So, I think "intense ambivalence" - in the sense of being pulled in two directions - is the most reasonable place to be about this whole AI thing.

That's kind of a disclaimer - I don't think AI is evil enough to be worth not messing around with, and depending on how things shift, adapting to an LLM doing gruntwork may be a survival skill.

My friend JZ (no not Jay-Z) has been messing around with the AI music maker Suno and I decided to give it a shot... I put in one line of prompt, something about New Orleans Street Band / Second Line style, funky, and got Step On Over. The horns are kinda synth-y, but it's a rollicking bassline, and some of the lyrics are sorta brilliant... I especially like the last line of the chorus "We got room for one more in this song" (although the first line of the chorus "let the good feet roll" is a bit iffy.) Also the final verse during the background is a banger: If your week ran long, come walk it off / If your shoes feel tight, loosen up / Take my arm, we'll find the beat / There's a place for every pair of feet.

Also, a personal friend (and fellow bloger) Shaun McGill set Gemini to make a video summary of his e-book "How did we get to the iPhone" and the result was also pretty impressive.

It's (another, unfortunately) interesting moment in AI. With "Character.ai" filing for bankruptcy, it's easy to wonder if this is the start of a bubble pop - these remix machines have been heavily subsidized for years now, and what happens to the supply/demand curve when and if that becomes untenable?

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prescriptive linguist: agnostic actually means someone whose worldview holds the universe is inherently unknowable. it's completely separate from whether or not they believe in a god or gods

descriptive linguist: most people who use the word agnostic are using it to describe a middle-ground between atheism and theism. that's a valid usage, even if it's drifted from the technical philosophical definition

agnostic linguist: nobody knows what the word agnostic means

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The problem isn't that robots are taking over our jobs, the problem is that we've created a world where that's somehow a bad thing.

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"READ THIS: The man who was the commanding general of Fort Hood when Nidal Hasan went on his shooting rampage, and who signed the actual death warrant authorizing Hasan's execution, is absolutely opposed to televising the firing squad. He speaks eloquently for himself here."

via

from 2004

Ha! JP Honk features prominently in this video about HONK! (that's our 2001 Theme into 'Space Cadet' in the background)- plus a neat "training montage" shot of me taping up lights on my tuba.

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I thought this thing on scales associated with different cultures was pretty cool