The "algorithm" seems to have become a black box even Google engineers can't figure out
The fact that over a year ago ML experts at Google who have since left warned that LLMs should be avoided because they made products chaotic and hard to control seems relevant
As is the fact that around the same time others also warned that one common consequence of mass layoffs is they tend to turn internal systems into black boxes because everybody with a deep understanding of them has left
Digging a little bit more into this and found the following exchange to be striking
Specifically this:
> Literally Danny said he sat with an engineer team with examples of people in the room and said why aren't they showing up and they did their "debugging process" and couldn't figure it out.
“The End Of Independent Publishing And Giant Freakin Robot | GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT”
After relaunching GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT in 2019, the site grew to a readership of more than 20 million a month, … Continue reading "The End Of Independent Publishing And Giant Freakin Robot"
GIANT FREAKIN ROBOT (www.giantfreakinrobot.com)
You basically can't count on any of the traffic coming from Google or Facebook and most media companies, even one that are frugally run, have a hard time surviving on what's left
“Adactio: Journal—Unsaid”
I listened to a day of talks on AI at UX Brighton, and I came away disappointed by what wasn’t mentioned.
(adactio.com)
> Whenever the issue of ethics came up, it was only ever in relation to how we might use these tools: considering user needs, being transparent, all that good stuff. But never once did the question arise of whether it’s ethical to even use these tools
I have to confess that my disappointment in the dev and UX fields is ongoing.
That feeling when you’re chatting with a neighbour, trying to tip-toe around political topics because you don’t want to start a “thing” until they drop a mention of “redistribution of wealth” being a positive thing into the conversation and you realise they too have been couching their words throughout the conversation 
“AI overwhelmingly prefers white and male job candidates in new test of resume-screening bias – GeekWire”
Saw a discussion on Bluesky about how web devs end up having no body of work as sites disappear, companies fold, and agencies shutter
This first happened to me in the 2000s. Almost every project, large and small, I've worked on since has disappeared. Even most of the ebooks I made for a publishers have been replaced. I've been doing this for almost thirty years and my body of work exists only as screenshots and vague memories
“Microsoft fires employees who organized vigil for Palestinians killed in Gaza | AP News”
Microsoft has fired two employees who organized an unauthorized vigil at the company’s headquarters for Palestinians killed in Gaza during Israel’s yearlong war with Hamas.
AP News (apnews.com)
“Researchers say an AI-powered transcription tool used in hospitals invents things no one ever said - ABC News”
Whisper is a popular transcription tool powered by artificial intelligence, but it has a major flaw
ABC News (abcnews.go.com)
Between the AI Bubble continuing to gather steam (limitless funding will do that) and the resurgence of nationalism and fascism, I have to confess that I’m having a bit of generalised anxiety going on these days.
Whenever I have a go at reading through a bit of the leftist “blogosphere”—newsletterosphere, I guess would be the modern word—I get deeply uncomfortable by how common talking points such as “DEI, gender equality, and LGBTQ rights are liberal imperialism” seem to be
Too often it feels like these people are just looking for ways to agree with fascists and religious extremists
“State of Frontend 2024”
Based on surveys filled in by 6028 developers from 139 countries, the State of Frontend 2024 is supported by 23 expert commentaries about frontend trends and the future.
The Software House (tsh.io)
This is, honestly, really fucking grim reading. I have to hope this isn't representative of the actual industry because otherwise end-users are in for a pretty bad time with software quality continuing to deteriorate.
“Why I’m skeptical of rewriting JavaScript tools in “faster” languages | Read the Tea Leaves”
Agree completely with Nolan here.
“Tech’s Epithet: “Enabled By Default” - Jim Nielsen’s Blog”
@datarama They do wear protective utility vests as a part of the standard uniform, but I'm not sure if they're anti-stab or small-arms bulletproof. So that part isn't too off-base TBH.
Non-violence as a societal value: https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2024/non-violence-as-a-societal-value/
“AI” models are suffused with US values and, occasionally, those are quite shocking to us non-Americans
An Icelandic police force used a generated image to promote a public notice
People were absolutely horrified
Why?
Because the cop in the image had a gun, in a holster, AROUND CHILDREN 
The uniform was also not accurate for an Icelandic cop but what people found obscene was the idea that anybody would carry a gun around children, even holstered
“Trees and land absorbed almost no CO2 last year. Is nature’s carbon sink failing? | Oceans | The Guardian”
> The sudden collapse of carbon sinks was not factored into climate models – and could rapidly accelerate global heating
Not the time to be doing anything that increases emissions
Seeing more and more sites in web dev-related search engine results that are obviously AI crap hallucinating non-existent APIs.
Some of the pages are sort of accurate, which is going to make beginners more likely to trust the hallucinated ones
Stuff I've seen these pages hallucinate:
- A "swipe" event
- Date.parseISO
- A Date.parse method that returns a Date instance
- Drawing primitives like a Rectangle class
Those are just the obviously incorrect ones. A lot of it is plausible but wrong
Icelandic language trivia of the day: a common colloquial term for "dog" in Icelandic, used the same way you would the word "doggie" in English, is "voffi".
It's derived from the word "voff", basically the Icelandic version of "woof"
So, dogs in Icelandic are often literally called woofers.
