Status:

Second bloody hot day in a row which I mostly spent in the garden reading a book.

Reading:

• Trevor Paglen and Holly Herndon on making art with AI and what the discourse is missing — These two are a couple of figures I paid close attention to in the mid 2010s. Their work informed a lot of my thinking and I held then in high regard. Since I moved on from what has become called AI Art they fell off my radar so it was interesting to read a detailed discussion of where they’re at in 2026. I find myself incredibly torn. Some of their work and ideas seem really interesting and I appreciate the desire to avoid hype and doom while just focussing on what can be made with this new stuff. But then some of the stuff they’re making, and the way they’re making it, just seems boring. And that’s a really big problem. Still, I’m happy they’ve managed to find a way to do work that excites them. We should all be so fortunate!
• Wikipedia fired a bunch of union organisers — This is pretty frustrating. The reason Wikipedia has succeeded so well is, for all its flaws, it doesn’t behave like a typical tech corporation. But this is straight out of the corp playbook.
• The interracial cuck porn theory of everything — I don’t know if I’d recommend reading this. I certainly couldn’t read it without some judicious skimming. It’s one of those pieces that explains a lot but you come out the other end wishing you didn’t need it explained to you. To be honest, the introduction is probably enough.