The Atlantic signed a deal w/ OpenAI & since I've been trying to report on & wrestle with what exactly that means. Not just for my work/the media but largely what it says about this moment. Here's my attempt at putting it into context theatlantic.com/technology/arc… Broadly speaking: I think the details of the deals are not as bad as feared. but i think if you zoom out it could also herald a future for creative work that is potentially quite grim.

This is my effort, through a lot of reporting, to make sense of our current AI moment. My big takeaway is that there's way less agreement and understanding from experts and employees about what's being built and what future they're building toward theatlantic.com/technology/arc… There is, for example, some uncertainty...from people who build these tools...about the precise way they make inferences

somewhat beside the point but unless they changed it (its still up on twitter's site) the thread would seem to be breaking the company's own rules by publishing personal email addresses, no? help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-p… i mean i lol bc we're so far past that point that i sound like a nerd screeching about technicalities but idk

Wrote about a strange moment where kanye west is going on right wing media not playing by the dogwhistling game at the same time that Musk is changing the rules of the game, turning twitter into an open sewer. there's a dog-catches-car quality to it theatlantic.com/technology/arc… it's been very alarming but also rather weird to watch the people who launder and amplify far right messaging to be thrown on their back feet by Ye refusing to back down when they're like, 'well, obviously you're not a nazi!'

what time is the financial crimes super bowl this legitimately sounds like a little kid apologizing for like copying some math homework or something

tbh i don't personally care that the guy running for president who did the coup is low energy tonight guess it was like a failed coup? half coup? attempted coup? i mean whatever - just think his energy level in this moment is probably irrelevant

wild how this saga is so totally completely predictable while also feeling almost inconceivably absurd. too dumb and on the nose to feel real and also very real lol i just can’t stop thinking about it i’ve personally felt like a hack just constantly beating the drum of ‘this guy is not smart like you think he is he’s gonna behave like a 9 year old and ruin this place’ bc some tiny part of me still has a hard time conceiving of somebody being this inept. and yet here we are

I asked around and well it turns out he's not doing a very good job theatlantic.com/technology/arc… but don't take my word for it...listen to people who know how social media advertising works!

i took the day away from the internet and now most of my feed is doing some form of earnest 'well it was fun' and 'join me on mastodon-ing' and i feel a little confused bc...not a ton with the twitter experience has actually changed yet right? what if we all just stay here and keep engaging in the same unhealthy behaviors that weirdly helped me accumulate a medium sized audience

this is the crucial point. so much of the focus gets put on content moderation decisions (partially bc it is very politically charged) but what keeps the lies going is the access to monetization.

https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1581638683161432064

I talked about this a bit with Josh Owens - a former Infowars staffer. What is most worrying is that there's a definite trend to create walled off, subscription/store-driven ecosystems where they can lie and monetize it all with impunity newsletters.theatlantic.com/galaxy-brain/6…

we are touching the face of god here friends

https://twitter.com/cwarzel/status/1581427727181451265

guess i live in my car now

listening to 0-0 playoff baseball on the radio is a religious experience mariners announcers are having a prolonged heart attack and it is preposterously exciting

Wrote about the Musk texts. What I found illuminating about the messages is just how unimpressive, unimaginative, and sycophantic the powerful men in Musk’s contacts appear to be. Just overconfident dudes winging it theatlantic.com/technology/arc… step 1: solve free speech

I wrote big ole newsletter about “the hollow abstraction” of Web3 and those videos of its biggest boosters struggling to articulate a concrete vision for their next big thing newsletters.theatlantic.com/galaxy-brain/6… i thought this bit from @liron about founders who basically leapfrog the idea phase was good to help understand some of the mentality here (beyond just greed)

this 'butts in seats' memo is illustrative. Musk wants control, power, ultimate authority over people, & to always make news. And, in order to do that, he will continue to over-simplify complex issues and treat people like shit in the process and make news nytimes.com/2022/06/01/tec… the back2office conversation is dominated by people like Musk who see this remote/in person thing as a binary & are eager to make it a culture war thing. smart leaders don't see it this way/understand the priority is figuring out how to balance what's best for the co & employees

my take on the growing criticism of disinformation as an ‘obsession’ is that lots of people are broadly trying to figure out how to weight/balance/think about the supply and demand of garbage in our information systems. Over the holidays I tried to write about this using misery

https://twitter.com/cwarzel/status/1475886467318632448

I sort of think that most ppl are right (the ppl arguing that disinformation is a dangerous accelerant in toxic spaces as well as ppl who think that disinformation focus could cause us not to look at the big structural factors in our society that are making people miserable)

I spoke to a lot of smart people who've been observing the digital side of this war about things that have surprised them and about the need for nuance in discussing "the information war" theatlantic.com/technology/arc… among the early observations 1) @EliotHiggins explained how the last decade of OSINT has created an infrastructure that can help verify war footage in real time, which has been extremely helpful in educating policy makers/media/news consumers & given us a clearer ground picture

man you think you’ve seen a pure doomscrolling environment but lots of people just throwing out their nuclear war theories is definitely a different level also, as with the earliest days of covid, new and nuanced information is super important but it’s also basically impossible for the news to give people what they want which is any kind of certainty/definitive relief

I wrote about a phenomenon that isn’t specific to COVID but that has really influenced how some people behave: How the first information we hear on a new subject becomes incredibly hard to shake (even if we’re told it’s wrong) newsletters.theatlantic.com/galaxy-brain/6… i spoke with @MaddyJalbert about the ways that our brains work (they’re quite utilitarian!) and why information can be sticky

CAN I JUST SAY WE BROKE DOWN AND BOUGHT A STUPID PRINTER AND NOW I AM FIGHTING WITH A STUPID PRINTER RIGHT NOW LIKE IT IS 1999 AND IM NOT HAPPY I CANT EVEN PRINT THE ALIGNMENT PAGE WHAT THE SHIT ALSO WHY IS THIS WHOLE THING JUST AS BIG AS IT WAS IN 1999? WHY DOES IT STILL WEIGH 40 LBS

News of the personal variety: As of today Galaxy Brain is moving to @TheAtlantic (!!) where it'll continue to be the same old Galaxy Brain you know and love (also definitely fewer typos). But also, I'll be a contributing writer for the magazine. Whee! newsletters.theatlantic.com/galaxy-brain/6… The newsletter will exist in the same form with the promise of the same amount of editorial freedom (yay). If you already subscribe to Galaxy Brain (free or paid) the news is very good. Starting in December you get a free year-long digital subscription to The Atlantic. Whee!