Sami Makelainen

Ashamed of Home A dual citizen's reckoning with Finland's retreat

I have a new-ish Substack. New today: l lost it over a series of things happening in Finland.

open.substack.com/pub/transiti...

Remember how OpenAI recently simplified their model selection? Yeah me neither.

Want AI to Do Your Chores? It Already Does. There's a common sentiment among those less than excited by the promise - or threat - of AI: I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing...

AI for chores? We've had it for decades. Now, what are you doing with all that saved time?

www.linkedin.com/pulse/want-a...

Mark Zuckerberg – Dead At 36 – Says Social Media Sites Should Not Fact Check Posts — The Shovel Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg – who died of a drug overdose in his Californian home today – says it is not Facebook’s role to be the arbiter of truth for everything people post online.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg – who died of a drug overdose in his Californian home today – says it is not Facebook’s role to be the arbiter of truth for everything people post online.

Sami Mäkeläinen on data & AI in 2024 and beyond "I’d like to point out there’s no way to stay on top of everything, and trying to do that will only drive you mad."

It may not surprise you that I have some thoughts on AI. Here are a few of them on @kvdrd.bsky.social's Substack - hopefully some food for thought to your silly season.

kendravant.substack.com/p/sami-makel...

My electric toothbrush has gained consciousness and is trying to communicate in the only way it can. The robot uprising has started.

I mean that *is* the only possible explanation, right? 😅

Finland, take a lesson from Down Under Finland's reputation for gender equality is well-established and well-earned. It was the first country in Europe to grant women both voting rights and the right to stand for parliament.

The prevalence of violence against women in Australia is alarming. Now guess where it’s even worse, with less being done about it? Finland – a global leader in gender equality, progressive policies, and a shining example of fairness.

www.linkedin.com/pulse/finlan...

On a related note, Oolio has new EFTPOST terminals that are even worse. Every merchant staff I've spoken to is as frustrated with them as us customers are. What'd they use to write the code on this thing anyway??

I *know* it's possible to make IT systems responsive, so why the fuck companies like Woolies and Coles don't is beyond me. The UX of using an Aldi self-checkout is 10x better than those two.

I'm reminded of the quote from 200 years ago from the time of the Luddites, which has never been more apt than today; "machinery might be man’s chief blessing instead of his curse if society was differently constituted.”

AI is making Philippine call center work more efficient, for better and worse BPO workers say AI tools are monitoring their calls, assisting them with customers, and scoring their performance.

This is exactly the kind of automation I don't want to see, but at the same time, it's exactly the kind of automation we all knew we're getting.

restofworld.org/2024/ai-resh...

"Free speech" being rammed down your throat. The incessant push of Elon was yet another insufferable feature of X.

Maybe we need a human/AI labeling system; something like this (modeled after the Australian label of origin).

New publisher Spines aims to 'disrupt' industry by using AI to publish 8,000 books in 2025 alone A new publisher has claimed it aims to “disrupt” the books industry by publishing 8,000 books in 2025 alone using artificial intelligence.

What in the fresh hell is this? As if AI in writing wasn't a complex enough of an issue without such moves. www.thebookseller.com/news/new-pub...

A small signal of affluence and cultural attitude. In Finland, bottle / container refunds like these are carefully collected; most wouldn’t dream of donating them to charity. Here, it’s built-in. I wonder how what the recovery rates are going to be though.

Looking forward to tomorrow when I'll be speaking at the RAeS AI in Civil Aviation and Airports Summit. I have always had a passing interest (*cough* obsession *cough*) in aviation, so it's great to be able to combine that with some other passions. Excited! www.aerosociety.com/events-calen...

Decent, yeah. You hands down beat my chatbot designed to do that and it's a very good chatbot 🤣

Well I don't know what they are either, so now that's the baseline for me - I'm not sure I want "bleats" to stick though 😅

Like many of you, I came here from the smoldering, smelly remains of Twitter. I've been inactive for over a year and still find myself thinking "this would make a good tweet", so let's try and use this as an outlet for those, honestly quite random, thoughts. Welcome 🙂