I’ve really struggled finding topics for this blog recently. As someone who is motivated by novelty, sometimes to a detrimental degree, the centralisation of all technology discussion around LLMs and “AI” has made it a much less interesting field to learn and talk about. Much like the AIs themselves struggle to produce distinct or interesting content, I can’t motivate myself to have an interesting opinion on them. Yes, they’re a scam, but it’s a scam so in your face and transparent that there’s nothing insightful left to be said about it

Engineers love their animal metaphors, and I am no exception. The quickest way to get me to read about a new technology is to claim it’s based on how some sort of obscure creature gathers stones. However I have always thought there is a distinct hierarchy to the animals of tech: actually useful things are based on bugs, slugs, and other such slimy organisms, while anything that references a large charismatic predator like a tiger or a shark is almost certainly a scam (these are also the favourite animals of venture capitalists, naturally)