Shared on work Slack today:

Number go up.

Interview: AI is not the threat. It's the people building it "that are the existential risks to humanity."

"If a bridge collapses, we don’t ever ask, “Was the bridge uncontrollable? Was the bridge unethical?” And really, AI is no different than that."

When we describe these systems as if they have their own agency, we’re helping the companies market themselves. "We’re also helping them sidestep accountability."

~Timnit Gebru

https://www.democracynow.org/2026/10/1/timnit_gebru_ai

#USPol #EUPol #News #AI #TechFascism ...2

@gooba42 well, I’m an engineer and I don’t think “going rogue” is a useful term either colloquially or technically here. It’s buggy software. Or maybe not buggy, but intentionally malicious. But either way, software lacks the agency required to up and decide to “go rogue” on its own. It does what the software is programmed to do.

Complex software behaving in unexpected and sometimes harmful ways has been a persistent problem since software was invented. The phenomenon used to be called “bugs” or “defects”, but I guess “going rogue” sounds cooler. It also implicitly frames “rogue” behavior as some kind of inexplicable exception, as if software is somehow usually trustworthy. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/technology/openais-ai-us-government-websites.html?unlocked_article_code=1.EFE.RfLT.x6YBjHa1PMz6

TheBlower.au is a general Mastodon server based in Australia. Do you need to sort it out? Get on The Blower! You don’t have to be Australian to post here, but it helps.

This server has a post size of up to 1000 characters.

:Fediverse: https://theblower.au

You can find out more at https://theblower.au/about or contact the admin account @geton

#FeaturedServer #Australia #Australian #Aussie #DownUnder #Mastodon #Fediverse #FreeFediverse

No one covers the pernicious, pervasive reality of American racism than Nikole Hannah-Jones, and this is a must-read example of her work: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/magazine/ny-public-schools-black-students-segregation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.C1E.if0i.qr8eUEpo23fN&smid=url-share

You seem to be doing something. This obviously requires my oversight and assistance.

- every dog

OpenAI’s sly mathematical breakthrough sends a chill through academia…
#technology #thegeektribune
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/992953/openai-math-millennium-prize-navier-stokes

Every time I see this kind of news, the summary is the same.

* AI is prohibitively expensive
(AI is also notoriously bad at math)

* The claim is not verified
(AI is notoriously a bad platform to develop facts)

* AI helped itself to the results of another researcher to manufacture a "win".
(AI is notorious.)

#AI #OpenAI #Technology

https://www.newsbeep.com/uk/764436/

"One guy in #Sweden built a #searchengine to fight Google, and it works.

It's called #MarginaliaSearch.

It runs its own #crawler and builds its own #index instead of borrowing Bing's. It has no ads, no investors, and no loans.

What it does differently: it ranks for text-heavy, non-commercial pages. Personal blogs. Old university pages.

The weird corners SEO strangled. Every result tells you whether the page uses affiliate links and JavaScript, and you can filter them out.

There's an "explore" mode that just shows you random sites from the index. It's open source under AGPL, so you can host your own copy.

It's keyword-based, so don't type a full question at it. Type two nouns and see where you land. Every #searchengine now shows you the same twelve #monetizedpages."

https://marginalia-search.com/

.gitignore Everything by Default

Link: https://packagemain.tech/p/gitignore-everything-by-default
Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49576258

This by Cal Newport is very good, though I wish it would cite work on #TESCREAL (Google it) & its eugenicist roots. *That* is how scary crazy the AI boys are. It's not the technology; it's the technologists.
How Scared Should We Be of A.I. Right Now? https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/05/opinion/ai-silicon-valley.html?unlocked_article_code=1.-1A.hKhM.r3w6ETo4k4Zj&smid=tw-share

TAKE YOUR BALLOTS TO A DROP BOX THIS NOVEMBER.

Don't use a mailbox. Use a ballot drop box, because the US postal service is _already_ fucking with ballots.

This is not a guess, theory, or extrapolation, this is an _observed fact_. Here's the Thurston County auditor talking about postal service fuckery during the primary, and some of the steps they're taking to get around it:

https://www.thurstoncountywa.gov/news/we-are-still-getting-ballots-should-have-counted-primary

Imagine express mail taking 19 days to deliver to the _next county over_. Literally behaviour they've never seen before. That's they kind of fuckery they're seeing.

Take your ballot to a BALLOT DROP BOX, not a mailbox.

#usps #election #elections #seattle #cascadia #2026midterms #midterms2026 #fascism #FuckTrump #FuckTheGOP #FuckFascism

@GossiTheDog we're witnessing how 1930s would look like if they had internet and games

"OpenAI’s president claims AI is as capable as humans now"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/09/03/openai-greg-brockman-says-its-new-model-astra-is-agi/
#ai #OpenAI #HypeCycle

8hrs until Bandcamp Friday! Start marking what music you want to buy (and own, and not have disappear because of a change in subscription terms). I've missed the last couple so I'm teeing a few albums up now!

Also, if you're an artist, share your music here! I love when I find people on fedi sharing their music! I don't always buy, but I try to always go have a listen

#BandcampFriday

Models Don't Go Rogue

https://mail.cyberneticforests.com/models-dont-go-rogue/

#HackerNews #Tech #AI

If you're wanting to self-host a password manager you might want to check out Vaultwarden. It's a free open source alternative to 1Password, Bitwarden etc. It is compatible with Bitwarden clients but is a totally separate project. More info at:

🌱 https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden

It's available to self-host through @yunohost at https://apps.yunohost.org/app/vaultwarden or by installing manually using the instructions at https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden#usage

#SelfHosting #Vaultwarden #1Password #Bitwarden #Alternatives #FOSS

REM be like :thisisfine:🔥

life can be good random and bad random, so i really really appreciate good random. this made my day.