It's turtles all the way down: from high-level programming to CPU microcode

It’s turtles all the way down: The following anecdote is told of William James. […] After a lecture on cosmology and the structure of the solar system, James was accosted by a little old lady. “Your theory that the sun is the centre of the solar system, and the earth is a ball …

Brought down by the font

Oh wow, now this is something: A Microsoft font may have exposed corruption in Pakistan: The Microsoft font Calibri is now a key piece of evidence in a corruption investigation surrounding Pakistan’s prime minister. Investigators noticed that documents handed over by the prime minister’s daughter, …

The Twitter-killer? Meta's new Threads app

Facebook (err, sorry, Meta) is launching their Twitter competitor today in the US in the form of a new stand-alone app called Threads. The Verge has a good summary on what is known: Instagram’s Threads: all the updates on the new Twitter competitor. I can also recommend the Hacker News thread; it …

Inside the AI factory: the human element of AIs

A fascinating deep-dive from New York Magazine and The Verge into how AI models – including ChatGPT, Bard, and other LLMs (Large Language Models) – are trained, and the industry that provides the data, control, and feedback: Inside the AI factory […] ChatGPT seems so human …

Tech Erosion: the effect of technology (and AI) on our lives

StillDrinking has a lot of great essays. He has a way with words that makes reading his articles both entertaining and illuminating at the same time – a powerful combination. Anyway, their essay on AI and ChatGPT, and how the world we have built will continue manages to be human-hostile in …