Philosophy Mondays: Human-AI Collaboration
Today's Philosophy Monday is an important interlude. I want to reveal that I have not been writing the posts in this series entirely by myself. Instead I have been working with Claude, not just for the graphic illustrations, but also for the text. My method has been to write a rough draft and then ask Claude for improvement suggestions. I will expand this collaboration to other intelligences going forward, including open source models such as Llama and DeepSeek. I will also explore other moda...
Intent-based Collaboration Environments
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Web3/Crypto: Why Bother?
One thing that keeps surprising me is how quite a few people see absolutely nothing redeeming in web3 (née crypto). Maybe this is their genuine belief. Maybe it is a reaction to the extreme boosterism of some proponents who present web3 as bringing about a libertarian nirvana. From early on I have tried to provide a more rounded perspective, pointing to both the good and the bad that can come from it as in my talks at the Blockstack Summits. Today, however, I want to attempt to provide a coge...
Philosophy Mondays: Human-AI Collaboration
Today's Philosophy Monday is an important interlude. I want to reveal that I have not been writing the posts in this series entirely by myself. Instead I have been working with Claude, not just for the graphic illustrations, but also for the text. My method has been to write a rough draft and then ask Claude for improvement suggestions. I will expand this collaboration to other intelligences going forward, including open source models such as Llama and DeepSeek. I will also explore other moda...
Intent-based Collaboration Environments
AI Native IDEs for Code, Engineering, Science
Web3/Crypto: Why Bother?
One thing that keeps surprising me is how quite a few people see absolutely nothing redeeming in web3 (née crypto). Maybe this is their genuine belief. Maybe it is a reaction to the extreme boosterism of some proponents who present web3 as bringing about a libertarian nirvana. From early on I have tried to provide a more rounded perspective, pointing to both the good and the bad that can come from it as in my talks at the Blockstack Summits. Today, however, I want to attempt to provide a coge...
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While I was driving the kids around on the weekend one of the radio stations announced that there would be the first ever nation wide test of the Emergency Broadcast System. My almost immediate reaction was something like “isn’t Twitter now the Emergency Broadcast system”? I wound up forgetting about the whole thing seconds later (probably because I arrived at whatever place I was picking the kids up). Then the actual test took place yesterday and wound up failing as many TV stations simply didn’t get the proper signal. Of course, I learned about this test failure the way I learn about all breaking news these days: on Twitter.
Now I am hoping that whoever is in charge of this system at FEMA and other federal agencies learns the real lesson from this test. In 2011 an emergency broadcast system that is based on radio and TV might as well be based on printing the alert in the newspaper the next day. Fixing the problem with the TV stations that didn’t participate will probably be hugely costly. Instead they should just make it a priority to connect the alert system to Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Skype. All of these have alerting functionality built right into the service and alert via email and SMS. The alerts should contain a link to a White House web site where the details can be provided.
Not only would the alert spread much more effectively, but the system would be much more resilient to failure. After all, that’s what the Internet is superbly good at: routing around problems. I remember well that on 9/11 the only communication that didn’t jam up for me was IM. So folks in Washington: please bring the Emergency Broadcast system into the 21st century.
While I was driving the kids around on the weekend one of the radio stations announced that there would be the first ever nation wide test of the Emergency Broadcast System. My almost immediate reaction was something like “isn’t Twitter now the Emergency Broadcast system”? I wound up forgetting about the whole thing seconds later (probably because I arrived at whatever place I was picking the kids up). Then the actual test took place yesterday and wound up failing as many TV stations simply didn’t get the proper signal. Of course, I learned about this test failure the way I learn about all breaking news these days: on Twitter.
Now I am hoping that whoever is in charge of this system at FEMA and other federal agencies learns the real lesson from this test. In 2011 an emergency broadcast system that is based on radio and TV might as well be based on printing the alert in the newspaper the next day. Fixing the problem with the TV stations that didn’t participate will probably be hugely costly. Instead they should just make it a priority to connect the alert system to Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Skype. All of these have alerting functionality built right into the service and alert via email and SMS. The alerts should contain a link to a White House web site where the details can be provided.
Not only would the alert spread much more effectively, but the system would be much more resilient to failure. After all, that’s what the Internet is superbly good at: routing around problems. I remember well that on 9/11 the only communication that didn’t jam up for me was IM. So folks in Washington: please bring the Emergency Broadcast system into the 21st century.
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