AI criticism

Scientists once hoarded pre-nuclear steel; now we’re hoarding pre-AI content

AI, AI criticism, AI writing, Biz & IT, chatbots, cultural singularity, data science, generative ai, large language models, machine learning, Open Source / 9u50fv / June 18, 2025

A time capsule of human expression

Graham-Cumming is no stranger to tech preservation efforts. He’s a British software engineer and writer best known for creating POPFile, an open source email spam filtering program, and for successfully petitioning the UK government to apologize for its persecution of codebreaker Alan Turing—an apology that Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued in 2009.

As it turns out, his pre-AI website isn’t new, but it has languished unannounced until now. “I created it back in March 2023 as a clearinghouse for online resources that hadn’t been contaminated with AI-generated content,” he wrote on his blog.

The website points to several major archives of pre-AI content, including a Wikipedia dump from August 2022 (before ChatGPT’s November 2022 release), Project Gutenberg’s collection of public domain books, the Library of Congress photo archive, and GitHub’s Arctic Code Vault—a snapshot of open source code buried in a former coal mine near the North Pole in February 2020. The wordfreq project appears on the list as well, flash-frozen from a time before AI contamination made its methodology untenable.

The site accepts submissions of other pre-AI content sources through its Tumblr page. Graham-Cumming emphasizes that the project aims to document human creativity from before the AI era, not to make a statement against AI itself. As atmospheric nuclear testing ended and background radiation returned to natural levels, low-background steel eventually became unnecessary for most uses. Whether pre-AI content will follow a similar trajectory remains a question.

Still, it feels reasonable to protect sources of human creativity now, including archival ones, because these repositories may become useful in ways that few appreciate at the moment. For example, in 2020, I proposed creating a so-called “cryptographic ark”—a timestamped archive of pre-AI media that future historians could verify as authentic, collected before my then-arbitrary cutoff date of January 1, 2022. AI slop pollutes more than the current discourse—it could cloud the historical record as well.

For now, lowbackgroundsteel.ai stands as a modest catalog of human expression from what may someday be seen as the last pre-AI era. It’s a digital archaeology project marking the boundary between human-generated and hybrid human-AI cultures. In an age where distinguishing between human and machine output grows increasingly difficult, these archives may prove valuable for understanding how human communication evolved before AI entered the chat.

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Carmack defends AI tools after Quake fan calls Microsoft AI demo “disgusting”

AI, AI criticism, AI development tools, Biz & IT, game development, game synthesis, gaming, id Software, john carmack, machine learning, microsoft, quake, quake ii, Tim Sweeney, X / DJ Henderson / April 9, 2025

The current generative Quake II demo represents a slight advancement from Microsoft’s previous generative AI gaming model (confusingly titled “WHAM” with only one “M”) we covered in February. That earlier model, while showing progress in generating interactive gameplay footage, operated at 300×180 resolution at 10 frames per second—far below practical modern gaming standards. The new WHAMM demonstration doubles the resolution to 640×360. However, both remain well below what gamers expect from a functional video game in almost every conceivable way. It truly is an AI tech demo.

A Microsoft diagram of the WHAMM system. — A Microsoft diagram of the WHAM system. Credit: Microsoft

For example, the technology faces substantial challenges beyond just performance metrics. Microsoft acknowledges several limitations, including poor enemy interactions, a short context length of just 0.9 seconds (meaning the system forgets objects outside its view), and unreliable numerical tracking for game elements like health values.

Which brings us to another point: A significant gap persists between the technology’s marketing portrayal and its practical applications. While industry veterans like Carmack and Sweeney view AI as another tool in the development arsenal, demonstrations like the Quake II instance may create inflated expectations about AI’s current capabilities for complete game generation.

The most realistic near-term application of generative AI technology remains as coding assistants and perhaps rapid prototyping tools for developers, rather than a drop-in replacement for traditional game development pipelines. The technology’s current limitations suggest that human developers will remain essential for creating compelling, polished game experiences for now. But given the general pace of progress, that might be small comfort for those who worry about losing jobs to AI in the near-term.

Ultimately, Sweeney says not to worry: “There’s always a fear that automation will lead companies to make the same old products while employing fewer people to do it,” Sweeney wrote in a follow-up post on X. “But competition will ultimately lead to companies producing the best work they’re capable of given the new tools, and that tends to mean more jobs.”

And Carmack closed with this: “Will there be more or less game developer jobs? That is an open question. It could go the way of farming, where labor-saving technology allow a tiny fraction of the previous workforce to satisfy everyone, or it could be like social media, where creative entrepreneurship has flourished at many different scales. Regardless, “don’t use power tools because they take people’s jobs” is not a winning strategy.”

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Oprah’s upcoming AI television special sparks outrage among tech critics

ABC, AI, AI criticism, AI lawsuit, Bill Gates, Biz & IT, Brian Merchant, chatgpt, chatgtp, Dr. Margaret Mitchell, Ed Zitron, image synthesis, Karla Ortiz, large language models, machine learning, openai, Oprah Winfrey, sam altman / Mike M. / September 3, 2024

You get an AI, and You get an AI —

AI opponents say Gates, Altman, and others will guide Oprah through an AI “sales pitch.”

Benj Edwards – Sep 3, 2024 7: 59 pm UTC

Enlarge / An ABC handout promotional image for “AI and the Future of Us: An Oprah Winfrey Special.”

On Thursday, ABC announced an upcoming TV special titled, “AI and the Future of Us: An Oprah Winfrey Special.” The one-hour show, set to air on September 12, aims to explore AI’s impact on daily life and will feature interviews with figures in the tech industry, like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Bill Gates. Soon after the announcement, some AI critics began questioning the guest list and the framing of the show in general.

“Sure is nice of Oprah to host this extended sales pitch for the generative AI industry at a moment when its fortunes are flagging and the AI bubble is threatening to burst,” tweeted author Brian Merchant, who frequently criticizes generative AI technology in op-eds, social media, and through his “Blood in the Machine” AI newsletter.

“The way the experts who are not experts are presented as such 💀 what a train wreck,” replied artist Karla Ortiz, who is a plaintiff in a lawsuit against several AI companies. “There’s still PLENTY of time to get actual experts and have a better discussion on this because yikes.”

The trailer for Oprah’s upcoming TV special on AI.

On Friday, Ortiz created a lengthy viral thread on X that detailed her potential issues with the program, writing, “This event will be the first time many people will get info on Generative AI. However it is shaping up to be a misinformed marketing event starring vested interests (some who are under a litany of lawsuits) who ignore the harms GenAi inflicts on communities NOW.”

Critics of generative AI like Ortiz question the utility of the technology, its perceived environmental impact, and what they see as blatant copyright infringement. In training AI language models, tech companies like Meta, Anthropic, and OpenAI commonly use copyrighted material gathered without license or owner permission. OpenAI claims that the practice is “fair use.”

Oprah’s guests

According to ABC, the upcoming special will feature “some of the most important and powerful people in AI,” which appears to roughly translate to “famous and publicly visible people related to tech.” Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, who stepped down as Microsoft CEO 24 years ago, will appear on the show to explore the “AI revolution coming in science, health, and education,” ABC says, and warn of “the once-in-a-century type of impact AI may have on the job market.”

As a guest representing ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, Sam Altman will explain “how AI works in layman’s terms” and discuss “the immense personal responsibility that must be borne by the executives of AI companies.” Karla Ortiz specifically criticized Altman in her thread by saying, “There are far more qualified individuals to speak on what GenAi models are than CEOs. Especially one CEO who recently said AI models will ‘solve all physics.’ That’s an absurd statement and not worthy of your audience.”

In a nod to present-day content creation, YouTube creator Marques Brownlee will appear on the show and reportedly walk Winfrey through “mind-blowing demonstrations of AI’s capabilities.”

Brownlee’s involvement received special attention from some critics online. “Marques Brownlee should be absolutely ashamed of himself,” tweeted PR consultant and frequent AI critic Ed Zitron, who frequently heaps scorn on generative AI in his own newsletter. “What a disgraceful thing to be associated with.”

Other guests include Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin from the Center for Humane Technology, who aim to highlight “emerging risks posed by powerful and superintelligent AI,” an existential risk topic that has its own critics. And FBI Director Christopher Wray will reveal “the terrifying ways criminals and foreign adversaries are using AI,” while author Marilynne Robinson will reflect on “AI’s threat to human values.”

Going only by the publicized guest list, it appears that Oprah does not plan to give voice to prominent non-doomer critics of AI. “This is really disappointing @Oprah and frankly a bit irresponsible to have a one-sided conversation on AI without informed counterarguments from those impacted,” tweeted TV producer Theo Priestley.

Others on the social media network shared similar criticism about a perceived lack of balance in the guest list, including Dr. Margaret Mitchell of Hugging Face. “It could be beneficial to have an AI Oprah follow-up discussion that responds to what happens in [the show] and unpacks generative AI in a more grounded way,” she said.

Oprah’s AI special will air on September 12 on ABC (and a day later on Hulu) in the US, and it will likely elicit further responses from the critics mentioned above. But perhaps that’s exactly how Oprah wants it: “It may fascinate you or scare you,” Winfrey said in a promotional video for the special. “Or, if you’re like me, it may do both. So let’s take a breath and find out more about it.”

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