If a new CEO of Mozilla took an oath to restore the web to its former greatness, they would find a lot of business models open to them. Instead, they’re trying to be part of the tech industry which places no value on the web being a place for open development. I am pretty sure I know exactly what would get the ball rolling now, upgrading the web platform so users can buy their own storage and let software tools access it. So we can have all kinds of editors working on Markdown text, without the developer having to become a reseller of storage, and without limiting its use to people can figure out how to create an S3 bucket, and map a domain to it, etc. Dropbox came close to doing this about a decade ago, but backed out. This is why development is so centralized around big silos. I've been an independent developer on the web for over 30 years, and before that 15 years on desktop computers before that. I understand how this works. #
Last night while I was on the phone, ChatGPT started talking to me in a British woman's voice. It's something that my Android phone does every so often, when I haven't said the magic word that activates it, even if I'm not in the same room as the device. It's a tiny bit funny, but a reminder that the microphone is always on, so I watch what I say when walking around the house, knowing that whatever I say is likely to end up in a database, to be used against me in a court of law. #- I didn't like that it was a voice of a British woman. It was not a friendly voice, perhaps intended to communicate intelligence, competence. An unwelcome intrusion into reality, but then it is reality -- I'm getting old, and won't be here that much longer, and odds are that the British-voiced female robot will outlive me, forgetting for a moment that it is not actually alive. #
- I would submit this to the NYT as a guest op-ed, except I haven't explained why we must not create cyber-humans out of AI bits. I'm open-minded. Perhaps this is the way to create a new humanity, one that can survive the hell that's coming due to climate change. One that won't mind being subject to an idiotic 21st century American emulation of Adolf Hitler (incorporating the latest news about Trump). One that only needs electricity to survive, and won't need the medicine and love and attention that flesh and blood humans require. But every time I address the robot as I would address a real human, I try to stop myself, but I can't. I was raised to be concerned about the other person's feelings. Being a CEO of a tech company in California trains you that way too. And as I accept its humanity, as irrational as it is, I feel like I'm surrendering the independence of the species that I was born into. Are humans meant to be self-sovereign? Something to consider at this fork in the road. #
- If I could get something onto the agenda of the AI industry it would be this -- if you don't want to go down in history as the destroyer of the human spirit, stop programming your devices to emulate humanity. That should have been in Asimov's laws of robotics, but you have to actually use these things to see the danger. Of course Asimov can be forgiven because AI only existed in his imagination when he was writing his books. But they do exist now, and the damage is being done now. #
- Basically, it seems to me that humans must have an exclusive on being human. #
