I think cory doctorow had the best lens through which to view the issue: "who does this technology do things for and who does it do them to?"

even tech enthusiasts can see that a major chunk of the populace is increasingly falling on the "to" side, so championing resistance makes a lot of sense.

Generated content has a real duality to it. I would describe it as It feels great to use. It feels terrible to have it used on you.

Very few people appear happy to receive generated content. It is fun to make however.

We as a society will probably figure this out(and look back fondly on the days of real handcrafted artisanal writing) but for now there is a lot of tension between the two sides.

I know I loose all interest in a thing when I learn it is generated.

There's a meme that goes:

Person A: I'm a tech enthusiast! I have the latest smartphone, smartwatch, smart car, smart TV, smart home... all networked together and automated to make my daily life easier.

Person B: I work in tech. The last piece of tech I bought is a printer from 2004, and I keep a loaded gun nearby in case it starts acting funny.

Once you understand how the sausage is made and what the incentives are, you become very suspicious of every hot new tech integration that comes along.

But humans just don't write commercial software anymore. Don't expect to keep doing that for a living.

As is often repeated here, "technology is a force multiplier".

AI has been multiplying the wrong things (for the common people) at an amazing rate, while the good things it multiplies have been few, arguable, and lagging behind.

Usually to be enthusiastic about new tech, it needs to be the reverse. New tech that multiplies the "good things" first while the wrong things catch up later (see Internet, cars, commercial aviation, smartphones).

Sure, fellow software engineers who spend 8+ hours a day writing code see it as the opposite, since AI _is_ seen as doing the "good things" (i.e. writing code). But eventually the bad things will catch up with us too.

Genuinely one of the most fun performances I've ever been to, as well! The small venue accentuated Al's insanely huge personality.

I had noted a few weeks ago that Hacker News used a font without serifs, causing confusion. I'm not sure when they changed that, but there are now serifs on the capital I and lower case "l".

This headline is much less confusing for the change. Thanks.

I was in my car with my seven-year-old when the Paul Simon song "You Can Call Me Al" started playing. She saw it pop up on the infotainment screen, and wanted to know why anybody would want to be called A.I. (our household has a low opinion of A.I., largely due to the unending firehose of slop aimed at children on YouTube).

Good song though.

There was a guy on TikTok whose daughter (~10 yo) had discovered a "Weird A.I." that could "take any song and make it funny".

"Say Al" force.

Nah, he turned down alcohol ads in the past too. Id rather he retain his legitimacy and morals.