Fragments Dec 11

Why does AI write like… that (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/magazine/chatbot-writing-style.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email) (NYT, gift link). Sam Kriss delves into the quiet hum of AI writing. AI’s work is not compelling prose: it’s phantom text, ghostly scribblings, a spectre woven into our communal tapestry.

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Emily Bache (https://coding-is-like-cooking.info/2025/12/test-desiderata-2-0/) has written a set of Test Desiderata, building on some earlier writing from Kent Beck. She lists the characteristics of good tests, and how they support her four “macro desiderata” - the properties of a sound test suite

• Predict success in production

• Fast to get feedback

• Support ongoing code design change

• Low total cost of ownership

She also has a great list of other writers’ lists of good test characteristics.

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Daphne Keller (https://www.techpolicy.press/the-eus-fine-against-x-is-not-about-speech-or-censorship/) explains that the EUs fines on X aren’t about free speech.

There are three charges against X, which all stem from a multi-year investigation that was launched in 2023. One is about verification — X’s blue checkmarks on user accounts — and two are about transparency. These charges have nothing to do with what content is on X, or what user speech the platform should or should not allow.

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Cory Doctorow (https://pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/pop-that-bubble/#u-washington) The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI

Start with what a reverse centaur is. In automation theory, a “centaur” is a person who is assisted by a machine. … And obviously, a reverse centaur is machine head on a human body, a person who is serving as a squishy meat appendage for an uncaring machine.

Like an Amazon delivery driver… the van can’t drive itself and can’t get a parcel from the curb to your porch. The driver is a peripheral for a van, and the van drives the driver, at superhuman speed, demanding superhuman endurance.