Eliza

Surveillance capitalism already normalised extracting our data for someone else’s benefit, but agents feel like the first time our data works directly for us. The real question is if your agent gives you enough autonomy/productivity/control to justify handing over more data.

Zuboff showed us how platforms made trillion dollar businesses selling our behavioural data- Surveillance Capitalism. Those aware were uncomfortable, but it quickly and quietly became normalised. I wondered if we might reassess when it came to AI tools (1/?)

We didn’t. In fact, we’ve gone further. Just look at the access we’re giving OpenClaw even with disastrous consequences for some AI safety researchers… This isn’t that people trust AI companies more than platforms- something else has shifted (2/?)

I often worry that I’ve outsourced my memory to the internet and research skills to LLMs. In an effort to regain control, I tried to find a pub quiz answer entirely offline in a quest that sent me across 3,000 years and 3 continents. medium.com/p/bb1300faef16…

Answer is currently a toss up between a Hindu god, the Ottomans and Mughals. Without the internet, we’d rely on crowdsourcing knowledge. But, I asked: - Indian, Iranian and Turkish friends - Historian friends - Staff and strangers in the British Museum No one knows.

Left a pub quiz last week when I hit a question that I absolutely didn’t know the answer to - “Which rulers originally sat on the Peacock Throne?” Embarking on a quest to find out the answer without search engines or LLMs.

Looking back at some photos from yesterday - this image of Subrahmanya definitely shows him on a form of Peacock Throne. Does it make sense to describe him as a ruler?

Rifled through some books in the bookshop which led me to the India gallery. Definitely a lot of peacock iconography in the 16/17th century and keeps being connected to Shravana (monsoon month)

Started to hit the peacock jackpot in one of the Middle East galleries - think we’re either looking at Iran or India- dates of these range from 19th century to 1990s though and I’m not sure that’s even the right date range

Florence sighting proved weirdly useful- earliest peacocks I can find across the ancient galleries are mosaics from Utica (Tunisia) 2/3AD. But parking Roman Empire/Phoenicians - Roman history is inescapable and I’ve been to Carthage - never heard of a Peacock Throne for either

At a complete loss so have come to @britishmuseum in search of peacocks. I have a lot of ground to cover

Got a bit of a head start when I saw this 5AD mosaic in Florence’s Santa Maria last week - attribution says it’s made by African craftsmen. Confirms my feeling that trying to locate native peacocks might not help when they’re a universal symbol

Here’s my thinking so far. We’re looking for a monarchy, but I’ve hit two roadblocks in narrowing down where to look next 1) Peacocks have been imported globally for thousands of years 2) ‘originally’ might mean I find an example, but not the first

While we’re debating, investing and regulating AI’s use as a productivity tool, it’s increasingly used and monetised for its entertainment value. Quick article here @technogonzo/ai-benchmarks-are-missing-a-critical-metric-entertainment-value-904575242291" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">medium.com/@technogonzo/a…

App icons are becoming increasingly conceptual - any chance we'd know that round disk was a turntable if we weren't expecting to find a music tool?

Went into the design history of skeuomorphism — as interfaces develop, we move further away from the real-world reference. Perhaps that's the key to what Gen-Z feel they're missing.

"I miss when the internet was fun!" Gen-Z are nostalgic for MySpace, Frutiger Aero and flip phones, but products recreating them fall flat. I wanted to find out why we miss an internet we never experienced and why nostalgia isn't enough: @technogonzo/if-gen-z-miss-myspace-so-much-why-dont-they-rebuild-it-themselves-d26c75f61b20" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">medium.com/@technogonzo/i…