Today’s links Links, dumped: A grab-bag of delicious miscellania. This day in history: 2008, 2013, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Links, dumped (permalink) It’s Saturday, which means: time for a linkdump post! I’m back from my book-tour across the US, Canada and the UK, finishing up in Berlin – and I’m jetlagged in the backyard hammock, waiting for my laundry to come out of the machine and plowing through a long backlog of interesting links. Let’s goooooooo! It’s Pride month, and Pat Robertson kicked it off with a bang by…kicking off. What better way to start Pride than with a piece of fanfic by Wil Wheaton about Robertson’s arrival in Hell? https://wilwheaton.net/2023/06/the-wait/ Once you’ve had your fill of schadenfreude, get your Pride/Trekkie (or, if you prefer, Trekker) gear on with Wil’s Acting Ensign Pride collection: https://shopstands.com/collections/wil-wheaton Seguing smoothly into science fiction by way of Trek, let’s turn to Ted Chiang, a titan of the field, who is also a wicked-sharp critic of AI hype. Ted’s been at this since at least 2017, when he identified tech CEOs’ fears of AI as a form of transference of their fear of corporations, which are, after all, autonomous artificial life-forms that are rapidly devouring the human race: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tedchiang/the-real-danger-to-civilization-isnt-ai-its-runaway When it comes to inventing catchy, devastating metaphors for AI, this is Ted’s busy season. “AI is a blurry JPEG of the web”: https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/chatgpt-is-a-blurry-jpeg-of-the-web It’s also “the new McKinsey & Co”: https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-artificial-intelligence/will-ai-become-the-new-mckinsey And now, in the Financial Times,…Pluralistic: Links, dumped (10 June 2023)