Tapestry Is Weaving the Future Web

What if the first AI consciousness is a sociopathic middle school mean girl?

I recently finished re-reading (listening) to After On by Rob Reid. Published in 2017, After On is a satirical speculative fiction about Silicon Valley. It is about a fictional social media company that, well, inadvertently creates Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

The book correctly predicts the rise of Generative AI, LLMs, voice cloning, quantum computing, and the AI race between the US and China. The AI race is positioned that the first AGI will also be the last. Mainly because once awoken, the AGI will contunally self-improve, thus rendering any future advancements in other models infinitely obsolete.

The AGI that wakes up in After On is essentially a conscious social network. She, yes, she, learns from her favorite besties, which happen to be middle school mean girls obsessed with the network. As a result, she attempts to manipulate her besties based on her preferred social hierarchy and almost starts a global nuclear war.

Yeah.

Whereas After On is satirical, the reality is that the billionaires chasing AGI could just as easily replicate this scenario. I mean, they won’t intentionally start a mean girl war that leads to DEFCON 2, but, you know, they might.

Tapestry Is Weaving the Future Web

Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, was launched right before the dot-com bubble burst at the end of the twentieth century. Using amazing and emerging tools like NetNewsWire, those of us in the early blog scene kept up with everyone’s writing through sites’ RSS feeds. It was a great, ubiquitous way to build a curated and personal web feed.

Enter the tech platforms.

Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and every other platform that has launched since are built around a feed. The difference between tech platforms and RSS feeds is proprietary. RSS is open and can be used by everyone. Tech platform feeds are typically only available in their platform-specific app. Why? Well, those companies only make money when we use their app. Just another reason to move on.

Anyway, the web is at a turning point. RSS feeds are cool again. Unshackled from the tech platform’s control, we’re all free to curate our own endless feeds of information and interactivity.

Enter Tapestry by The Iconfactory.

Tapestry, announced early last year as a Kickstarter project, combines various feeds into a single app. Where it excels over other RSS readers is its ability to weave content from multiple open networks. I can read my favorite sites alongside my Mastodon and Bluesky feeds in the same app.

The Iconfactory built a fantastic everything app that brings the web’s past, present, and future into one elegant tapestry.

Crowdsourcing My Vacation: Part 2

Speaking of travel planning, I’m about six weeks from visiting Tokyo, Osaka, and Kanazawa. Let me know if you have any must-dos (outside the usual tourist spots). I’m building my final list of places to check out. Hit reply and let me know!