Long time no see

The last post I was able to put together for this newsletter was 2 months ago. It has been a rough time, it's not easy to perform in an eroded democracy. Türkiye is not alone in this, so I wish everyone in a similar situation the best.

Needless to say, you are probably feeling great if you are ignoring Gaza and Sudan; or if you profoundly claim "oh I'm apolitical." Search for a spine on Amazon >>

I use LinkedIn a lot and the discourse there is just so tiring... Especially the AI stuff... I have written, spoken, posted at length about why the current generative AI push is very harmful. The technology is cool by itself—but I am very tired of people who declare half-assed, non-working workflows that need to be babysat to produce acceptable outputs. I am very sad when people who have limited experience get tricked into these performative acts.

So I have picked only two AI-related videos for this post. Everything else will be GenAI free. As your general workflow should be.

The AI Content

Going through these two videos will take about 2 hours of your time. John Oliver's ending is spectacular. Geoff Hinton video is thought-provoking. It provides a very accessible history of AI development and many, many important social implications.

Reads

Airbnb 2025 Summer Release: Quite interesting update to a very popular platform with new services and nice visual layout. The complexity, though, is still showing through the well-sewn seams.

China and Virtual ID: This is a new level of surveillance that comes with great convenience. Please think about the content of the article, and then reflect on how a good, unified, simple user experience makes this possible and maybe even helps an oppressor make such control acceptable and frictionless.