The Society of Authors (UK) is helping launch this: an identifier for human-authored (i.e. non-AI) books: https://humanauthored.co.uk/

[jedimb@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@datarama @cstross I wish more coders would, but at least I know I'm not alone in hating all kinds of AI slop.

[loosf@yiff.life]

@ainmosni @datarama @cstross

I have seen firsthand how programmers get actively deskilled with slop code.

People I respected stopped being able to explain and justify the changes they pushed.
Because they did not remember. Because they did not write it.

ANYWAYS

Access Error

(www.ft.com)

"Ecommerce giant says there has been a ‘trend of incidents’ linked to ‘Gen-AI assisted changes’"

[njr@mathstodon.xyz]

@datarama @cstross It’s depressingly Pastor Niemöller (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came).

[hareguizer@mastodon.art]

@datarama @cstross this is why developing skills in multiple areas is so important. That way, we get hives from all the slop, not just one type.

(I find I yick hard regardless of media type. As far as my brain is concerned, it’s shoggoths all the way down.)

[datarama@hachyderm.io]

@Hareguizer @cstross That's me, I guess. I make software for a living, but I also used to draw (and make pixel art), play a couple of musical instruments, and write (bad) short fiction.

This is wonderful! It means that living in 2026 is a giant pile of unending disgust.

[a@girllich.link]

@Npars01 @cstross

I don't understand why nearly every science fiction author is opposed to the most science fiction technology in decades

[npars01@mstdn.social]

@a @cstross

Elon Musk’s Government Legacy Was Enacting Project 2025. His Ties Go Back Years.

The billionaire rescued the right-wing plan to dismantle the government while at its most toxic moment. Enacting its vision at DOGE, Musk was Trump’s enabler and fall guy.

DeSmog (www.desmog.com)

Trump and the Energy Industry Are Eager to Power AI With Fossil Fuels

At a Pittsburgh summit, the Trump administration, energy executives, and tech barons joined as one to promote AI as the future of fossil fuels.

WIRED (www.wired.com)

AI Energy Demand Can Keep Fossil Fuels Alive, Tech Backers Promise World’s Two Biggest Oil Producers

An AI-fossil fuel axis is forming in the U.S. and Saudi Arabia as AI advocates pledge an endless need for energy — spelling disaster for the climate.

DeSmog (www.desmog.com)

These 15 Coal Plants Would Have Retired. Then Came AI and Trump.

Utilities started reversing coal power’s “irreversible” decline. Will it last?

DeSmog (www.desmog.com)

Science fiction authors may be into systems thinking; the kind of thinking that predicts the consequences of a hyped up, error prone product designed to wastefully burn fossil fuels to keep oil oligarchs rich.

AI is a product accelerating an ecocide.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

(www.bloomberg.com)

Attention Required! | Cloudflare

(www.arabnews.com)

The same folks who funded 9/11 & the Jan 6 coup attempt
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/27/technology/saudi-arabia-ai-exporter.html

1/

[npars01@mstdn.social]

2/

AI is a circular financial fraud, no different than Enron.

On NVIDIA and Analyslop

Editor's note: a previous version of this newsletter went out with Matt Hughes' name on it, that's my editor who went over it for spelling errors and loaded it into the CMS. Sorry! Hey all! I’m going to start hammering out free pieces again after a brief hiatus, mostly

Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At (www.wheresyoured.at)

"So, last week the AI boom wilted brutally under the weight of an NVIDIA earnings that beat earnings but didn’t make anybody feel better about the overall stability of the industry. Worse still, NVIDIA’s earnings also mentioned $27bn in cloud commitments — literally paying its customers to rent the chips it sells, heavily suggesting that there isn’t the underlying revenue."

The AI Bubble Is An Information War

Editor's Note: Apologies if you received this email twice - we had an issue with our mail server that meant it was hitting spam in many cases! Hi! If you like this piece and want to support my work, please subscribe to my premium newsletter. It’s $70 a year,

Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At (www.wheresyoured.at)

[cstross@wandering.shop]

@a @Npars01 Because we can see the second-order consequences and they are going to be *brutal*. (Also, the current AI stuff is basically marketing hype by right-wing investors like a16z looking to steal pension funds and loot stable businesses, and the mind uploading hype is from born-again Xtians who can't quite believe in Jesus any more so they want a less implausible, technological replacement.)

[cstross@wandering.shop]

@passenger @a @Npars01 For a more nuanced explanation, there's this talk I gave at a conference in 2023 (later turned into an op-ed in Scientific American): https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2023/11/dont-create-the-torment-nexus.html

[c0dec0dec0de@hachyderm.io]

@a @Npars01 @cstross because science fiction isn’t actually about cool gadgets, but about how people deal with technology and each other. It also helps that the current thing is a fiction itself and not an actual transformative technology.

[cstross@wandering.shop]

@davidgerard Well yes, but that still does not fill me with confidence in their ability to fight their way out of a wet paper bag.

[c0dec0dec0de@hachyderm.io]

@cstross @passenger @a @Npars01 “it sells cars to customers who think it means they can relax and watch a movie while they commute” leaving aside some deeper issues, we already have technologies that allow you to watch a movie on your commute. They’re just futuristic and sexy: trains and buses.

[gooba42@mastodon.social]

@c0dec0dec0de @cstross @passenger @a @Npars01 That's basically why I'd want one. We took an annual road trip for a long time to visit my in-laws. It was about 12 hours driving each time. There is no equivalent bus or train because I'm in the US where you're lucky to have either within a hundred miles.

[c0dec0dec0de@hachyderm.io]

@gooba42 underlying/deeper issues in previous toot was meant to avoid talking about suburbanization and car-culture making the proliferation of railways in the US both difficult and a political poison pill for a number of large donor industries, cars only being the most obvious.
@cstross @passenger @a @Npars01

[asprinkleofsage@mastodon.social]

@c0dec0dec0de @a @Npars01 @cstross this needs to be embossed on an iron brand and stamped on the face of any techbro who reads sci-fi and says "wouldnt it be cool if we had..."

[clarablackink@writing.exchange]

@meganL @cstross AI thrives because everyone has been convinced that they must seek personal success and cut all costs to maximize personal profit.

Meanwhile, the type of work that meets that bar is rare and rarely of a quality that drives sales.

Creative folks need creative friends, this has always been true. Authors who want to save time and money in that arena are depriving themselves of a deeply enriching life. Nevermind thieving from others, they steal from themselves too.

[jaypeach53@calckeymusic.social]

@cstross@wandering.shop doesn’t seem to ditched the AI artwork

[c0dec0dec0de@hachyderm.io]

@ASprinkleofSage @a @Npars01 @cstross seems a little wordy, maybe reduce to “poor reading comprehension” or “epically bad listener”

[c0dec0dec0de@hachyderm.io]

@ASprinkleofSage @a @Npars01 @cstross I mean, “poor impulse control” also fits. Although I’ve gone off thinking about tattooing up all the billionaires with warning signs à la the werewolves in Joe Abercrombie’s The Devils: “Warning/Achtung/Caution”, “Do not trust”, “Liar”, “Manipulator”, “Abuser”…