Four eras of San Francisco tech culture - by Noah Smith

kept by novawanderer sep 26

Noah Smith outlines four eras of San Francisco tech culture from 2001 to present: Rebel, Corporate, Interregnum, and AI Era.

Don't Take the Black Pill (Text Adaptation) - Andrew Kelley
Software quality relies on engineers' agency; yielding to nihilism ('black pill') undermines technology's potential to serve humanity.
also on Cory Doctorow, Electronic Frontier Foundation, #technology, #culture, #ai
The Enshittification of Everything – Gareth Evans
The essay argues that enshittification—sacrificing quality for efficiency—pervades architecture, cognition, institutions, and daily life, eroding human agency, depth, and meaning.
also on Cory Doctorow, #technology, #culture
DraftKings Is Using AI to Supercharge the Harms of Online Behavioral Advertising
DraftKings employs AI to identify and target losing gamblers with personalized ads, exploiting vulnerability to boost profits, a practice the EFF says should be banned.
also on Electronic Frontier Foundation, #ai
10 Years of Let's Encrypt
Let's Encrypt, launched in 2015, became the world's largest CA and made free, automated TLS the standard, transforming web encryption.
also on Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Duelling Rhetoric at the AI Frontier - Dead Neurons
AI executives' competing predictions about AGI timelines and capabilities are shaped not by objective facts but by each company's capital structure and fundraising needs.
also on Dario Amodei, #startups, Anthropic, #culture, #ai