Musings on the Future of the Internet
As our realities trend toward the algorithmic, we’re no longer just technology users — we are participants in an evolving dialogue between human intent and machine capability. We can watch from the sidelines as a new paradigm in human-computer interaction evolves or we can build it.
At the core, this is about changing how we engage with information, each other, and the world around us. AI is reshaping how computer systems are designed to process, synthesize, and navigate information.
Read moreI hold a lot of value in the ‘self’ that I express through technology. Platforms like Facebook have an ‘irrevocable use’ clause in their terms of service that allows them to do what they’d like with your data in the name of ‘improving their services’, but you technically still own your data. So, I took it upon myself to start using that information for my own benefit.
Read moreThree years ago, my husband and I sold our house in Maryland and headed to New York City. I had just been accepted to Columbia Business School for their Saturday Executive MBA program. I finished my courses at Columbia in February, and have a lot of complicated feelings about it. It’s the most beautiful time of the year to be in Astoria, but this is my last week in New York City.
Read moreEach person is unique. Our bodies and brains are uniquely shaped to the inputs we are given (or give) them. Our minds are shaped by the information we consume, the people we listen to, the stories we tell ourselves as truth. Thoughts and beliefs are connected through neural pathways, which are reinforced and made stronger the more frequently we practice thinking a certain way. Over time, this neuroplasticity turns practice into routine; our inner voice becomes the narrator of our memory.
Reflecting on the way that my relationship to computers and the internet has changed over the past decade prompted me to download a complete archive of my Facebook history before I went on vacation.
I used a python script to iterate through every folder in my Facebook messages archive and generate a .csv file with message content. I then uploaded the .csv file to ChatGPT to query and interrogate the data, asking it questions about myself and my growth.
Read moreI’m not sure if it’s just me, but this feels increasingly less true as AI threatens to take over the way that we think and communicate. What is one to do? Write an English-to-English translator.
Read more2024 was a year where I had to complete reinvent myself into a new person, which has been powerful, exciting, scary, lonely, invigorating, marvelous, and awesome (in the true sense of awe).
Cassian’s birth – eight days past his due date – marked the beginning of the rest of my life. No experience of my life prepared me to so graciously and willingly say goodbye to a version of myself that felt unshakeable.
Read moreI wanted a version of Tetris that had a logarithmic board instead of a square grid. I couldn’t get the idea out of my head, so I turned to AI.
Read moreMultitasking got to the best of me today when I distractedly decided to update my web host server from Ubuntu 20.04 to 24.04. At or around 11:15am EST, I brazenly went forth on my attempt to update my AWS instance. As I was running apt update I realized that I should created at least one backup of the instance, and took a snapshot. It’s a good thing I did, or I wouldn’t be here today.
Read moreI’ve had a hypothesis for several years now that we’re already well within the fabled technological singularity. The quest for a super-intelligent, self-modifying computer is openly promoted in Silicon Valley. It makes sense that we would look for computational intelligence that looks like human intelligence – but what if we’re looking at this the wrong way?
Read moreTrust can be found between individuals, within organizations, and between an individual and an institution. When we consider the concept of trust, we might think about people we trust to be vulnerable around when we are going through a difficult time in our lives. We might think about the trust that we have with the institutions in our lives, such as trusting that we will be able to access medical care when it is needed. As of 2023, Generative AI was trusted more than any institution – which includes church, Congress, the military, businesses, and schools.
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