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jwz wrote:

Every time someone says "frontier model", Frontier Psychiatrist starts playing in my head. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLrnkK2YEcE

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Boosted by neatnik@social.lol ("Neatnik :prami:"):
pzumk@social.lol ("ptrck") wrote:

RE: https://social.lol/@neatnik/117227874076649666

☕️ oof, marco arment takes a break from mastodon following the controversy about his latest blog post (?) → https://mastodon.social/@marcoarment/117236086800477879

Screenshot of Marco Arment's post to his Mastodon Followers. The text posted is the following quote: "I'm taking a break from this place for a while. Maybe forever. I don't know where I'll be. Every similar option is bad. But this is no longer my online home. I don't want this to be dramatic or inspire any reactions. Just want to set expectations that I'm not going to see responses. And this won't affect ATP or my other work."

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Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen"):
stsp@bsd.network ("Stefan Sperling") wrote:

There are forks of the #GameOfTrees version control system popping up merely because of worries that the project might eventually succumb to accepting LLM-generated contributions, then ending up on other people's lists of #noAI LLM-free alternatives.

Fork the code as much as you want, but please don't let your potential users hanging when important issues get fixed upstream, and keep in mind that I don't work with LLMs, have never even once asked an LLM for anything, and I don't intend to start. I don't believe the other developers involved are all as pristine as myself, but I've met most of them in person, do trust them, and have never seen anyone commit code which looked like they didn't write it.

As a community we are losing trust in established projects within the FOSS ecosystem very fast right now. I understand and share many of the concerns about LLMs, but the trend to quickly fork projects out of spite and fear without communication is also worrying. If you maintain a list of recommendations, please ask upstream projects which do not already have an obvious pro-LLM stance before recommending forks with little to no track record, especially when the software in question might handle sensitive data.

I have added the following to the project's README file. Not sure if this counts as a policy. To me it feels more like I'm writing down what should be common sense.

"""
Game of Trees is entirely handwritten and contributions generated by LLMs
will not be accepted. The main author (Stefan Sperling) has successfully
been avoiding LLMs and would prefer to keep it that way, even if/when legal
uncertainties around the copyright status of LLM-generated output settle.

Should you feel a need to ask an LLM questions in order to help you understand
something, try asking us first. If you are truly trying to wrap your head
around something then you will learn from us, and we will learn from you.
We may have some expertise you are lacking, but because we cannot ignore what
we already know, we can be blind to problems you are seeing. Our code and
documentation can likely be improved as a result of communication, even before
you send a first patch.
"""

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jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

“The justice’s order deferred to Missouri’s Supreme Court, which last week blocked the use of the new map even though it had been used in last month’s primary election.”

JFC ppl

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/08/us/politics/supreme-court-missouri-congressional-map.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

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Boosted by jwz:
zzt@mas.to ("[object Object]") wrote:

serious journalists: is AI alive? we asked this panel of experts who work for the companies that sell AI

also serious journalists: some historians claim the alleged Roman salute displayed by musk was definitely a nazi salute. however,

also also serious journalists: we revealed banksy’s identity because of a non-credible conspiracy theory that he was being paid by the government, extremely sour grapes about the idea that he might have occasionally made money off his work, and a vague high school newspaper gesture towards the public’s “right to know” about a pseudonymous counter-cultural artist during a time when counter-cultural artists are being jailed. pulitzer please

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jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

“The couple had a son in 2024 but have since separated. St Clair says Musk’s team offered her a $40m lump-sum payment and a monthly stipend of $100,000 in return for her signing a non-disclosure agreement but withdrew the offer after she refused to sign it.”

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/sep/08/elon-musk-ashley-st-clair-documentary-venice?CMP=Share%5FiOSApp%5FOther

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dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

the ABI era is here. the ABI in question is C, of course it's bloody C.

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glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

I'm not saying that if you vibe-code a single demo you're going to become suicidal and psychotic, _most_ usage is normal and most harm is slow and incremental, and maybe not even cumulative. But whether it's cumulative or whether it's severe depends in part on how you self-observe and how you think about your own safety! You should think about your own safety!

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glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

These tools are NOT designed to be safe and there are oceans of evidence that they're incredibly risky to use. (for starters, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths%5Flinked%5Fto%5Fchatbots). I care about you! You should care about yourself! You are not Built Different and neither am I, in fact if anything my psychological profile is especially vulnerable to such things and that's why I am extra careful and somewhat squicked out by them!

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glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

Also, and I mean this, _sometimes_ in the Discourse Vortex we manage to actually get _somewhere_ productive on some of these questions, but we typically run out of time about a question that I care about _more_: how are you protecting *yourself* from the deleterious effects of vibe sickness and AI psychosis and self-radicalization and disinformation? As an LLM user the biggest externality that causes harm is *to you*, and I care about you not cooking your own brain while using them!

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glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

here are some things that *don't* count as this:

"I like the way it makes me feel, so it's fine" [that's great for you, but doesn't address any externalities]
"You're just being ridiculous if you can't acknowledge the benefits" [what benefits? seriously, if you're going to say this, at least drop a link?]
"what about beef/video games/conflict minerals/fascism" [these things *do* have answers but they're long and complicated and it's just whataboutism at the end of the day anyway]

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
samlitzinger@journa.host ("Sam Litzinger") wrote:

This may be the end of the Smithsonian, which might well be the single greatest loss in American cultural history.

https://apnews.com/article/lonnie-bunch-smithsonian-retire-donald-trump-3a08583654837125c643d25b6623fbda?utm%5Fsource=app&utm%5Fmedium=iOS%5Fshare&utm%5Fcampaign=copy%5Flink

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
rbreich@masto.ai ("Robert Reich") wrote:

The Real Fix For Social Security https://robertreich.substack.com/p/the-real-fix-for-social-security-2ef?utm%5Fsource=dlvr.it&utm%5Fmedium=mastodon

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
DarkWebInformer@infosec.exchange ("Dark Web Informer :verified_paw:") wrote:

Nitter announced yesterday that, after seeking legal advice, the project will continue and is in the process of bringing its instance and others back online soon.

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glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

[1]: I mean if you want to do that, I'll take it, that would be great, but that's not something I would expect

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glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

I have a relatively uncompromising view on AI ethics but I really want to emphasize that what I'm looking for from LLM users who want to justify themselves to me—and it seems like many do, for whatever reason, which I do appreciate—is not "okay I'll stop using LLMs"[1], but "I've thought about the externalities and the harms, and here's my reasoning about the benefits I've seen".

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
benroyce ("⏩︎VOTE⏪︎ ᶜʸⁿⁱᶜⁱˢᵐ⁼ᵃᶜᶜᵉᵖᵗᵃⁿᶜᵉ (Ben Royce)") wrote:

In June I posted about #Protests in #Albania against #JaredKushner and Ivanka #Trump over a corrupt land deal that would turn pristine #flamingo habitat into some shit #MarALago:

https://mastodon.social/@benroyce/116687570382208218

It's called the #FlamingoRevolution

I posted follow ups, because they kept going

It's been over 100 days now

THEY'RE STILL PROTESTING

Here surrounding a lawmaker who voted to sell the island to #Kushner

Holy fucking shit

If only Americans had 1 billionth of the backbone of Albanians

💪😤🇦🇱

Attachments:

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jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein") wrote:

“Thomas Jefferson wrote: ‘Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.’ It’s dangerous to ignore his warning.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/sep/08/60-minutes-managing-editor-facebook-post?CMP=Share%5FiOSApp%5FOther

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Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
ross@crikey.social ("Ross Wintle") wrote:

My “Psychology of Software Teams” book keeps giving me gold. Today @grimalkina gave me “Mastery Orientation” and “Performance Orientation” as… are they approaches? Traits? I’m not sure. But it ties into a lot of online discourse about tech (IMO - IANAP) and pulls on many other threads.

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
ukscone@cupoftea.social ("Russell Davis") wrote:

@krypt3ia For the 1st time ever on the news today they mentioned the court officers that died that ran from family court to help after the 1st plane hit. They never mentioned them in previous years on the news just the fire and police and the people in the towers. their families never got any money from the various funds either because not fire or police or wtc workers

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Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
krypt3ia@infosec.exchange ("Krypt3ia") wrote:

I came home from working at the pile with lungs full of fluid. There were no respirators, barely masks. We were woefully unprepared.

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dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

like a bat out of hull

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pzmyers@freethought.online ("pzmyers 🕷") wrote:

Jay Bhattacharya is one of the worst human beings in the country, and somehow he is running the NIH. Running it into the ground, that is.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/09/08/pilfering-the-nih-for-missile-money/

jay bhattacharya

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ireneista@irenes.space ("Irenes (many)") wrote:

we are already maxed out on how much anger and sorrow we are capable of feeling towards these companies and their effect on the world. this latest revelation doesn't really change that for us; the human brain has a limit, and we reached it long ago. alas.

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dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

brain frog leaps over you when you least expect it

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ireneista@irenes.space ("Irenes (many)") wrote:

this is exactly the same as how it doesn't really matter, morally, that tobacco companies knew about cancer from early on. they absolutely did, the historical record is very clear, but regardless, when you're credibly told you're causing cancer, the correct action is to fucking stop.

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ireneista@irenes.space ("Irenes (many)") wrote:

notice that it doesn't even matter whether anyone inside the company concretely knew that the specific proof strategy had been stolen. they may or may not have, but they're the ones who built a fucking plagiarism machine. the company supposedly knows more about how it works than anyone else in the world, and that absolutely makes it responsible for the consequences of using it.

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ireneista@irenes.space ("Irenes (many)") wrote:

go ahead and read the mathematicians' statement, which we linked above, if you haven't

as a former whistleblower (our main focus was labor organizing but we also relied on whistleblower law in a few small ways), the company's attitude in that story sounds familiar to us

it comes off to us as (pastiche) "if we did anything wrong it was by accident and it's your fault for caring. you can't prove we knew about it and you can't make us change it."

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glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

honestly nothing I've seen in the last year _on_ the fediverse made me think that we had any juice, but this gives me the faintest glimmer of hope

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glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

meanwhile, over on the blue butterfly web site, I think maybe they're starting to get nervous. remember when the blue bird web site started doing this?

A warning dialog from bsky showing a "Potentially misleading link" warning highlighting that a link to mastodon.social is the misleading thing