Writing

  • Meat (a short story)

    I’m in San Francisco staying with my friend Kevin Kelly. He and I have been having conversations about AI and writing for many moons, way back before ChatGPT was a thing. Last night, before heading off to bed, he told me he now thinks of himself as writing for AI. The LLMs are the audience.… Continue reading

  • My bad.

    It was today that I found out just how much I’ve contributed to various LLMs. If you hate the way AI writing sounds, you’ll probably hate my books. And the whole em dash thing is seriously my fault. Click here to see how much you taught AI to write! Continue reading

  • Dogshit

    In the late 80s, a manager at Microsoft named Paul Maritz sent an email to a colleague suggesting they “eat their own dogfood.” What he meant was that LAN Manager, a product he oversaw, should get more internal use. How could they build a tool that others trusted if they didn’t trust it themselves? The… Continue reading

  • Humazon

    Two of my favorite authors growing up were Franklin W. Dixon and Carolyn Keene, authors of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books. I read everything I could get my hands on from both of them. It would be decades before I learned that neither author actually exists. Both were the creation of Edward Stratemeyer,… Continue reading

  • The Bergerac Test

    My favorite movie of all-time is the 1990 adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac starring Gérard Depardieu. From the moment my best friend sat me down and showed me the film, it went straight to the top. I became obsessed with the original play and its various translations, the fantastic Steve Martin version “Roxanne,” and even… Continue reading