“Prompt Builders”

Another GTA/401 inspired headline for you: Friday, T and I drove down to Waterloo to visit family. Along the way, I saw a business called “Prompt Builders”.

In a sign of how being exposed to AI/LLM hype can break your brain, my brain immediate jumped to the idea of building prompts for LLMs—not, as was intended, “we build actual things in the concrete world, and we do it quickly”.

Ironic (and inevitable) that a capability so centred on words and language then starts to modify the meanings of the same words it’s built on.

• We did our taxes last week (NICE), and had fun comparing the experience of filing taxes with that of our friends from New Zealand (which does automated tax assessments for most conventionally-employed individuals). Excellent timing from 99% Invisible with an episode on the history of the American income tax (with good examples of how hard it is to make a “fair” tax system). Less excellently, this story about families now owing thousands in back taxes after using a version of Intuit TurboTax that wasn’t quite clear about certain information required.
• David Graeber, what a mind. Two essays of his that feel appropriate in troubling times: “A practical utopian’s guide to the coming collapse” (via Mita Williams) and “Are You An Anarchist? The Answer May Surprise You!” (via Jason Kottke) (For the latter: truly, the answer may! Give it a read and have a think.)
• Rach Smith on the relationship (or not!) between quality and quantity, and not pressuring ourselves when we can’t manage quantity.
• I would very much like to be part of a book brigade.

As we head into the last week of this federal election, let’s hope we upset the trend of historically lower turnout in the 2000s. If you can, vote!

All the best for the week ahead!

Lucas