#759: Red flags and link bouquets
Gonna take up birding when AI comes for me
An odd thing has happened since I had a baby: Brands have started offering me free stuff. Childless, I was a speck in the vast Substack universe. Now I’m apparently a speck who might be bribed to reference some line of overpriced kids’ pajamas.
I’ve never had to state a policy on this, but let me state it now for the record: I do not, and have not ever, accepted free products or services for Links consideration. I also don’t “trade” mentions or recommendations of other newsletters unless I actually, independently consume and enjoy their work. And while I love when writers and publications flag recent pieces to me, I don’t treat those pitched links any differently than the stuff I come across in my own research.
In other words … for better AND for worse! … this newsletter consists of my 100% pure, unadulterated, uninfluenced and unaffiliated editorial judgment. You can trust that any link you find here has been independently read and vetted by a thoughtful, careful human who is shooting down offers of free organic PJs like they’re mylar balloons at the El Paso airport. Supporting this work costs very little and makes it possible for me to continue writing Links long-term. Today’s as good a day as any to …
If you read anything this week
“How Soon Will AI Take Your Job?” by Josh Tyrangiel for The Atlantic.
It says so very much about our media climate — and our ability to read/think critically — that this bit of weaponized AI hype went so viral this week. One suspects that many credulous readers clicked “share” without actually reading the thing. Had they done so, they might’ve wondered why a man forecasting the AI jobs apocalypse would (a) clearly use AI to write this post, effectively and preemptively replacing himself and (b) recommend his reader purchase, as one possible remedy, a premium ChatGPT subscription.
No matter!!! That thing did numbers. Great for its author, one Matt Schumer, and his AI start-up. (Again: red flags!!) Not so good for this exhaustively reported, longform Atlantic piece, which published the very same day on the very same subject. Tyrangiel’s conclusions are less splashy than Schumer’s, though: Economists — real economists, not entrepreneurs with subscriptions to sell — are actually split on how much and when AI will tank white-collar work. And the degree of that disruption will hinge less on AI’s capabilities than on the pace at which companies adopt it.
Some related reading:
“Oops! The Singularity Is Going Viral,” by John Herrman for New York
“The ‘World’ According to AI Pushers,” by Haley Nahman for Maybe Baby
“AI’s Pandemic Moment,” by Max Read for Read Max
“The End of Books Coverage at the Washington Post,” by Becca Rothfeld for The New Yorker.
I think Becca is a singular talent and I’m so glad she landed at The New Yorker. I also agree with her that we’ve lost something essential with the slow decimation of general-interest newspapers (... and of institutional media, in general).
“A newspaper is—or ought to be—the opposite of an algorithm, a bastion of enlightened generalism in an era of hyperspecialization and personalized marketing. It assumes that there is a range of subjects an educated reader ought to know about, whether she knows that she ought to know about them or not. Maybe she would prefer to scroll through the day-in-the-life Reels that Instagram offers up to her on the basis of the day-in-the-life Reels that she watched previously, and so much the worse for her.
The maximalism and somewhat uncompromising presumption of a newspaper, with its warren of sections and columns and byways, is a quiet reproach to its audience’s most parochial instincts. Its mission is not to indulge existing tastes but to challenge them—to create a certain kind of person and, thereby, a certain kind of public.”
“Remove Your Ring Camera With a Claw Hammer,” by Hamilton Nolan for How Things Work.
I have passive-aggressively — or maybe aggressive-aggressively? — sent this to several relatives already, so it feels fitting I also share it with you. (I have to hope we’re nearing an inflection point in the normalization of casual surveillance culture.)
“I get it. People are worried that they may be victims of a home invasion. Is your dad Charles Lindbergh? If not, you will not be kidnapped as you sleep. I guarantee it. In fact, I am so confident of this that I am willing to bet one thousand dollars, right now, that it won’t happen to you. That’s how I got the big vault of gold I have: positive thinking, and basic statistical literacy.
But what if someone steals your Amazon package off your front steps? Well, what if they do? I guess you would have to get a refund. I guess you might suffer an extremely minor inconvenience. I guess it could be an opportunity to reflect on the painful predations of poverty under capitalism, which creates economic desires, renders people unable to satisfy them, and then taunts them with constant visions of abundance in which they cannot share. True, it is a tragedy of unimaginably small proportions that someone has stolen your box of paper towels. Would you let them steal your optimism, as well?”
“They Are In Love But Don’t Speak the Same Language,” by Kashmir Hill for The New York Times.
Not usually one for HOLIDAY content, especially when the holiday is Valentine’s, but: I’m absolutely and surprisingly charmed by the married couple using Microsoft Translator to bridge their linguistic divide.
“Searching for Birds,” by Nadieh Bremer and Emily Barone.
Long-time readers know I have a soft spot for projects that map online activity onto offline events. This piece, a neat bit of interactive data visualization commissioned by Google Trends, maps search data onto bird migrations and the surge in birdwatching during the pandemic. (“Should I get into birding?” I asked myself reading this, not for the first time. Perhaps when AI takes my job and I have a surfeit of free time.)
In case you missed it
The most-clicked link from last week’s edition was, predictably!, about the Mormon influence on popular/internet culture.
Postscripts
City stereotypes. Link bouquets. The (European) death of doomscrolling. The “clippers” profiting from new online slang and the rise of the annoyance economy. Futarchy sounds like malarkey. Magic as an antidote to algorithms. “He is of unremarkable height, a compact collection of bulges …” (From a close reading of Joe Rogan).
“Hate for clicks.” I 🥦 You. The second coming of “dark woke.” “Creating an emotional bond is a way to keep users hooked.” Checking in on American Girl Doll Instagrammers. Baby shall not live by butter alone. Men will literally do anything instead of going to therapy, part 1001.
Below the paywall, paid subscribers can find unlocked articles from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Vox and The Verge.
That’s it for this week! Until the next one. Warmest virtual regards,
Caitlin
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