Tim Ney

parenting | new media | distributed teams |

[Tim Ney @timocity]

@natfriedman @migueldeicaza Grants for #AI projects large or small. https://t.co/aCZC5Klps6 #opensource #Floss

[Tim Ney @timocity]

Less ostentatious than the startup salesperson driving a VC-funded Ferrari

[Philip Greenspun @PhilipGreenspun]

@WSJ I can see the value of giving $50,000 signing bonuses to recruit the best teachers, but how does giving extra money to an already-hired teacher result in that teacher becoming better qualified or doing a better job?

[Nav Toor @heynavtoor]

You have noticed it. ChatGPT feels dumber than it used to. Your prompts that worked six months ago produce worse results now. The writing sounds flatter. The ideas sound safer. The internet itself feels like it is shrinking. Every article reads the same. Every email sounds the same. Every answer sounds like it was written by the same voice.

You thought it was you. It is not you.

Researchers at Oxford and Cambridge published a paper in Nature proving what is happening. They call it Model Collapse.

Here is the mechanism in one sentence. AI trained on AI-generated data gets dumber every generation until it forgets what real human data looked like.

The internet is filling with AI-generated content. Blog posts. Articles. Reviews. Comments. Social media. AI companies scrape the internet to train the next generation of models. Which means the next generation of AI is being trained on the output of the current generation.

Each cycle loses information. Not randomly. It loses the rarest, most unusual, most creative parts first. The researchers call these the "tails of the distribution." The weird ideas. The unexpected perspectives. The things that made the internet feel human. Those disappear first.

What remains is the average. The safe. The expected. The bland.

Then the next generation trains on that. And loses more. And the next generation trains on that. And loses more. The researchers proved this is not a slow decline. Major degradation happens within just a few iterations. Even when some of the original human data is preserved.

They tested it on large language models. On image generators. On statistical models. The pattern was the same every time. The output converges toward a narrow, flattened version of reality that looks nothing like the original data.

The lead researcher put it plainly. "Large language models are like fire. A useful tool. But one that pollutes the environment."

The pollution is invisible. You cannot see which sentence on the internet was written by a human and which was written by AI. Neither can the AI that is about to train on it. And once the tails are gone, they do not come back. The damage is irreversible.

This is not a prediction anymore. It is a diagnosis.

The internet you grew up on was built by humans writing things no algorithm would have written. Strange, personal, imperfect, alive. That internet is being diluted. One generation of AI at a time. And the models trained on what remains are learning a smaller and smaller version of the world.

Model Collapse is not a technical problem. It is a cultural one. The thing that made the internet worth reading is the thing that disappears first.

[Tim Ney @timocity]

Sail Boston, Inc. made two million dollars in 2024. Where did that money go?

https://t.co/39TmOB7fpb

[The Fort Pointer @FortPointer]

Let’s give good ol’ PR maven George Regan a big shout-out instead of taking privatization of public space seriously.

It’s like NY Post Page Six celebrity gossip around here. I’m going to throw up on myself. 🤮
@jonchesto @leung

[Tim Ney @timocity]

To laugh off

To dream away

To live up

[Dead Wrong History @deadwronghist]

Borges called English "the most physical of all languages" — it holds two registers, Germanic and Latin, and for every idea you have two words that are never quite the same.

When asked if he wrote poetry in English: "No. I respect English too much."

[Tim Ney @timocity]

it’s a knock-off. very common in fashion and clothing, has been for decades

[Avi Patel @avipat_]

General Catalyst just co-led a $31.5 million seed round into a blatant rip-off of my company, Kled.

(skip to 40 seconds if you want to skip context)

I would typically not speak on things like this, but this level of blatant copycatting is egregious and completely unacceptable, and needs to be made an example of.

This is one of hundreds of YC startups who have conducted this disgusting behavior. Unimaginative slop that continues to get rewarded due to nepotism.

[Celluloid Echoes @CelluloidEchoes]

“Pass That Peace Pipe” from Good News (1947) is still one of the most electrifying dance ensemble numbers ever put on film - and yet so few people today remember its striking soloist, Joan McCracken.

McCracken was a phenomenal acrobatic dancer, trained to be a ballerina by George Balanchine in the 1930s.
She became a Broadway sensation in Oklahoma! with her comic “fall” in the number, “Many a New Day.” She brought astonishing athleticism, musicality and wit to every performance.

She also helped change Broadway history: McCracken encouraged a young Bob Fosse (as her lover and later second husband) and helped open the door for his choreographing career in New York.

A brilliant talent, largely forgotten now (she has only two film credits) - gone far too soon, dying from complications of diabetes at only 43.
#GoodNews #HollywoodMusical

[Tim Ney @timocity]

Little known fact. Chair of the Boston Licensing Board Kathleen Joyce just disclosed at the City Council Ways and Means hearing on the proposed arts budget cuts her board oversees licenses to fortune tellers.

[Tim Ney @timocity]

Congrats to Matthew Goudeau and on San Francisco’s new arts partnerships with/Shanghai.

[The San Francisco Standard @sfstandard]

Mayor Lurie taps former Yerba Buena Center for the Arts executive Matthew Goudeau to lead a new unified arts department amid precarious time for arts.

📝: @Sam_Mondros https://t.co/JEFgHae5nK

[Tim Ney @timocity]

.@FortPointer No autocrats needed for 27% cuts to Boston’s smallest and midsized arts organizations. Hitting the most vulnerable creatives and audiences. https://t.co/Ie1WAIChFJ

[Richard Brody @tnyfrontrow]

Éric Rohmer 1981 @cahierscinema "I've always made films so that what's interesting comes from thinking it over, not just from an immediate impression. When someone asks my opinion right after a film, I can't answer, it takes at least overnight, I have to have dreamt about it."

[Michael Warburton @For_Film_Fans]

Most people don’t even know this version exists let alone have seen it.

But exist it does & shows off brilliantly the creativity, ingenuity & artistry at work in ‘Old Hollywood’ at the time.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND (1933)

[Tim Ney @timocity]

“I see clouds.”
- Christine Madeleine Odette Lagarde

[Tim Ney @timocity]

Tom’s Diner (A cappella)

[Brian Roemmele @BrianRoemmele]

Suzanne Vega, 1994.

[Rock'n Roll of All @rocknrollofall]

Curt Smith of Tears for Fears performing 'Mad World' with his daughter, on acoustic guitars, during the pandemic, in 2020.

This might be the best thing you'll watch today.

[Tim Ney @timocity]

Strong reporting by @tomkeene and @ptsweeney on .@bsurveillance this morning w/the Honorable Patrick J. Murphy

https://t.co/jtscrtL1k5

[CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil @CBSEveningNews]

During a recent musical performance in a Boston symphony hall, the most memorable moment came from the crowd.

One word resonated throughout the classical community, ending a Mozart piece on a *high note.*

@SteveHartmanCBS, “On The Road,” in Boston, Mass.

[The Sigma Mindset @thesigmamindset]

Neurosurgeon memory technique that works instantly‼️

[Alexandra Sorolla @AlexandraSoro]

☕

Today it snowed in Paris. Montmartre was magical under the snow. I don't think it snowed this much in Paris for a long time!

By Loïc Lagarde. 📹🌹

[Tim Ney @timocity]

From the start, words were more real to me than real life, and certainly more interesting.

- Robert Gottlieb
in Avid Reader