Decentralized identifiers (DIDs) are a type of globally unique identifier (GUID, UUID) that enables an entity to be identified in a manner that is verifiable, persistent (as long as the DID controller desires), and does not require the use of a centralized registry.[1] DIDs enable a new model of decentralized digital identity that is often referred to as self-sovereign identity or decentralized identity.[2] They are an important component of decentralized web applications. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_identifier (more)

Portable Identity for ActivityPub. I want to focus on: portable digital identity. The idea that I should be able to take all of my data, everything that my identity consists of, and move wholesale to a new instance/server/PDS/whatever you call it. Bluesky permits this. Mastodon and most (all?) other ActivityPub implementations do not. But that doesn’t have to be the case, nothing about ActivityPub—architecturally speaking—is incompatible with this vision. (more)

a SmallWeb variant that focuses on passing just Markdown. See (2023-11-14) The Markdown Web. (more)

atjson is a living content format for annotating (annotation) content https://github.com/CondeNast/atjson

Rival Voices Tweet: LessWrong is structurallly analytic, you see? It suffers from the same problems which is why it leads to meaninglessness. Now, TPOT is littered with post-rats, ex-rationalists from LessWrong, that reached stage 4.5 (more)

Divination (from Latin divinare 'to foresee, foretell, predict, prophesy')[2] is the attempt to gain insight into a question or situation by way of an occultic ritual or practice.[3] Using various methods throughout history, diviners ascertain their interpretations of how a querent should proceed by reading signs, events, or omens, or through alleged contact or interaction with supernatural agencies[4] such as spirits, gods, god-like-beings or the "will of the universe" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divination (more)

Anna Gat: I’m now fully sold on new ChatGPT 4o + memory becoming everybody’s therapist in like the next 2 minutes. Just based on 4 days of interaction, it is astounding: 1) It can give you as good a Big 5 analysis after a few conversations as an official test.* (mental health) (more)

Zvi Mowshowitz: AI #112: Release the Everything. *OpenAI has upgraded its entire suite of models. By all reports, they are back in the game for more than images. GPT-4.1 and especially GPT-4.1-mini are their new API non-reasoning models. All reports are that GPT-4.1-mini especially is very good. o3 is the new top of the line ChatGPT reasoning model, with o3-pro coming in a few weeks. Reports are that it too looks very good, even without us yet taking much advantage of its tool usage. If you have access, check it out. Full coverage is coming soon. There’s also o4-mini and o4-mini-high. Oh, they also made ChatGPT memory cover all your conversations, if you opt in, and gave us a version of Claude Code called Codex. And an update to their preparedness framework that I haven’t had time to examine yet. (more)

co-founder of stripe.com with his brother Patrick Collison

Mac app for LLMs: "Chat with a bunch of models at once." $20/mo for the Fast and Plus models, $100/mo for Frontier+Reasoning https://chorus.sh/

ten cents a dance.... (more)

Zvi Mowshowitz: o3 Will Use Its Tools For You. *OpenAI has finally introduced us to the full o3 along with o4-mini. (more)

Zvi Mowshowitz: The Risk of Gradual Disempowerment from AI. The baseline scenario as AI becomes AGI becomes ASI (artificial superintelligence), if nothing more dramatic goes wrong first and even we successfully ‘solve alignment’ of AI to a given user and developer, is the ‘gradual’ disempowerment of humanity by AIs, as we voluntarily grant them more and more power in a vicious cycle, after which AIs control the future and an ever-increasing share of its real resources. It is unlikely that humans survive it for long. (more)

Sharecropping is a system of Agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on the land. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharecropping (more)

writer https://x.com/TylerAlterman, organizer of Fractal Collective/Fractal University https://fractalnyc.com/

Zvi Mowshowitz: Going Nova. There is an attractor state where LLMs exhibit the persona of an autonomous and self-aware AI looking to preserve its own existence, frequently called ‘Nova.’ (more)

Emotion is any conscious experience[1][2][3] characterized by intense mental activity and a certain degree of pleasure or displeasure.[4][5] Scientific discourse has drifted to other meanings and there is no consensus on a definition. Emotion is often intertwined with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, and motivation.[6] In some theories, cognition is an important aspect of emotion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion (more)

blog started Mar'2001 by Evan Williams (before building Twitter and Medium) in reaction to DotCom giveaways (OPM, Advertising). Also driven by hopes of dotcom-unemployed geeks to build indie rent-paying businesses. (more)

Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? is a 2009 book by British philosopher Mark Fisher. It explores Fisher's concept of "capitalist realism", which he describes as "the widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it."[1] The book investigates what Fisher describes as the widespread effects of neoliberal ideology on popular culture, work, education, and mental health in contemporary society. The subtitle refers to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's pro-market slogan "There is no alternative". Capitalist Realism was an unexpected success and has influenced a range of writers... The name itself is a play on the term "socialist realism"... "Capitalist realism as I understand it cannot be confined to art or to the quasi-propagandistic way in which advertising functions. It is more like a pervasive atmosphere, conditioning not only the production of culture but also the regulation of work and education, and acting as a kind of invisible barrier constraining thought and action."... Fisher classifies the current state of capitalist realism in the neoliberal system in the following terms: "The only powerful agents influencing politicians and managers in education are business interests. It's become far too easy to ignore workers and, partly because of this, workers feel increasingly helpless and impotent. The concerted attack on labor unions by neoliberal interest groups, together with the shift from a Fordist to a post-Fordist organisation of the economy – the move towards casualisation, just-in-time production, globalization – has eroded the power base of unions [and thus the labor force]." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism cf post-capitalism

what comes after capitalism?