Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
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Continue reading "Pluralistic: Rent control works (16 May 2023)"
The thing is, there really is an important area of AI research for Google, namely, “How do we keep AI nonsense out of search results?”
Google’s search quality has been in steady decline for years. I blame the company’s own success. When you’ve got more than 90 percent of the market, you’re not gonna grow by attracting more customers — your growth can only come from getting a larger slice of the pie, at the expense of your customers, business users and advertisers.
Google’s product managers need that growth. For one thing, the company spends $45 billion every year to bribe companies like LG, Samsung, Motorola, LG and Apple to be their search default. That is to say, they’re spending enough to buy an entire Twitter, every single year, just to stay in the same place.
Continue reading "Pluralistic: Revenge of the Linkdumps (13 May 2023)"
Continue reading "Pluralistic: California to smash prison e-profiteers (08 May 2023)"
The old crow is getting slow;
the young crow is not.
Of what the young crow does not know,
the old crow knows a lot.
At knowing things,
the old crow is still the young crow’s master.
What does the old crow not know?
How to go faster.
The young crow flies above, below,
and rings around the slow old crow.
What does the fast young crow not know?
WHERE TO GO.
-John Ciardi, About Crows
Marcus Yallow is the 17-year-old hero of Little Brother, my 2008 novel about kids in San Francisco who wage high-tech guerrilla war on the Department of Homeland Security, who occupy the city after a terrorist attack.
Continue reading "Don’t Curb Your Enthusiasm"