About IWTF.io

Introduction

This is the oldweb site for the Internet Weirdness Task Force.

The Internet Weirdness Task Force is one of the longest-running Urbit groups, dedicated to posting and discussing weird content found on the Internet, 'until there is none left'. Thus far, the production of insanity by the Internet has largely outstripped our capabilities. The ancestor group of IWTF was launched shortly after Tlon released OS 1 for Urbit, and has survived 7 continuity breaches since early 2020. The name 'IWTF' was originally coined by 🌍~fonnyx-nopmer in 2020 or 2021.

In practice, this site consolidates posts from the Thanked Noumena blog, Notes on a Permanent Explosion, the Holy Living Creatures worldbuilding project, and various other bits of Urbit culture. It is mostly run by 🌍~litmus-ritten.

About the Creation of This Site

The web server for this site is mostly written by Claude Code as an experiment.

What's With the Silverfish?

The mascot of the IWTF is an enormous silverfish named 'Shamir'. This tradition dates back to 🌍~rabsef-bicrym disclosing (for some reason) that his most disliked (hypothetical) insect would be a lengthened silverfish (genetic engineering, gentle stretching, or a combination). The genetic engineering of enormous elongate silverfish is a long-term goal of the IWTF, and all we really need at this point is seed funding, floor-to-ceiling glass tubes, genetic engineers, genetic engineering consumables, etc.

Any Relation With 'Project Silverfish'?

No, but you should definitely play it.

About Disclosure Cards

Readers will note that posts on IWTF.io have a number of metadata cards which may appear. Overall, these cards are intended to provide a body of information which is edifying in its own right, and which aids the understanding of the main work.

Generative AI

These cards indicate if and to what extent a post is, contains, or is informed by 'generative AI' content, considered broadly. This card will always appear, but may be 'Nil', indicating that the relevant post does not contain generative AI content, was not based on AI-generated content, and has not been subject to review or modification by generative AI. Transclusions of external content which is known to be AI-generated (for instance, for the purposes of critical commentary) will be indicated with a '3rd Party' card.

Why?

The manufacture of intelligence competitive with that of human beings stands to radically and irreversibly transform the human condition. You may be happy or unhappy with the present moment. Apprehension is a natural emotion. But the toothpaste doesn't go back into the tube because we will it. We live within a hard exponential excursion which we call 'technological civilisation'. We were all born into it, and it looks normal from the inside until it doesn't.

The most important question we are likely to be able to answer regarding a new technology is whether we bear an intentional relationship with it, or otherwise. I believe that this question is a particular emergency where the technology operates at the porous boundaries of selfhood, as is certainly the case with generative AI. It is also important where the technology is polarising, and where conversations across the division have a poor signal-to-noise ratio. In this view, a rigorous and dispassionate accounting of generative AI use is an important aspect of dignifying one's audience, and taking the technology and one's relationship with it seriously.

Conflict of Interest

These cards indicate the extent to which the post has an actual or apparent conflict of interest, considered broadly. An actual conflict of interest is where there is a relationship between the subject matter of the post and the author, where the author stands to obtain a concrete, non-trivial benefit from the post in light of that relationship. An apparent conflict of interest is where someone could reasonably believe that an actual conflict of interest may exist, but no such conflict exists. These cards will always appear.

Tools Used

This is a (non-exhaustive) enumeration of software tools which were used in relation to a particular post, for the interest of readers. This is inspired by the 'tools used' metadata on ArtStation.

Acknowledgements

Where a post includes or derives content provided by third parties not acknowledged in the text itself, these contributions will be credited.