I've been wanting to do this story for years and am thrilled it's finally out: inside the surprisingly small, highly specialized industry that repairs the internet cables on the bottom of the ocean

If nothing else (& there’s much else), @ErykSalvaggio has provided a wonderful reading list for understanding various aspects of AI’s relationship to the world at large, feat: @timnitGebru @IrisVanRooij @o_guest @joshdzieza @mayameme @_alialkhatib @GaryMarcus @Rahll & many others

4. "Friend or Faux?" @joshdzieza "Sometimes the 'personality' users have come to know—and sometimes love—can alter drastically as the software evolves, a problem known as the 'post-update blues.'" https://t.co/R2rrdVP9CC

"A terminally ill user who signed up for Replika so they could 'experience how being loved again would feel' was devastated when their Rep abruptly told them they could only be friends." @joshdzieza @verge #longreads https://t.co/nUpzxMcvoM

For @verge, I spoke with two dozen users about their relationships with AI. Many experienced benefits. Many also got hurt in unexpected ways. Almost all of them struggled to understand what exactly it was they had become attached to.

I like to highlight the journalism and research that informs these talks. This @joshdzieza essay interviewing workers in warehousing and call centers is at the top of the list. The idea: Technology may one day replace workers. It *already* regulates them.

1. "The Cloud Under the Sea," @joshdzieza "Dzieza does a fantastic job showing how indispensable [these engineers] are—yet you probably didn’t even know they existed." https://t.co/jCAkMNJBEX

I highly recommend reading this beautiful piece of long-form journalism by @joshdzieza of @verge that profiles the Ocean Link, a submarine cable repair vessel. https://t.co/W2INLl7GpI

"The reason websites continue to load, bank transfers go through, and civilization persists is because of the thousand or so people living aboard 20-some ships stationed around the world, who race to fix each cable as soon as it breaks." @joshdzieza @verge

A delight to speak with @joshdzieza and to be a part of this piece on how historians are working with AI. Also features @CindyErmus and @khetiwe24 and their awesome work!

Don't miss our Best of 2023 issue of the newsletter, with fantastic stories by @JenSeniorNY, @stephenrodrick, @TimAlberta, @willapaskin, @skiphol, @joshdzieza, @emilynussbaum, @drewharwell & many more!

In meiner Übersetzung für @redaktionmerkur: @joshdzieza schreibt über die menschliche Mühe, die hinter der Entwicklung von KI steckt. Anders als oft angenommen wird diese Arbeit nie ein Ende finden.

We're used to thinking of artificial intelligence as knowledge generated by machines. @verge’s @joshdzieza pulls back the curtain on the vast network of human labor that powers AI. https://t.co/kVpn5dUHqj

Read this excellent and important story by @satopol about America’s empire in the Pacific

A little late to the party but this article is a must-read. Key to understanding what's going on and what's going wrong with "AI" is keeping the people in the frame.

Pulling back the curtain on AI means confronting the tedious manual labor required to keep it running. @joshdzieza reports on the humans doing that (often baffling) labor, and what their experiences can tell us about how AI might actually change work.

AI is turtles all the way down but it’s humans

Incredibly important story on the enormous human labor behind AI.

Want to know how RLHF actually works? Read Josh's accounting of going undercover to write the darkly funny limericks about a goldfish powering ChatGPT.