Henrik Carlsson's Blog

All things me.

posted this note on and tagged it with AI Blade Runner Creative work

In an earlier post today I made a reference to the ”Tears in rain” monologue from Blade Runner which, naturally, lead me to its Wikipedia page and had me reading it to myself multiple times, hearing Rutger Hauer’s voice in my head. In doing so, I made a connection to a post about Pluribus for a few weeks ago where I argued that creation was the one thing the hive-mind, a stand-in for generative AI, couldn’t do. Viewed through a certain lens, Roy Batty shows his humanity – not only in showing compassion but also – in actually creating. He used his last breaths to create a poem.

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An old post by Dave Winer that still rings true, uncomfortably true

posted this note on and tagged it with AI Dave Winer

If you programmers still don’t want users running servers, then I propose you look at your thinking a bit, and wonder if you’re perhaps a member of the computing ”priesthood,” trying to protect what you do from the unwashed masses? If so, you’re on the wrong side of history, imho. The inexorable process of tech is taking things you used to need to be a wizard to do, and making them easy for normal people.

Dave Winer – ”Fascinating thread on Twitter”

The link to the original Twitter thread is broken so the full original context is sort of lost in time1 but regardless of the specific issue (servers, apparently) this quote feels apt for the current moment of AI, vibe coding, etc. Uncomfortably so because I feel uneasy about so much of the whole AI thing but maybe that is because I’m part of ”the computing ’priesthood'”.

  1. like tears, in rain ↩
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Copilot is for entertainment purposes only. It can make mistakes, and it may not work as intended. Don’t rely on Copilot for important advice. Use Copilot at your own risk.

– Microsoft: Copilot AI is for ’entertainment purposes only,’ not ’important advice’ | Mashable

This is from Microsoft’s own terms of service. They say it’s ”legacy language” that will change in an upcoming update but it’s still worth keeping in your mind whenever you use Copilot.

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In the world of Pluribus, creative work is a monumental event

posted this note on and tagged it with AI Creative work Pluribus

A quick thought on Pluribus. From what I understand it’s been conceived over many years, meaning it was not originally intended to be about generative AI. However it most certainly became partially about that. One scene that feels like a commentary on genAI is the scene where Carol has started writing again and how delighted Zosia is.

Now, it is possible that it’s just another case of the collective ”yes and”-ing Carol, but I feel like it’s something more than that. It seems like the collective, like genAI, can’t create anything. They’ve already consumed all the worlds stories but they can’t add create any new ones. Therefore, in the world of Pluribus, Carol creating is a monumental event.

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”Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

I started listening to the audiobook of Dune the other day. This quote felt very timely.

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There are plenty of things that can be improved by LLM’s and similar technology. It has been done plenty of times prior to the current A.I. bubble. But this kind of slop, posing as answers, needs to disappear. What is the point of this, other than virtue signaling that Google is an ”A.I. First Company”, aka drinkers of the Kool-Aid?

My query to Google was what word count I should equate to a page of text. The answer claims that it depends on a lot of factors and gives a rough estimate of 250-500 words. That is probably reasonable but it then goes of to claim that the bigger my line-spacing, the more words I can fit on a page. It’s just so hilariously dumb. Given how obvious it is that at least parts of this answer is wrong, I had to look further in the actual search-results. No time was saved for me, no value was created, nothing was gained.

This also ties back nicely to this.

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I’m skeptical about OpenAI in general, because while I think AI is so powerful that aspects of it will legitimately change the world, I also think it has been overhyped more than just about anything I’ve seen in my three decades of writing about technology. Sam Altman strikes me as being a drinker of his own Kool-Aid, but it’s also his job to make everyone in the world think that AI is inevitable and amazing and that his company is the unassailable leader while it’s bleeding cash.

– Jason Snell: Sam and Jony and skepticism

This paragraph from Jason Snell perfectly encapsulates my feeling about OpenAI, and so many other ”AI Companies”.

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It’s getting increasingly hard to use Office365 without being forced to interact with Copilot. If Microsoft love AI, good for them I guess, but I just want to read an e-mail or create a form or something similar. Don’t put your prompt in the way of me getting my job done.

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[LLMs are] not search engines, and it doesn’t matter how much Google tries to force AI into its search, it’s not going to deliver what we need. LLMs are NOT answer machines. They’re guessing machines. And any guess has the potential to be wrong.

– AI in search is a trap: it’ll ruin trust

Spot on!

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“[T]he internet wasn’t built to be a factory for engagement metrics and AI-generated content farms. It was built to connect us, not silo us to pad a wealth-extremist’s bank account.”

The Fediverse Isn’t the Future. It’s the Present We’ve Been Denied.

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