Matt Scherer
@matthewus.bsky.social
Advocate and researcher focused on fighting corporate power and building workers’ technology rights. Posts reflect my own views.
The Tyranny of Quantification means that unless we can be readily reduced to data, we don't matter. Only corporate profits do. (3/3)
January 12, 2026 at 7:37 PM
The Tyranny of Quantification means that unless we can be readily reduced to data, we don't matter. Only corporate profits do. (3/3)
After all, cost to a business of complying with a regulation can be easily quantified. The value of a human life and reductions in our quality of life cannot. Rather than come up with a system that factors it in, corporate interests argue we should therefore ignore them entirely. (2/3)
January 12, 2026 at 7:36 PM
After all, cost to a business of complying with a regulation can be easily quantified. The value of a human life and reductions in our quality of life cannot. Rather than come up with a system that factors it in, corporate interests argue we should therefore ignore them entirely. (2/3)
In all seriousness, that was the best World Series since at least 1991. And the best Game 7 ever.
November 2, 2025 at 4:24 AM
In all seriousness, that was the best World Series since at least 1991. And the best Game 7 ever.
Reposted by Matt Scherer
Why it matters: ADSs shape access to jobs, housing, health care & more. Yet too often, they’re opaque, error-prone, and biased—leaving consumers & workers at risk. Transparency + accountability are essential.
Bringing Transparency and Accountability to Algorithmic Decision Systems
Also authored by Grace Gedye, AI Policy Analyst, Consumer Reports Algorithmic decision systems (ADSs) increasingly determine what jobs people apply to, what apartments they can rent, what health care coverage they receive, and other major determinants of their lives and livelihoods. ADSs can speed up decision-making processes and, with proper design and oversight, can help […]
cdt.org
September 29, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Why it matters: ADSs shape access to jobs, housing, health care & more. Yet too often, they’re opaque, error-prone, and biased—leaving consumers & workers at risk. Transparency + accountability are essential.
Quick! Hide this from Ezra Klein!
May 18, 2025 at 9:16 PM
Quick! Hide this from Ezra Klein!
...anecdotes are not evidence. None of the predicted labor market disruptions have materialized. Level 5 AVs have been 3 yrs away for 10 yrs now. Productivity growth hasn't accelerated. Practical improvement in cutting edge models has slowed to a crawl. So I, and many others, just aren't seeing it.
May 18, 2025 at 5:32 PM
...anecdotes are not evidence. None of the predicted labor market disruptions have materialized. Level 5 AVs have been 3 yrs away for 10 yrs now. Productivity growth hasn't accelerated. Practical improvement in cutting edge models has slowed to a crawl. So I, and many others, just aren't seeing it.
I do use it, both for research and for editing/polishing my writing. It's helpful for polishing my writing, but not in an "I'm blown away" way. And in research, frequent hallucinations in all the models mean that I often have to spend more time verifying info than if I'd not used AI. Anyway...
May 18, 2025 at 5:23 PM
I do use it, both for research and for editing/polishing my writing. It's helpful for polishing my writing, but not in an "I'm blown away" way. And in research, frequent hallucinations in all the models mean that I often have to spend more time verifying info than if I'd not used AI. Anyway...
I have, in fact, studied AI and its impact on the economy and labor market for a decade now. I've made something a career of it. And while I’m not a programmer, I have a better technical understanding of AI than most laypeople. Happy to engage in a reasoned debate, but not engage in name calling.
May 18, 2025 at 5:08 AM
I have, in fact, studied AI and its impact on the economy and labor market for a decade now. I've made something a career of it. And while I’m not a programmer, I have a better technical understanding of AI than most laypeople. Happy to engage in a reasoned debate, but not engage in name calling.
I could be wrong. I often am. But AI hype increasingly strikes me as something driven by a desperate effort to delay the popping of a speculative bubble, and it boggles my mind that people brush off recent and repeated delays and admissions of fundamental flaws in new models by big LLM developers.
May 18, 2025 at 1:16 AM
I could be wrong. I often am. But AI hype increasingly strikes me as something driven by a desperate effort to delay the popping of a speculative bubble, and it boggles my mind that people brush off recent and repeated delays and admissions of fundamental flaws in new models by big LLM developers.
Anecdotes are rarely meaningful evidence, and never evidence of transformative impact/potential. What you describe strikes me more akin to the impact that Google/decent Internet search had on knowledge professions as compared to early knowledge databases. And maybe not even that.
May 18, 2025 at 1:10 AM
Anecdotes are rarely meaningful evidence, and never evidence of transformative impact/potential. What you describe strikes me more akin to the impact that Google/decent Internet search had on knowledge professions as compared to early knowledge databases. And maybe not even that.
I think the only thing that has been big/fast about AI is the hype surrounding it. I'm not alone in thinking so. You disagree, but I haven't seen real-world evidence (arbitrary benchmarks don't count) that it's having transformative impacts in its current state, nor do I see how it'll get there.
May 18, 2025 at 12:42 AM
I think the only thing that has been big/fast about AI is the hype surrounding it. I'm not alone in thinking so. You disagree, but I haven't seen real-world evidence (arbitrary benchmarks don't count) that it's having transformative impacts in its current state, nor do I see how it'll get there.
As @randomwalker.bsky.social said two years ago: "Every exponential is a sigmoid in disguise."
May 18, 2025 at 12:24 AM
As @randomwalker.bsky.social said two years ago: "Every exponential is a sigmoid in disguise."
Why would you need anything other than LLMs? I mean, once we scale LLMs up enough, we’ll have AGI. Didn’t you get the memo? 🙃
May 12, 2025 at 3:11 AM
Why would you need anything other than LLMs? I mean, once we scale LLMs up enough, we’ll have AGI. Didn’t you get the memo? 🙃
And, of course, the reason nobody understands their tech is that they abuse the trade secret doctrine to keep people from finding out how it works and how it affects them. Which shows the need for… wait for it… regulation.
May 9, 2025 at 3:51 AM
And, of course, the reason nobody understands their tech is that they abuse the trade secret doctrine to keep people from finding out how it works and how it affects them. Which shows the need for… wait for it… regulation.