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When you're not into ITC Garamond:

The most distinctive element of [ITC Garamond] is its enormous lower-case x-height. In theory this improves its legibilty, but only in the same way that dog poop’s creamy consistency in theory should make it more edible.

(From: I Hate ITC Garamond - DesignObserver)

(via Eric Bailey)

Robert Kingett was in a writing group when he realised what LLM vendors do is to gentrify our imagination and our language:

So the Tech Bros, in their infinite mediocrity, decided to bypass the human element entirely. They built a machine that scrapes our work—our pain, our joy, our very souls—without consent, grinds it into a mathematical slurry, and extrudes it as a flavorless, inoffensive paste that can be sold by the bucket.

They built a machine to gentrify the English language.

And the horror of watching my friend lose his soul almost eats me alive.

(From: The Colonization of Confidence., Sightless Scribbles)

(via Matthias Ott)

Chris Adams went to Green IO and wrote up his notes

I figure it’s worth sharing a few takeaways from sifting through about a bajillion pics of slides, and all notes scribbled down over the last three days, for others and my future self. Off we go.

(From: Takeaways, trends and notes from Green IO Paris 2025 - Reads, Takes and Links)

Researchers from Anthropic, the UK AI Security Institute and the Alan Turing institute, found it is easier than thought to poison very large models:

we demonstrate that by injecting just 250 malicious documents into pretraining data, adversaries can successfully backdoor LLMs ranging from 600M to 13B parameters

(From: A small number of samples can poison LLMs of any size \ Anthropic)

Jenny:

The problem with AI “art” is that it was not the expression of a mortal being choosing to spend its one wild and precious life clawing its way through mediocrity to try and imperfectly communicate a feeling with other mortal beings who, by definition, can never fully comprehend it, and therefore it is fundamentally uninteresting to me.

(From: choosing friction | The Roof is on Phire)

AI dehumanises us, part 82: dating apps:

“I’d already been ChatGPT-ed into bed at least once. I didn’t want it to happen again.”

(From: ‘I realised I’d been ChatGPT-ed into bed’: how ‘Chatfishing’ made finding love on dating apps even weirder | Dating | The Guardian)

Craig Abbott about why we can't solve screenreader problems with AIs:

Empowering humans to communicate in a more accessible way prevents the problem at its source, avoiding the need to rely on expensive, unreliable machines to try and patch it in real-time afterwards.

(From: Screen readers do not need saved by AI - craigabbott.co.uk)

I don't think I would self describe as an AI hater, though there are a lot of things I hate about what we make computers do today. For all the reasons Anthony Moser lists in his post. Yet I am also careful, because I don't want to absolutely close the door to everything. Recently, to give one example, I saw multiple friends with disabilities use AI in meaningful ways and I don't want to discount that, who am I to hate on the technology that is useful to them in ways previous technology was not?

Among other points, he explains very clearly how creatives and AI companies are different:

Miyazaki tells stories that blend the ordinary and the fantastic in ways people find deeply meaningful. Altman tells lies for money.

(From: I Am An AI Hater | moser’s frame shop)

Maggie sees a use for AI as a possible intellectual tool:

I think we’ve barely scratched the surface of AI as intellectual partner and tool for thought. Neither the prompts, nor the model, nor the current interfaces – generic or tailored – enable it well. (…) It’s a problem I need to work on in some form.

(From: A Treatise on AI Chatbots Undermining the Enlightenment)

Tante nails it again:

The idea of frictionlessness has very narcissistic, “player character” vibes: You don’t experience friction if the whole world is build around you and your needs. When you get whatever you want when you want it.

This is about recognising value:

Because being actually touched, being inconvenienced, being emotionally moved, having your mind and perception changed means acknowledging your fellow human beings around you, realizing their differences to you and to recognize their value.

(From: Friction and not being touched)