The Encyclopedia Project and more
Dear Opt Out subscribers,
I’ve just published a new piece at Public Books, about the hallucinations of generative “AI” and ordering an encyclopedia in response.
It’s a critique of a fundamental problem in technology ethics—the ignorance of what knowledge is all about. Enjoy, and please share!
Check out my companion blog post at Optoutproject.net to learn more about how to teach young people to detect and evaluate AI-content.
In other news, Microsoft is rolling out a highly insecure screencapture system, Google search is telling people they should eat a daily serving of rocks, and Apple promises to integrate OpenAI into Siri.
So it’s a great time to try out alternative systems that get away from these clumsy systems. Check out these posts that explore alternatives, all on the Opt Out Blog:
Super easy to use Linux systems for total beginners (yes you! and you! and even your mom!) and non Windows/Mac/Chromebook laptop options that don’t break the bank.
Gaming systems now surveil you too! We love these off-line, retro alternatives in my home.
My pandemic hobby was building cloud-free voice assistants. A bit of a throwback to before LLM’s and ChatGPT was a thing, but I relay this Opt Out venture in trying to find an alternative to Alexa.
In other Opt Out news:
As more and more systems are repurposing your data toward fueling dysfunctional “AI”, it’s worth returning to this useful advice from the Markup, on how to read Privacy Policies.
The makers of my preferred smartphone OS have a new privacy-forward AI product in the works, that only processes data on-the-box, no cloud, no GPT, no nonsense!
Good luck out there, and keep your data— and your AI chatbots—to yourselves!