Status Updates From Uncanny Valley

every page of this is brilliant. on the men of the “Solutions” team, Wiener writes:

“Deep house and EDM leaked from their oversized headphones. At team gatherings they drank whiskey, neat, and, the following mornings, were prone to pounding a viscous liquid jacked up with electrolytes—sold as a remedy for small children with diarrhea—to flush away their hangovers.”

Comparitive to AI today:
“Not everyone knew what they needed from big data, but everyone knew that they needed it.”

“Data collection and retention were unregulated.”

“Just as startups in New York were eager to build off their city’s existing cultural legacy, by creating services for media and finance… the same was true of the Bay Area, where software engineers sought to usurp older technology companies by building tools for other software engineers.”