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#corydoctorow

8 posts7 participants1 post today

"Art, in other words, is an act of communication – and there you have the problem with AI art. As a writer ... I make tens – if not hundreds – of thousands of tiny decisions that are in service to this business of causing my big, irreducible, numinous feeling to materialize in your mind. Most of those decisions aren't even conscious, but they are definitely decisions, and I don't make them solely on the basis of probabilistic autocomplete."

#CoryDoctorow, 2025

pluralistic.net/2025/03/25/com

pluralistic.netPluralistic: Why I don’t like AI art (25 Mar 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Continued thread

/2 #CoryDoctorow: “Every ag-tech company in the world would benefit from…#JohnDeere #jailbreaking kits. So would farmers, because these kits would restore farmers' #RightToRepair their own #tractors …Canadian companies could jailbreak every make & model of every US #automobile, & make independent, constantly updated diagnostic tools that every mechanic in the world could buy for hundreds of dollars, rather than…the 5-figure ransom that car makers charge…” More: pluralistic.net/2025/01/15/bea

pluralistic.netPluralistic: Canada shouldn’t retaliate with US tariffs; Picks and Shovels Chapter One (Part 6 – CONCLUSION) (15 Jan 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

#CoryDoctorow: “Canada shouldn’t retaliate with #US tariffs…. But there's another way… you know what Canada could make? A #CanadianAppStore…that Canadian software authors could use to sell Canadian apps to Canadian customers… Canadian app stores could…provide #jailbreaking kits that allows device owners all around the world to install the Canadian app stores where software authors don't get ripped off by American Big Tech companies.” | See full explanation at Pluralistic pluralistic.net/2025/01/15/bea

pluralistic.netPluralistic: Canada shouldn’t retaliate with US tariffs; Picks and Shovels Chapter One (Part 6 – CONCLUSION) (15 Jan 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
Replied in thread

@ePD5qRxX @zenfin
RE
#fulltextsearch on #fediverse

@rolle Thx, good tip, ⭕from:me word

Speaking of searching.... and not being allowed, aka #Suspended

"It's why #ElonMusk periodically freaks out and suspends users who list their Mastodon userids in their Twitter bios"

techcrunch.com/2022/12/15/elon

"And it's why #Meta will suspend your account if you link to #Pixelfed, a Fediverse-based alternative to #Instagram"

404media.co/meta-is-blocking-l

#Pluralistic #CoryDoctorow
pluralistic.net/2025/01/14/con

Continued thread

The fact these private companies are monopolies is part of the problem, too. Public services often look like monopolies—roads, libraries, bus systems—but we have *some* ability to influence them.

Google and Substack are tyrannies, to use #NoamChomsky ’s term, and as #CoryDoctorow points out, all the disciplinary forces on private companies have been weakened or stripped away: eg, unions and antitrust.

You can’t save an institution by betraying its mission (19 Mar 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

pluralistic.net/2025/03/19/sel
———

“… public institutions aren't businesses, and they don't exist to make profits. They exist to serve the public interest. If your public health system, public education system, public archives, public museum or public parks are making a profit, then something is desperately wrong.

“Every public institution eventually faces an existential funding crisis, and when that crisis strikes, the only thing that will save you is public support.”

“ [Institutions like Universities of Columbia & Yale] aren't merely ‘complying in advance.’ They are betraying their mission in order to save their bacon”

“This is like firefighters doing a bit of arson on the side to make ends meet, and thinking that the townsfolk will continue to vote to maintain their budget.”

pluralistic.netPluralistic: You can’t save an institution by betraying its mission (19 Mar 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

"The hype around AI serves an important material need for tech companies. By lumping an incoherent set of poorly understood technologies together into a hot buzzword, tech companies can bamboozle investors into thinking that there's plenty of growth in their future."

#corydoctorow on why Big Tech needs to embrace AI as a growth story or face the wrath of investors that would otherwise liquidate their stock.

pluralistic.net/2025/03/15/alt

pluralistic.netPluralistic: Amazon annihilates Alexa privacy settings, turns on continuous, nonconsensual audio uploading (15 Mar 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Sunday Morning Reading

The rapid decay of all things continues. I’m not even sure if “decay” is the right word. “Collapse” might be a better choice. Regardless, there’s no “decay” or “collapse” in my sharing articles and writing every week in Sunday Morning Reading. Enjoy.

Russell Shorto tells us that the fracture we’re facing shouldn’t surprise in America’s Fatal Division Is Nothing New: It Was Baked In From The Beginning. He’s right and that’s also nothing new. We just have a propensity for ignoring what we shouldn’t.

Marc Elias says We Can’t Give In To Fear. He’s right. But with those we mistakenly counted on having already done so, it makes it tougher for the rest of us.

Brian Barrett of Wired (which continues to do excellent reporting) gives us a rundown on The United States of Elon Musk. Good piece with good context. I don’t disagree with his premise that it’s unsustainable. The larger concern is what’s left in its wake.

NatashaMH opens up a personal tale of exploring justice, relationships, and personal power in The Price of Guns And Butter.

Things aren’t just decaying on political and social fronts, technology is marching right alongside, if not leading the charge. John Gruber lays out a mea culpa of sorts in discussing Apple’s less than intelligent move into Artificial Intelligence in Something Is Rotten In The State of Cupertino. I’ll have more to say on this later this week. I wrote a bit about it last week also.

Will Knight, (again in Wired) tells us that Under Trump, AI Scientists Are Told To Remove ‘Ideological Bias’ From Powerful Models. Tell me. Who didn’t see this kind of thing happening?

Cory Doctorow in Pluralistic lays out how Amazon Annihilates Alexa Privacy Settings, Turns On Continuous Nonconsensual Audio Uploading. One way user agreements flow only one way. Again, who didn’t see this coming?

In times of uncertain futures it’s always somewhat uncomfortably comforting to reminisce about simpler times. When it comes to technology there was perhaps no simpler or more innocent time than during the age of the Commodore 64, which was my first home computer. We’ve come a long way. Gareth Edwards takes a look at Jack Tramiel’s success in How Commodore Invented The Mass Market Computer.

(Image from Ashni on Unsplash)

If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here.  You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.

Any act of repair a gratifying gesture of refusal and subversion these days. A poke in the eye to corporate waste and consumer lassitude.

Feeling like renegade heating engineer Harry Tuttle (Robert De Niro) of ‘Brazil’ right now, having decided: eff no, not into landfill—not yet.

And how fitting: while finishing up, @pluralistic heard on CBC radio discussing DCA & right-to-repair.

details in #alttext

Continued thread

"Make it legal for Canadian mechanics to jailbreak your Tesla, and unlock every subscription feature - like the autopilot or the full use of your battery ...

Your performative appalledness does not cost Elon Musk a dime, he loves the attention! But if you strike at the rent-extracting, insanely high-margin, aftermarket subscriptions that he relies on for thar swasti-car business? You're going to kick that guy right in the dongle."

#CoryDoctorow, 2025

craphound.com/news/2025/02/26/

craphound.comWith Great Power Came No Responsibility: How Enshittification Conquered the 21st Century and How We Can Overthrow It | Cory Doctorow's craphound.com

"The fact that Congress hasn't updated [US]Americans' privacy protection since Die Hard was in theatres is not a coincidence, or an oversight. It is expensively purchased inaction, from a heavily concentrated - and thus wildly profitable - privacy invasion industry, that has monetised the abuse of human rights at unimaginable scale."

#CoryDoctorow, 2025

craphound.com/news/2025/02/26/

craphound.comWith Great Power Came No Responsibility: How Enshittification Conquered the 21st Century and How We Can Overthrow It | Cory Doctorow's craphound.com