There’s an obvious argument that AI is built on stolen data. It has a huge impact on IP owners, including me. But it’s also a vast liberation of specialized knowledge. Anybody can be anybody now. It’s the greatest information equalizer since the internet, and libraries before that.

I’m always surprised when an Apple News+ crossword includes an obviously PC-based clue, without acknowledging it. But in today’s puzzle the surprising clue’s word intersects with an overtly Apple clue!

If we want to compare global impacts, I have many virtues that offset my use of AI. I’m a vegetarian, I rarely drive a car, I work from home. This is not to say the environmental impact of AI isn’t important, but maybe ask yourself how pure you are before you criticize.

But I wonder how many technologies with questionable tradeoffs have benefited these people, and they allow them to pass unquestioned? Maybe because they were born into the tradeoffs? The automobile is probably the worst invention in history, but I still drive one. Sometimes you go with the flow.

With all of the problematic technology in the world, I struggle to understand why AI, in the form of large language models in particular, is met with such unparalleled abject horror by its antagonists. For a significant number of people, including many of my friends, the technology is pariah.

Today’s Apple News+ mini crossword. That’s a pretty elite cohort, comprised substantially of bots.

Black Ink 2.5 for iOS offers new inline clue lists that are particularly striking on iPhone Duo. redsweater.com/blog/4309…

Even the hotel ice makers struggle to achieve Inbox Zero. @hotdogsladies@mastodon.social

I believe that communicating effectively to AI is the most important skill, in all fields, going forward. Good news for literate and communicative folks: you’ve already got it.

Jacob is right, and history shows that making production easier never hurts the manufacturer. People still sell art, despite the fact you can buy paint and “do it yourself.” People value authentic, complete products, and will continue to buy them. x.com/jeiting/s…

I spent my whole life thinking I was one of the best bug fixers in the world. I mean, I am really good. But Claude is better. Every once in a while I give it a human nudge, but … it’s better. I’m glad I learned how to design good apps, too.

In my experience it is unfortunately common for a pizza restaurant’s medium pies to taste better than their large pies.

If you make things, AI is incredible at enhancing your productivity. If you sell things, AI is incredible at tuning your marketing materials. If you buy things, AI is incredible at finding the lowest price.

If you just have a cool idea and want to sell it without regard to AI? You’re hosed.

“I wonder if it would be safe to let them talk to each other?” #AIMistakes

Why do we call them photographs and not “portrait slop”?

Just posted MarsEdit 5.4.6 with faster syntax coloring for long posts, lower CPU usage in the rich text editor, and a fix for posts getting stuck in “Publishing.” redsweater.com/blog/4298…

It is kind of funny they named the product, an AI-enabled CMS, after the one punctuation mark that AI can’t resist. emdashcms.com/blog/emda…

Just want to remind everybody that I predicted Apple would use “Apple Intelligence” as a clever spin on “AI”. I know predicting what multinational corporations will do isn’t the coolest thing but I still feel pretty good about this one. bitsplitting.org/2023/05/2…

Listening to “The Decemberists” for the first time in a long while. They lost me at some point but this album, “Her Majesty”, still rocks the house down. www.youtube.com/watch

One of my many hot takes is that people have generally fled to either “AI can’t do anything” or “AI can do everything” and haven’t stopped to consider the middle ground. There is an art to getting AI to do what you want. It will rarely do it by default.

I maintain most people who are stridently against AI have not even tried to appreciate what it can do. I think that being blanket against AI is similar to being blanket against home computers in the late 1970’s. Yes, there are implications, but the problems are inevitably outweighed by the benefits.

As an indie developer who has never completely hired a second developer, working with an AI agent is great training. I get about the same pushback and negotiation that I’d expect from an employee.

I am aware that as amazing as AI is, it can never substitute for a human translator. But AI gives a running start. I’m also including a menu item that only appears in non-English languages, so that native speakers can easily report problems.

For FastScripts 4.0 I’m leveraging AI not only to help me harden security, but also to localize to other languages.

I used Claude Opus to design this amazing (as far as I can tell) system for FastScripts, to control whether outside entities can run scripts on the user’s behalf. Security, yay! I would have had the idea before, but never all the ideas for execution. I think this is going to be good.