This week we feature articles from Sayash Kapoor & Arvind Narayanan, and Philip Guo.
Additional reading comes from Steve Jones, Alberto Romero, Shawn Wang & Alessio Fanelli, and Anthony Chavez.
News comes from Adobe, Access Innovations, Syncro Soft, and Elastic.
Our next issue arrives May 14.
All previous issues are available at https://gilbane.com/gilbane-advisor-index
Opinion / Analysis
AI as normal technology
“We articulate a vision of artificial intelligence (AI) as normal technology. To view AI as normal is not to understate its impact—even transformative, general-purpose technologies such as electricity and the internet are “normal” in our conception. But it is in contrast to both utopian and dystopian visions of the future of AI which have a common tendency to treat it akin to a separate species, a highly autonomous, potentially superintelligent entity.”
This paper by Sayash Kapoor & Arvind Narayanan has been getting a lot of attention, not because it is radical, but because it is a grounded, reasoned, centered, and promising worldview of AI. An important read. (73 min)
https://www.aisnakeoil.com/p/ai-as-normal-technology
Vibe coding, vibe checking, and vibe blogging
Using generative AI for personal-scale projects
I’ve experimented with a few GenAI writing tools but haven’t found a productive use for them — too much untrusting micromanagement by me — so haven’t even considered code generation or vibe coding. That is until I read this piece by Philip Guo describing his experiment with vibe coding, and tips for building trust with vibe checking. (10 min)
https://www.oreilly.com/radar/vibe-coding-vibe-checking-and-vibe-blogging
More Reading
- “Zero-Copy” — a modern data fantasy via metamirror
- ChatGPT’s excessive sycophancy has set off everyone’s alarm bells via The Algorithmic Bridge
- Please stop forcing Clippy on those who want Anton via Latent Space
- Next steps for Privacy Sandbox and tracking protections in Chrome via Privacy Sandbox
Content technology news
Adobe announces updated Firefly
Firefly combines new Firefly image and video models and the choice of models from partners including Google Cloud and OpenAI. Firefly Boards are in beta.
https://news.adobe.com/news//2025/04/adobe-delivers-creative-pros-unparalleled-speed-precision-flexibility
Access Innovations releases catalogue of 53 Knowledge Domains
The Knowledge Domain products can enhance content prior to ingestion into large language models (LLMs) and will provide improved GPT outputs.
https://www.accessinn.com/2025/04/24/releasing-catalog-of-53-knowledge-domains/
Syncro Soft releases Oxygen Content Fusion 8.1
Version 8.1 streamlines DITA content management and collaboration, with flexible project creation, enhanced file comparison and merging, and new AI-enabled features.
https://www.oxygenxml.com/content_fusion/whats_new.html
Elastic’s Cloud Serverless now on Google Cloud Marketplace
Elastic Cloud Serverless provides a fast way to start and scale security, observability, and search solutions without managing infrastructure.
https://www.elastic.co/blog/elastic-cloud-serverless-google-cloud-general-availability
The Gilbane Advisor is authored by Frank Gilbane and is ad-free, cost-free, and curated for content, computing, data, web, and digital experience technology and information professionals. We publish recommended articles and content technology news most Wednesdays. We do not sell or share personal data.
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