The Blog Experiment | Technology Nonsense and Internet Tripe

Bill Gates recently predicted that artificial intelligence will be as good as any doctor within the next decade — and may even replace the need to see doctors.   That is not just wrong. It is reckless. We are at a turning point in healthcare. AI holds enormous potential, but the way we talk about it matters. In a moment where the narrative swings between unchecked hype and dystopian paranoia, we need to find the middle ground focusing on real problems and solving them with the right tools.  First, AI is not here to take over clinical care. It is here to support it. And if we frame the future of medicine around replacing physicians instead of empowering them, we risk missing the most important opportunity healthcare has had in decades.  Gates was right about one thing: AI has the potential to expand access to high-quality medical guidance. For people in remote or underserved areas, AI-powered tools could help triage symptoms or offer early insights.   But that’s a far cry from replacing the role of trained physicians. Medicine isn’t just about information. It’s also about context, judgment, empathy and experience.  The danger lies in assuming that because an AI can deliver facts, it can replace care. That kind of thinking leads to over-reliance, which then leads to underinvestment in the clinical workforce and ultimately worse outcomes.  Doctors are not a bug in the system. They are the system. And AI, when used correctly, makes them better. Faster. More informed. Less burned out.  This isn’t speculative. AI and physicians are already working side by…AI won’t replace doctors — it will upgrade them

Threads, Meta’s alternative to X, formerly Twitter, had almost everything it needed to succeed. It’s backed by one of the biggest of the Big Tech companies. It’s directly integrated with Instagram, the mega popular photo sharing app. With all its powers combined, Threads was able to grow to 100 million users in just 5 days.However, there was one crucial element that the platform was missing: A ‘dot com’ domain name.But, as of April 24, Meta has solved Threads’ URL problem. Threads.com now officially points users to the web version of the Threads platform. “Today, we’re moving from Threads.net to Threads.com,” Meta said in an announcement posted on the company blog alongside feature updates to the platform.As Elon Musk continues to put his unique stamp on X, many liberal users are seeking out new social media homes. X competitors like Bluesky and Threads appear to have won out as the official Twitter replacements, although neither have come close to achieving critical mass.Threads finally using Threads.com as its official URL won’t beat out X alone, but studies have shown that internet users still use and trust .com domain names more than any other domain extension. This move from Threads.net to Threads.com will only help the platform.Threads originally launched in July 2023 strictly as a mobile app. One month later, Threads rolled out the web version of the social media platform. However, Threads on the web was previously located at Threads.net.Why? At the time, Meta simply did not own the dot-com domain. Plenty…Its official: Metas Threads is using Threads.com domain name

President Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday that aims to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into America’s classrooms.   “The basic idea of this executive order is to ensure that we properly train the workforce of the future by ensuring that school children, young Americans, are adequately trained in AI tools, so that they can be competitive in the economy years from now into the future, as AI becomes a bigger and bigger deal,” said Will Scharf, White House staff secretary. Although the exact text of the order has not been released, The Washington Post reported on a pre-decisional draft that said the president wants schools to partner with the private sector to implement the technology into school programs.   The order would instruct Education Secretary Linda McMahon to prioritize federal funds for training teachers and administrators in how to use AI for their benefit but also to incorporate it into all subjects.   “AI is where it seems to be at,” Trump said during the signing. An AI education task force would be created to encourage federal agencies to partner with the private sector with the goal of teaching students “foundational AI literacy and critical thinking skills,” according to the Post.   AI has taken classrooms by storm over the last few years, with both benefits and risks to educators and students.   Schools have already begun partnering with organizations to teach educators and students how to use AI responsibly.   Downsides to the technology include concerns of cheating…Trump signs executive order incorporating AI into classrooms

President Trump signed multiple executive orders on Wednesday targeting the country’s education system, from discipline in K-12 schools to how universities are accredited.   Regarding school discipline, Trump signed an order in the Oval Office intended to undo policies from former Presidents Obama and Biden that Will Scharf, White House staff secretary, said “created issues in the classroom for teachers and students alike.”  Behavioral issues have been on the rise since the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is unclear how much influence the federal government will be able to have over individual school policies on this issue.   “President Trump is taking historic and commonsense action to boost school safety standards. Disciplinary decisions should be based solely on students’ behavior and actions,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said.   Another Wednesday order seeks to further integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into American classrooms.   “The basic idea of this executive order is to ensure that we properly train the workforce of the future by ensuring that school children, young Americans, are adequately trained in AI tools, so that they can be competitive in the economy years from now into the future, as AI becomes a bigger and bigger deal,” said Scharf.  In a potential hit to higher education, Trump signed an executive order targeting the college accreditation process.   College accreditation ensures a university can access financial aid, but, Scharf said, “many of those third-party accreditors have relied on sort of woke ideology to accredit universities, instead of accrediting based on merit and…Trump signs executive orders on school discipline, education reform

Students won’t be using Pinterest during class — or, at least, they will be heavily discouraged from doing so.The social media app is experimenting with a prompt that will encourage American and Canadian users between the ages of 13 (the minimum age for account holders) and 17 to close the app and pause notifications during typical school hours (Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.). Pinterest confirmed in an email to Mashable that the prompt will reach “millions” of school-age users, and the wide-scale experiment is intended to better inform the app’s teams. This comes after Pinterest CEO Bill Ready announced his support for the Kids Online Safety Act and phone-free school policies in the Washington Post.”Focus is a beautiful thing,” the prompt says, according to the Verge. “Stay in the moment by putting Pinterest down and pausing notifs [sic] until the school bell rings.” SEE ALSO: Instagram will restrict teens from going Live, as Teen Accounts expand to Facebook and Messenger Pinterest also announced on Tuesday a partnership with the International Society for Technology in Education to develop digital citizenship and well-being action plans through newly established Digital Innovation Wellbeing Task Forces.”At Pinterest, we believe that schools can take advantage of all that technology has to offer students, while minimizing the harms and distractions,” Wanji Walcott, Pinterest’s chief legal and business affairs officer, told the Verge. “Tech companies need to work together with teachers, parents, and policymakers to build solutions that ensure in the hands of our students,…Pinterest wants teens to log off during school hours

Bluesky is introducing new ways to recognize genuine, verified accounts on the social media platform. According to an official update on Bluesky’s blog, certain accounts will now get a blue checkmark next to their names. Bluesky will also let “select independent organizations” verify accounts of their employees directly, with one example being the New York Times which can now issue blue ticks to its journalists. SEE ALSO: NFL bars teams from using Bluesky Users will be able to see which organization granted the mark to a user by tapping on a verified account’s blue check.The new scheme echoes the blue checkmark verification system that Twitter had before Elon Musk bought the platform, renamed it X, and made checkmarks available to anyone who paid for a Twitter Blue subscription. Bluesky did not share exact criteria as to which accounts can get a blue checkmark, besides saying it will proactively verify “authentic and notable” accounts. Featured Video For You Our favorite robots at CES 2025 This is another layer of verification on top of Bluesky’s verified domain system, which allows individuals and organizations to set their domain as their user name. This is still available to all users. As for the blue checks, Bluesky said in its update the platform is currently not accepting direct applications for verification; instead, it will launch a request form for notable and authentic accounts which are interested in becoming verified and/or trusted verifiers.Bluesky adds blue checks for verification, like the Twitter of old

Dateline: Bangkok, 22nd April 2025.At this year’s Davos — or more properly the 54th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland — it was impossible to escape AI. Every conversation — whether it was about hydrogen production or loyalty schemes, horse training or ethical investment — touched on AI. Central to these discussions was the shift toward “agentic AI”, which has real implications for the world of commerce and therefore finance.Share Read moreThe Dawn of A-Commerce

It’s an open secret that some teens circumvent social media platform age restrictions by simply giving the wrong birth date when they sign up. Now Instagram will use artificial intelligence in order to identify those users and route them back into age-appropriate “teen accounts,” according to an Instagram blog post published Monday. Instagram already uses AI to determine age, but the platform will begin testing the technology’s ability to proactively find teens on accounts with an adult birthday listed. Instagram will then place them in its teen account settings, which have a number of safety features. SEE ALSO: Instagram will restrict teens from going Live, as Teen Accounts expand to Facebook and Messenger Recently, Instagram began restricting teens under 16 from going live. It also now requires teens to obtain parental consent before they can turn off content moderation filters designed to blur nude images in direct messages. Though Instagram said it’s working to ensure the accuracy of its AI technology, it is giving users the option to change the restrictiveness of teen account settings should it make a mistake about their age. Instagram also announced that it will begin sending notifications to parents who have an Instagram account about how they can discuss with their children why it’s important to provide their correct age to the platform. Meta, Instagram’s parent company, has been sued by plaintiffs, including the state of California, who argue that the company hasn’t sufficiently protected minors from harm, or warned them of potential dangers related…Instagram will use AI to identify teens using adult accounts

Dateline: Woking, 18th April 2025.I’ve been a fan of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game (universally known as D&D) for more than 40 years now. I was hooked on it from the very first time that I played it and I still enjoy every session just as much today. It is now mainstream and shaping elements of modern culture as storytellers who grew up playing D&D mature. David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the creators of the TV adaptation of “Game of Thrones”, both played it as teenagers; Jon Favreau, director of “Iron Man” has also attributed his creative chops to the game.25mm fantasy wargame at the South London Warlords Salute 25 event.For it me it changed over the years from being an enjoyable pastime and refuge from the stresses of work to to being a frontline defence against brain-rot and my personal +2 shield vs. dementia. And it gets me out of the house too: I celebrated another lap round the sun last weekend by heading off the South London Warlord’s Salute 25 event at the Excel.Why am I telling you this? Well, because pleasant pastime, dementia defence and convivial company to one side, it may be that D&D has an even greater role to play in the post-industrial economy.Subscribe nowFantasy HistoryWhen it was first published in 1974, D&D was a revolution in game playing, creating the idea of a Dungeon Master (DM) who serves as referee and organiser, maintaining the setting in which adventures occur, while the players…Hallucinations And Hope

Former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the crew at CNBC this week that President Trump’s goal of bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. was a “pipe dream.”   It was an odd remark, given how her former boss, Joe Biden, ran for president on the prospect that he could revive manufacturing in the U.S. — the central pillar of his promise to rebuild the economy “from the bottom up and middle out.”  Did Yellen not believe Biden’s campaign pitch? Was she not on board with the CHIPS Act, which threw tens of billions of dollars at semiconductor firms to encourage their shifting production to the U.S.?  Close Thank you for signing up! Subscribe to more newsletters here The latest in politics and policy. Direct to your inbox. Sign up for the Opinion newsletter Subscribe if ( window.checkSizeClasses && window.checkSizeClasses instanceof Function) { window.checkSizeClasses(); } Yellen also claims she does not understand the rationale for Trump’s tariff war, which she calls   a “self-inflicted wound.” When Biden ran for president in 2020, he promised to do away with tariffs Trump had imposed on China. Not only did he keep those tariffs in place, he added to them in 2024, trying to protect America’s industries by putting a 100 percent tariff on imports of Chinese electric vehicles and a 50 percent duty on solar panels, among other assorted products. Did Yellen protest those taxes on imports from China?   In short, is Yellen pessimistic about U.S. manufacturing and negative on tariffs because it…Janet Yellen is wrong about US manufacturing — and pretty much everything else