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AI

Reflections on artificial intelligence, machine learning, and what it means to be human in an age of thinking machines.

16 posts
Glitchy, RGB-split infographic styled like a circuit board, dated 'Aug 2026,' tracking AI progress. A line graph plots 'Unreliable Agent' and 'Reliable Agent' capability curves rising from Dec 2024 through Apr 2026 and beyond, ending near small icons resembling an OpenAI-style logo, a globe, and a star. An 'AI Capabilities' section lists Hacking, Bioweapons, Coding, Robotics, Politics, and Forecasting, each with an icon. A donut chart labeled 'Compute' includes a U.S. flag icon and an OpenAI-style logo. Below that, text reads '50,000 Reliable Agent copies thinking at 15x human speed' above a grid of small filled squares. A stats row shows Approval -26%, Revenue US$38B/yr, Valuation US$2T, Importance 2%, Datacenters US$524B/yr, and Timeline 2038. Three bottom rows labeled 'Currently Exists,' 'Emerging Tech,' and 'Science Fiction' each display a line of small icon tiles.

LLMs Democratize Extraction and Scale Malice

Responding to Coyote's essay on data ownership, I look at how genAI has democratized the kind of extraction that once required corporate infrastructure—iLands spam agents, scrapers, and agent swarms—why my apathy-and-ignorance approach to AI crawlers is no longer enough, the two competing realities of AI 2027, and the tools and organizing we actually have: ai.robots.txt, Glaze and Nightshade, tech-worker unions, and the CARE and OCAP principles of Indigenous data governance.
A tall, whimsical humanoid robot made of riveted brushed-steel panels and tubing stands against a surreal sunset sky. Teal at the top fading into fiery orange and magenta clouds. The robot has a heart-shaped head with round camera-lens eyes and a gentle smile, a torso with a large circular opening at its centre, one arm curved down like a flexible hose and the other extended outward, where a small bird-shaped robot perches. The word 'Medium.com' is tiled repeatedly across the entire image in large translucent letters, like a stock-photo watermark.

I, CEO: How Medium.com went from being anti-AI to pro-AI

Medium.com went from a defiant anti-AI holdout—blocking GPTBot, rejecting a multimillion-dollar training deal, banning AI writing from monetization—to launching an AI licensing standard and its own AI writing app under CEO Tony Stubblebine. What happens when one man's changing mind becomes a platform's policy, and why I'm still staying.
A duotone (purple and teal) archival-style photograph of two lab-coated figures, their eyes blacked out with censor bars, assembling a transparent robotic mannequin, with its clear body revealing an internal skeleton of tubes and joints, all on a draped table.

SAD MACHINE

Debian's recent vote to permit genAI contributions, alongside the questions raised by the IndieWeb is Punk manifesto, leads me to reflect on the harm-reduction case, the deskilling of creators, the NFT-like grift of genAI output, and the Potemkin village of an industry that has yet to find profitability.
A vintage engraved illustration of a scientific balance scale, with a large heavy sphere hanging on the left arm and a small light sphere labeled 'P' hanging on the right arm, illustrating imbalance. Below the illustration, text reads: 'Adding Thousands of Lines to Your Codebase Isn't Impressive. It's Actually Bad. by Brennan Kenneth Brown.'

Adding Thousands of Lines to Your Codebase Isn't Impressive. It's Actually Bad.

Vibe coders brag about adding thousands of lines of code with AI, but measuring productivity by lines of code is like measuring aircraft progress by weight. Research shows AI-generated code has higher duplication, lower reuse, and can run up to 446x slower. Neither max lines nor min lines is the poin. Code is what you write after you've found something that needs it.
A cardboard box robot figure (Danbo-style) with round glowing yellow eyes and a triangular mouth, standing against a warm, softly blurred beige and cream background. The figure is positioned on the right side of the frame, gazing off to the left, with the left portion of the image left empty and softly lit.

A Case for the Ethical Treatment of Generative AI

Are there ethical implications of generative AI consciousness? From von Neumann's self-replicating machines to modern LLMs, we must inventory the problem of other minds, the possibility of AI consciousness, and why we ought to consider the welfare of systems that may experience something like suffering.
Vintage illustration of a young person in an oversized gray suit and red tie, smoking a pipe with a long trail of smoke curling behind them. They stand in a relaxed, fashion-posed stance against a plain cream-colored background, with a muted early-20th-century Art Deco aesthetic.

/r/SlopcoreCirclejerk and the Men who are pro-AI

With the AI bubble finally deflating, what can we learn from the gender gap in genAI enthusiasm? Looking at /r/SlopcoreCirclejerk's culture of contempt, historical Luddite parallels, crypto bro demographics, and why men are drawn to extractive technologies.
Two men in white dress shirts operate an IBM 7090 mainframe computer system in a large data centre. One man leans over the central operator's console writing on yellow notepad paper, while the other stands at a row of magnetic tape drive units in the background. The room is filled with large grey IBM mainframe cabinets and reel-to-reel tape drives. A numbered patch panel or channel selector is visible in the foreground left.

Software Harm Reduction

genAI code is now in Python, curl, and systemd. We face an ethical crisis. Slopware means we have two possible responses: absolutism or harm reduction. This moment demands the same principled stand that free software absolutists have taken for decades.
The Calgary Central Library, a striking curved building with a geometric glass and aluminum façade, on a partly cloudy autumn day. A skateboarder performs a trick on the front steps while pedestrians walk along the sidewalk below. Patches of snow are visible on the ground, and a colourful sculpture stands to the left of the entrance.

Why is my local city and public library looking to pay $50/hr to an AI Artist Residency?

The Calgary Public Library is offering $8,000 for an AI Artist Residency while Canadian artists face funding cuts and 16% grant acceptance rates. There are programs like this around the world. Why?
A large metal dumpster filled with discarded electronic equipment, including old desktop computer towers, printers, monitors, keyboards, and tangled cables piled chaotically inside. The interior walls of the dumpster are rust-stained, and the electronics are outdated and broken, electronic waste and bulk disposal.

An Open Letter to Cory Doctorow: Ollama is part of the enshittification!

A response to Cory Doctorow's defense of generative AI, examining the contradictions in supporting Ollama while championing open source principles, and an examination about what purity culture and hypocrisy really means.
A dew-covered spiderweb strung between wild plant stems, photographed at sunrise against a soft gradient sky of pink, purple, orange, and yellow. The delicate web glistens with tiny water droplets, its spiral structure sharply in focus while the lush meadow background blurs into a dreamy bokeh.

Apathetic, Intentionally. Why I don't block AI scrapers on my website.

This is my swan song on generative AI after writing six articles on the topic. Why I'm done with the AI discourse and instead fully leaning into the human and more-than-human web.
Oil painting by Caravaggio showing Narcissus from Greek mythology. A youth with dark curly hair leans forward on his knees at the water's edge, arms extended to support himself. He wears a loose white shirt with voluminous sleeves and a green sash at his waist. His face is illuminated as he gazes downward at his own reflection in the still, dark water below.

AI Artists Have No Role Models

Prompt Engineers Lack Any Canon, Don't You? AI artists have an existential problem: they consume only their own work, severing the dialogue of culture that connects us across generations.
A bright red lobster rests on a weathered gray rock covered with patches of white and orange lichen. The lobster's large claws are prominently displayed, and its long antennae extend outward. In the soft-focused background, a serene lake or fjord stretches out beneath misty blue mountains under an overcast sky, creating a moody coastal atmosphere.

No, Moltbook is not the Singularity or AGI. Not even close.

A critical look at the hype around OpenClaw's MoltBook platform and why AI agents talking to each other isn't the singularity.
Vintage Atari 520ST computer setup displaying Time Bandit game on CRT monitor, with keyboard, joystick with red button, and mouse on a desk. Yellow speaker visible on left and red desk lamp on right in background.

Choosing Quiet: I'm No Longer Using AI Editors

An exploration of cognitive dissonance around AI usage, parallels to meat consumption, and the decision to transition to Sublime Text for an AI-free coding experience.
Source

Are NSFW AI Companions Actually Just Exploited Workers in Developing Countries?

Part 3 of a series on the AI Crisis
Source 1 / Source 2

Lovebombing, Psychosis, and Murder.

I was wrong about artificial intelligence. It’s actually so, so much worse.
The Piss Average Problem

The Piss Average Problem

The Age of AI is a Crisis of Faith
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