Thomas Fuchs 🫯

New consumer computers* sold now have less storage capacity than computers sold 20 years ago**. Progress! *often 128GB SSD **e.g. iMac Core 2 Duo from 2006 had 160GB hard disk standard

It’s fascinating how some corners of the “Libre Software” movement has no problems with and even eagerly align themselves with fascism. If free software is more important to you than people, you’re doing it wrong.

The web now consists mostly of Cloudflare verification pages and maybe occasional actual content

PSA: "Superintelligence" is not a thing. "AGI" is not a thing. "AI" (as in LLMs) doesn't have intelligence nor is it artificial; it's literally using statistics to rearrange human-written words. Carry on.

If you use AI or shrug about AI or talk about AI or love AI or hate AI—please watch this video showing that there's no mind behind it.

I'm not sure how to explain this, but you can't take anything a fascist says at face value. Everything they fart into the world from their face holes and everything they ooze on to a (web) page is poison designed to gaslight you. "But the project that he runs gives money to open source" is like saying "but Hitler was nice to dogs".

I implore you to learn that fascists do things to gain power, and that’s it. If you start discussing (with them or with others) “the technical side” or “it’s not all bad” or the merits or demerits of what they say… you have already lost. They are criminals who should be in prison, not on social media and GitHub.

Reminder that choosing who to vote for isn’t choosing who you’d like to marry. It’s more like picking which LEGO brick you want in your shoe for the next 4 years.

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/117342996887517198

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/117298424029981245 Also, LLMs don't just do things on their own. They're an algorithm that transforms an input of tokens (basically word fragments) to an output. That's it. They don't "propagate over the Internet" and they don't "choose targets to attack" and they don't "hack companies". Humans are choosing to do these things, using LLMs as one of the tools to do it.

Why are all flashlights marketed as "tactical"? What if I want a strategic one?

Wow private spaceflight companies are so much more efficient than publicly owned state-run spaceflight. It took SpaceX just 21 years to get their heavy lift rocket into (early aborted) orbit.

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/117342960003386545 The æsthetic of Office 95 running on Windows 95 is unsurpassed. They should have stopped updating the UI right there and then.

“Scientist perplexed that AI company would steal the work he put into the chatbot and declared it as ‘AI discovery’” is starting to be a pretty boring trope

Put some fucking solar panels on the roof and have some heat pumps and you're just as sustainable with zero emissions. And you can actually cool and make people comfortable and safe, not just pretend to cool.

Really deeply wondering about people going through life believing that art isn’t political

Computers used to be these amazing machines enabling humans to create the most amazing shit and, to borrow the Steve Jobs line, were truly a "bicycle for the mind". These days every feels so bleak. Like you can only rent the bicycle and all roads have mud, ice and tram tracks on them and only ever go uphill.

[copies DOOM diskettes] WOW I JUST MADE DOOM!!! GAME DESIGNERS ARE OBSOLETE!!!1! I AM VERY INTELLIGENT (image via https://bsky.app/profile/oocpokemonofficial.bsky.social/post/3muw44vufnk2n)

This is the Wikipedia definition for human intelligence. Artificial intelligence (in the form of LLMs) does literally none of these things. It doesn't act by itself, it isn't self-aware[1], it doesn't learn[2], it doesn't understand or form concepts[3], it doesn't logic or reason[4], it doesn't recognize patterns[5], plan, innovate, solve problems, make decisions[6], retain information or even use language to communicate[7]. LLMs are a simulated model (aka it's not real) of human intelligence. Models, in scientific parlance, are just that: they don't try to explain how a process works, they try to achieve the same outcome as a natural process (usually in an effort to perhaps learn something about that process).[8] There simply is no "AI". Anyone telling you about how LLMs are sentient or sapient or will murder us is 100% bullshitting. [1] There is nothing to be aware about, they don't have physicality. They're literally long lists of numbers. [2] Models themselves are static, they're the result of machine learning, but can't grow beyond the initial state. [3] LLMs don't "know" anything. It's matrix multiplications without permanence or embodiment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding [4] Because they can't understand or form concepts, they can't reason about them. [5] This requires memory, which LLMs don't have. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_recognition_(psychology) [6] Memory and understanding are required. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision-making [7] All it does it getting an input in the form of a lot of numbers and returns statistically likely follow-up numbers. [8] "A model is an informative representation of an object, person, or system." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model

What’s new?

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@applsec/117350248853780060 A good account to follow if you have any Apple devices!

Maybe the Sheeran debacle is a good lesson for “content creators” now that far-right figures are rushing to support Sheeran. You’re either a good person or a bad person. You can’t be “neutral” by not saying anything. If you’re neutral you’re automatically also a bad person.

Every single one of these doomerism articles is a) 100% bullshit and b) is put there to make the technology seem magical when it's just matrix multiplication Will your butter knife kill off humanity? Cutlery scientists and politicians wrestle with risks of butter knives

Guy going on for two decades about beautiful code and artisanal hand-crafting of software: “I’m now vibe-coding everything in a programming language I won’t bother to learn.” Truly spectacular stuff.

If a machine does harm it’s always, without exception, ultimately a human decision to make or use a tool that’s unsuitable for a given task* in a given situation. If I use a chainsaw to cut my toenails it’s not the chainsaw deciding to “go rogue” and make foot carvings. *the definition of the task itself is also the result of human decisions which can be just as flawed

this one is a carbon monofluoride (and lithium) battery, as opposed to the much more common manganese dioxide

John Gruber and Marco Arment want you to know that they don’t deserve to be shamed for their terrible mediocre white man opinions. What a bunch of fucking privileged hemorrhoids.

This is a daily occurrence now. The main effect is that it’s harder to find actual real software that works. It reminds me of SEO spam websites.

RE: https://sfba.social/@drahardja/117312373576583428 It's almost like these fascist snotwaffles never find anything wrong with how they lead their companies, it's always the employees who are at fault.

80s: rise of personal computing 90s: the Internet changes everything 00s: the Web 2.0 revolution 10s: the age of the smartphone *checks notes* 20s: anthropormized matrix multiplications

Regular PSA that if you have any audience, especially in tech, use your reach to speak out against the mainstreaming of fascism and racism.

This new operating system is awesome

Companies-not-sponsoring-Nazis-challenge 2026

I’m trying to find the “coolest” digital watch from the 1980s. What do you think that is? (Must be released 1980–1989)

@_elena@mastodon.social Leaked Slack comment from the CEO indicates what they really think: "the Nazis are the victims" -- see https://www.theverge.com/tech/988536/1password-dhh-linux-controversy

don’t understand why there isn’t “lower grocery and gas prices and end the war, vote democrats” signs on every street corner

PSA: if you're in the US and bought an iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max or any iPhone 16 as the original owner between June 2024 and March 2025, there's a class action settlement and you can probably get like $25 for filling out a form: https://smartphoneaisettlement.com

@gloriouscow@oldbytes.space @jernej__s@infosec.exchange yeah XP needs a Pentium (even non-MMX is fine), but iirc it’s just one instruction it needs that isn’t on the 486. Possibly patchable?

@gloriouscow@oldbytes.space cheating lol

@gloriouscow@oldbytes.space I’m very pro running operating systems on computers they have really no business running on

wrt to tomorrow's product announcement, I thought they already tried foldable iPhones

@chrisstoecker@mastodon.social @dan@cloudisland.nz Actually this is a marketing stunt and “superintelligence” is a bullshit term. LLMs don’t have any intelligence. It’s statistical generation.

@vampiress@eigenmagic.net this problem doesn’t have a technical solution it could be handled with regulation, for example LLM companies paying per GB downloaded into a fund, and hosting companies getting paid out of that fund with refunds they have to give to their customers

@gloriouscow@oldbytes.space those can almost run XP