For artists, authors, and students, I think it’s only a matter of time until someone accuses you of using AI in your art or essay, and you’d have to prove original authorship or else get disqualified or penalized. I think the best current defense against this sort of accusation is building evidence of the process of your work.

If you write, enable version history in your word processor, and remember to save periodically. If you draw or paint digitally, make sure history is saved (some programs do this by default). If you code, ensure you have version control enabled, with meaningful comments about each commit.

When an accusation comes because someone uses some overeager “AI detector” program, show them a playback of your process. AI is (at least for now) unable to recreate the creative journey that gets to the end result, and probably never will, because there’s no money to be made doing that.

Version history is your best defense today. Consider enabling it, especially when your grade or income depends on it.

• #opinion
• #AI

They are tired of seeing things change. They’re tired of pride parades, of drag queens, of non cis-het people expressing themselves. They’re tired of gender roles being challenged. They’re tired of seeing unfamiliar shades of skin everywhere; they’re convinced that there’s an invasion of foreigners.

They want psychological comfort, they want a return to their childhood “normalcy”, they want these troublesome characters to go away, they want their neighborhoods to look the way it did when they were young, they want to be macho men and pretty women, they want to fall back on their stereotypes and have everyone nod in agreement. In other words, they want to “make America great again”, and they’re willing to hire Trump to make it happen.

And to be clear, I think they are wrong, and they harmed themselves gravely with this decision, because they’ve empowered people who will exploit them. I don’t think they realize just how much they’ve been robbed. Their realization will come far too late.

Read more…

• #opinion
• #politics

I’m deeply saddened and disappointed to learn so blatantly that a huge number of my fellow US citizens do not have my back. They don’t really care about law and order; they don’t really care about accountability or telling the truth; they don’t really care about the welfare of anyone but cis-het men (and even then only the white and Christian ones). These may not be the reasons they profess, but they are the effective outcomes of their vote.

I’m saddened that they would rather burn this country—and the world—to the ground before they have to care about other people, and they would elect the worst possible man to prove the point.

I’m saddened that they will eventually and inevitably also bear the pain inherent in their choices, but they may bear it with pride, because more pain will befall others. They’re ok with being robbed, as long as others are worse off.

It seems that we USians learn primarily through disaster (and sometimes not even then). But it’s clear to me today that there’s a pretty big group of us who seem determined to choose destruction rather than care for another human being.

• #opinion
• #politics

Here are some tenets of software engineering that I’ve gathered through the years. I’ll probably add to this list over time as I think of more.

Above all, empathy

All software that stand the test of time come from a place of empathy: it serves some human being well in one form or another. Your best code arises when you have a picture of its user in mind; it could be a person on their phone, a developer using your library, someone trying to maintain it after you’ve moved on. Empathy gives you the fundamental value system to help you make your decisions.

Develop a sense of suck

The corollary of having empathy is developing an instinct for spotting things that suck. It’s hard to define what suck is, but you know it when you see it: a hostile UI, an awkward API, “the smartest newbie” kind of code that tries to be super clever, etc.

Resist designs that suck. Push back hard if you’re on a team. Designs that suck are the embodiment of technical debt. Learn to smell the suck before it’s integrated into your code base.

But I caution: don’t over-rely on detecting suck, lest you turn into a curmudgeon. Remember, empathy and the sense of suck are two sides of the same coin. You mustn’t neglect one in favor of the other.

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• #programming
• #opinion

The “inevitability” of technology—that some tech has to be developed because someone will think of it eventually—is a crock of bullshit we’ve all been fed by greedy capitalists.

I heard an example once that illustrates this principle well for me. If you know where this example originated, please do write me an email and let me know.

I can imagine a shit-in-eye machine: a machine whose sole purpose is to take a piece of literal shit, and places it in your eye. That’s all it does: it puts shit in your eye. Is anyone going to make and sell this machine? Of course not, despite the fact that I have thought of it, because it’s a stupid and harmful idea, and no sane person would want such a product.

No technology is inevitable. Just because you thought of it, doesn’t mean it has to be made.

• #opinion
• #technology