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naomialderman.bsky.social
I write novels (eg The Power, new novel is The Future), I make games (eg Zombies, Run!), unorthodox Jew. not-getting-into-pointless-arguments-on-the-internet is an act of revolution. However complex you think things are, they're more complex than that
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This… seems important. It used to be that in order to be vulnerable to an malware (etc) attack in an email you had to have opened and clicked on something in the email. But if your email has an AI that is automatically “scanning” your email, it has become a self-infecting machine.

This is a very good piece on AI by cognitive scientists who knows what he’s talking about. Explains why AIs do that thing where they are INCREDIBLY IMPRESSIVE and then suddenly GODAWFULLY STUPID. There are very good reasons to think this won’t go away: open.substack.com/pub/garymarc...

Facebook has removed a link to my BBC programme about art history bc it "contains nudity". The nudity is... a picture of the shoulder of a classical statue? My mum used to have to do this for her Orthodox Jewish art students, so I'm not unfamiliar w fundamentalism. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b...

They’re so bald-facedly evil

I think it is not yet SETTLED that AI will be superintelligently taking over the world in 2030

actually it reminds me of the time I tried out a Paul McKenna self-hypnosis CD this is true and not a joke: I did go into some kind of trance. it didn't do what the CD promised it would do at all. but when I came out of the trance I *really* wanted to buy more Paul McKenna CDs.

to save everyone some time: I tried to use AI to manage my to-do list. It is very bad at that, it forgets important things and constantly attempts to prioritise busywork over novels. It also made me very *disconnected* from my own work & priorities. I have gone back to a notebook & a fountain pen.

Good. They are horrific racist extremists who have used Netanyahu’s corruption and desire for power at any cost to enact their vile agenda.

there is a specifically excellent bit where a trans woman who cannot be out in her non-game life talks about what it means to her to present and be accepted easily as exactly who she is in GTA online. I think if you don't understand that, you have missed a huge chunk of the modern world.

for people who are never going to play a game but are interested to understand a bit about what games culture is like, I can highly recommend the film Grand Theft Hamlet, about two out-of-work actors during the lockdowns trying to stage a production of Hamlet inside the game Grand Theft Auto

this is the thing. you don't have to be interested in games, but games are interested in you. if you don't know about games, it will be completely invisible to you how many parts of your life are already dominated by game-design culture.

The thing with these things is that: the only thing to do with them is say them out loud and go “oh my god I can be such a total idiot, I invite us all to have a laugh about it” And then it’s all fine, because everyone can be a total idiot and actually it is quite funny.

What is a memory that constantly recurs to you and makes you blush with embarrassment? One of mine came back to me just now: trying to correct my French translator during a live event, only to have it very delicately explained to me that no indeed her French was better than mine!

in a place of not-knowing people have a tendency to reach for questions we *can* answer. that's 'attribute substitution'. I don't know what AI is going to be, but I do know, eg: - it's theft - it uses a lot of water OR - tech develops quickly - UK needs jobs en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribu...

there are reasons to think that it will get much much better extremely quickly and rapidly leave the errors behind. there are reasons to think that the idiotic errors are intrinsic to the way it is made and can never be eliminated. anyone who says they *know* which of those is true is lying.

you know. I spend a huge amount of my time thinking about where new technology is going. we literally have no idea what AI will be in 2030. currently it can amaze you with brilliance one moment and then make a terrifying/hilarious error the next. it's developing but the breathtaking errors remain.

That cartoon of “for a brief moment we created a lot of shareholder value” except replace it with “for a brief moment anyone could generate a picture of an otter riding a motorcycle whenever they wanted”