Cory Doctorow: What Kind of Bubble is AI? | Locus

AI companies are implicitly betting that their customers will buy AI for highly consequential automation, fire workers, and cause physical, mental and economic harm to their own customers as a result, somehow escaping liability for these harms. Early indicators are that this bet won’t pay off. Cruise, the “self-driving car” startup that was just forced to pull its cars off rthe streets of San Francisco, pays 1.5 staffers to supervise every car on the road. In other words, their AI replaces a single low-waged driver with 1.5 more expensive remote supervisors — and their cars still kill people.

via Alan Jacobs

What’s Inside This Crater in Madagascar?

What’s Inside This Crater in Madagascar? | Kottke.org

I wonder if profiling this village on the internet is a good thing to do. This isn’t some YouTube bro helicoptering into the village unannounced — the Vox team worked with locals, received permission, etc. — but these villagers are a minority group who have chosen to live in a remote area with particularly good natural resources…and now their secret is out.