#5yrsago Elite Baltimore police unit robbed with impunity, sold guns and drugs, loaned guns and armor to civilians sent to commit robberies nytimes.com/2018/02/06/us/… 5/
#5yrsago 25 years ago, a mutant American crayfish turned to asexual reproduction, and all of Europe’s lakes are filling up with its clones nytimes.com/2018/02/05/sci… 8/
#5yrsago Facebook hired a pollster to track Zuck’s public image, but he quit because working for Facebook filled him with shame theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976…
My ebooks and audiobooks (from @torbooks, @HoZ_Books, @mcsweeneys, @beaconPressBks et al) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."
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My latest Medium column is "Small Government: refs have to be more powerful than players"
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The media spectacle of #GenerativeAI (in which AI companies' breathless claims of their software's sorcerous powers are endlessly repeated) has understandably alarmed many #CreativeWorkers, a group that's already traumatized by extractive abuse by media and tech companies. 1/
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
Even though the claims about "#AI" are overblown and overhyped, creators are right to be alarmed. Their bosses would like nothing more than to fire them and replace them with pliable software. 3/