iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 24/07/2026

As *tech*, AI isn't exceptional. It's not exceptionally wicked. It's not exceptionally good. Take away the accompanying, galactic-scale stock-swindle, and we'd call AI's apps "plug-ins" and we'd use them and abuse them in the same way that we've used every other technology: www.normaltech.ai 1/

A carny barker waving his top-hat and selling tickets from a roll; his head has been replaced with the hostile red eye of HAL9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The background is a magnified, halftoned detail from a US$100 bill.

Image:
Cryteria (modified)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 24/07/2026

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: pluralistic.net/2026/07/24/s... 2/

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Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow – No trackers, no ads. Black type, white background. Privacy policy: we don't collect or retain any data at all ever period.

11:41 AM · Jul 24, 2026

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 24/07/2026

As an economic pathology, AI is *extraordinary*. AI boosters have spent a baffling and terrifying sum of money - over $1.4T, most of that in the past year - on the promise of making as many workers unemployed as possible, while lowering the wages of the meager survivors of this jobspocalypse. 3/

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DCapTO @dcapto.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

↪ Replying to @doctorow.pluralistic.net

Thank you for always providing a link to an essay-formatted version of your long threads that are difficult to read, especially when I have some words and names muted here and it hides the next post. Much appreciated!

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