onfocus

Anthropomorphizing language influences how people perceive a system on multiple levels. It over-sells a system which is likely to under-deliver, and portrays a world view in which the people responsible for developing the systems are not held accountable for the system’s inaccurate, inappropriate, and sometimes deadly output. It promotes misplaced trust, over-reliance, and dehumanization.

This article addresses a major pet peeve of mine in AI discourse. These simulation technologies do not have emotions! The technology can’t feel regret, can’t apologize for bad behaviors, can’t feel pain. The owners and operators of these technologies are human and transferring their real world responsibility to a non-entity is causing a lot of problems.

One by one, white-collar criminals have marched to the White House, bleating their fealty to Trump – and watching their prison sentences evaporate as a result.

Trump and Republicans will continue to undermine the rule of law as long as they are in control of the government.

In automation theory, a "centaur" is a person who is assisted by a machine. You're a human head being carried around on a tireless robot body. Driving a car makes you a centaur, and so does using autocomplete.

And obviously, a reverse centaur is machine head on a human body, a person who is serving as a squishy meat appendage for an uncaring machine.

Cory Doctorow is an international treasure. I'm reading his book Enshitification and it's a very helpful explanation of how we got our modern tech hellscape. This talk about AI is also a nice encapsulation of why AI isn't an inevitable trajectory for tech, it's a deliberate choice by some of the worst people in that tech hellscape. This is a must read!

In June, Dye revealed a redesign of Apple’s software interface for iPhones, Macs and the Apple Watch called Liquid Glass. The company described it as an “elegant” new design with translucent buttons, updated app icons and fluid animations.

So how fast can Apple roll back liquid glass? Please?

Amateur radio enthusiast Thomas Witherspoon (K4SWL) tells the story of surviving Hurricane Helene in September 2024 when all power and phone access went down.

I really enjoyed this conversation about amateur radio. Pretty inspiring to hear about helping people stay connected during an emergency.

President Trump has set free a private equity executive who had served less than two weeks of a seven-year sentence for his role in what prosecutors described as a $1.6 billion scheme that defrauded thousands of victims.

Corruption is the only constant of this administration. They must be removed from power.

This is a very timely episode of You're Wrong About. I typically re-read The Battle for Christmas by Stephen Nissenbaum this time of year because looking at the human origins of cultural behavior is somehow comforting to me. This episode is in the same spirit as that book and it's a great conversation.

President Donald Trump said Friday that he will be pardoning former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who in 2024 was convicted for drug trafficking and weapons charges and sentenced to 45 years in prison.

In case you thought Trump was ever serious about stopping the drug trade this should clear that up. He has no respect for people in law enforcement and will continue to undermine the rule of law as long as he is in office.

Some current and former U.S. officials and law-of-war experts have said that the Pentagon’s lethal campaign — which has killed more than 80 people to date — is unlawful and may expose those most directly involved to future prosecution.

I hope some day this entire administration and their enablers will be prosecuted. These people have no code of ethics, no respect for the rule of law, and no sense of proportion.

Many of the most influential personalities in the “Make America great again” (Maga) movement on X are based outside of the US, including Russia, Nigeria and India, a new transparency feature on the social media site has revealed.

Well, well, well. Who could have possibly predicted?

The problem is that we’re so used to this pattern that its effects are muted. This is the president of the United States suggesting that members of the opposition party should be killed because they took a relatively tepid stand against his obvious interest in exceeding his executive power. It is not as bad as actually trying and killing them, but it is a multitude of steps past what would have been considered acceptable rhetoric a decade ago. Or even ten months ago, really.

Just because this rhetoric is no longer shocking doesn’t mean we should give Trump a pass. He’s a grown adult man who is responsible for the real violence he inspires in his followers.

As Doctorow observes, these products and apps are often created with good intentions—or, at the least, designed to deliver something of value both to users and to business customers (advertisers, for example). But as the impulse to boost the bottom line becomes irresistible, the companies slowly, and then with alacrity, implement strategies to increase profits. This invariably worsens the users’ experience while benefiting business customers. And then, once all avenues for wresting value from users have been exhausted, the company proceeds to, put frankly, screw their business customers. Eventually, the platform becomes little more than a money-extraction machine—a hellscape for users and a barely profitable but inescapable black hole for business customers. In short: a “giant pile of shit” for everyone involved.

The Aristocrats!