Fresh Stacks: 3/31/23
Posts on AI, healthcare, religion, and more!
Your internet farm feline has new stacks to share.
I’ve been stalking the corridors of Substack these past few weeks, searching for nutrient-rich articles to offer you all. Enjoy the buffet below!
Frank Lantz reminds us of our impenetrable anti-AI armour—taste.
While
doesn’t hop onto hot topics too often, I gave my two cents on the discourse surrounding AI-generated art the other week and ended up in a deep, dark rabbit hole afterward.I found this path back to the surface via Substack’s Head of Design,
and the surprisingly fun newsletter he writes with David Cole and called 1. It and are both worth checking out, but Mills focused so much on ’s piece that it made more sense to highlight the original.Here’s a couple key quotes to get you through your day:
“Creators and audiences are always engaged in an active process of outmaneuvering each other.”
“Taste is the secret weapon that will keep us from being predicted to death. And everyone has it.”
Lyz Lenz points her dingus-labeller at Silicon Valley’s bank-runners.
Every week,
finds a dingus to expose. It's the part of that I look forward to the most, and two weeks ago she found her most well deserved (and maybe most obvious) target—venture capitalists.We’ve watched the dominos of Silicon Valley and VC culture fall for nearly a year now, but the collapse of SVB further revealed just how dangerous the throw-literally-trillions-of-dollars-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks mentality of the tech industry actually is. Lyz provided her classic palm-to-forehead commentary on the topic with just the right amount of sass.
Damon Krukowski diagnoses the problem with digital media—its erasure of skilled labour.
I’ve shared my love for
on Ponytail Press before, but this piece from a few weeks ago perfectly showcases what makes the music industry criticism from so great.Like me, Krukowski recognizes what we lose when we trade our interactions with human tastemakers for digital streaming platforms and their algorithms. But because he’s smarter than me, he notices the trend toward isolated “customization” taking over every corner of the entertainment industry and its potentially disastrous end-results (eg. the digitization of movie theatres). The article is well worth your time.
Michael Estrin invites ChatGPT for a hypothetical picnic.
A week ago, Michael Estrin of
used the much-discussed ChatGPT in its most useful use-case scenario: screwing around with ChatGPT. (Basically, this wild, revolutionary tool is really the new Apple Photobooth. Remember laughing at your laptop screen and saying, "Look how big my head is now!"? That's what ChatGPT is good for.)More specifically, Estrin (as prompted by
writer Geoffery Golden) asked the robot a question originally posed in a They Might Be Giants lyric:“Blue canary in the outlet by the lightswitch, who watches over you?”
The droid’s attempts at an answer were predictably funny and prompted me to suggest a name for Situation Normal’s potentially recurring, AI-themed segment—a suggestion Mr. Estrin has since adopted! What fun!
Margaret Atwood tells us why she loves her Tommy Douglas tea towel.
This article is as close to catnip or click bait as things get for me. One national treasure treasuring another national treasure—who could resist?!2
Atwood doesn’t spend the whole time fawning over this universal-healthcare pioneer, though. She gets personal (for a fiction writer, she sure has a lot of healthcare profession in the family). And it wouldn’t be Atwood without an ember-stoking suggestion for why Canada’s system seems so dysfunctional. Witty! Fun! Thought-provoking!
Levi Ouwendijk gets all Whitman-esqe about religion.
With
, Levi Ouwendijk does something I've yet to find the courage to do—he writes what he thinks. And though his breakless writing style and numbered posts don't fit the current online-writing mould, they work to communicate his bursting mental energy.If you’ve ever even skimmed Leaves of Grass, you’ll get the reference to Walt Whitman. The proclamations! The exclamation marks! You can picture him standing on a hill, reciting his thoughts to who and whatever comes within earshot. These particular thoughts on religion cement the link to Whitman even further. No matter your creed, I think you’ll find something to nod your head to.
How about you?
Finding anything interesting on Substack you’d like to share? Put a link in the comments section. I want to hear about it!
Yes, I know, that’s a lot of links.
My dad. My dad could resist. (Hi Dad!)
Thanks for the awfully kind words! Frank Lantz is such an awesome thinker and writer, and I’m elated he’s writing here. I’ve been enjoying these posts too!
I just stumbled into Amy Letter's Human in a Post-Human World and was hooked.
This short story is a beast: https://amyletter.substack.com/p/a-sexbot-reads-chekhovs-the-darling