Kazuo Ishiguro, one of my favourite writers, on AI: “I think many of us are concerned about the fact that the copyrights were completely infringed. Our work was being taken, all my books have been taken to train AI, but if the copyrights can be respected then it can be used in a way that, say, a traditional researcher would use somebody else’s book. Just because it’s AI, it shouldn’t be an excuse to just raid people’s intellectual property.”

The Independent

King and author Sir Kazuo Ishiguro ‘discussed threat AI could pose to creatives’

The Japanese-born writer, 70, was made a Companion of Honour for services to literature at an event at Windsor Castle on Tuesday.

Poll: if you had to choose one primary tech ecosystem that you belong to in 2025, which would it be? (Listed alphabetically; and comment if you consider yourself part of an ecosystem not mentioned here)

A bigco techie I was DMing with described the current state of the web as a “tragedy of the commons” (per Wikipedia: “…if many people enjoy unfettered access to a finite, valuable resource, such as a pasture, they will tend to overuse it and may end up destroying its value altogether”). I think this is actually a better description of now than “enshittification”; because if creative people stop publishing to the web, that depletes the “pasture”. Human creativity & passion is no longer valued.

Continuing my history of blogging and RSS series, I look at 2001: the year of warblogs, Movable Type and Blogdex. I see '01 as a transition year for blogging, in which it shifts from personal journaling to a more journalistic approach (although many personal bloggers resented the influx of warbloggers). There are lots of great 2001 screenshots in this post, so I hope you enjoy it.

Cybercultural

Blogging Gets Serious in 2001 With Warblogs and Movable Type

After September 11, 2001, an influx of warblogs shakes up the blogosphere. It's part of a year-long transition in which blogging shifts from person...

#InternetHistory #Blogging

I know people will be piling on about Grokipedia, but hilariously its definition of Web 2.0 seems to be much better than Wikipedia's. On Grokipedia's page, there's a great description of misinformation on platforms like X and Facebook. Wikipedia does not mention any of that. Refs: 1.

Grokipedia

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 denotes the second generation of the World Wide Web, characterized by dynamic websites that emphasize user-generated content, interactivity...

2.

Web 2.0 - Wikipedia

(p.s. Grokipedia cites my internet history website Cybercultural.com twice, whereas Wikipedia ignores it! C'mon Wikipedia, get with it.)

A new project out of MIT is building open, decentralized infrastructure for AI agents as an alternative to proprietary platforms. As I note in the post, shades of the fediverse here! https://thenewstack.io/how-mits-project-nanda-aims-to-decentralize-ai-agents/

Today, October 21, 2025, there is a rally in San Francisco in support of @internetarchive. Tomorrow, the Internet Archive is having a party to celebrate 1 trillion webpages archived. To show my appreciation for their most famous creation, the Wayback Machine, this week's Cybercultural post takes you back 24 years to its launch. Thank-you @npub1ftlr...3e6s and long live the Internet Archive!

Cybercultural

2001: The Internet Gets a Memory With the Wayback Machine

In October 2001, Brewster Kahle demonstrates a new time machine from the Internet Archive called the Wayback Machine. It will become a vital link b...

#InternetHistory

This week on Cybercultural, I look back on Steve Jobs' January 2001 keynote at Macworld SF, when he announced iTunes and Apple's new "digital hub" concept. This was pre-iPod and of course pre-iPhone. The new strategy set the company up for a renaissance in the 21st century, when *everything* became digital.

Cybercultural

2001: Steve Jobs Launches iTunes and Apple’s Digital Hub

With the announcement of iTunes in January 2001, Apple CEO Steve Jobs ushers in the legal digital music era. It also marks the beginning of Apple's...

#InternetHistory #ClassicApple

Let's take a trip back to the year 2000, 25 long internet years ago. A year in which Flash websites proliferate, blogging expands, social news sites like Slashdot gain influence — all of this while the dot-com bubble slowly deflates and Napster dominates headlines.

Cybercultural

What the Internet Was Like in 2000

In 2000, Flash websites proliferate, blogging expands, social news sites like Slashdot gain influence — all of this while the dot-com bubble slow...

#InternetHistory (special thanks to @Furbland's Very Cool Mastodon™ & @Stephen Dioxide :TwinPines: for suggesting Homestar Runner, the perfect Flash website suggestion for that year!)

Starter packs coming to Mastodon 👀

Mastodon Blog

Our ideas about Packs

Sharing our thoughts and plans behind sharing collections of accounts in the Fediverse.