Today's threads (a thread)
Inside: LLMs are slot-machines; and more!
Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/16/jackpot/
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Discussion
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@pluralistic From click bait to prompt bait.
@pluralistic I love this description, so true: "part of the seductive joy of coding is that it can put its practitioners into a kind of autohyptnotic fugue state where they don't notice the passing of time, a state that is also a feature of pathological gambling)"
LLMs are slot-machines: You only remember the jackpots.
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115038991429305983
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#20yrago PC disguised as a set of encyclopedia volumes https://www.mini-itx.com/projects/encyclomedia/
#20yrago Nobel economist on harm lurking in copyright monopolies https://web.archive.org/web/20060217023906/http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_16-8-2005_pg5_12
#15yrsago Heinlein biography: LEARNING CURVE – the secret history of science fiction https://memex.craphound.com/2010/08/16/heinlein-memoir-learning-curve-the-secret-history-of-science-fiction/
#5yrsago Amazon bans podcasts that criticize Amazon #https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/16/combat-wheelchairs/#nondisparagement
#5yrsago Combat Wheelchairs https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/16/combat-wheelchairs/#combat-wheelchairs
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#5yrsago How to Argue With a Racist https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/16/combat-wheelchairs/#race-realism
#5yrsago Self-driving cars are bullshit https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/16/combat-wheelchairs/#car-wreck
#1yrago MIT libraries are thriving without Elsevier https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/16/the-public-sphere/#not-the-elsevier
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Yesterday's threads: Bluesky creates the world's weirdest, hardest-to-understand binding arbitration clause; and more!
https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115034644536017304
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My latest novel is "Picks and Shovels," a historical technothriller set in the Weird Era of the PC, about Ponzi schemes, techbros, and the dawn of enshittification:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels
--
My next nonfiction book is "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," out from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux on October 7:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/
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My ebooks and audiobooks (from Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."
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Upcoming appearances:
* #Ithaca: AD White keynote (Cornell), Sep 12
https://deanoffaculty.cornell.edu/events/keynote-cory-doctorow-professor-at-large/
* #DC: Enshittification at Politics and Prose, with Rohit Chopra, Oct 8
https://politics-prose.com/cory-doctorow-10825
* #SanFrancisco: Enshittification at Public Works (The Booksmith), Oct 20
https://app.gopassage.com/events/doctorow25
* #NewOrleans: DeepSouthCon63, Oct 10-12
http://www.contraflowscifi.org/
* #Chicago: Enshittification with Kara Swisher (Chicago Humanities), Oct 15
https://www.oldtownschool.org/concerts/2025/10-15-2025-kara-swisher-and-cory-doctorow-on-enshittification/
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