James Leach

This is a useful distinction and like most people I think it’s fine to engage in 1 and 2 but sadly we’re surrounded by tech bros and politicians who are desperate to sell us on ‘3’

In fact introducing current LLMs into care homes would be like caring for an elderly person who has dementia by giving them a bot that *also* has dementia.

Experience teaches us that an LLM powered social care worker would frequently hallucinate and pretend it had wiped your arse when it hadn’t.

Johnson is admittedly a low bar here, but his reference to “ChatGPT androids” demonstrates how ignorant most of our leaders are about the different degrees of AI. Generative AI and a sentient bot that can wipe your arse are very different degrees of programming.

I’ve decided to take comfort in the fact that you can find identical truisms in speeches given by Nineties politicians about the rise of the Internet.

The Star Trek nerd feels at pains to point out that, at the point at which this fabled sentient AI comes into we’ll have bigger problems over whether said AI is sentient/should have employment rights and the gazillion other legal/ethical considerations

*actually better if you do the reverse*

It’s actually better and you do the reverse. Write it yourself but along the way it can help you complete a thought, or clarify a line of thinking. Its actual output though is invariably never what I want.

This hadn’t occurred to me but it’s spot on

Generative AI is the biggest bubble for some time. It can help with certain tasks, but my experience is that it cannot do even the most basic things unsupervised and regularly fabricates its work.

The Red Queen Fallacy Humans weren't made to tick off checklists and clear inboxes. We've lost sight of who we are, amid the mindless excesses of hustle culture and a drive-thru existence. Here's the case for slowing down.

I wrote about what I call "The Red Queen Fallacy" -- the toxic blend of hustle culture, checklist existences, and under-regulated capitalism that make too many people in modern life feel like they're stuck on a treadmill without an off switch:

Mediocrity, Accountability, and Artificial Intelligence The managerial class loves AI because it allows them to avoid responsibility for their failures. That should terrify us all.

My latest newsletter asks whether tech's managerial class is excited about generative AI because it distances them from any responsibility for their failures -- and thus, any accountability.

whatwelost.substack.com/p/mediocrity...

I think using elements of the private healthcare system is more analogous to paying for private tuition for a child. I’m not saying I would stop using the NHS completely but there are small treatments where I would go private if it were non urgent

Interestingly I just tried these prompts and it did outright refuse to help. Maybe they identified and fixed the bug already?

Yes and actually I can afford to do some things privately and I feel I would actually take pressure off the NHS at this point?

Demonising migrants won’t fill jobs or boost falling popu... ‘Stop the boats’ is a popular refrain but it obscures the real issues rich countries across the world are facing

My feature for @theobserveruk.bsky.social on global migration trends and why the battle between economic wellbeing and nationalism is only going to get more intense.

observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

He’s a real dupe. He flocks to populists thinking there is some deeper conservative thinking at work? See also his going to work for Boris for a short spell in 2019/20 and then leaving in horror when he discovered that BJ wasn’t a serious politician

Yes but a quick Google of the threshold for war crimes tells you he didn’t commit them. The British Army did but Blair did not.

I found this poll about as useful as asking a divorced bloke when he thought his wife got sick of him.

My rejoinder to the people who call Blair a war criminal is to remind them he’s really not because they haven’t been arrested in the middle of the night for saying that.

Also Season 1 feels like a season with its own continuity. LBBB is a famous episode but in Season 2 it’s revealed to be a blip and Bartlet is back to wrestling with his own limitations again.

I never thought Sorkin wrote in left right positions. To your point about Sam, he’s always the idealist who believes in the system, Toby is the contrarian, Josh is doing it to impress Leo, CJ is supposed to the heart of the show.

The only way to do this productively is to use the Plus version and train a GPT that’s specifically designed on actual style guides. I’ve found then you’re at least working with a version that knows specific strategies for improving creative work.

The "EXTREME HEAT" warning is just too perfect for this story

I’ve said this in a few threads on here now but my mum showed me a picture of the coal slag heaps outside her primary school in Sunderland in the early 60s and anyone complaining about a wind turbine or solar panel can do one.

No it’s not just you. I think half of it is really janky. Their assurances that it’s going to become Skynet next year reek of desperation

Thank you Stephen. Your Bluesky feed shall remain part of the smaller media diet. You’re a great writer and the fact you always write back to me is a real “meet your heroes” moment. Keep up the brilliant work

It’s the difference between natural, temporary sadness and constant background agitation. So when the sadness is less I’m hoping to stick to the more limited media diet. So yes, go outside more!

Can attest to this as I’ve been in the middle of an inadvertent experiment. A few personal crises means I’ve been online less. So while in one sense I’m sad, the low level existential dread you get from reading the news is lower because I’m online less. And I’m going outside more.

Only difference is that the party which happens to be in government while you’re having your existential crises is nowhere near as confident. So weirdly the right can convince themselves that it’s not their fault? I see no sign of a right wing Kinnock figure who can tell hard truths