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06-20-2026, 01:53 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-20-2026, 02:21 AM by ironyak.)
@randomq - I appreciate you responding to the (ahem) prompt and sharing an example of what you're doing with your setup. I would ask:
1) What's the added value you see with the AI news aggregation compared to just reviewing each of those news sources in a series of tabs (many of those sources have a permanent tab for my morning perusal) or via a series of bookmarks (or as they were first introduced, Mosaic Hotlists)
2) How do you think about/address concerns about adding an interpretive layer between you and the source material (ala your "You can ask followup questions..." option). Like MyManao, I would prefer not to have someone/something choosing what to emphasize, skip, or vaguely/mistakenly interpret for me. It seems like the specter of Edge's 5th Beatle Conundrum hangs heavily over such a LLM-mediated process.
PS - Ditto on the thanks for https://www.allhawaiinews.com - news to me! ;)
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1. I can waste hours reading the news if I'm not careful. If I invest a little time up front to pick my favorite sources and topics, the AI can give me "just the facts" on many headlines in a very concise, consolidated way. It can also catch community events in various calendars that I would probably not think to check. There are also RSS readers for mobile phones where you can subscribe to broad topics from news sites, but they don't filter anything out (like local news on the other islands).
2. Good point. I'm not sure the open weights AI I'm using is that crafty, but there are surely some biases baked in. I'm currently using an open model from China called Qwen, so not sure what spin that would put on Puna news! I do know it's not fond of talking about Tiananmen Square.
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06-20-2026, 04:28 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-20-2026, 04:38 PM by ironyak.)
randomq - I can waste hours reading the news...
You say that as if it's a bad thing. ;)
the AI can give me "just the facts" on many headlines in a very concise, consolidated way.
But how do you know that it hasn't skipped something of interest? Even if it's just doing direct snippets of articles without any text dis-and-re-combobulations, I would worry that its CliffsNotes, tell-you-only-what-you-need-to-know, version misses something essential, or of essence, for the underlying info (like all CliffsNotes do). Maybe I'm just being paranoid.
It can also catch community events in various calendars that I would probably not think to check. ... I do know it's not fond of talking about Tiananmen Square.
Sounds like you'd be missing out on the recent Flag Raising Ceremony for Putin, while everyone else would get to party like it's anything but 1989. (ok, so maybe the use of AI has an upside ;)
Again, I do appreciate you taking the time to share your experiences and explorations of this tech and how it might be used locally and focused on Hawai'i and recognize that I may be just falling into Douglas Adams' Salmon of Doubt:
"1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things."
Oh look, Rushkoff's podcast from yesterday is titled "The Shoggoth in the Machine" - gotta love it when a good zeitgeist comes together!
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"Don't let perfect be the enemy of good enough"
If I were paid to be the sentiment analyst for an incumbent Hawaii politician, I would be using SOTA AI models in an agentic framework that includes steps to audit the output for accuracy before presenting it to the user. But I'm just a guy that wants to be mildly entertained or infuriated by current events. :-)
FYI, another use that might be useful here in Hawaii with our perpetual teacher shortages is tutoring. You can use a prompt a simple as "Can you teach me trigonometry? Go one step at a time and stop after each step to test and confirm what I've learned." And then unlike in class where a student would be embarrassed or run out of time, you can ask the AI for as many clarifications and examples as you need to really understand something before moving on to the next topic.
For us old folks, you can also ask it something more practical like "Can you help me grow tomatoes in a tropical climate? Go one step at a time and check in with me before proceeding."
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06-21-2026, 07:00 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-21-2026, 07:05 PM by ironyak.)
randomq - If I were paid to be the sentiment analyst for an incumbent Hawaii politician...
While this is a good match of the technology ("AI") to the need ("political word salad"), I'm not sure we need yet more abundant political propaganda locally. That whole "check output for accuracy" step is both optional and may actually decrease the effectiveness of the message.
FYI, another use that might be useful here in Hawaii with our perpetual teacher shortages is tutoring.
CivilBeat had a recent good article on AI use in Hawai'i classrooms. I'll say personally that the biggest impact is the breakdown in trust between teachers and students, as teachers can be too quick to accuse students of cheating with AI and students can be too quick to turn to AI for "just the answers" that skips any notion of tutoring or learning. It's a specter that undermines both sides of the academic relationship and those institutions that have tried to use all AI for courses, have shown just how badly it can go.
"Don't let perfect be the enemy of good enough"
But how can the stochastic output of the AI be determined to be good enough when it shifts with each student and each prompt? Sure it can give you something purportedly about Trig, but unless you triangulate and check with an authoritative source (often in the form of text books or the like) how do you, as a learner, know it's good at all?
PS - You'd probably like the Rushkoff podcast above. First half is about the underground history of early cyberspace, second-half about base AI models as shoggoths, AIs and game design, and the most successful Augmented Reality Game yet, Qanon.
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(06-21-2026, 07:00 PM)ironyak Wrote: It's a specter that undermines both sides of the academic relationship and those institutions that have tried to use all AI for courses, have shown just how badly it can go.
I've always figured education started breaking down, or at least the process which had already begun was quickened, with the advent of the electronic calculator. Where unlike the slide rule all a student did was ask a question and get an answer verses actually appreciating the logic applied. Moving forward to today.. without real guidance students can be nothing more than monkeys pressing keys. And where the incredible inventions of our generation will be the last of our golden age because the next won't know how..
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Can you help me grow tomatoes in a tropical climate?
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I can image the heat produced by the servers as they ponder the response...
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Economist Paul Krugman's column today is titled "Why does everyone Hate AI?" https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/why-d...ne-hate-ai
Subtitle sums it up: "It’s the fear, the enshittification, datacenter hostility, and the tech broligarchy"
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Found this on the HPP Facebook page. Note that the AI generated title identified a dog as a cat. No CAPTCHA pass for you, robots:
“We do this thing not because it is easy, but because we thought it would be easy.”
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I don't even understand the point of that ad. If it's a scam, how does it scam?
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