“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” — from this scene in The Dark Knight
Sort of paradoxically, the more I consider how AI will change the web, the more clear it becomes how to build features that keep the humanity in what we create. Take almost anything that AI is good at, but not as good as a human, and then make it way easier to do that thing the old-fashioned way.
Jason Fried previews the next product from 37signals on Twitter X, called Workbook:
"It’s a dead simple platform to publish web-based books. They have covers, they can have title pages, they can have picture pages, and they can have text pages. Each book gets its own URL, and navigating and keeping track of your progress is all built right in."
Intrigued by this. We can always use more ways to easily publish to the web.
Wrapped up some updates to the iOS app and submitted to Apple. Hopefully goes through smoothly. 🤞
This post from @jsonbecker is going to be timeless, because as a society we increasingly let social media amplify each side of an issue until it’s out of proportion with the facts:
"…sometimes when your peers and people you respect have all decided what the “right” view is, it’s very hard to comfortably express a less strident, more lukewarm, more timid, and possibly more complex or nuanced take, especially if you’re not ready, willing, and able to present a dissertation about your view point."
https://json.blog/2024/05/21/takes-spread-like.html https://micro.blog/jsonbecker
Yesterday's AI thoughts https://www.manton.org/2024/05/22/yesterdays-ai-thoughts.html
Watched the Satya Nadella portion of Microsoft Build today, and the few minutes with Sam Altman, then skimmed through the other news. Microsoft is doing a lot, not all of it relevant to me. Importantly they plan for data centers to be powered by renewable energy (in 2025) despite scaling up for AI.
As someone who usually supports OpenAI, I’d still welcome an actual lawsuit from Scarlett Johansson about the voices. For one, I’m a huge fan of hers, but also I’d genuinely like to know if anything shady happened at the company. Dishonesty will cast a shadow over everything the API touches.
Any chance that WWDC will have a live keynote this year? In the last couple weeks, we’ve had… OpenAI: live. Google I/O: live. Microsoft: live. To balance AI we need to lean in to human creativity, and a pre-recorded 2-hour advertisement will never feel as alive or engaging as a human on stage.
Next month’s road trip is starting to take shape. Got my reservation for Bryce Canyon booked this morning. Also the Durango-Silverton train. Lots to see. 🗺️
In the last 35 years, there have been a tiny number of truly revolutionary technologies that change everything: the web, mobile, and artificial intelligence. We can fight it, or we can guide it. But trust has eroded. To succeed we have to rebuild it. Move fast and break things will be a disaster.
When your company becomes the enemy, all that matters to people is what feels true. OpenAI’s Sky voice shipped months ago, not last week. We hear what we want to hear. OpenAI mishandled this, no question, but most likely Her is ingrained in Sam’s head vs. intentionally ripping off Scarlett.
Microsoft’s Recall on the new Copilot+ PCs is quite impressive:
"Now with Recall, you can access virtually what you have seen or done on your PC in a way that feels like having photographic memory."
There are obvious trade-offs using this if someone gets access to your computer, but I’d be comfortable with it if there are enough settings. For example, maybe I only want the recall to go back one week, not months.
https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2024/05/20/introducing-copilot-pcs/
Cool to see this visualization of the growing blogroll network. Blogrolls are fun and useful, and there’s still more we could do with them. If you’re using Micro.blog, you can set up a blogroll by clicking Design → Edit Recommendations.
https://mastodon.social/@robalex@indieweb.social/112477518469354987
It has only been a week since GPT-4o and they’ve already had a few days of bad news, including resignations and the latest with Scarlett Johansson. You can feel it becoming an “OpenAI can’t trusted” narrative that will be hard to shake. Need to prioritize this (and the Apple deal?) above all else.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/20/24161253/scarlett-johansson-openai-altman-legal-action
Tuning in to a little more of the Trump trial. The jury could go either way and I won’t be shocked, because you really do want to be sure, but the idea that Trump didn’t know anything about this is just laughable. 🇺🇸
Whenever I’ve driven by the old Frank Erwin Center these last few months, I’ve noted how little of it is left. Yesterday they blew up the remaining structure. This video from UT’s president on LinkedIn has the final seconds.
Wow, had no idea going into game 7 what would happen, but didn’t expect that. Timberwolves vs. Nuggets had its ups and downs. Gonna root for the Mavs in the conference finals. 🏀
Mural from I-35.
The latest from Mark Gurman at Bloomberg makes the Apple + OpenAI partnership sound like a done deal. WWDC is just a few weeks away! Should be a good one.