It's still so weird to me that the idea of universal healthcare is so political here. It's a given in so many other places, and I miss it. And people don't realize how good it is for innovation. You can take so many more risks when your health and well-being aren't tied to a salaried employer.

I came back to this talk today - and I've got to admit, I think it's a banger. Lots to say about how mission-driven technology can be successful.

Ben Werdmuller

Why the open social web matters now

The needs are real – and you have so much power.

There’s no such thing as neutral technology. Every tool encodes the values of the people who made it — their goals, their blind spots, their priorities. When organizations adopt tools without asking whose values they’re importing, they take on risk they can’t see.

Ben Werdmuller

There's no such thing as neutral technology

Why organizations must evaluate values, not just features

"This bubble is going to pop. Investors will stop setting their money on fire once they realize these models can't replace our labor in the ways they have promised."

Brooklyn

AI Futures

The enduring product of the AI era will be financial collapse.

AI at scale isn't scaling. #AI

Ben Werdmuller

This Is How Much Anthropic and Cursor Spend On Amazon Web Services

AI at scale isn't scaling.

Hear me out, but maybe it's not superb that most of the internet is hosted on three very large providers?

We have never in human history had access to a shared reality. Ask Galileo. Or anyone from a marginalized group. It's like nostalgia for white picket fence Americana: it hides a lot of harm. What we should fear isn't disagreement, but regression and subjugation.

I don't know what happens next, but on the face of it, the ceasefire and the return of captives from both sides feels really good. May there be peace, may the rebuilding be equitable, and may everyone get to live and co-exist in dignity and prosperity.

Today I learned that an interview with my great uncle is in the collection of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: "Reinald Leidelmeyer describes his experience as a member of the Dutch Resistance in the Hague; details of his arrest; his time in a slave labor camp; and actions that led to his release."

Collections Search - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

I'm skeptical of using AI for alt text generation. The tech is not bad at all about describing what's in a picture, but I'm unconvinced that it can tell you what's *important* in a picture. Maybe if you fed in the context around it? But also, a human can write an alt text sentence in a minute or two, so is it really worth it?