Should some sort of post-mortem ever be conducted on the catastrophic failure of all computer models, it will be done with the help of a computer model, that will cost billions in whatever currency to assemble. It will show the need for more computer studies. And therefore, it will be catastrophically wrong.
But note: for 100 dollars or negotiable, I will produce a minority report that will explain everything, infallibly. I will not preview the report in this Idlepost, however, because it might be worth money to me.
Aw, heck. Since I am rich beyond the dreams of avarice, let me just go ahead and blow all the beans. Let me recklessly tell gentle reader why computer models are always mistaken.
It is because their makers decide the result, before they design the model.
This does not mean they are self-interested phanatics, consciously preying on the gullibility of a drooling, ignorant public; although usually it does. For even if, by disposition, they are lofty, objective types, they will need, objectively, a lofty budget to perform a “credible” study. This means they must beg huge sums of money, and this will only be available from a source with an unhealthy interest in the result.
You see, the problem has nothing to do with computers. Even among humans, the phenomenon of “garbage in, garbage out” is well attested. The intention of following the evidence where it leads, is transient. I should think only a saint could sustain it, for longer than he could hold his breath under water.
David Warren, “A note on sternutation”, Essays in Idleness, 2020-06-19.
August 21, 2025
QotD: Computer models
August 12, 2025
Britain warns online platforms about “overzealous” interpretation of online safety law
“Ben the Layabout” posted a note over at Founding Questions linking to a Telegraph article [archive.ph link] that seems to indicate the British government is demanding that online services both enforce the letter of the law and the spirit … whatever that might mean at any given moment in time:
“Palace of Westminster”by michaelhenley is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Social media giants face huge fines for curbing free speech by “overzealous” enforcement of online safety laws.
Ministers have told platforms including Facebook, X, Instagram and TikTok they must not restrict access to posts that express lawfully held views.
The warning, in an apparent change of tone from ministers, comes amid a backlash over websites blocking users from viewing material, including parliamentary debates about grooming gangs.
Campaigners have said that free speech is threatened by the Government’s application of the Online Safety Act, which is meant to protect children from harmful content.
JD Vance, the US vice-president, used a visit to the UK this week to warn ministers against going down the “dark path” of censorship.
Whitehall sources have expressed concern that social media firms, some of which have criticised the law, “have been overzealous” in enforcing it and must be “mindful” of the right to freedom of expression.
The Science Department, which oversees the legislation, told companies they could face fines if they failed to uphold free speech rules.
A spokesman said:
As well as legal duties to keep children safe, the very same law places clear and unequivocal duties on platforms to protect freedom of expression.
Failure to meet either obligation can lead to severe penalties, including fines of up to 10 per cent of global revenue or £18m, whichever is greater.
The Act is not designed to censor political debate and does not require platforms to age gate any content other than those which present the most serious risks to children such as pornography or suicide and self-harm content.
Platforms have had several months to prepare for this law. It is a disservice to their users to hide behind deadlines as an excuse for failing to properly implement it.
So online sites big and small are required to obey the British law, but only as and how the British government wants it enforced or they’ll levy massive punishment. Too lax? Punishment. Too strict? Also punishment. It’s almost as if Britain wants to be cut off from the rest of the internet …
AOL to shut down its last dial-up access: dozens to be inconvenienced
James Lileks on the end-of-era announcement from AOL — and I can’t recall the last time I thought of that company — that they’ll be eliminating the last of their dial-up internet access accounts:
New tech: shiny today, tarnished tomorrow. Everything that was once bright and brilliant now stamps its walker towards the exit door. The headlines wave goodbye: Last telegram office in the US shut down.
Last phone booth in New York is decommissioned. The latest: AOL to shut off its landline customers.
You’d think this would be news on the level of “homing pigeon trainer employment hits record lows”.
Who uses dialup? Yahoo, which now owns the AOL brand, says that the user base is in the “low thousands”, which suggests that some people forgot to turn off autopay in 2005. What does AOL do today? The usual basket of dross and chum. A website that offers “trending videos” — gosh, don’t know where else you’d find those — and a lot of news stories, supplied by Yahoo, and its … numberless army of journalists, I guess.
It’s a legacy brand for people who want to slide into the internet like comfy slippers they left under the desk. And that’s fine. Facebook serves the same function. It’s a place to start, a home base. A familiar window out which we gaze daily We all have them. But let us not get nostalgic for AOL and the early days of the internet. Some people, of course, love to talk about the pioneer days, and how it required some technical know-how:
Well, we didn’t have those fancy little pre-made modems like you got in the 90s, so we had to get a little matchbox and fill it up with a certain kind of specially-bred insect that sang a note at a particular pitch when exposed to electrical current. So you’d crank up the generator and put the little alligator clips on the box and hold the box up to the phone while you entered your user name in Morse code by pushing on the hang-up buttons, and then you had to shake the box so the insect singing would modulate. Took about an hour, but then you’d be “On the Line”, as we said, and you could go to a Usenet group and call people Nazis. Kids today, they can call someone a Nazi without lifting a finger.
August 9, 2025
Carney hints at backing away from Trudeau’s digital policy catastrophes
Michael Geist on the possibility that Prime Minister Mark Carney is starting to recognize just how damaging to Canadian interests the previous government’s various online bills have been:
Digital policies did not play a prominent role in the last election given the intense focus on the Canada-U.S. relationship. Prime Minister Mark Carney started as a bit of a blank slate on the issue, but over the past few months a trend has emerged as he distances himself from the Justin Trudeau approach with important shifts on telecom, taxation, and the regulation of artificial intelligence. Further, recent hints of an openness to re-considering the Online News Act and heightened pressure from the U.S. on the Online Streaming Act suggests that a full overhaul may be a possibility.
This week’s decision to let the CRTC’s decision on wholesale access to fibre broadband networks stand is a case in point. Last November, the Justin Trudeau-led government sent the CRTC’s initial ruling back to the Commission for reconsideration, noting that it “has concerns about future and ongoing investments in broadband infrastructure and services in Ontario and Quebec, including in rural, remote and Indigenous communities, and concerns that those investments could, if they are unprofitable, lead to a decline in quality and consumer choice in the retail Internet services market”. Nine months later, the CRTC came back with the roughly same ruling. That led to yet another request for a cabinet review but this time the government stood by the CRTC despite significant industry opposition. New leader, dramatically new approach.
The CRTC is example was preceded by the decision to eliminate the digital services tax. While the strategic approach seemed misguided – dropping the DST should have garnered more than just an agreement from the U.S. to return to the bargaining table – some noted at the time that perhaps Carney wasn’t a supporter of the DST and had few qualms with rescinding it. The tax had been a foundational part of the government’s campaign to “make web giants pay” but in a matter of 72 hours in late June it was gone.
The government has also shifted its approach on AI regulation. After months of supporting Bill C-27 and the EU-style AI regulatory approach, a new government brought a new minister and a new approach. Evan Solomon, the newly installed AI and Digital Innovation Minister, used his first public speech as minister to pledge that Canada would move away from “over-indexing on warnings and regulation” on AI. That too represents a significant shift in approach, particularly since Trudeau had embraced the EU style regulatory model.
Then there is the Online News Act and Online Streaming Act. When asked about the Online News Act this week, Carney seemed to suggest he was open to change, stating “this government is a big believer in the value of … local news and the importance of ensuring that that is disseminated as widely and as quickly as possible. So, we will look for all avenues to do that.” While that isn’t a clear commitment to change, it is far from an ironclad commitment to legislation is viewed by many to have done more harm than good. Further, reports indicate that the U.S. Congress is escalating pressure to rescind the Online Streaming Act, which may put that law on the chopping block, particularly if a court appeal strikes down elements of the bill or the CRTC’s implementation of the law puts the bill on the Trump radar screen.
August 5, 2025
High tech and lust for power are a bad combination
Spaceman Spiff discusses the malign confluence of technocrats and amoral power-seekers (BIRM):
Today’s technocrats, assisted by billionaire tech bros, want to implement a digital surveillance grid that will eradicate any notion of anonymity or privacy forever.
Every major country, including the United States, is working on this with enthusiastic support from governments and their many agents.
The sales pitch is primarily platitudes about protecting people from harm, especially children.
What they seek is the end of the internet as it currently is, which means it will look a lot more like licensed corporate TV than the current free for all. From here their goal is to extend their surveillance operation into every aspect of our lives, from the energy we consume to the food we are permitted to eat.
This will probably cause a lot of damage, but it will ultimately fail.
Tech bro arrogance meets managerial control freakery
We are witnessing a partnership between the technocratic elite, with a limited understanding of technology, and silicone valley titans, who are blinded by the promise of technology.
Each group believes draconian surveillance systems combined with fancy data analysis will solve many societal problems and usher in a new era with them at the helm.
To the technocrats it promises full-spectrum control of all our choices. The food we eat, the material we consume, the ability to travel.
They are salivating at the thought of the ultimate control, the issuing of government-controlled digital currencies they can deactivate on a whim. No steak for the memelords, and no road trips for those without the right carbon profile.
They have been discussing these things for many years with a degree of enthusiasm bordering on mania.
The technologists see a chance to keep in with the powerful, to join the club. If they can be the trusted partner of the visionaries currently wrecking our world they will cash in and perhaps be spared from the concentration camps.
The technologists have powerful tools that promise amazing things. Machine learning, predictive programming, behavioural modelling.
Spotting patterns within trillions of data points is appealing to society’s tinkerers, all the better to predict problematic behaviours and to spot trends. Combined with nudge units and related horrors of social engineering this promises to be the holy grail for a technocratic managerialist regime absolutely convinced it can steer society in enlightened directions, just like they imagine they did during Covid.
It is all very futuristic, and it has clearly impressed our technology gurus as well as those who love control.
But along with the outsized data stores will come outsized cockups they cannot properly plan for.
Climate modelling has promised immense benefits and accuracy for decades and we have yet to see a single successful prediction. Indeed, some of the most famous climate predictions are almost comically wrong but nonetheless trigger endless rounds of funding, chatter, conferences and hubris. Such is the lure of anything that can be adapted to enforce top-down social control.
There have been many attempts to harness technology to predict the stock market, another obvious target. None of them worked either. It doesn’t seem to matter. No one is checking the track record. It is sold on its promise and that works because of who is buying. Or, rather, the type of person who embraces these schemes.
Digital surveillance, digital currencies, digital voting, digital IDs. Everything we do tracked and stored. Such absolute total control would make our superiors into gods as they exploit these powerful tools to direct us towards better versions of ourselves.
There is a delusion at play here. Those closest to this seem lost in their fantasies. They are blind.
August 4, 2025
The EU still dominates in one key area – over-regulation
At the Foundation for Economic Education, Cláudia Ascensão Nunes identifies the one area that the EU has carved out a unique niche for itself … and it’s global in scope:
EU regulations delenda est
In a world where global power is measured by military strength, technological innovation, or cultural influence, it is striking that the European Union, without housing major tech giants or centers of disruptive innovation, has turned bureaucracy into a tool of global power. It shapes the behavior of global companies, including American big tech firms, which adapt their products to comply with European norms. This phenomenon is known as the “Brussels Effect” and has positioned the EU as the world’s regulatory superpower, fueling growing tensions, particularly with the United States following the re-election of Donald Trump.
The European market comprises 450 million consumers with significant purchasing power, making it an essential destination for global companies. However, access to this attractive market comes with detailed regulations based on the precautionary principle, ostensibly prioritizing consumer and environmental protection, and enforced by an efficient bureaucracy capable of implementing and enforcing rules with precision. This combination encourages companies to align their global operations with European standards, as maintaining different product versions for each region is costly and complex. In practice, this exports European standards worldwide.
American big tech companies such as Apple, Google, and Meta exemplify the impact of the “Brussels Effect,” as they face the requirements of legislations like the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA). These laws have forced companies to overhaul their business models, often at high cost and with significant implications. The DMA, for instance, forced Apple to allow alternative app stores and third-party payment systems on iOS, leading the company to announce, in 2024, global changes to its app policy affecting users even outside Europe, with cost estimates in the billions of dollars to restructure its infrastructure and address revenue losses from the App Store.
Google, under the same regulation, was required to offer alternatives to its search engine on Android and to unbundle services such as YouTube, impacting its global strategy and requiring significant investments in new operating systems and interfaces. The company faced potential fines of up to 10% of its global revenue for non-compliance.
Meanwhile, Meta, under the DSA, was required to invest billions in content moderation systems, a serious imposition that openly seeks to control freedom of expression on a global scale. Operational costs increased by around 20%, according to market analysts. These costly adjustments are ultimately coercive due to the weight of the European market, demonstrating how Brussels shapes corporate behavior on a global scale.
These successive impositions and forced adaptations illustrate precisely Friedrich Hayek’s warning about the dangers of central planning. By replacing spontaneous order with top-down, uniform rules imposed by a technocratic authority, the capacity for local adaptation and respect for market complexity is lost. In this scenario, the European Union increasingly takes on the features of a regulatory Leviathan, a body concentrating disproportionate power in the hands of bureaucrats far removed from citizens, reducing freedom of choice and stifling innovation.
August 1, 2025
Australia saw Britain’s awful Online Safety Act and said “hold my beer”
In The Freeman, Nicole James discusses how Australia’s attempt to protect young, innocent eyes from the terrors of the internet seems to be having all kinds of unforeseen impacts on adults:
Commonwealth Coat of Arms of Australia (1912).
Quarterly of six, the first quarter Argent a Cross Gules charged with a Lion passant guardant between on each limb a Mullet of eight points Or; the second Azure five Mullets, one of eight, two of seven, one of six and one of five points of the first (representing the Constellation of the Southern Cross) ensigned with an Imperial Crown proper; the third of the first a Maltese Cross of the fourth, surmounted by a like Imperial Crown; the fourth of the third, on a Perch wreathed Vert and Gules an Australian Piping Shrike displayed also proper; the fifth also Or a Swan naiant to the sinister Sable; the last of the first, a Lion passant of the second, the whole within a Bordure Ermine; for the Crest on a Wreath Or and Azure A Seven-pointed Star Or, and for Supporters dexter a Kangaroo, sinister an Emu, both proper.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, children roamed freely through the pixelated wilderness of the Internet, posting dog memes, finding kindred spirits in weird little corners of Tumblr, and learning how to contour like Kylie Jenner. It was all chaotic, noisy, and entirely normal.
Now? Well, welcome to Australia in 2025, where the new Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill has galloped through Parliament like a runaway Shetland pony, banning under-16s from social media. This is a full-blown digital eviction. And the ban isn’t limited just to TikTok and Snapchat. It also extends to YouTube (yes, YouTube), where apparently autoplay is now considered a gateway drug.
And how will they enforce this sweeping national grounding? Age verification, of course. Potentially through facial recognition. Not for the kids, mind you; they’ll simply be locked out. It’s everyone else who’ll need to prove they’re not children. Because nothing says “welcome to adulthood” like having to scan your actual face just to post a birthday shoutout or watch a slow-cooker recipe reel. All to reassure a tech platform that you’re not a rogue 14-year-old with strong opinions and a ring light.
The bill’s spiritual mother, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, who, fun fact, once interviewed for a job at the CIA to analyze serial killers, gave a passionate speech at the National Press Club called “Swimming Between the Digital Flags”. It sounded very beachy and breezy until you realized she meant regulatory flags, and not the ones you’d use at Bondi. Her point was clear: the online world is full of rips and sharks and emotional jellyfish, and children must be protected from being dragged under.
Which is noble. Obviously. But somewhere between “protect the kids” and “build a biometric panopticon”, the line got a little smeared.
And where, you might ask, were parents in all this? Sitting quietly in the back, apparently, while Canberra (Australia’s Washington, DC) appointed itself Mum, Dad, the school principal, and possibly even the family dog. Because this isn’t just about safety; it’s about who decides what kids can see, say, share, and, in the case of a few bold young TikTokers, lip-sync while delivering motivational speeches to two mildly traumatized budgies.
The idea behind the project is that children are being harmed online, and honestly, yes, some are. The Internet is not all kittens and cake recipes. But rather than investing in education or digital literacy, the government has opted for a full blackout. It’s like banning scissors because one kid snipped their fringe into a reverse mullet.
And here’s the kicker. The bill had a consultation period of just 24 hours. That’s less time than it takes to read the terms and conditions you just agreed to without reading. (Don’t lie, we’ve all done it.)
In that tight little window, more than 15,000 submissions were made, and while some were supportive, the vast majority sounded the alarm. LGBTQIA+ organizations warned of disconnected teens losing safe spaces. Indigenous advocates pointed out the risks of further digital exclusion. Psychologists, educators, digital rights groups, and even a Community Soccer Club raised concerns.
July 31, 2025
The intent of Britain’s Online Safety Act … and the actual implementation
In The Conservative Woman, Dr. Frederick Attenborough discusses the gap between what the Online Safety Act was intended to do and how it’s actually being enforced now that it’s the law of the land:
X posts like this may not be visible to uses in the UK under the age verification rules of the Online Safety Act.
At the heart of the regime is a requirement to implement “highly effective” age checks. If a platform cannot establish with high confidence that a user is over 18, it must restrict access to a wide category of “sensitive” content, even when that content is entirely lawful. This has major implications for platforms where news footage and political commentary appear in real time.
Ofcom’s guidance makes clear that simple box-ticking exercises, such as declaring your age or agreeing to terms of service, will no longer suffice. Instead, platforms are expected to use tools such as facial age estimation, ID scans, open banking credentials and digital identity wallets.
The Act also pushes companies to filter harmful material before it appears in users’ feeds. Ofcom’s broader regulatory guidance warns that recommender systems can steer young users toward material they didn’t ask for. In response, platforms may now be expected to reconfigure their algorithms to filter out entire categories of lawful expression before it reaches underage or unverified users.
One platform already moving in this direction is X. Its approach offers a revealing – and potentially sobering – glimpse of where things may be heading. The company uses internal signals, including when an account was created, any prior verification, and behavioural data, to estimate a user’s age. If that process fails to confirm the user is over 18, he or she is automatically placed into a sensitive content filtering mode. As the platform’s Help Center explains: “Until we are able to determine if a user is 18 or over, they may be defaulted into sensitive media settings, and may not be able to access sensitive media”.
This system runs without user opt-in and applies at scale. Depending on how X classifies it, filtered material may include adult humour, graphic imagery, political commentary or footage of violence. Already there are signs that lawful content is quietly being screened out.
One example came on July 25, the day the Act’s age-verification duties took effect, during a protest outside the Britannia Hotel in Seacroft, Leeds, where asylum seekers are being housed. A video showing police officers restraining and arresting a protester was posted on X, but quickly became inaccessible to many UK-based users. Instead, viewers saw the message: “Due to local laws, we are temporarily restricting access to this content until X estimates your age”.
West Yorkshire Police denied any involvement in blocking the footage. X declined to comment, but its AI chatbot, Grok, indicated that the clip had been restricted under the Online Safety Act due to violent content. Though lawful and clearly newsworthy, the footage was likely flagged by automated systems intended to shield children from real-world violence.
In The Critic, Christopher Snowdon explains the breakdown of trust between the British public and their government that the implementation of the Online Safety Act only exacerbates:
People are right to be concerned about this slippery slope and yet it cannot be denied that it is pornography enthusiasts who have been hardest hit by the Online Safety Act in the short term. They must now verify themselves in one of three ways, each less appealing than the last. They can submit their credit card details, they can scan in proof of ID, such as a passport, or they can take a photo of their face and allow AI to judge how old they are. If they want to maximise their chances of being the victim of blackmail and identity theft, they could do all three.
While we might not think twice about submitting our credit card details to Amazon or posting our photos on Instagram, there is an understandable reluctance to hand over private data in order to access dubious websites for the purposes of sordid acts of self-pollution. The government assures us that the data will be kept confidential but it is only two weeks since we learned about a data breach that led to the names of 19,000 Afghans who wanted to flee the Taliban being given to the Taliban and it is less than two months since the names and addresses of 6.5 million Co-op customers were stolen in a cyber-attack. Rightly or wrongly, millions of British plank-spankers and rug-tuggers do not wish to identify themselves to anybody.
The result is a surge in interest in Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) which allow internet users to access websites as if they were in a less censorious country. Half of the top ten free apps in Apple’s app download charts yesterday were for VPNs. Google Trends data show that searches for “VPN” have gone through the roof since Friday. Readers can draw their own conclusions from the fact that these searches have been peaking between midnight and 2am.
Downloading random VPNs comes with risks of its own and opens up a whole new world of illicit online activity from free Premier League football to the Dark Web. But there is a deeper reason to feel uneasy about this unintended, albeit predictable, consequence of paternalistic regulation. By driving another wedge between the state and the individual, it further normalises rule-breaking in a country where casual lawlessness is becoming part of daily life. A law-abiding society cannot long endure if the median citizen thinks that the law is an ass.
The breakdown of trust can be seen most clearly when the ordinary man or woman does not share the moral certainties of the governing class. Among smokers, a collapse in tax morale — the intrinsic motivation to pay taxes — has led to a huge rise in the consumption of illegal tobacco in recent years. Smokers no longer feel any obligation to pay taxes that are designed to impoverish them to a government that vilifies them. Cannabis smokers learn from an early age to be suspicious of a police force that they might otherwise respect. Motorists who are faced with 20mph speed limits that were introduced by people who hate private transport have no scruples about flouting the law.
QotD: Web browsing “naked”
David Thompson, commenting on “Scenes from Woketopia”, davidthompson.com, 2020-06-23.
July 28, 2025
The AI threat to the laptop classes
Warren at Coyote Blog responds to a recent Gato Malo post on the way artificial intelligence (however described) will continue to disrupt the workplace especially as it begins to threaten the “laptop class” workers:
I agree with Gato that AI has a huge potential to disrupt current work patterns, in the same way that the industrial revolution did. The 19th century disruptions were severe, and many people suffered as their experience and skill set no longer matched the new economy. But eventually everyone, from the poorest to the rich, were better off for letting the industrial revolution run its course.
But in the 19th century, the disrupted were essentially powerless. What happens this time around, though, when the disrupted are the ruling elite themselves? These potentially disrupted professions include lawyers and doctors who already have shown themselves very willing to organize to block innovation, squash competition, and protect their high pay. Just look at the history of the attempts by Congress to reduce Medicare reimbursements to doctors. And that was minor compared to the potential AI disruption. Let me give you another example of the powerful resisting a technological change that should have disrupted their businesses.
When TV first was being rolled out, the industry coalesced around a network of local broadcast stations, many of whom became affiliates of a network like NBC or CBS. Why this model? Mainly it was driven by technology — the farthest a TV signal could reasonably be broadcast was about 50-75 miles. Thus everyone by necessity got their TV through three or four TV stations in their metropolitan area, each its own small business.
Now fast forward to today. There are multiple ways to broadcast a TV signal nationwide — there are several satellite options and many streaming internet approaches. So now when we watch DirecTV or Youtube TV, we just watch the national NBC or ABC feed, right? Nope. Federal law requires that whatever service you use MUST serve up NBC, for example, via the local affiliate. That is why your streaming TV service harasses you when you travel, because it is worried about violating the law by showing you the Phoenix CBS affiliate when you are staying overnight in Atlanta (gasp).
This is hugely costly. In order to be able to provide NBC among its stations, Youtube TV must gather the feeds from 235 different stations. In the Internet streaming era this is costly but in the satellite era it was insane. DirecTV, with its limited bandwidth, had to simultaneously broadcast 235 stations, most showing identical content, just to legally provide you with NBC. So why this crazy, expensive, insane effort? I am sure you have guessed — pound for pound local TV stations are among the most powerful lobbyists in the country. First, they have money and a massive incentive to defend their local geographic monopoly — Car dealers and alcohol distributors are much the same, which is why every potential innovation is resisted in those markets. But TV stations have one extra card to play — nearly every Congressman in the House likely depends on the three or four TV stations in one major metropolitan area for a huge part of their publicity and coverage. No politician is going to screw with that. At the end of the day, local stations did not get disrupted, they actually became more valuable with this government-enforced distribution of their product.
This is a small example of the fight that is coming in AI. Congressmen will couch their arguments in fear-charged terminology as if their real fear is some Terminator-like AI apocalypse. But the real concern will be from the influential elite who are being disrupted. What would have happened to the Industrial Revolution if the hand-loom weavers were the children of the nobility? Would the government have allowed the revolution to proceed? We are about to find out.
On a cheerier note (if you’re an AI), here’s Ted Gioia‘s most recent concerns about AI getting more evil as it gets more capable:
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but AI doesn’t make ethical decisions like a human being. And none of the reasons why people avoid evil apply to AI.
Okay, I’m no software guru. But I did spend years studying moral philosophy at Oxford. That gave me useful tools in understanding how people choose good over evil.
And this is relevant expertise in the current moment.
So let’s look at the eight main reasons why people resist evil impulses. These cover a wide range — from fear of going to jail to religious faith to Darwinian natural selection.
You will see that none of them apply to AI.
Do you see what this means? You and I have plenty of reasons to choose good over evil. But an AI bot is like the honey badger in a famous meme — and just don’t care.
So sci-fi writers have good reason to fear AI. And so do we. The moral compass that drives human behavior has no influence over a bot. As it gets smarter, it will increasingly resemble a Bond villain. That’s what we should expect.
Anyone who tries to forecast the future of AI must take this into account. I certainly do.
And even though I’d like to think that I’m a fearless predictor, I must admit that what I see playing out over the next few years is very, very very troubling.
Here’s my hypothesis: Let’s call it Ted’s Unruly Rules of Robotics:
- Smart machines will have an inherent tendency to evil—because human moral or legal or religious or evolutionary tendencies to goodness don’t apply to them.
- The only way to stop this is through human intervention.
- But as the machines get smarter, this intervention will increasingly fail.
QotD: The technology ecosystem
Technology is also an ecosystem, not the way bluechecks talk about it, but in this more profound sense. A Boeing or a Google is like a tiger: the highly-visible culmination of a vast subterranean drama. Turn over a spade and you’ll find them — the suppliers and subcontractors, investor networks, tooling manufacturers, feeder universities, advisors, researchers, shipping and packaging experts, friendly bankers and government officials, producers of upstream technological inputs, and a vast collection of lower-tier companies in related markets that act like an economic flywheel, absorbing and releasing excess labor as the economy shudders through its fits and starts.
In nature, it’s energy and nutrients that move through the food webs. Here their analogues are capital and knowledge. It’s hard to miss the money sloshing back and forth — world-changing companies are nurtured through their awkward adolescence by sophisticated and patient pools of capital, and the high-flying champions of those companies become the next generation’s venture investors after cashing out. Harder to see but even more influential is the vast economic dark matter made up of professionals who struck it rich enough to live comfortably but not rich enough to fly private. These unobtrusive capitalists are the first to hear through professional whispernets that so-and-so has quit his job to work on such-and-such. Since they’re still in the rat-race, they can have an informed opinion on the caliber both of the idea and of the team around it, and are usually the early champions of the most unusual and speculative ventures. And finally, money sloshes around between the companies themselves through a complicated network of deals, joint ventures, and strategic investments.
The money is more visible, but the way knowledge moves is more important. Part of it is academic, propositional knowledge or technical data whose discovery is accelerated when a dozen different teams are on its scent, sometimes racing each other to the prize, sometimes egging each other on and celebrating each others’ victories. But the bulk of what makes this ecosystem hum, the true currency that drives nearly every barter or exchange, is practical, process knowledge of the sort that 莊子 first described and Michael Oakeshott later re-popularized for our benighted and ignorant age. What makes process knowledge unusual is that by its very nature it cannot be separated from people, cannot be digitized or divorced or attached to an email. It is at once the nous of a technological ecosystem and the thing that makes it fundamentally illegible — an immaterial, intangible essence that inheres only in individuals, like a mind or a soul.
John Psmith, “REVIEW: Flying Blind by Peter Robison”, Mr. and Mrs. Psmith’s Bookshelf, 2023-02-06.
July 22, 2025
The internet keeps getting worse. Let’s talk about why.
Jared Henderson
Published 16 Jul 2025Why do major online platforms keep getting worse? Cory Doctorow’s work helps us understand the pattern of growth, decline, and eventual demise.
→ Timestamps
00:00 Beginning
00:51 How Platforms Die
08:29 The Death of a Platform (From the Inside)
12:14 Ads, Everywhere
14:47 Yes, I Make Money from Ads
16:32 Bots
22:04 The Internet We Need
(more…)
Age verification schemes are just another attempt to control everyone’s internet usage
Marian Halcombe is specifically discussing the British age verification provisions of their Online Safety Act, but similar schemes are popping up all over the west, and they’re only pretending to be about protecting young people from online content:
The British State, in its infinite filth and hypocrisy, would like you to believe that it is deeply concerned about what you do with your penis. Or more precisely, what you look at while your hand is on it. The latest wheeze — part of the Online Safety Act — is mandatory age verification for all pornographic websites. We’re told it’s to stop children from seeing naughty videos. In reality, it’s a spyware regime disguised as child protection, devised by a ruling class that snorts coke with one hand while signing surveillance warrants with the other.
Let’s start with the pretence. No one in Westminster cares what children watch online. These are the same people who presided over the industrial-scale rape of working-class girls in Rotherham, Telford, Rochdale, and elsewhere — refusing to intervene for fear of “racism”. The idea that they now lie awake worrying about a Year Eight boy glimpsing a MILF thumbnail on Pornhub is an insult to the intelligence. They don’t care about children. They care about you.
The age-verification scheme isn’t just about proving you’re eighteen. It’s about linking your name and your age, and your IP address to your viewing habits. Whether it’s ID upload or facial recognition or some third-party database, the outcome is the same: a digital file that knows what you watch and when you watch it.
In a normal country, this would be recognised as deeply perverse. In ours, it’s dressed up as safety. The State that can’t fix the trains, that can’t keep the hospitals clean, now wants the power to log whether you’re big-enders or little-enders. And all under the banner of protecting the kiddies.
Yes, of course it’s technically possible to anonymise verification. But only if you believe that governments, regulators, and their corporate collaborators are incapable of abuse. That’s a belief I do not share. This is the same British government that let GCHQ harvest your webcam feeds and your phone calls under the TEMPORA programme. You didn’t vote for that. You weren’t told about it. You found out because Edward Snowden blew the whistle.
Do you really think the same regime won’t take an interest in which adult videos you watch? Anyone with an ounce of memory knows how this goes. Every intrusive policy begins with “think of the children”. The Video Recordings Act. The Dangerous Dogs Act. The Terrorism Act. And now the Online Safety Act. Once the infrastructure is in place, it never stays limited to its original purpose.
The definition of “harmful content” is vague for a reason. It can grow. It can stretch. Today it’s Pornhub. Tomorrow it’s Twitter. Then it’s dissident blogs, pro-life websites, or even a dodgy meme about immigration statistics. In the end, the target isn’t porn — it’s dissent.
July 21, 2025
AI slop seems to have finally triggered significant pushback
Ted Gioia says that he’s seeing strong indicators that the AI slop superabundance has helped create a widespread rejection of it and all its works:
2025 has been the year of garbage culture.
Creators watch in horror as dismal AI slop threatens their livelihoods — and the integrity of their fields. It’s everywhere, spreading faster than a pharaoh’s plague.
In recent months, we’ve been bombarded with millions of lousy AI songs, idiotic AI videos, and clumsy AI images. Error-filled AI texts are everywhere — from your workplace memos to the books sold on Amazon.com.
Even my lowly vocation, music journalism, gets turned into a joke when it’s accompanied by slop images of fake events.
No, these things did not really happen.
But something has changed in the last few days.
The garbage hasn’t disappeared. It’s still everywhere, stinking up the joint.
But people are disgusted, and finally pushing back. And they are doing so with such fervor that even the biggest AI companies are now getting nervous and pulling back.
Just consider this surprising headline:
This was stunning news. YouTube is part of the biggest AI slop promoter of them all — namely the Google/Alphabet empire. How can they possibly abandon AI garbage? Their bosses are the biggest slopmasters of them all.
After this shocking news reverberated through the creative economy, YouTube started to backtrack. They said that they would not punish every AI video — some can still be monetized.
But even the revised guidelines are still a major blow to AI slop purveyors. YouTube made clear that “creators are required to disclose when their realistic content is altered or synthetic”. That’s a huge win—we finally have a requirement for disclosure, and it came straight from the dark planet Alphabet.
YouTube also stressed that it opposes “content that is mass-produced or repetitive, which is content viewers often consider spam”. This is just a step away from blocking slop.
Update, 22 July: Ted posted a follow-up with a bit more evidence that the pushback is working:
In my latest article I criticized Spotify for allowing uploads of unauthorized AI tracks to the profiles of dead musicians.
But the company may finally be listening to criticisms of its AI policies. In this case, Spotify has now taken steps to stop the abuses, and a spokesperson reached out to me today with an update and expressing a clear and proper policy on AI fraud.
I share it below (and have also updated my article):
We’ve flagged the issue to SoundOn, the distributor of the content in question, and it has been removed. This violates Spotify’s deceptive content policies, which prohibit impersonation intended to mislead, such as replicating another creator’s name, image, or description, or posing as a person, brand, or organization in a deceptive manner. This is not allowed. We take action against licensors and distributors who fail to police for this kind of fraud and those who commit repeated or egregious violations can and have been permanently removed from Spotify.
They acted quickly, and I give them credit for that.
Update the second, 23 July: Ah, Spotify giveth and Spotify taketh away:
“Spotify is publishing new, AI-generated songs on the official pages of artists who died years ago without the permission of their estates or record labels,” reports 404 Media.
This scandal came to light because of an AI song attributed to Blaze Foley, who died in 1989. The bogus track is accompanied by an AI-generated image of a man who bears no resemblance to the singer.
What’s going on here? Is this just ignorance or carelessness at Spotify? Or does it represent something more sinister — another example of the company’s willingness to deceive users in the pursuit of profits?
These scams must stop. If Spotify doesn’t fix this mess immediately, courts should intervene.
But the dead musician scandal is just a start — because other bizarre things are happening at Spotify.
The whole situation is positively surreal.
July 20, 2025
Generational differences about … ugh … talking on the telephone
As a late boomer — and unlike most of my cohort — I’ve always hated talking on the telephone to someone. I’m sure part of it is my innate shyness and social awkwardness: if I can’t see how the other person reacts to my verbal blundering, how can I correct myself in time to salvage something from the call? As a result, I’m rather more sympathetic to younger Millennials and Gen Z’ers who have a common generational aversion to telephone calls:
“Candle-stick phone with courtesy pay box” by CodeName47km is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 
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I’ve been working to wean myself off the phone. I try to use it only when it feels necessary: we require an answer now, things are too complex to lay out in an email, or I want to be sure what I’m saying is received as I intend it. Sometimes these calls are spontaneous. Increasingly, I schedule them, or ask permission first.
I’ve done this because it’s how business communications work today, and I don’t like to remind people that I’m getting on. I also do it in deference to my colleagues, all of whom are much younger than me. They prefer email, texts, or the group chat.
The landline decision was forced by our acquisition of Fitzhenry & Whiteside, which has had the same telephone number for decades. F&W has many more authors than does Sutherland House, and a good number of them are over sixty. We’re trying to make the transition to new ownership seamless. We didn’t want people calling up to hear “this number is no longer in service”. So the newly installed phone sits on a stand beside the desk I share with Shalomi. I call it Shalomi’s phone and make her answer it when she’s around. Mostly it goes to voicemail and tells people how to contact us by email.
Accustomed as I’ve become to phone-free work, I was taken aback this week when I asked one of our interns to call a printer — we needed a quick quote — and she responded, “I don’t do telephones”. She looked at me bewildered. I responded in kind.
My mind was racing to figure out if I’d mishandled the matter. I’d just read that story in the New York Times about the “Gen Z stare”, the blank look given by a young person (usually in a service job) where a verbal response would be common. It is often interpreted as a freeze on the part of the starer, an inability or reluctance to engage, perhaps rooted in anxiety, perhaps a remnant of the pandemic’s social dislocations, although some insist the starer is telling their interlocutor “you’re in my space and you ought to back off”.
I heard from a number of people about that article this week, and while the Times had not mentioned phone usage and etiquette, my conversations did. Apparently there are a lot of young people who don’t know how to answer their phones. They see a call pop up on their screen and they stare at it, waiting for it to go away. Or they press answer and listen without saying anything. Some, I’m told, answer even scheduled calls from people they know with silence.
I’ve heard parents say they didn’t expect they’d have to teach their children to answer a phone. A university lecturer explained that journalism professors now demonstrate use of a telephone before instructing students on how to conduct an interview over it. Apparently, the same goes for rookie salespeople.
Poking around online, I found a BBC article reporting that a quarter of people aged eighteen to thirty-four never answer their phones, more than half of them interpret any unexpected call as bad news. CBS reports 90 per cent of Gen-Z are anxious about phone calls.
In fairness, a lot of adults are similarly leery of their phones. They don’t want to engage with spam dialers or scammers — they answer and listen for the brief pause that betrays a call centre. Some let every unrecognized call go to voicemail. The savvier ones have figured out that your iPhone, properly configured, will send calls from people not in your contacts directly to voicemail.
Back to our intern. Eventually, I recovered myself. This wasn’t an instance of Gen-Z awkwardness or anxiety around real-time conversations. She is bright, confident, and as socially adept as anyone in the office. I asked if she had a phone. She did. I asked if she used it for calls. She said only to speak to her mom, who pays for her phone. Perfectly reasonable. And it was her personal phone, not a company phone, so she was under no obligation to use it at work. So we suggested she make the call on the company phone, which she cheerfully did.
We spoke later about generational differences with regard to communications technology. She likes the control one has over email communication as compared to the unpredictable nature of phone calls. I told her about life when no one had phones, yet we could all somehow manage to show up at the same place and the same hour. I can hardly believe I lived in such times. Hearing this must have hit her like I was once hit by the reporter Ray Stannard Baker’s account of how he used to walk up to the White House, knock on the front door, and ask to speak with the president.
