A terrific piece by Dan Hon on our collective responsibility. This bit, in particular, resonated with me: it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately:
We are better and stronger when we are together than when we are apart. If you’re a technologist, consider this question: what are the pros and cons of unionizing? As the product of a linked network, consider the question: what is gained and who gains from preventing humans from linking up in this way?
The tech bros advocating for generative AI to take over art are at the same level of cultural refinement as the characters in Severance. They’re creating apps to summarize books to people, tweeting from accounts with Greek statue profile pictures.
GenAI would automate Lumon’s cultural mission, allowing humans to sever themselves from the production of art and culture.
Being “in tech” in 2025 is depressing, and if I’m going to stick around, I need to remember why I’m here.
This. A million times, this.
I urge you to read what Miriam has written here. She has articulated everything I’ve been feeling.
I don’t know how to participate in a community that so eagerly brushes aside the active and intentional/foundational harms of a technology. In return for what? Faster copypasta? Automation tools being rebranded as an “agentic” web? Assurance that we won’t be left behind?
Ethicswishing (in tech) is the belief that if you are committed to being ethical and understand technology, then you are well-equipped to build technology for social good. But the truth is that building tech for social good is a lot like having sex in a bathtub: if you don’t understand the first thing about sex, it won’t help that you’re a world-class expert in bathtubs.
Maggie Appleton:
An exploration of the problems and possible futures of flooding the web with generative AI content.
Writing, both code and prose, for me, is both an end product and an end in itself. I don’t want to automate away the things that give me joy.
And that is something that I’m more and more aware of as I get older – sources of joy. It’s good to diversify them, to keep track of them, because it’s way too easy to run out. Or to end up with just one, and then lose it.
The thing about luddites is that they make good punchlines, but they were all people.
You need to see Ethan’s closing talk from this year’s New Adventures conference.