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Bruce Davie

@Drbruced@aus.social

mastodon 4.7.2

Computer scientist/engineer/author/runner/cyclist. Former SF resident reunited with the world's finest coffee town. Co-founder/publisher at Systems Approach, LLC. Co-author of "Computer Networks: A Systems Approach" among other computing books.
Occasional contributor to The Register.
Searchable.
Header photo: Melbourne city skyline seen through the trees from Yarra Bend.
#nobridge

821 Followers

750 Following

19 Posts

Joined November 02, 2022

website:

https://www.systemsapproach.org/

newsletter:

https://systemsapproach.org/newsletter

GitHub:

https://github.com/drbruced12

Tech Writing:

https://www.theregister.com/Tag/Systems%20Approach

Bruce Davie @Drbruced@aus.social

· 3mo ago

This is a good piece from @emilymbender@dair-community.social on how to use language to push back on “AI” (or “probabilistic automation” as she suggests) and stop anthropomorphising the synthetic text extruders. https://buttondown.com/maiht3k/archive/how-to-talk-about-ai-without-adding-to-the/

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Bruce Davie @Drbruced@aus.social

· 6mo ago

Never mind panic-buying petrol, I’m going to panic-buy an EV

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Bruce Davie @Drbruced@aus.social

· 6mo ago

Replying to

Woke up around sunrise the next day and walked to the saddle between Fainters North and South. After a beautiful sunrise, and a rainbow, the rain arrived so we returned to camp for a damp breakfast and packed up for return trip. No detour via Jaithmathang on the return, saving a few hours. A lot of the walk was in drizzle but it cleared by the end. Mt. Feathertop and the Razorback in the middle picture (with just visible rainbow). 3/n

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Bruce Davie @Drbruced@aus.social

· 7mo ago

I really like this viewpoint on AI performing "semantic ablation". It hits home as I work diligently to write a textbook that contains plenty of nuance and (I hope) a unique perspective on the topic (computer networking).

"By running a text through successive AI "refinement" loops, the vocabulary diversity (type-token ratio) collapses. The process performs a systematic lobotomy across three distinct stages:
- Stage 1: Metaphoric cleansing. The AI identifies unconventional metaphors or visceral imagery as "noise" because they deviate from the training set's mean. It replaces them with dead, safe clichés, stripping the text of its emotional and sensory "friction."
Stage 2: Lexical flattening. Domain-specific jargon and high-precision technical terms are sacrificed for "accessibility." The model performs a statistical substitution, replacing a 1-of-10,000 token with a 1-of-100 synonym, effectively diluting the semantic density and specific gravity of the argument.
Stage 3: Structural collapse. The logical flow – originally built on complex, non-linear reasoning – is forced into a predictable, low-perplexity template. Subtext and nuance are ablated to ensure the output satisfies a "standardized" readability score, leaving behind a syntactically perfect but intellectually void shell.
#AIslop #writing

https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/16/semantic_ablation_ai_writing/

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Bruce Davie @Drbruced@aus.social

· 6mo ago

First batch of #hotcrossbuns for the season. Some work to be done on my cross technique #baking #sourdough

Aus.Social

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Bruce Davie @Drbruced@aus.social

· 6mo ago

Replying to

We had lunch on the first day at the summit of Mt. Jaithmathang (1852m) and then followed a set of GPS waypoints along the ridge to avoid backtracking. Without doubt the hardest bush bash I’ve ever done. Took about 3 hours to cover 4km. Certainly longer that the backtracking option but at least we earned our dinner. Rewarded with the most fantastic campsite with panoramic views at 1800m on the slopes of the Fainters. Amazing golden hour and sunset. #bushwalking #hiking #sunset 2/n

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Bruce Davie @Drbruced@aus.social

· 6mo ago

Replying to

I’d rank this among the best 2 day hikes I’ve done. We spoke to a few people along the way and heard of overcrowding at some campsites, but no one was camping out at the Fainters, which are a bit off the main hiking routes. The bush bash was definitely Type 2 fun but certainly made for an interesting and challenging day, that was ultimately capped off with the perfect campsite. 4/4

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Bruce Davie @Drbruced@aus.social

· 2mo ago

RE: https://dair-community.social/@emilymbender/116935294823990847 Here’s my input to ACM on opening up the Digital Library to LLMs. I would argue that LLMs are one of the most comprehensively negative developments in computer science that I’ve seen in my 40-year career. There is solid evidence that the “hallucination” problem is not going away, so they will continue to mislead people in a way that direct access to a digital library does not. Ingesting the contents of the ACM DL is not going to solve that problem. ACM should continue to drive readers directly to peer reviewed sources in the DL, not urge them to get probabilistic summaries from an LLM. ACM should also not ignore the massive societal impacts of LLMs.Their energy demands are setting back the transition to decarbonised energy grids. Their water demands are exacerbating existing shortages of water needed for communities and agriculture. Their models have been frequently built using stolen intellectual property and poorly paid human labour. None of this is consistent with the values of ACM.

Quoting

Prof. Emily M. Bender(she/her)

@emilymbender@dair-community.social

RE: https://mastodon.acm.org/@ACM/116929782094395296 This is the weirdest request for input that I've seen in a while. It's almost like the ACM is sitting at the table with the "change my mind" sign. So, let's do it. Short thread with the input I gave them:

Open quoted post

dair-community.social

Prof. Emily M. Bender(she/her): "This is the weirdest request for input that I've …" - Distributed AI Research Community

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Bruce Davie @Drbruced@aus.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

I take this to be a version of the "symbol grounding problem" raised by Rodney Brooks: that LLMs can't "ground" the language they produce and consume in the real world, having no experience of the latter. https://rodneybrooks.com/three-things-that-llms-have-made-us-rethink/

rodneybrooks.com

Three Things That LLMs Have Made Us Rethink – Rodney Brooks

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Bruce Davie @Drbruced@aus.social

· 6mo ago

Replying to

Belatedly adding this photo of @Christybon making her way through the scrub on our descent from Mt. Jaithmathang. It was like this for most of the 3 hour bush bash, except sometimes the bushes were up to @Christybon head height. #bushbash #bushwalking 5/5

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Bruce Davie @Drbruced@aus.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@markrprior@ohai.social Paul Magnier (FRA) Jonathan Milan (ITA) Jonas Vingegaard (DEN) Adam Yates (GBR) Jai Hindley (AUS) Felix Gall (AUT) Enric Mas (ESP) Arnaud De Lie (BEL) #8NationsGiro #CouchPeloton

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Bruce Davie @Drbruced@aus.social

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@blp when I lived in Scotland it was certainly hard to find peanut butter in anything other than a tiny jar. Sharing a flat with a Canadian and two U.S.ians, I hunted down the giant tubs of PB from the local whole foods shop. Perhaps your Scottish source was extrapolating from his experience.

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Bruce Davie @Drbruced@aus.social

· 5mo ago

I was a guest on the Heavy Networking podcast, talking about routing performance and the recent improvements to the shortest path algorithm. A fun discussion for me at least https://packetpushers.net/podcasts/heavy-networking/hn825-faster-than-dijkstra-exploring-a-new-shortest-path-algorithm-with-bruce-davie/
#networking #podcast

packetpushers.net

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Bruce Davie @Drbruced@aus.social

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@regehr presumably such FT systems will be deployed en masse into the forthcoming SpaceX orbiting data centers

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Bruce Davie @Drbruced@aus.social

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@huitema I despair when I see competent colleagues putting their trust in ChatGPT et al. for their technical writing. I've already had one experience of a colleague attributing a hallucinated quote to me, but this article on ablation really gets to the more pernicious downsides of outsourcing our work to a statistical averaging machine.

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Bruce Davie @Drbruced@aus.social

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@dkalintsev Good to hear! What have you found the practical range to be?

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Bruce Davie @Drbruced@aus.social

· 5mo ago

Replying to

@SteveBellovin Fantastic idea!

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