Incongruous technologies redux
Sun 5 November 2023
Good news: I have worked out why my incongruous technologies are
incongruous: it's because of software! Read more
Incongruous technologies
Sun 2 July 2023
Take saws, for example. We have saws for cutting wood, saws for cutting metals, saws optimised for cutting curved shapes,
electric saws, computer-controlled saws, and so on. Saws are pretty well explored. Saws are general-purpose.
You probably won't discover a new use for saws. Read more
The future of virtual reality
Sat 3 September 2022
I know very little about artificial intelligence. Mainly I just like to argue
that machines can be sentient, because I don't see the difference between a computer
and a brain. But I think the new prompt-driven
AI stuff is incredibly powerful, and I don't think we're that many steps away from
being able to create fully-immersive virtual worlds that can be summoned at will
from free-form English-language prompts. Read more
SaaS profit is market inefficiency, and it will end
Tue 20 March 2018
I don't think the profitability of "software as a service" businesses is going to last, in the long
term (on a timescale looking at, say, 100 years from now). I wrote before about machine-owned
enterprises competing the profit out of SaaS, but even before that happens, humans ought
to be able to compete most of the profit out of it. Read more
Machines as first-class citizens
Tue 21 November 2017
Throughout history, various groups have been subject to various prejudices
which restricted their ability to act freely in otherwise-free societies. Obvious examples
include Jewish people, black people, and gay people. Read more
On the inevitability of the machine-owned enterprise
Wed 22 March 2017
A machine-owned enterprise is one in which none of the profits go to any human, and none
of the work is performed by any human. The entirety of the business is owned and operated completely autonomously. Read more
What if we could assume new identities at will?
Sun 21 August 2016
I've been thinking a lot about privacy and anonymity recently. It's reasonably
possible to create a new online identity, with no links to your real-world
identity, as long as you don't need to buy anything and you're careful. Use Tor,
get an email address from SIGAINT, and you can
sign up for accounts on a lot of other services and speak your mind freely. Read more