It would be an understatement to say that last week was a quiet news week. Iām not going to get political here, although I do have my views that I would be happy to discuss on a one-to-one basis, but I will say that Iām especially interested in the tech angle and how tech is a much bigger part of political and social discourse. And being a bigger part of that automatically means that it has a much bigger responsibility. Not that the current crop of tech bros would have you believe, theyāre still childishly trying āmove fast and break thingsā. A most immature method of actually innovating and effecting positive change. Their philosophy pays absolutely no mind or weights the risk of what actually ābreak thingsā means. We have observed that it can absolutely mean, genocide, murder, rape (virtual and irl), CSAM and the very possibility of a breakdown in democracy. Now you might think Iām being hyperbolic and thatās fine. But there are very real symptoms, incidents, factual evidence that points to this conclusion. The links above only hint at the amount of research, news related to these subjects. It is clear that a lot of it is as a result of the now infamous āBig Techā world playing fast and loose with the world. I donāt have answers or solutions to this, as the wealth amassed by this crop of people is beyond anything we have seen before, and used skilfully that wealth will absolutely corrupt almost all but the very strong-willed with morals of Graphene.
Back to a more pedestrian subject, Iāve hoping to kickstart a project that Iāve had in the idea phase for a couple of years and havenāt been able to get it off the ground. Now I have stabilised my revenue and working lifestyle, Iām hoping that it allows me the space to devote the time needed to get it up and running. The idea is called Caribbean Digital Compass, and I have definitely talked about it before somewhere. Iām hoping to have more news soon.
Just a quick note on presentation, I decided to try inline links again, after a modification to the theme. Iām hoping this looks OK. The other reason is that this is not an academic paper, it is a blog, and inline links are what the initial idea of the WWW was built on. Plus, itās easier for me to write. š
Reading
This will be a fairly short reading list this time, as I have been spending a lot of that reading time on work-related specific projects that are not that interesting here.
Still, I did have time to read a few bits and pieces:
Speaking of big tech and VCs getting deeper into society and them trying to dictate how things are going to play out, A16z, the VC firm, are going all out to impose their extremist worldview on America. It will not turn out the way they think. That is because an authoritarian is only nice to someone whilst they have something to offer. Once that runs out, theyāll turn faster than the blink of an eye.
Google has been up to its old tricks again. Just like all those years ago when it surveilled Wi-Fi networks and mapped huge amounts of personal data without any consent from the individuals concerned, scanning private Google Drive files is just š¤¢.
On the consent front, Facebook is actively training its LLMs on data in countries that it know it can get away with. Much of Latin America doesnāt have robust privacy and copyright laws like I enjoy in the EU. The article discusses this and what the implications are for artists and othersā being wholesale violated.
FFS of the week. Shopify execs said the thing they thought, out loud. I despair.
Anyway, I hope you have a good week, and thanks for reading.
