Personal

Trying out a new format here by starting with some personal notes from the week, along with some links.

• Went to friend's citizenship party!
  • I haven't heard (or sung) the Pledge of Allegiance since maybe 4th grade, when we would start every day of elementary school with the tune. It was funny hearing it again (albeit somewhat ironically), and sort of brought back nostalgic feelings of being unconditionally proud to be an American.
  • Corn dogs are awesome.
• Went to the Broadway play "Oh, Mary".
  • Fun, but hot take is that comedy in (at least mainstream/Broadway) theater is pretty boring and predictable. Almost like it's tailored for old people I guess?
• Going on month 2 of my banjo lessons.
  • Zoom classes with an older teacher is very funny.
  • Learned my teacher was in 'Nam.

Also, I've been thinking a lot about the ideas of Software for one, Augmenting Creativity with AI, and Building a project with AI at the drivers seat. I have a few projects cooking related to these that I'll post on this site soon.

Links

An app can be a home-cooked meal (Robin Sloan)

I think one of the coolest things that AI enables is that nearly anyone can now be "developer" with tools like Cursor, Bolt, Replit, etc. This gives you the power to make whatever you want! Custom apps just for you and your friends/family/anyone! The home-cooked meal analogy in this story is a really cool way to think about software development - not everyone learns to cook (code) to do it at chef (software engineer) quality, but the ability to cook (code) is really empowering.

I didn't even realize this post is nearly 5 years old until I read the follow up post that came out this week.

A.I. and Vibecoding Helped Me to Create My Own Software (Kevin Roose, NYT])

Similar theme to the story above, but looks at the actual process of developing with AI help. I totally agree with his description of it feeling like "sorcery", even as a software engineer. I've never heard the phrase "vibecoding", but I like it and think it's fitting.

I'm exploring this a bit in Building a project with AI at the drivers seat.

Where Facebook's AI Slop Comes From (404 Media)

We've all seen Shrimp Jesus. This week our president posted a surreal AI generated imagining of "Trump Gaza". AI slop is everywhere, and this story looks into where it comes from. Spoiler: most of it is coming from "get rich quick" schemes that are popular in Indian youtube communities.

I touched on this idea a bit in My favorite part of the internet is Google Reviews.

What is interesting writing and can LLMs create it? (Jessica Hullman)

I like that thinking about LLMs gets you to think a lot about thinking. In exploring if AI can write "interesting" stories, Jessica dives a bit into what actually makes writing interesting, and why/why not LLMs can replicate this.