Jamais Cascio's avatar

Jamais Cascio

@cascio.bsky.social

128 followers 83 following 146 posts

Futurist. Writer. Not as funny as he thinks he is.

Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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I've found that the most readily-understandable analogy for genAI text is next word prediction on your phone. It's not the exact same thing, but it operates on similar principles. Everyone knows how marginally-reliable the word prediction is, and can immediately grasp the similarities.

1 replies 1 reposts 9 likes

Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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I wonder what would happen if the White House put out a tweet/whatever that said something like "So, that ruling? I'll keep it in mind."

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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Uh oh.

(From this article at Are Technica: arstechnica.com/science/2024...)

1 replies 4 reposts 3 likes

Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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I saw in an article referencing BANI another new (to me) acronym: FOBO If FOMO is Fear of Missing Out, FOBO is Fear of Becoming Obsolete. That's a good one, into the toolkit it goes.

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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It's times like these that being a futurist -- as in, habitually thinking about implications and consequences -- is especially painful. Sometimes I wish I'd done something else professionally. Too late now.

2 replies 2 reposts 54 likes

Reposted by Jamais Cascio

Reposted by Jamais Cascio

Alisha Grauso's avatar Alisha Grauso @alishagrauso.bsky.social
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We make jokes about how dystopia is a lot more boring in reality than all the books we had to read in high school made it out to be. I think what we're forgetting is that the part we're in now - where the characters might have stopped it & didn't - is the backstory of these books, not the story.

20 replies 120 reposts 526 likes

Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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"I should pee before we do this."

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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This reminds me that I once gave a talk, in 2009 I think, that was counter-programming for that year's Singularity Summit. The title of my talk: "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your Singularity."

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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So, what do you think? T-shirt?

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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Multiple antidepressants.

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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Every month last year was a record global temperature. I guess I need to trot out this picture again.

wapo.st/3V86XRf

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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• Step one: Hope • Step two: Disappointment • Step three: Anger • Step four: Regret <---You Are Here • Step five: Bitter laughter

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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I often feel like the "apologize" scene in A Fish Called Wanda is quite the paradigmatic example of what an apology should look like:

youtu.be/lwfuUyTMpVY...

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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I'm pretty sure I presented something there a couple of times. I know I did something about SDI, because I have this terrible memory of having drawn a warhead with a face and labeling it "Peppy the Kinetic Kill Vehicle." I had real issues in college.

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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I still remember putting together the paper on Pakistan's nuclear weapons program for Nuclear Weapons class at UCSC back in ...1987, I think. It was the first paper I wrote that actually felt like a real research piece.

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Stefan E. Jones's avatar Stefan E. Jones @stefanejones.bsky.social
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If time travel were possible, the venue would have flooded with assassins from a dystopian future trying to snip off a nightmare timeline in the bud.

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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I just had the remarkable experience of being contacted by an international high school student in Norway to show me a poster they made about me for a project on "revolution." My favorite part: "We believe that even though he has not had a massive importance on society, he is a significant person."

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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I've been writing foresight scenarios for over 25 years. I've found is that the scenarios that diverge most dramatically from reality - that I get most "wrong" - are those that depend upon changes in human behavior, especially those that require us to be better people. cc @charliejane.bsky.social

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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It seemed kinda iffy to me, but now I find it

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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Did you see the video of the "Her"-like interactions with ChatGPT? Unnaturally perky. Manic Pixel Dream Girl vibe (typo intentional)

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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It's a microfast. I microfast for several hours at a time repeatedly throughout the day.

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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Reskeet with your mental state

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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@wolvendamien.bsky.social Hey D -- what's my best option for sending someone a link to an example of your work? Doesn't have to be super-brief, but probably not book-length. Is there something you've written that you're especially happy with?

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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You wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me. (With just the cassette drive, too.)

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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The Nightmare Future.

Tech Multimillionaire wants to "ethnically cleanse" San Francisco of Democrats, install tech-authoritarian control. And he's getting attention.

newrepublic.com/article/1804...

2 replies 1 reposts 13 likes

Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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My current three rules for existing in the world we've made: • All content is manipulated. • All sources of information are biased. • You can never be certain. Repeat these as needed.

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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Pandora's honest reaction.

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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I keep seeing stuff about a Total Eclipse of the Heart happening today. Did Bonnie Tyler die or something?

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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Some immediate issues come to mind, so it would require a more sophisticated process to make sure the data can't be fully eliminated. But there might be something there. Or I could be tweaking on caffeine.

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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Idle Friday question: has anyone explored using steganography for embedded watermarks in digital images? The problem with watermarks in present-day generative images is that they can easily be edited out. Stgnrphy hijacks the least-significant-bit in image data across the whole image to embed data.

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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Here's the two of us, somewhat more recently than 1992.

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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Thirty-two years ago today, Janice Cripe and I got married in front of friends and family. Undoubtedly the best decision I've ever made.

2 replies 0 reposts 8 likes

Reposted by Jamais Cascio

David_j_roth's avatar David_j_roth @davidjroth.bsky.social
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Incredible post from the best writer on Boeing that we've got. The level of willful negligence from executives on something that carries human beings through the sky is astonishing and should be a crime. Sorry I forgot to make a joke. prospect.org/infrastructu...

80 replies 1199 reposts 2840 likes

Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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"There's a quality in a good translation that can never be captured with the original." -Bruce Sterling

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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His concept of the Singularity still shapes AI research today. Ideas outlast biology. His 2007 book *Rainbows End* is as prescient as science fiction gets.

Good night, Vernor Vinge.

If you haven't read *A Fire Upon the Deep*, you really should.

arstechnica.com/information-...

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Reposted by Jamais Cascio

Brad kreit's avatar Brad kreit @bkreit.bsky.social
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The exponential enshittification of science

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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"I fucking told you" remains my favorite.

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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Oh, man, I know what you mean. I went from thin metal frames to big clunky plastic (also from $300 frame to $6 frames). They're actually vaguely similar to the glasses I wore in college!

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Reposted by Jamais Cascio

Richard Kadrey's avatar Richard Kadrey @richardkadrey.bsky.social
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Aces made it to the Quarter Final round of the America’s Favorite Pet contest but, due to my neglect, he’s fallen to 7th place. Please vote for my little guy and pull him up to 1st. Support black cats!
americasfavpet.com/2024/aces-ea7f

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Jamais Cascio's avatar Jamais Cascio @cascio.bsky.social
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What you're saying is that we need to start a capture-neuter-release program for feral academic departments, right?

2 replies 0 reposts 1 likes