Matthew
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matthewmck.bsky.social
Matthew
@matthewmck.bsky.social
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Reposted by Matthew
seamas.bsky.social
🤖💀
But this. This new reality we have created, in all its deadening sprawl and intellect-devouring insipidity, is to be detested. Where each new day brings a dozen clear examples of Big AI’s philosophical bankruptcy, societal danger, and financial fraudulence, alongside a dozen more articles offering breathless. descriptions of its magical brilliance. We have elevated to sentience a technology that almost never works as well as what it replaces, and is still intellectually, morally, and creatively redundant when it does. Cobbled together from guesswork and plagiarised material, via processes that scorch the environment as they enrich the worst people on this quickly dying planet, the craven psychopaths making billions of dollars on false claims of its future viability, borne by distinctly bubble-shaped bluster about its current, constant, ever-increasing profitability. It is this, AI’s main swizz, that irks me the most. Because its packaging as a cure-all for everything is the surface flash of a cruise ship magician; its real function is being a limitless cash trap for credulous investors, and a replacement for labour in companies – and, yes, newspapers – who worry less about the quality of their product than the costs of paying humans to deliver it. If what we’re left with is slop, who cares? The pigs will drink it down. It’s an abhorrence, based on a lie, rapidly remaking the world in its own tedious image.
May 24, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Reposted by Matthew
seamas.bsky.social
On what every single day is like now.
It’s been two months since I wrote about AI which, as someone who detests having to write about AI, feels like not much time at all. A quick look at recent headlines, however, suggests that there is little else to talk about. Consider that the CEO of language-learning app Duolingo claimed AI was a better teacher than humans but schools will still remain open in future “because you still need childcare”; a Finnish man was sentenced in Scottish court for using AI to create images of young girls being abused; Google unveiled Project Astra, an AI client that will sit inside your phone listening to everything you say so it can provide unprompted advice at any time; the United Nations’ International Labour Organization said that AI poses a bigger threat to jobs traditionally held by women than those of men; Silicon Valley Bank reported that 40% of cash raised by venture funds last year was for companies focusing on artificial intelligence; Reuters reported that data centre plans in the US are far outpacing expected demand; and Italian researchers found that, despite all their aforementioned hallucinations, errors, and contradictions, AI chatbots were more persuasive in online debates than their human counterparts 64% of the time. If that sounds like a lot of news for two months, well, I wish this were true. Every one of those headlines is from Tuesday, May 20, the same day the Chicago Sun-Times’ reading list became a major story, and the day I began writing this column. With a trickling sense of dread I realise that I could, therefore, write an article just like this one every single day, each filled with brand-new examples of AI’s constant enshittification of the media we consume, factless posturing from its creators, marketing overhype from its torch-bearers, and bovine vapidity now normalised among those who use it.
May 24, 2025 at 1:30 PM
Reposted by Matthew
seamas.bsky.social
It’s been two months since I wrote about AI which, as someone who detests having to write about AI, feels like not much time at all.

On fake books, cash traps and magic beans, and why I continue to hate every vapid tentacle AI thrusts in our direction.

www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle-co...
Séamas O'Reilly: We have elevated AI that almost never works as well as what it replaces
I could write an article just like this one every single day, each filled with brand-new examples of AI’s constant enshittification of the media we consume
www.irishexaminer.com
May 24, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Reposted by Matthew
trainstramstracks.bsky.social
They’re building rainbow cycle tunnels in Norway. With no cars. Nice video by Critical Mass Bergen.
May 3, 2025 at 8:21 PM
Reposted by Matthew
fctwentebenson.bsky.social
The exhaustive search to find someone willing to be a housing tsar for a meagre €430,000 a year and who also isn't renting a house they own for €1,000 a day under a fake name has concluded
May 4, 2025 at 10:39 AM
Reposted by Matthew
tupped.bsky.social
"oops. what an accident we have done.'
www.theverge.com/2024/11/21/2...
OpenAI accidentally erases potential evidence in training data lawsuit
The New York Times claims OpenAI erased evidence.
www.theverge.com
November 22, 2024 at 9:54 AM
Reposted by Matthew
samtranum.bsky.social
Does your company use Benevity, and are you based in Dublin? If so, I'd love to talk to you for a story I'm working on for @dublininquirer.com -- pls WhatsApp me: 0873924797.
November 21, 2024 at 2:43 PM
Reposted by Matthew
tonygroves.bsky.social
Take a bow my old friend, Martin McMahon.
November 20, 2024 at 9:57 PM
Reposted by Matthew
breakaway-ian.bsky.social
The 2024 Irish general election is only days away.

But how did your area vote in 2020? And how does that look with the new constituency boundaries?

Find out more here ianrichardson.shinyapps.io/GE2020_Resul... with this interactive map of 1st preference votes.
Map of dun Laoghaire broken down to electoral district level with areas colored based on the strength of Fine Gael 1st preference votes in that area
November 21, 2024 at 9:23 AM
Reposted by Matthew
tonygroves.bsky.social
Gaza. Gaza. Gaza. Gaza. Gaza. Gaza. Gaza. Gaza. Gaza. Gaza. Do not look away.
It is the LEAST that you can do.
Doctors stripped in Gaza
November 19, 2024 at 10:27 PM
Reposted by Matthew
seamas.bsky.social
I'll never forget the Wikipedia click spiral that led to me to the story of the guy who spotted a long lost painting by Il Guercino in a German antique dealer and bought it for 0.5% its market value, nor that said guy was the actor who played Furio in The Sopranos.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Castelluccio https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Castelluccio
November 20, 2024 at 7:23 PM
Reposted by Matthew
thinkorswim.bsky.social
Here’s a piece everyone who cares or claims to care about the Gaza genocide needs to read. We can’t look away, we can’t normalise mass murder, even if only because this could one day be our fate too.
November 15, 2024 at 7:45 PM
Reposted by Matthew
aoifseywoifs.bsky.social
A reasonable rent-to-income ratio (including utilities) is 30%.

91% is… impossible.

#GE24
November 15, 2024 at 1:10 PM
Reposted by Matthew
executivesteve.bsky.social
Between Simon Harris pulling pints in the Boar's Head and the giant animatronic newt meandering down Capel Street yesterday was a real banner day for reptilians in my neighbourhood
pantibliss.bsky.social Dr Panti Bliss-Cabrera @pantibliss.bsky.social · Nov 14
Anyone know why a giant lizard was casually strolling across Capel St Bridge this evening?
November 15, 2024 at 4:34 PM
Reposted by Matthew
chathamharrison.bsky.social
What a shame, hate that for us
November 15, 2024 at 5:22 PM
Reposted by Matthew
paulmurphy.pbp.ie
Give workers a break.
Our manifesto calls for 2 new bank holidays and 10 extra annual leave days.
100 years ago, workers fought for a 5 day week and 2 days off. We won!
Now, we are more productive than ever, but workers aren't seeing the benefits.
A 4-day week is possible.
November 15, 2024 at 3:15 PM
Reposted by Matthew
taryndevere.bsky.social
Why are Israel being allowed to slaughter an entire population? Why is the rest of the world letting this happen? 😭 #FreePalestine
November 15, 2024 at 3:42 PM
Reposted by Matthew
durrutidub.bsky.social
St. Aidan's School say no to racism 💪
November 14, 2024 at 3:57 PM
Reposted by Matthew
brendanjharkin.bsky.social
The PSNI today threatening protesters with "disorderly behaviour" for shouting "what are you doing to stop the genocide?" at Prince William from behind a crowd barrier well away from him.
Yet another incident of nonsense overreach.
November 14, 2024 at 3:16 PM