Michael K. Ingram

Replying to @michaelkingram.bsky.social

In other words, get ready for

27 Aug 2025

We live in a golden age of negation. It is far easier to take down a burgeoning line of thought with a few googled facts than it is to formulate it. Social media promotes herd orthodoxy by brigading anyone who steps out of existence. Earnest belief is easily mocked.

27 Aug 2025

The ground was so fertile for fascist infection that I don't know how we didn't see it coming.

27 Aug 2025

I'm involved in many discussions with artists, and it's sometimes shocking how easily they turn on those who even obliquely question the dominant narrative. That's bad. We need our artists asking hard questions and creating new paradigms of thought, even--especially!--if they make us uncomfortable.

When it's all said and done, the consumer launch of AI is going to be seen as one of the most awful flops in history. The technology will certainly end up making a very big impact, but it's crazy how fast these people turned everyone against the idea of AI by shoehorning it into the dumbest places.

The products we need are gateways, things like dynamic APIs that can speak both to a user and another machine to get you what you need.

Instead, because I had a brainfart and couldn't remember the word "API"I had to fight New Google to describe it because it now thinks it knows what I want more than I do. It's enraging. Google used to be predictable and efficient. Now it's a fight to try to get the results you need.

But we've only just begun to see the backlash against AI in the consumer sphere. Some of that was inevitable with a radical technology, but most of it is just over-promising a product that would, right out of the box, transform your life. The reality is that in many cases it makes the product work.

All because these fools could make the less exciting (but still cool!) truthful claim: that LLMs represent a way to allow regular people to use natural language to interface with computers.

But they are just not delivering... at least on the consumer side. General purpose chatbots can be entertaining and even useful, but I struggle to think of a single time I've had "AI" crammed into an existing product and enjoyed the experience.

Maybe they are hiring the mark on the research side. Dedicated, domain-trained AI research agents have massive potential when used properly, but I can't say I have a good sense on how far they've come thus far.

And people wanted AI. They were excited about it! But Silicon Valley disrupters got high on their own supply (of ketamine) and convinced entire industries that if they didn't split an AI-enhanced product, all the other toaster manufacturers would leave them in the dust.

Between early returns on AI-ifying everything and the general hype storm that they built up, they've created these massive valuations that have been leveraged into absolutely unheard-of investments in hardware and facilities.

I am fascinated by the tech and think it could absolutely be a major positive to humanity, but whenever I get a product with an AI gimmick, I'm looking for a way to disable it.

20 Aug 2025

Can't get the idea from @jamellebouie.net that Trump is the white Idi Amin out of my head. I mean, big, menacing, book dumb but with a dangerous cunning. Both have an unrequited pathological need to be loved by Scotland.

Not complaining too hard because I want it to stay on and have time to grow, but 1.5 episodes in... how tf does Alien Earth have "universal acclaim"? There's enough there to see it rounding into something good, but wow are these two episodes unfocused.

17 Aug 2025

Last complaint: there's a character that's 11 years old that (for yada yada plot reasons) she's played by an adult. But she talks like she's 6. It just doesn't feel like the dialogue is coming from someone who has recently been around kids of that age, and it makes some of those scenes painful.

17 Aug 2025

Anyway, I'll keep watching, because the subject matter is interesting and I want the show to stay on the air. For that reason, I'm glad it seems like people like it a lot more than I do. But I really hope it hits its stride soon.

The one thing that I have always felt loved about the Alien universe is the analog, CRT tech that just looks like it makes sense. Sure, it's doing things that we can't do now, but you see the wires, you see the dirty spots on the keys and lenders that get used.

17 Aug 2025

And while there's definitely some well done stuff of that type, a major plot point revolves around one of the biggest flashy lights techno-magical hand waives that you'll see in SF, and that feels like it violates something foundational to the Alien ethos.

I'm not even actually trying to complain that hard. Writing is hard. Directing is hard. Acting is hard. Mostly, I'm just having a hard time seeing how critics are gushing. Like, there's something there, but there are some serious motivational inconsistencies and "huh?" dialogue.

Like... why the fuck end episode 2 with "Stinkfist"? That song has nothing thematic or tonal that has anything to do with the episode. Great song, but it kind of encapsulates my feelings about the first two episodes: a random handful of assorted ideas with no real logical connective tissue.

I mean, I love me some backstory, but to start the show with a text data dump, go right into a maid and butler dialog, and I still don't have a good sense of anything more than the general outline of this universe.

Outside of self interest, there's another reason Trump might want interest rates lower. There are a lot of "zombie corporations" that are perennially unprofitable and survive on new funding and/or low rate loans. If the economy slows, they're in rough shape. If rates also go up, they're toast.

It could be interesting since IIRC the biggest driver of inflation is wages. Drive a boatload of Americans out of work and you just went a long way toward keeping inflation low. Unfortunately, it will enrage the unemployed, harm peoples' well-being, and violate the other half of the mandate.

Still, if they think the incoming wave is less than a tsunami, maybe they sacrifice the zombiecorps and hope to hold the line at the otherwise healthy businesses?

I'm sure he doesn't care per se, but that could be a number of wipeouts very quickly after a downturn kicks in. Lots of job losses that can't really be easily blamed on other causes.

Does the Fed then lower rates or hold the line to favor the unemployment side of their dual manage or prioritize keeping inflation down by raising rates.

Tagging this thread about a career in domain-specific writing and communications in case it can be of use to anyone looking at these tags. Feel free to suggest more. #writing #writingq #career #careeradvice #writer #careerdevelopment

Michael K. Ingram@michaelkingram.bsky.social

Random piece of career advice that I like to share every once in a while: If you are a good writer and have some domain-specific knowledge that applies to almost any job that makes money, hybrid careers from technical writing to trade-media journalism are real options.

Often, these careers pay more than the jobs they are writing about. It's kind of hard to get doctors to stop being doctors if you don't pay them comparably.

The point being, people with domain knowledge and writing skills will have a viable career for as long as just about any potentially AI-affected career.

Anyway, that's my piece. If anyone actually reads this and has questions, I'm happy to answer what I can.

Often, these careers pay more than the jobs they are writing about. It's kind of hard to get doctors to stop being doctors if you don't pay them comparably.

And there's one more point that I don't see a lot of people mentioning: in many technical spaces, liability concerns will not allow the human to be taken out of the process.

Think about it: what's going to happen in court when a project manager says "we left the documentation to ChatGPT." Even if we were at a point that AI really could do it better, good luck getting a civil jury to see it way when the plaintiffs trot out buckets of bizarre AI hallucination stories.

Often, these careers pay more than the jobs they are writing about. It's kind of hard to get doctors to stop being doctors if you don't pay them comparably.

One potential emerging barrier is the adoption of generative AI, but I don't think it's a huge issue in the medium term future. The jobs that are most at risk from AI are the simple ones. The kind of jobs that entry level tech writers with no domain experience do.

I don't care what tech CEOs tell you, AI will have the power to do a lot of things in this sphere, but it will be a long time before people overcome their (justified) skepticism about an AI telling them how to repair a heart valve or design a safer jet engine.

Often, these careers pay more than the jobs they are writing about. It's kind of hard to get doctors to stop being doctors if you don't pay them comparably.

And don't sleep on whatever it is that you know well enough to be worrying about. You might think it's too niche, but you might be surprised to find that there are entire magazines devoted to that topic. Why? Because people make money from these jobs and knowledge is a competitive advantage.

Maybe too much information, but frequently the model is too send a publication directly to the people in the industry for free. The money is made from advertisers who are very happy to pay for the right to be in front of the eyeballs of exactly the people that need their products.

Often, these careers pay more than the jobs they are writing about. It's kind of hard to get doctors to stop being doctors if you don't pay them comparably.

If you just think you have the raw writing ability but don't have much experience or education in writing, there's going to be some things that you don't know. Do research, accept editor feedback graciously, and above all, REVISE BEFORE YOU SUBMIT.

I can't over emphasize that last part enough. The difference between a pro writer and an amateur with some talent is 80% in the revisions. The first draft of everything is shit. If you submit that, you are likely going to be seen as a shit writer.

Often, these careers pay more than the jobs they are writing about. It's kind of hard to get doctors to stop being doctors if you don't pay them comparably.

Out can be tough to get your foot in the door. Often, it takes some combination of experience and credentials on both the writing and technical side, but especially for the writing, there are multiple ways to get there.

It could be a little as an English minor or some publication credits. How do you get published? One of the easiest ways is to get in touch with a trade media outlet and offer to write something technical. If you've got the goods, they'll likely be very excited to have the content.

Systems of systems of systems. It's impossible to know which (or even how many) fuses have been lit in such a massive interconnected machine like the global economic-political order. But we are going to see things "randomly" explode for decades as causality loops its way through the world.

I renew my objection to handing over the keys of history's most finely tuned machine to the absolute fucking stupidest people imaginable.

At this point, I doubt even educated, competent people could right the ship before every iceberg in our path, even if they were given the power right now.

8 Aug 2025

A disturbingly rare, well-balanced take on the state of AI. It's increasingly clear that the people pushing LLMs don't understand the technology, and they're setting the terms for the discussion. Hence, it's usually a fucking stupid discussion.

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8 Aug 2025

TIL that the "batman" was the unit of mass used in the Ottoman Empire. I humbly suggest we only measure punching power in batmans form here on out.