Andrew West
@awest.uk
130 followers 720 following 41 posts
IT guy. Photographer. Works for that charity, you know the one.
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
awest.uk
Wikimedia, I meant
awest.uk
It just needs to be a *bit* easier. We have loads at work we’d be happy to provide. But a few years back I put them on Wikipedia and it was enough of a faff that I’ve never got round to it since. It wasn’t *hard*, just frictiony
awest.uk
All of Bluesky tech commentary was predicted by Douglas Adams
awest.uk
Meanwhile the effort put into dark mode has knocked points off global productivity. The AI overlords are gonna raise it as evidence they should assume control
awest.uk
The infected did not respect syntactical secularism. Sure, have your own rules for dashes, hyphens, en-dashes, em-dashes. But you’ve gotta live and let live.
awest.uk
Now we’ve found a cure for the em-dash virus, dark mode mania is next
awest.uk
So glad we have the nuanced humanities to protect us from dogmatic STEM types
awest.uk
I love the overnight shift from AI is no good to AI is too good
awest.uk
Sonnet 4.5 in Claude Code is *so fast*
awest.uk
Oh you are in for a treat. Go in blind
awest.uk
@lizlutgendorff.bsky.social have you read the Steerswoman books? I am loving them and they seem very much in your wheelhouse
Reposted by Andrew West
emollick.bsky.social
After reading it, this does seem like a big deal

Industry experts outlined important, real-world, hard tasks for AI to do. Other experts were asked to do the tasks themselves (avg time: 7 hours) & yet others graded human & AI output

Models approached parity with humans & AI is getting better fast.
Reposted by Andrew West
awest.uk
Haiku 3.5 is a pretty outdated model, isn’t it? Admittedly it was only released last October, but things move fast! Do Sonnet/Opus 4 have the same issue?
awest.uk
Very excited for this
Kingsmill are going to make a bread giant
awest.uk
Musk for sure. But like, is that it? People who trust Elon on precisely nothing are taking his word at face value on AI stuff?

I don’t think people are doing anything wrong, I’m just fascinated by the ‘hype is massive’ conversation (which I agree feels correct!) that is hard to pin down.
awest.uk
The hype is interesting, isn’t it. Where do you think it comes from? Adverts? Most statements from the ai companies are couched and caveated. You get some overexcited people on Twitter, but do people really believe them? Is it some general reading-between-the-lines of adverts + Spielberg?
awest.uk
“But it can’t count the letters in strawberry!”

Correct. If a human couldn’t do that, it would imply things about their human intelligence.

But this is not a human and doesn’t work like a human. It can do complex maths and strategic analysis without being able to count letters. It just can.
awest.uk
Hey commenters: as children, did you ever wonder how the older generation were so incapable of understanding technological advances, seemed stuck in the past, and were unwilling to learn? Now you know!
awest.uk
Fairness sensitivity is wild. Some people are fine if something’s a bit unfair but works out ok for everyone. Others find the exact same thing violently, pathologically, obsessively upsetting. These are all normal people.
gabrielmilland.bsky.social
Good piece. As a tabloid editor I used to work for once told me, the most powerful phrase in the English language - as it is spoken in this country - is "it's not fair".
robertshrimsley.bsky.social
The central issue for parties now is fairness. For Labour that means cost of living, good public services, social justice. But Farage has defined it on crime, immigration, welfare bills and voters being played for mugs. And right now he is winning that fight
www.ft.com/content/e153...
Reposted by Andrew West
hern.bsky.social
There's a real paucity of policy discussion on the left about the problems we're going to face if AI does in fact carry on getting better.
awest.uk
I love how everyone who learns about induced demand decides it’s a massive secret that nobody else understands
Reposted by Andrew West
emollick.bsky.social
Hopefully things change here, as my big worry about AI talk on this site is that people are being misled about the capabilities of AI by influencers who are telling them what they want to hear.

AI is not going away, it will impact all of our futures, and it needs more voices shaping its direction.
awest.uk
I mean, that’s why I watched it