One of the central themes in the book The Making of the Atomic Bomb was that certain concepts, technologies, and ideas are almost inevitable once all the pieces are nearly in place.  In the early 1900s, scientists had just started doing research into the inner workings of the atom, aided by the microscopes and other technologies that had finally reached a maturity that enabled their exotic use.  Brilliant minds and open information-sharing led to one person, or perhaps a small handful of people, to realize the possibility of using radioactive materials to produce a bomb.  Once the calculations showed the feasibility of the concept, the race was on.  Whichever nation state got there first would hold an almost unimaginable amount of power.  The end result was inevitable.  If it could be done, it would be done, and better by us than by them. 

A similar concept happened in the 1960s with the space race.  Humans only learned to fly propeller-powered airplanes fifty or sixty years prior, but some intrepid scientists and engineers figured out that rockets could do it better.  Once the math was worked out and the new technology matured, space flight was inevitable.  Landing humans on the moon, while a "great leap," was essentially a done deal as soon as a big enough rocket could be built. 

The early internet followed a similar, though more circuitous, path.  The concept of linking all the world's computers together seemed like a great way to share information, but aside from that it wasn't clear what the benefits would be.  The technology wasn't ready, computing power was poor, transmission speed was slow, and users weren't particularly interested.  Once the first viable internet businesses started succeeding -- search, selling products, advertising -- the end result was inevitable, at least to the technocrats.  End users needed more convincing, but there was no doubt the internet would become a life-changing technology. 

I was alive during the coming of the information age.  I remember what it felt like.  It was the topic of every conversation, every news article, every movie and TV show.  There was a general feeling of excitement about how the internet could change the future, coupled with a lack of insight on what that could even look like.  Most people didn't own a computer, or didn't feel comfortable using one.  But little by little, the internet (and by extension the computer) became a daily part of nearly everyone's life.  Instead of plugging a network cable into a desktop computer, we carry tiny computers in our pockets which are connected wirelessly to the global web. 

Artificial intelligence is clearly the next inevitable technology.  Once computing power, parallelization, and networked information became viable and ubiquitous, and the concepts and algorithms to enable the technology were created (and publicly released) by tech companies, AI became a done deal.  This couldn't have happened fifty years ago, or even ten years ago.  It could only happen now, and it will.  There's still the question of what it'll look like -- human-computer interfaces, uploading a brain to the cloud, etc.  Regardless, artificial intelligence, not just large language models, will be the next technology that completely changes the future.  And similar to the bomb, and the space race, and the internet, it's not a question of "if" but of "when."  If we don't do it, someone else will, and that someone will hold an unimaginable amount of power. #technology

I've been using AI a worryingly large amount, but it's quickly become an essential part of my workflow for my job.  I also use it for my personal side projects, like the backend of this website and some math and physics stuff I like to tinker with.  Currently I do a lot of manual copy and paste with AI, like "solve this error" or "make a function that solves this annoying problem which would require me a tedious amount of time to solve," and then I copy-paste the solution to try it out.  I'm tempted to go full agentic mode and give an AI system access to my code repository and development toolset, but it kind of hit me that that would completely defeat the purpose of most tinkering projects, which is to futz around with things and challenge my brain to come up with a way to make a thing work.  I happily use AI to write helper functions and explain certain concepts to me, similar to how I used to use the regular internet.  But for the core "meat" of a personal project, the point of doing it is to do it myself.  I could easily find an existing solution or download somebody else's work from the internet, but that takes away the challenge and the joy of figuring it out myself.  Life is mostly a collection of silly little hobbies, and one of my hobbies is writing code.  It's weird to be in a position where I know I could easily use a tool to do the work for me, but I prefer to do the work manually myself.  It's like using my fingernail to screw in a screw instead of using a screwdriver or drill. #technology

It's funny how one of the internet's most talked-about and valuable products is so poorly named.  ChatGPT is four spoken syllables, is difficult to say quickly, and contains an acronym that is essentially meaningless and unmemorable for its users.  It's like an internal codename that accidentally slipped into production. #technology

I feel like "old twitter" was sort of a marketplace of ideas -- you know, the thing right wingers are always clamoring for.  It was free and open, and the marketplace (a.k.a. the userbase) allowed good ideas to percolate and bad ideas to be ridiculed.  People with bad ideas didn't like this system because it didn't allow them to spread their bad ideas. 

Enter Elon Musk, prominent Nazi.  Musk didn't like the marketplace so he simply bought it.  He changed the structure from "free and open" to "pay to win" so that paying customers would have their voices heard more.  Instead of good ideas rising to the top, bad ideas bought their way in.  On top of that, engagement became the new currency, so the bad ideas with the most engagement dominated the marketplace.  Twitter's marketplace of ideas is now a swamp of shit with the absolute worst people and worst ideas on the very top. 

Critics will say Elon had to do something to make Twitter profitable.  That sounds reasonable, but I have my doubts.  Tech companies absolutely don't need to make money.  Most corporations don't need to make money.  Private investments, stock buybacks, corporate restructurings, and mass layoffs are how pretty much all companies operate at what appears to be a profit.  It's all made up and doesn't matter at all.  The point is, Elon destroyed twitter because he's an awful lunatic attempting to curry favor with the most despicable human beings on the planet. #technology

I've been using Microsoft Windows since version 3.1, when it was just a thing that ran on top of MS-DOS.  Then with Windows 95 it replaced MS-DOS as the operating system on your computer.  Windows 98 essentially introduced the Blue Screen of Death.  Windows 2000 mostly fixed that, and it was clean and wonderful.  Windows XP made everything bubbly, but still good.  There was a period of time in those days when Windows was stable and usable and everything felt good, but you had to download third-party software to do things like view pictures and videos (and different software for different filetypes!), and to do simple/standard things like open zip files.  I think I skipped Windows Vista, or it was unmemorable, but either way around this version or Windows 7, everything started to become baked in.  You didn't have to download any other software to do the things you do on a computer.  I would say this was the pinnacle of Windows.  I think I skipped Windows 8, but Windows 10 was essentially more of the same, though perhaps a little cleaner.  We're now at Windows 11, and things have changed.  If you haven't upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11, your computer will tell you, it will repeatedly remind you even if you tell it to stop asking, and it will nag you until you throw it in a dumpster out of frustration.  Windows 11 changed a bunch of functionality, removed a bunch of configurable settings, and introduced AI as a core component of the operating system.  There's even AI in Notepad, the simplest, most straightforward piece of software ever conceived, ruined by a half-baked, unnecessary, unhelpful, undesirable piece of forced technology. 

Throughout its lifetime, Windows started out as a clunky add-on, became buggy, became the industry standard, fixed its bugs, became its true self, and then deteriorated into a worthless pile of garbage foisted on its global user base by techno-futurist zealots.  An operating system isn't the piece of technology people want to interact with.  When I use a computer, I want to use software, I want to write, create, learn.  The operating system is simply the skeleton that holds everything up.  If I have to fight with my operating system to force it to allow me to do what I want to do, it no longer has any value for me.  Windows has become a nuisance, a paper cut, a broken bone.  I guess it was inevitable, but it's still sad to see. #technology

Artificial intelligence is everywhere now, for better or worse.  It's interesting to watch how it polarizes people; you're either an AI evangelist or a luddite.  I tend to try to avoid the latest fad, which is why I completely avoided bitcoin and NFTs.  But after some hesitation, I've found some AI tools to be insanely useful.  It all depends on what you're trying to do and how you want to do it.  To paraphrase something I read somewhere, technology is supposed to make our jobs easier so we have more time for creativity, not make creativity easier so we have more time for our jobs.  The use cases I've heard for AI, aside from writing (and grading) school papers, include writing emails, summarizing documents, and drafting performance plans.  These all seem like mediocre ways to use a powerful technology, but whatever.  What I've found is that an AI tool functions well as an improved search engine.  When I'm working on some hard coding problem, I've always kept a browser tab open to look up questions about syntax, errors, or whatnot.  A search engine would inevitably point me to one of a handful of message boards where someone else had asked the same question months, years, or decades ago.  So my task became:  Filter through search results to find the most relevant (while discarding the irrelevant) to cobble together a solution to my problem.  AI can simply do this part for me.  And it can write code.  It still requires a human to organize that code into something workable, and it requires a human to ask the questions in the first place.  But a big chunk of the tedious middle part can be avoided entirely with AI. 

I think most of the hate for AI comes (rightly) from the force-fed nature of it.  There's AI in search engines, shopping websites, browsers, documents, apps, operating systems, phones, home appliances, a toilet, etc.  Every website on the planet now has an AI-powered "assistant."  It's often more difficult to avoid AI than to just begrudgingly use it.  And that's the problem most people have:  There's no choice in the matter.  Tech companies are shoving this concept down our throats, and it all comes off as very Microsoft Clippy-esque -- that super annoying "assistant" in Microsoft Office programs that would try to guess what you doing (wrongly) and try to offer assistance (poorly), really only serving as a thing that got in the way of what you were actually trying to do.  People mostly want freedom to do things as they wish, to express themselves in whatever nonoptimal, convoluted means they see fit.  Technology that gets in the way of creativity is not only not helpful, it's detrimental. 

But also, people hate AI because it sucks.  If you look carefully (or not that carefully), you see it used everywhere -- to create movies, commercials, viral videos, art, etc.  And that's mostly fine, aside from how bad it is at times.  The problem is that humanity already isn't good at determining what's true and what's not, what's fake and what's real.  And as these tools improve, and as more and more people gain access to them, it's concerning to imagine the world we'll be living in with ubiquitous AI-generated viral media available constantly, instantly, and universally. #technology

One of the more difficult tasks in modern life is choosing a username for some newfangled digital system.  Sure, it's not terribly significant.  And yet the Hotmail email address you created in 1998 stuck around for a lot longer than you anticipated.  You can never tell which website or app is gonna be the next "thing," so it's sort of important to choose a name that's relevant, meaningful, and not embarrassing. 

I have a tendency to want to put some variation of my name (first or last or a combo) in everything.  But this can get a little wordy, especially if firstname.lastname is taken so you have to go with firstname.middlename.lastname.  Then every time you have to give your email address over the phone (yes this still happens in the year 2024), it's a whole thing. 

Plus, the internet is sometimes a scary place, so you might not want your real name attached to everything.  Or sometimes you just want to be anonymous.  I think there's value in anonymity, for the sole reason that you can do a dumb thing and leave it in the past, instead of carrying it with you forever.  (Side note -- kids these days should be allowed to make mistakes without having those mistakes potentially affect every future opportunity they ever have.) 

A username without your name is kind of tricky, because it can be something you like, or an activity you enjoy, or it could be random and arbitrary.  I think the more important aspect of this is:  Will you be sharing this information with someone?  Because you don't want your email on your resume to be something stupid like hikerguy42@aol.  Or if you're connecting with a real-life friend on an app and you have to say your username out loud and it's something like "boiled_fruit_enjoyer" maybe that might be undesirable.  Or maybe not.  I'm not you. 

The overarching issue is that, with an increasing population and the proliferation of internet access, the universe is running out of usernames.  You used to be able to get a two-letter Twitter username (also Twitter used to be called Twitter).  We're eventually moving to a world where your username is auto-generated and just a random combination of numbers and letters.  Choose wisely while you still have the opportunity. #technology

It feels completely absurd to be writing this at this point in the history of the internet, but internet ads have gotten completely insane in the past couple years.  I've used a browser with an ad-blocker for quite some time now, so I'm mostly immune to whatever nonsense is going on in gen-pop.  But on the off chance I inadvertently click a link on some app on my phone that opens an unmodified website full of shit-ass pop-ups and pop-unders and scroll-locks and full-volume auto-play videos and impossible-to-click x-buttons, it feels like my eyes and my brain and my soul are being raped by the worthless, meaningless, functionless products and elixirs and scams peddled by the blood-sucking sociopathic bottom-feeders who gorge on the trickle-down shit that runs our modern economy.  I can't even understand how regular people use the internet.  I remember a time when pop-up ads were a scourge that everyone agreed should be eliminated.  And browsers and plugins and companies were created to address this issue to make a better experience for users.  And this was a success!  Now we've gone so far back down the sewer hole, the modern web is unusable.  And that's not to mention YouTube ads.  If I happen to click a link that takes me to "regular YouTube" and it makes me watch two 15-second unskippable ads, I just go back to whatever I was doing before.  Whatever I clicked on isn't worth it.  No content on YouTube, or really anywhere on the internet, is worth wasting precious seconds of my life with arbitrary, non-contextual ads for fibromyalgia medicine and colorful LED lights.  The one thing the internet has undoubtedly achieved is destroying any semblance we once had of attention span.  Now you want me to look at an ad, a VIDEO ad, and it's multiple seconds long?  Fuck that. #technology

Cory Doctorow writes about why internet things keep getting worse: 

HERE IS HOW platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a "two-sided market," where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, hold each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them.

I don't have problems with Google, but Facebook and Twitter have taken a dive lately, and Amazon used to be a good place to compare product reviews. #technology

With Twitter's ongoing demise, there are a few alternatives if you're into that sort of thing (mostly short-form, mostly text-based posting and commenting): 

• Mastodon.  It has the features and core functionality of Twitter, without all the shit.  Also without all the people, which is sort of the problem.  The other problem is that, like early blogging, it's way too tech-heavy, with lots of unnecessary jargon and new-user friction regarding servers and instances and federation and whatnot.  It's cool to have all that infrastructure, but the overwhelmingly vast majority of users don't care or need to know about it.  Just set up the system and make it easy to use.
• Bluesky.  From what I've heard, it's great.  But it's currently in closed beta and can only be accessed with an invite code.  This is a cool idea for new products because it can generate buzz while also allowing you to iron out your technical difficulties.  But after a certain point, this is just a walled garden that most people (including myself) don't have access to.  This doesn't make me more interested in it.  In fact, it's just the opposite.  It's like walking by a country club you know you'll never be allowed to join.  People are just gonna find another thing with a door that actually opens for them.
• Threads.  This is Facebook's entrant to the market.  I'm not a huge fan of providing Facebook with yet another source of my data which they can sell to advertisers.  Plus, I'd prefer to keep my Facebook identity separate from my Threads identity, which is possible but difficult.  Finally, all I've heard so far is that it's missing some fairly critical core functionality, which would maybe be fine for a startup, but Facebook isn't a startup anymore.

Probably the biggest blunder in all this is that Twitter has created a sort of diaspora of weird people who want to interact with the internet in this very specific way, and the fact that there are multiple alternatives that are very much not connected to each other means that the thing Twitter actually created -- community -- is no longer.  Absolute moronic fuckup, or all according to plan, depending on your point of view. #technology