I’m making an initial version of places.pub available today. places.pub is a collection of Place objects suitable for use in geosocial applications on the ActivityPub network.

Part of my work in the Social Web Community Group at the W3C has been participation in the GeoSocial Task Force. This is a sub-group of the SocialCG that focuses on implementing user stories in ActivityPub related to the intersection of geographical systems and social networking, for example, tagging an image with the place it represents, or checking in to a location.

One important need for geosocial software is that all objects in ActivityPub, including Place objects, need to have a permanent URL as their id property, which shares the description of that object in Activity Streams 2.0 format. However, there isn’t a good dataset of geographical objects — countries, states or provinces or regions, cities, buildings, businesses, parks, streets — available in AS2 on the Web right now. That is slowing down experimentation in the Geosocial Task Force.

Using the service

So, I worked on making places.pub for geosocial hackers to experiment with. It’s a service that exposes places from the amazing OpenStreetMap collection of data as AS2 objects on the Web. So, given an OpenStreetMap object like the Rogers Centre Ottawa, it provides an AS2 version suitable for use in geosocial activities in ActivityPub. It also has a rudimentary search mechanism, although I think most users will want to use the Nominatim service for searching the OpenStreetMap database, and then map the IDs onto places.pub.

Once you know the places.pub ID for a place, you can use it for geotagging objects, people, activities, or using special geosocial activity types like check in, check out, and travel. There is a good list of examples on the places.pub home page, but obviously this is not an exhaustive list!

How it is built

This wasn’t my first time trying to build places.pub; I’d done two earlier versions with different architectures and the same interface. The first time out, about 7 years ago, I created a full NodeJS server that used a full mirror of the OpenStreetMap database, so I didn’t need to hit the OSM API to fetch data. It worked pretty well, but it was really expensive — hundreds of dollars per month to keep a database server of that size running and synched.

I tried a second version a few months ago, which did batch generation of AS2 Place objects from the OpenStreetMap exports, and then uploaded them to the S3 service at Amazon Web Services. This was a whole lot cheaper, but it took a long time to download, convert, and re-upload the data.

This third implementation, with source code available on GitHub, is a little bit easier than both. Instead of sloshing the huge OSM dataset back and forth, I used the version of the data stored in the Google Cloud Public Datasets system on BigQuery. This let me ignore the effort of moving data, and just focus on giving it a good ActivityPub-compatible interface using a Google Cloud Run function. It seems to work pretty nicely.

Next steps

I’d love to see some experimentation with using places.pub for geosocial activity in the social web. I’m going to work on some implementations in my own ActivityPub software. If you find problems with the software, please add an issue on GitHub or let me know on the Fediverse at @evanprodromou.

Die Liebste hat nächste Woche ein Seminar und mir deshalb gerade den Link zur Webseite des Veranstaltungsortes geschickt. Da habe ich dann drauf geklickt und war gelinde gesagt sehr erstaunt.

Es geht um die Webseite von Westhouse Augsburg. Nach dem ersten Klicken kommt die übliche Cookie-Abfraqge und da ich vom Team „Datensparsamkeit“ bin habe ich also alle Cookies bis auf die angeblich absolut notwendigen Cookies abgelehnt.

Danach kommt man auf die Startseite und die hat das Ambiente eines teuer gestalteten Hochglanzprospektes. Ich möchte mich aber gar nicht vom Glamour beeindrucken lassen, sondern will eigentlich nur wissen, wo wir hin müssen wenn meine Frau die Veranstaltung besuchen will. Auf der Startseite findet sich dazu erst mal kein Hinweis, doch dafür fällt mein Blick auf einen seltsamen „Kasten“ am rechten Fensterrand. Und da steht dann:

Sie sehen gerade einen Platzhalterinhalt von TrustIndex. Um auf den eigentlichen Inhalt zuzugreifen, klicken Sie auf die Schaltfläche unten. Bitte beachten Sie, dass dabei Daten an Drittanbieter weitergegeben werden.

Ja super. Warum glaubt ihr habe ich die Cookies abgelehnt? Damit ich mich jetzt mit Platzhaltern beschäftigen will…?

Nein ich suche immer noch die Adresse. Ganz oben gibt es in der Mitte das beliebte Hamburger-Menü und da gibtt es einen Punkt „Anfahrt“. Das sollte doch hoffentlich die Frage berantworten.

Doch weit gefehlt, es gibt wieder keine Adresse. Allerdings sehe ich die Beschreibung wie man mit dem Auto hin kommt und kann vermuten, wo das hier ist. Und statt einer Karte sehe ich folgenden „Platzhalter“:
Keine Kekse, keine Karten….
Na, da bin ich jetzt aber mal neugierig und klicke auf „Weitere Informationen“. Und da erscheint dann:
Der große Unbekannte….
Tja, und nun? Da fällt mir ein, dass wir ja von Rechts wegen nicht nur diese fürchterlichen Cookie-Dialoge haben sondern auch eine Impressumspflicht. Das Impressum ist am unteren Seitenrand verlinkt und siehe da, dort finde ich endlich Straße und Hausnummer des Veranstaltungsortes.

Bei solchen Webseiten wünsche ich mir manchmal schon das Web-Design der 90er zurück. Der Browser sagt, die Seite belegt gerade 175 MB Speicher. Für eine lausige Webseite…

I was on a panel on “AI” yesterday (was in German so I don’t link it i this post, specifics don’t matter too much) and a phrase came up that stuck with me on my way home (riding a bike is just the best thing for thinking). That phrase was

AI systems are just tools and we need to learn how to use them productively.

And – spoiler alert – I do not think that is true for most of the “AI” systems we see sold these days.

When you ask people to define what a “tool” is they might say something like “a tool is an object that enables or enhances your ability to solve a specific problem”. We think of tools as something augmenting our ability to do stuff. Now that isn’t false, but I think it hides or ignores some of the aspects that make a tool an actual tool. Let me give you an example.

I grew up in a rural area in the north of Germany. Which means there really wasn’t a lot to to TBH. This lead to me being able to open a beer bottle with a huge number of objects: Another bottle, a folding ruler, cutlery, a hammer, a piece of wood, etc. But is the piece of wood a tool or is it more of a makeshift kind of thing that I use tool-like?

Because an actual tool is designed for a certain way of solving a set of problems. Tools materialize not just intent but also knowledge and opinion on how to solve a specific problem, ideas about the people using the tools and their abilities as well as a model of the problem itself and the objects related to it. In that regard you can read a tool like a text.

A screwdriver for example assumes many things: For example about the structural integrity of the things you want to connect to each other and whether you are allowed to create an alteration to the object that will never go away (the hole that the screw creates). It also assumes that you have hands to grab the screwdriver and the strength to create the necessary torque.

I think there is a difference between fully formed tools (like a screwdriver or a program or whatever) and objects that get tool-like usage in a specific case. Sometimes these objects are still proto-tools, tools on their way of solidifying, experiments that try o settle on a model and a solution of the problem. Think a screwdriver where the handle is too narrow so you can’t grab it properly. Other objects are “makeshifts”, objects that could sometimes be used for something but that usage is not intended, not obvious. That’s me using a folding ruler to open a beer bottle (or another drink with a similar cap, but I learned it with beer).

Tools are not just “things you can use in a way”, they are objects that have been designed with great intent for a set of specific problems, objects that through their design make their intended usage obvious and clear (specialized tools might require you to have a set of domain knowledge to have that clarity). In a way tools are a way to transfer knowledge: Knowledge about the problem and the solutions are embedded in the tool through the design of it. Sure I could tell you that you can easily tighten a screw my applying the right torque to it, but that leaves you figuring out how to get that done. The tool contains that. Tools also often explicitly exclude other solutions. They are opinionated (more or less of course).

In the Python community there is a saying: “There should be one – and preferably only one – obvious way to do it.” This is what I mean. The better the tool, the clearer it’s guiding you towards a best practice solution. Which leads me to thinking about “AI”.

When I say “AI” here I am not talking about specialized machine learning models that are intended for a very specific case. Think a visual model that only detects faces in a video feed. I am thinking about “AI” as it is pushed into the market by OpenAI, Anthropic etc.: “AI” is this one solution to everything (eventually).

And here the tool idea falls apart: ChatGPT isn’t designed for anything. Or as Stephen Farrugia argues in this video: AI is presented as a Swiss army knife, “as something tech loves to compare its products to, is something that might be useful in some situations.“

This is not a tool. This is not a well-designed artifact that tries to communicate you clear solutions to your actual problems and how to implement them. It’s a playground, a junk shop where you might eventually find something interesting. It’s way less a way to solve problems that a way to keep busy feeling like you are working on a problem while doing something else.

Again, there are neural networks and models that clearly fit into my definition of a tool. But here we are at the distinction of machine learning an “AI” again: Machine learning is written in Python, AI is written in LinkedIn posts and Powerpoint presentations.

Tool making is a social activity. Tools often do not emerge fully formed but go through iterations withing a community, take their final shape through the use by a community of practitioners and their feedback. All tools we use today are deeply social, historical objects that have embedded the knowledge and experiences of hundreds or thousands of people in order to create “progress”, to formalize certain solutions so we can spend our brain capacity on figuring out the next thing or to just create something beautiful or fun. Our predecessors have suffered through proto-tools and all the hurt that comes from using them so we wouldn’t have to. And this social, temporal context is all part of a tool.

And the big “AI” systems that supposedly are “just tools” now do not have any of that. They are a new thing but for most problems they hope that you find ways of using them. They do in a way take away hundreds of years of social learning and experience and leave you alone in front of an empty prompt field.

So no, I do not think that the “AI” systems that big tech wants us to use (and rent from them) are tools. They are makeshifts at best.

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In der Nähe von Moskau ist ein General bei einer Explosion ums Leben gekommen. Die Ermittler sprechen von
einem Verbrechen. Es ist nicht der erste Anschlag auf ranghohe russische Militärs.

Bei einem Bombenanschlag im Moskauer Vorort Balaschicha ist laut russischen Behörden Generalleutnant Jaroslaw
Moskalik getötet worden. Der leitende Mitarbeiter des russischen Generalstabs sei bei einer Explosion eines Autos ums
Leben gekommen, teilte das Ermittlungskomitee in Moskau mit. Die Detonation sei durch einen selbstgebauten Sprengsatz
ausgelöst worden.
In der Nähe von Moskau ist ein General bei einer Explosion ums Leben gekommen. Die Ermittler sprechen von
einem Verbrechen. Es ist nicht der erste Anschlag auf ranghohe russische Militärs.

Ranghohe Offiziere in Moskau und auch Propagandisten sind seit Beginn des russischen Angriffskrieges gegen die Ukraine immer wieder Ziele von Anschlägen.

Bereits im Dezember Bombenanschlag auf russischen General

„Das Ermittlungs- und Einsatzteam, dem Ermittler, Kriminalisten, Experten sowie Mitglieder der operativen Einheiten der Strafverfolgungsbehörde angehören, hat mit der Untersuchung des Tatorts begonnen“, sagte Swetlana Petrenko, die Sprecherin des Ermittlungskomitees.

Im Dezember kam der prominente General Igor Kirillow bei einem Bombenanschlag vor seinem Wohnhaus ums Leben. Ermittler stuften die Explosion, bei der auch Kirillows Adjutant starb, als Terroranschlag ein. Der ukrainische Geheimdienst bekannte sich zu der Tat. Die Detonation war durch einen Sprengsatz verursacht worden, der in einem Elektroroller versteckt worden war. Der 54-Jährige gehörte zu den bekanntesten Gesichtern des russischen Angriffskrieges gegen die Ukraine.