Remember the “tone police”? Meet their modern successor: the AI police.
They patrol the comments, ever vigilant, ready to announce that something was “clearly made with AI,” as though they’ve just spotted a forged Rembrandt at a yard sale.
Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes they’re not. Either way, thank goodness they’re on the case. The rest of us nearly went five minutes without knowing.
I have a modest proposal. Mobile device makers should adopt a new Bluetooth standard: a simple beaconing system that announces to nearby devices, “This is a quiet space.”
Users could choose how their devices respond: “Silence my device automatically in a quiet zone.” “Notify me when I enter a quiet zone.” And, because freedom must prevail: “Ignore quiet zone beacons.”
Imagine walking into a movie theater and getting a gentle alert on your phone or smartwatch: “Notifications temporarily silenced while at this location.”
That’s it. No frantic reminder from the usher. No animated dancing popcorn pleading with you to turn off your phone. No sudden blast of “Old Time Rock and Roll” during the most emotionally delicate moment of someone’s eulogy.
Would it be perfect? Of course not. There are surely technical, privacy, and practical details to work out. And some people would undoubtedly choose to ignore the whole thing, because technology has yet to devise a protocol for basic consideration of others.
But this strikes me as well within the realm of technical possibility. Making it opt-in would also accommodate the inevitable edge cases in which a blaring ringtone is, somehow, the correct choice.
We’ve spent decades making our devices smarter. Maybe it’s time we taught them when to shut up.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some clouds to yell at, right after I tell these kids to get off my lawn.
(2/2)
I attended a beautiful memorial service for a dear family friend over the weekend, and, as is apparently inevitable these days, midway through a granddaughter’s heartfelt remembrances, someone’s phone started ringing.
Loudly.
Some old-time rock and roll came blasting through the room. After what seemed like an eternity, the neglectful owner located the offending device and silenced it — only for it to cry out again moments later.
(“That’s weird…Aunt Matilda always answers her phone. I’d better call her back.”)
The granddaughter graciously made light of it, and the rest of us shared an awkward chuckle.
But seriously: Why, in 2026, is this still happening?
Broadway theaters. Movie theaters. Houses of worship. Memorial services. Anywhere a large group of people gathers for quiet contemplation, it seems statistically inevitable that someone will have forgotten to silence their phone.
We have self-driving cars. We have artificial intelligence. We have watches that can detect when we fall down and refrigerators that can apparently judge our grocery choices. And yet we still rely on every single person in a crowded theater to remember to flip the little switch on the side of their phone.
(1/2)
If you must reheat fish in the break-room microwave, please be courteous to your fellow employees by replacing the microwave.
@tvaziri Pretty sure this scene from Dr. No is a Texas Switch, when they run behind the barrels.
My local grocer recently upgraded their self-checkout lanes with some kind of AI loss prevention system, using overhead cameras to track purchases.
So far it's 0-2 for me. The last two times I've gone through the checkout it's erroneously flagged me for thievery.
Perhaps I just have that look about me.
And now, we’re adding another layer.
Artificial intelligence.
AI can now generate convincing text, images, voices, and video at a scale we’ve never seen before. Which means that something very fundamental is changing: the relationship between our senses and reality.
For most of human history, “seeing is believing” was a pretty reliable rule.
That rule is breaking.
We’re entering a moment where what we see and hear can no longer be taken at face value. And that means every one of us is being asked to become a kind of full-time detective, constantly evaluating, verifying, second-guessing.
But here’s the problem: humans aren’t built for permanent vigilance.
Our brains evolved for trust. For cooperation. For social connection. Not for navigating an endless stream of carefully engineered manipulation.
So naturally, the question people start asking is: what do we do about it?
Some people say regulation. Treat this as a public health issue. Just as we eventually put guardrails around industries that harmed our bodies, unsafe food, polluted air, dangerous products, we might need guardrails around systems that harm our attention, our emotional stability, even our sense of reality.
But that’s difficult. Because the same economic forces that created these systems have enormous influence over the institutions that might regulate them.
Others think the answer might only come after a crisis, some kind of economic or social reset that forces us to rethink the incentives that shape our technologies.
Maybe.
I’ve been wrestling with a growing sense of frustration about the world we’re living in right now. And the more I try to understand it, the more I come back to a simple observation:
Nearly everything we interact with today has been optimized for extraction.
Extraction of our attention.
Extraction of our money.
Extraction of our outrage.
Extraction of our emotional energy.
If something can capture a little more of our focus, keep us scrolling a little longer, provoke us into reacting just a bit more intensely, there’s a system somewhere trying to do exactly that.
And in some ways, that shouldn’t surprise us. Over the past few decades, the people designing these systems have become very, very good at studying us. They’ve mapped the weak points in what we might affectionately call our monkey brains, the ancient wiring that governs curiosity, fear, belonging, and reward.
They know that novelty grabs us.
They know that anger spreads faster than calm.
They know that social validation can be addictive.
And when you combine behavioral psychology with enormous data sets and algorithms that can run millions of experiments a day, you get systems that are extraordinarily good at pushing those buttons.
Not because anyone necessarily set out to create a dystopia, but because the incentives reward whatever keeps us engaged the longest.
The result is something many of us feel, even if we can’t quite articulate it: a sense that there’s no real escape from the attention economy. It follows us everywhere. In our pockets. In our homes. In the tools we use to understand the world.
Zero Trust World has kicked off in Orlando. Thanks to ThreatLocker for hosting us this week.
Financial Times is not holding back.
What is love?
Love is smiling when your partner lights up at an old favorite song on the radio.
Love is nodding along as they say, “Ah, George Michael! I had this on a twelve-inch single, played it ‘til the needle gave up.”
And love - real love - is quietly resisting the urge to mention that the song currently playing… is actually by Tears for Fears.
That’s love. The kind that knows when to say nothing… and when to just turn up the volume.
Yes, yes, I hear you. But when you say “deep dive” do you mean Mariana Trench deep or fetching pennies from the bottom of the pool deep?
The delightful story of a prank Tom Lehrer played on the NSA.
https://bsky.app/profile/opalescentopal.bsky.social/post/3luxxx27nos23
The FBI brain drain is real, and disconcerting.
Diagnosed and replaced a faulty power supply in a device for my wife.
Her: “How do you know how to do this? Is this because you had that Radio Shack 150 in one kit when you were a kid?”
Me: “Pretty much, yeah.”
Online customer service chatbots are completely ill-equipped to assist with the issues of those trying to sort out services following the death of a loved one.
I'm looking at you, Comcast.
No, my deceased father doesn't need to add a voice line to his cable and internet services, you AI powered ghouls.
Sad to share my father passed away this week after a brief illness.
He was a kind, thoughtful man, dedicated to his family and his community.
https://www.harrywitzkefuneralhome.com/obituary/William-BittnerJr
The amazing @gcluley and I are both presenters at the ThreatLocker Zero Trust World conference currently in progress in Orlando, and had the opportunity to share a meal last night. If this is any indication, our presentations will bring our usual level of dignity and gravitas to the Very Serious Topic of cyber security.
#infosec
"Here’s a more charitable reading of cynicism: it’s not an intellectual position. It’s an emotional defense mechanism. If you expect the worst, you’ll never be disappointed. If you assume everything is corrupt, you can’t be betrayed.
But this protection comes at a terrible price. The cynic builds emotional armor that also functions as a prison, keeping out not just pain but also possibility, connection, and growth."
I've been struggling with cynicism lately, trying to resist its seductive embrace.
This piece has been helpful -
https://www.joanwestenberg.com/we-dont-need-more-cynics-we-need-more-builders/
