A contrarian opinion piece that draws parallels between some Mao’s campaigns and the rush to AI. Lots of great views that give perspective and help keep things in check.

Interactive AI timeline tracking 194 Large Language Models from 2017 to 2026. Explore the history of ChatGPT, GPT-4, Claude, Gemini, LLaMA, Mistral, DeepSeek and every major LLM ever released.

This article from Microsoft Unlocked details the collaboration between Microsoft and the Vatican Library to use digital technology and AI to preserve, digitize, and make accessible millions of pages of historic manuscripts.

It cannot find its own problems; it cannot feed itself. … This, however, is not a defect in a machine; we do not want it to do its own business, but ours.

In a newly translated column called “The Author of the Robots Defends Himself,” published in Lidové Noviny on June 9, 1935, Čapek expresses his frustration about how his original vision for robots was being subverted. His arguments still apply to both modern robotics and AI. In this column, he referred to himself in the third-person:

For his robots were not mechanisms. They were not made of sheet metal and cogwheels. They were not a celebration of mechanical engineering. If the author was thinking of any of the marvels of the human spirit during their creation, it was not of technology, but of science. With outright horror, he refuses any responsibility for the thought that machines could take the place of people, or that anything like life, love, or rebellion could ever awaken in their cogwheels. He would regard this somber vision as an unforgivable overvaluation of mechanics or as a severe insult to life.