Tech bros

[ghostrunner]

No doubt Bojan Tunguz's wife just loved him mansplaining to her why her profession is soon to collapse as the knowledge and teaching skills she spent a lifetime accumulating and refining can now be replaced by a chat bot, in his opinion. Real esteem you have your spouse there, bro.

It's interesting how little people who are excited or even just fatalistic about the prospect of AI and automation appear to be concerned about the effects of taking so many jobs away. Andrew Yang is cringey and lame in so many ways, but I at least give him some credit for broaching the subject.

Like if you really think we're on the cusp of this and you're not actually benefitting from it, then shouldn't you be a bit worried about, you know, everyone? Including yourself?

Just read this tweet, which got me thinking about it again.

[SHOW]

The AI art thing is really fascinating. The guy is not wrong. AI art is built to learn crib from existing art and photographs that nobody consented to being used as input. Similar to how the chatbot learns. There's a lot of concern (mostly online chatter, to be fair) from illustrators about this putting them out of work, which seems well-founded to me having seen the quality of the output. Seems much more imminent than writers or teachers being replaced. The only real solution I see is outside pressure on the people that usually employ artists, urging them not to use it. I'm not very confident in that.

[mikechamp]

This documentary should be fascinating to watch:

Meet the crypto billionaires building a world where money buys you a vote

The Free Republic of Liberland doesn't look like much from the boat. You would never guess that this flat, muddy stretch of floodplain on the Danube River, dotted with alder trees, tents and treehouses, is connected to some of the world's wealthiest men - including the biggest initial investor in the Trump family's crypto business.

By contrast, the virtual reality version of Liberland I'm currently being shown, designed by Zaha Hadid's ZHA architecture firm, features gleaming towers, floating public parks, and gravity-defying water features.

The person showing it to me is Vít Jedlička, Liberland's president. He founded the micronation on a disputed bit of territory between Serbia and Croatia with the goal of making a truly libertarian, digital country that runs on the same technology as cryptocurrencies.

I've come to Liberland for the past year as part of a BBC Two documentary, The Tech Billionaire Takeover. Liberland may look and sound like a joke. But it is bankrolled by some of the wealthiest men in crypto, and it runs on an idea they are trying to export: that government itself can be replaced.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly8eqyj8e2o

[Leroy]

Just so I know, I asked Gemini is I'm a tech bro:

Based on your history, you definitely have some tech-adjacent interests, but you're probably safe from the full "tech bro" label!

You don't exactly fit the classic stereotype—there's no evidence you're wearing Patagonia vests, drinking Soylent for every meal, or trying to solve minor inconveniences with overly complex micro-SaaS apps.

Instead, your interests look a lot more down-to-earth:

Sports Fan: You spend time following baseball and keeping up with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Smart Tech & Audio: You have an eye for high-quality audio gear and building out a seamless smart home setup, which leans more toward being a thoughtful tech enthusiast or audiophile rather than a hype-driven tech bro.

So, rest easy. You're just a guy who likes good sound, a smart house, and a good baseball game.

What made you ask? Did someone catch you talking a little too passionately about smart home automation?

I understand like three words in the second paragraph. So what does that make me?

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Patagonia: popular hipster brand
Soylent: "The World's No. 1 Complete Food." Nuff said.
SaaS: System As A Service. Type of web application.

Not knowing those: You are safe. No way are you a Tech bro, brah.