It’s nice when the people you like or listen to are on fire: Making good points, showing good judgement, and generally providing thoughtful critique. But then, on those darkest of days, you listen to what they say and a chill runs down your back: Your brows furrow, you do a hard swallow, and a sinking feeling overcomes you. Did they really just say that?

Scary, right?

The someone in question is independent journalist Taylor Lorenz. She does a lot of tech and AI coverage, she’s been on Matt Bernstein’s incredibly good podcast A Bit Fruity, and she’s usually been an interesting voice in tech discussions. I’m not a superfan, but I do check in on her writing and videos when I see them pop up in my feeds or recommended pages. I got two red flags from her recently that makes me think she has changed her stance on AI. Which is important, because she used to be very critical of AI, AI companies, and the general shittiness of the whole industry.

First, she was featured in this newsletter called Model User. In it, she discloses how much she uses AI, how much she spends on AI, and how much she’s been getting into the whole thing. I get that keeping up with the tools is part of her job as someone who reports on AI. What concerns me is that the values she has put forth and marketed her work on seem to be thrown to the side in this article as she waxes poetic about how this anti-AI backlash is a “phase” that we’re going to work through, that she subscribes to and enjoys AI-generated newsletters, and is generally more positive about AI than she has been in the past.

You can change your mind about things. I won’t begrudge anyone that, but you should be prepared to have people confused, upset, or raising some questions about it if you put it out there and are open about it. But what really got a stick in my craw was a video she put out this week on AI.

She put out this, in my opinion, absolutely bizarre video covering the EU’s new rules regarding watermarking for AI-generated anything. The skinny is that the EU says there has to be some kind of digital watermarking to show that text, images, or videos are generated by AI. It’s akin to how they regulate how you have to disclose if a photo has been edited in Photoshop in the EU. This video was the second red flag.

Instead of seeing this as a net positive, Taylor and her guest see this as threatening to online rights and speech. Their two main points are that 1) because it’s an EU rule affecting US companies, US citizens will have no appeal system in their country to fight against it if they don’t like it and 2) the tagging of data will lead to consequences such as identifying individual users which will lead to government censorship and attacks on political opponents. Curbing of free speech to ensue, of course.

To point 1: This happens often. This doesn’t immediately make it right, so hear me out. The EU made USB-C a standard to stop Apple from draining your money and locking your out of a port that, you know, has Universal as its first letter. This is one example of an EU regulation that affects Americans. I think generally, as far as I am knowledgeable about such things, these regulations are mostly positive. Her protestation strikes me as a bit “Don’t Tread on Me” American small-c conservative, which is not her brand at all. In the video, they also mention the cookies pop-ups you get now and how people just ignore them and they’re annoying. You know why the EU forced websites to do this? Because they, the websites, were planting them without consent from users. This is a net positive because now people can stop the whole-sale harvesting of every piece of data about them. It gives them a right to protect what little privacy they may have online. It’s an avenue to help protect the consumer. Why Taylor and her guest paint this as a negative is absolutely baffling to me. In regards to the “fairness” of having to cope with the ramifications of another bloc’s regulations, the reckless lack of regulation in the US kind of forces the EU’s hand: They are not afraid to regulate, and if the US lacks the spine to regulate their golden geese in a way that allows them to dictate the shape of those companies and their practices, then the EU will step in with their “heavy-handed” approaches. The US needs to put up or shut up, and Trump and his appointees have chosen silence on the matter.

To point 2: This just reeks of misunderstanding and conspiracy. Taylor does believe and says full-throated that social media addiction is a hoax and constantly pushes back against this narrative which has definitely rubbed some people the wrong way. This may lead some to believe that she’s a bit of a crank and doesn’t have good conclusions, given the data presented to her. But this particular video just seems like negligence on her part as a reporter. The current way that Anthropic, their exemplar for the video, would mark the output does not identify the user in any way, shape, or form. It only identifies that text, the artefact in question, was made by AI. Anthropic and all other AI companies keep logs of who is saying what to their chatbots, and there are real and pressing security concerns about this to be certain. These logs can absolutely be used to identify people, whether they like it or not. However, the scaremongering over the watermarking is, as far as I can tell, a terrible mischaracterization of what the system will actually do. It reminds me when Chris Matthews got teary-eyed and emotional ranting about how he was afraid of communists, and that leftist forces would round people up in America if we took the unthinkable first step of electing Bernie Sanders. Taylor’s take on all of this watermarking stuff was just… poorly conceived and poorly explained, in my opinion.

Which is a shame, because she has done some very nice and impactful work in the past. It’s just disappointing to see her drop the ball so hard with this story.

This really means doing less “consuming” of media.

I hate that term: consuming. Like we’re just mindlessly shoveling media into our senses. It’s not “appreciating art,” “reading an essay,” or “watching a man beat a video game using a controller he custom-made to look like the big-ass sword in said game.” No, it’s “consume.” Gives me the ick.

Tangent aside, I’ve stopped listening to podcasts or reading on the trains. I just… sit there. I think. I decompress. I listen to the sounds, people watch, and just give my poor noodle a few moments to breathe outside of the pasta pot.

If you can, give it a try! Hard for my American family and friends, since there’s really no public transit you can practice this on, but you get what I’m saying.

Also, records. They’re still great. I love the ritual of it all.

I’ve read a few books which I will now review in short:

Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuang-zi: A fictional novel written by a fictional Japanese writer who visits Taiwan when it was a Japanese colony, and her relationship with her Taiwanese interpreter. Interesting concept, poor execution, disappointing presentation. The chapter where they go to the girl’s school and learn the ghost story is the best chapter in the whole book. It was also supposed to be a love story, which did not come across AT ALL. Just kind of meh.

Notes on Being a Man by Scott Galloway: This guy says some stupid shit and we shouldn’t be listening to him and all of his advice, let’s say that right off the top. This is his book to help teach whipper-snappers how to be proper men. His fascination with “procreation” seems like a huge weak point in his 3Ps of manliness philosophy (the others being protect and provide). Generally inoffensive advice from an older man, but don’t take it all as gospel.

Something is Killing the Children by James Tynion IV and artist Werther Dell'Edera: Monsters are real and only children can see them! Uh oh! Very graphic at times, horror-based, and very beautiful at times. A friend lent me the first book collection, but apparently it’s also on WebToon? The first chapter is very gory, but it gets toned down a bit as it goes on (this does not mean that you won’t see disturbing things, just an FYI).

At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop: African soldiers from France’s colonies fighting in WWI. Fictional story, but you follow one such soldier and see how war and violence twist and destroy you. I thought it was a good read and look forward to exploring more by the author!