Make the Internet Weird Again

Hammy Goonan

• 2 min read
Make the Internet Weird Again
Photo by Buzz Andersen / Unsplash

Shall we start with a little AI Shitposting? Seek is now training AI models on user's data, after a minor terms and conditions updates and no ability to opt out. Companies obviously don't give a shit any more as their investors scream at them to do something, anything, with AI. And it's not like AI and employment data has ever gone wrong before. What better way to ensure existing biases are addressed.

While we're on it, this conversation with Yuval Noah on information networks, including AI, is well worth a listen. Noah makes the point that companies should be held accountable for the editorial decisions their algorithms make, it would seem some US courts are starting to agree.

Molly White reminds us that, despite the hold that massive tech companies have on the web, there's still plenty of joy on the web and we can still take control of our little corner. There's a similar thread that runs through this Rolling Stone article:

But amidst it all, the human web, the one made by regular people, is resurgent. We are about to see the biggest reshuffling of power on the internet in 25 years, in a way that most of the internet’s current users have never seen before.

There's a bit of a through line of big tech AI being a huge waste of money and resource, crossed with projects that actually make the internet, and society at large better in this conversation with Meredith Whittaker (yes that's two On with Kara Swisher references in one post) as well. We should build more things like Signal which is the class leader in so many ways. Great fodder for this Digital Vegan.

Finally, the Federal Government is about to start withholding Medicare payments to pathology companies and imaging lab that don't upload results to My Health Record by default. My Health Record is, of course, woefully underutilised and people like myself don't have an account because of concerns that it's a massive honey pot of data and the government has a pretty poor record on IT projects so it's really only a matter of time before it gets popped.