Shared Links (weekly) June 1, 2025
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Quick Thought – It costs how much to say please and thank you to ChatGPT?
I wonder how much it costs to generate all those action figures, and “what does ChatGPT know about me” posts on LinkedIn?
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Is AI on the Internet of Things Path?
The real question is not whether they add it but how. The Internet of Things created many insecure devices because people slapped an internet connection on things that weren’t needed without considering making them safe or usable. Networks got hacked through fish tanks, and people were terrorized by someone taking control of their smart homes. Forcing internet connections on everything turned out not to be so great.
Will forcing AI into everything have a similar result?
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Linked – You Can’t Make Friends With The Rockstars
That seems to be what happens in the tech journalism space. We have a list of people who’ve created successful companies and made a ton of money doing it, and everyone is supposed to assume that they are so bright they can do it over and over again. Then we are surprised when Elon buys Twitter and runs it into the ground or when Meta can’t find a market for the Metaverse. Microsoft spends billions upon billions of dollars on AI without any hope of making a profit for years while conducting rounds of layoffs to offset those costs. We assume they know what they’re doing because they’ve succeeded in other markets before, and the press doesn’t challenge them when they say provably false things.
It’s the Halo Effect. We assume that successful people are smart and kind and live healthy lives, especially if they are white men. When they contradict this picture we’ve painted, we loathe to admit it, let alone call it out in an interview. It’s more cognitively comfortable for us to continue believing they are competent and will figure it out.
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My new browser of choice – ARC
Simply put, I can’t log in and out of accounts all day, and I also don’t want to deal with my computer running out of memory. I spent many years walking that thin line. So, I was intrigued when I saw someone talking about a new browser they were using that was easy to use with multiple profiles and optimized for memory usage. I was skeptical but intrigued enough to give it a try.
That browser was Arc for Mac.
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Was the stock market drop the first sign of an AI market disappointment?
The question is, can the large tech companies come up with a clear explanation of where AI is going that will convince shareholders that there is long-term value? So far, I don’t think they have, and I say that as someone who generally likes some of the AI tools out there. I think they are reasonably helpful around the edges of my work. They cut time out of my research efforts and helped me with writing. They haven’t changed the world, and it’s not clear that they can do that in their present form. Without that, what are the billions in investment and all the electricity usage for?
Big tech will need a better answer to that question than it has, or investors will walk away even more than they did last week.
