Trying to break into the German market?
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
Max Planck, as quoted by Thomas Kuhn
371 security/ privacy academics, including a Turing Award winner, just issued a letter saying age verification laws are building global surveillance infrastructure. Every search, message, and article read would require ID verification.
Democrats are working w/ Republicans to push these laws through
For those who are curious, here is Blattman's resource guide for using Claude claudeblattman.com
A legal first attitude to data processing sounds very European; makes sense under European laws, too. Any connection?
I still tend to agree with the "not sentient" assessment, but it is increasingly borderline; certainly not something that can be asserted as self-evident.
Hmm. Dispersal of skills and experience can only be positive for the world. China enforces NCAs, though.
Some good links for people to read before they start pushing Heritage Foundation and Morality in Media talking points in the comments www.techdirt.com/2026/01/21/t...
Read my piece out in The Guardian today on all of this. If you are spreading bullshit about social media being "addictive" and "harmful to children" you are complicit in manufacturing consent for mass AI surveillance and allowing big tech to seize even more power while censoring lawful speech.
I think the copyright cartels play a large role in maintaining this situation, like GEMA or VG-Wort.
These are government sponsored monopolies, which look like something right out of feudalism. Feudal privileges had to go for the industrial revolution.
I don't think it's uniquely awful, on the whole. But one thing stands out: An obsession with controlling and regulating information.
You can't do IT under those conditions. It's the free speech ideology that gives (or gave?) the US its unique advantage.
Hate to be the buzzkill here but ... Celebrity endorsements are a paid service.
New paper on a long-shot I've been obsessed with for a year:
How much are AI reasoning gains confounded by expanding the training corpus 10000x? How much LLM performance is down to "shallow" generalisation (approximate pattern-matching to highly-related training data)?
t.co/CH2vP0Y7OF
If a developer says:
I’ll fix it in an hour.
Believe him.
No need to check in every 3 hours.
In the lead up to the war, I read Putin's speeches; English translation on the Kremlin website. Never in my life have I been so scared by politics.
Maybe you didn't look at the politics, but only at what you would have done in Putin's place?
Für die #Pressefreiheit nach Karlsruhe: Wir ziehen mit Chefredakteur @arnesemsrott.bsky.social von @fragdenstaat.de vor das Bundesverfassungsgericht. Wir wenden uns gegen ein Gesetz, das Berichterstattung über Strafverfahren behindert. Unterstütze uns dabei 💪 freiheitsrechte.org/mitmachen
I'm reminded of the market dilution theory wrt AI training. It implies that incumbent IP owners have a legal right to market share. Quite breathtaking. I would have thought that such writings would only enter courts as evidence in an antitrust trial.
You have perverse incentives here. Since enforcement costs are externalized, the incentive is always to demand more, regardless of the social optimum.
Worse, any content is competition. Blocking other content is marginally a net positive.
It does sound like it was a case of over-blocking.
... actually, that does make it worse. Just accidentally blocking government information.
