This blog post was published on 19th June 2023 and the information may be out of date.

A bit of a different format this week. When I’m not reading an absolute ton of books, I’m reading interesting articles to try and stay on top of what’s going on in the world, mostly in the technology sector. Here’s a host of articles I’ve read recently and thought I would share.

AI

I don’t have a fully formed opinion on ChatGPT or AI in general yet, but here’s some of the reading I’ve done recently:

The productivity paradox: Why brilliant AI technologies are not leading to widespread growth and prosperity. (3 min read) — Suggests that AI is a new “general use” technology like the steam engine, electricity, and the ­internal-combustion engine, and it will take some time for business processes to adapt and incorporate it.

How to solve AI’s inequality problem New digital technologies are exacerbating inequality. Here’s how scientists creating AI can make better choices. (9 min read) — Argues that process automation should be improving productivity and creating new opportunities, instead of just directly replacing workers.

On the internet, nobody knows you’re a human (6 min read) — “As bots, avatars, and AI get more and more human, how do creators prove they’re the real deal?” Just an interesting read.

Decentralisation

In the wake of changes to social media giants like Twitter and Reddit (gosh I hope the latter doesn’t implode, but that’s another conversation for another time), open-source and decentralised alternatives are popping up. I’ve alluded to my love for web decentralisation in a previous post.

Can ActivityPub save the internet? (18 min read) — The Fediverse (including the likes of Mastodon*, PixelFed* and PeerTube*) uses a protocol called ActivityPub that means multiple different platforms can speak to each other, divorcing your identity from a single social media service. “It aims to give control back to users and make sure that the social web is bigger than any single company.”

* You can think of Mastodon as an equivalent to Twitter, PixelFed to Instagram, and PeerTube to YouTube.

Productivity/attention economy

A World Without Email — Book Summary and Notes (6 min read) — Ok, this one was actually a book I read! This book fascinated me and I thought the summary/notes from this site were succinct and informative. Email (and later instant messaging) revolutionised workflow for knowledge workers like us, but now it’s starting to hinder us. If you are constantly being interrupted by notifications and new requests, do you have time to be doing meaningful work?

Social/civic issues

Have You Been to the Library Lately? (long read) — About the challenges being faced by libraries in communities in Canada; I have so much respect for those librarians and the few dedicated social workers that have been brought in to help them. May be a difficult read. “Librarians once worried about shushing patrons. Now they have to deal with mental health episodes, the homelessness crisis, and random violence.”

I have a few more articles in these and other subjects that I’d like to share, but I think I need to read them again and digest them before I post them here with comment. I now have a Kobo e-reader that lets me easily access and read my saved articles in Pocket, so I’m ready to sit down one evening and smash through them!