Yes, it really has been a while. Sorry about that: I started a new job and have been knee-deep in the glorious moment called "the first couple of weeks", when all things are possible and there needs to be much planning. But here we are again, and I'm going to resume normal service from next week.
1. The AI hype machine rolls on and on
David Gerard spent a good deal of time debunking the crypto hype machine, and he's turned his eye to AI, with predictably good results. The use cases of crypto always seemed to fall into one of two categories: things which actually had no use to anyone apart from people investing in crypto, and things which were already better served by existing technology. I think there are some legitimate interesting uses for LLMs, particularly when they're used as conversational interfaces to existing pools of data rather than do-everything content creation machines. But their problems are many.
2. The UK CMA is doing terrific hidden work
As Cory Doctorow has noted many times, the UK Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) and its digital markets unit is "arguably the most technically proficient regulator in the world" and it uses its skills and knowledge a lot to help other antitrust regulators. The degree to which regulators are working together to solve problems which otherwise wouldn't be fixable shouldn't be underestimated, and a good example of that came this week with a CMA presentation to an antitrust conference in Washington DC. We all feel that the nascent AI market is already being dominated by large tech companies, but the CMA has actually done the work and found that Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta have already effectively carved up AI in ways which are probably anticompetitive now, and will definitely be in the future.
3. Repairable products in "not sucking" shock
Fairphone has released the Fairbuds, a set of ear phones which focus on being as repairable and recyclable as possible, and it turns out they're pretty good. One of the great lies of tech over the past few years is that small, tightly integrated products have to be glued together and almost impossible to fix if they go wrong. Companies like Fairphone, of course, have already demonstrated that isn't true, but it's remarkable how, faced with new laws which encourage repairability, companies which previously made shitty throwaway products are now finding new ways to fix them if they go wrong.
4. Laws work, shock, horror
Really odd that Apple makes no mention of the Oregon law against parts pairing which has clearly led to their “decision” to “allow” used parts in repairs.
5. Got to love juries
One of the rights of juries which the government would love to remove is the ability to bring in a “perverse verdict” (known in the US as jury nullification), where the accused is guilty, but the jury decides not to convict. That's basically what the jury did for Blyth Brenthall, accused of "possessing articles to commit criminal damage", which is one of those laws that governments love because it's basically vague enough to catch anyone.
6. Software harm
As Baldur points out, we ban harmful products all the time. Why should software be different?
7. Why I don't (want to) use Windows, part 889
Microsoft really really really wants you to use Edge. And if you would rather not use Edge, it is going to make you use Edge anyway.
8. Vice: "a fucking clown show"
Such a good article about a company that always smelled bad to me.
9. Britain is so bad even the NYT has noticed
"High levels of employment and immigration, coupled with the enduring dynamism of London, mask a national reality of low pay, precarious jobs, and chronic underinvestment. The trains are late. The traffic is bad. The housing market is a joke. “The core problem is easy to observe, but it’s tough to live with,” Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England, told me. “It’s just not that productive an economy anymore.” Yeah, and that doesn't even scratch the surface.
10. With Elon Musk, does the good outweigh the bad?
No.
