Notices by Koen Hufkens, PhD (koen_hufkens@mastodon.social)

@aral It's a pyramid scheme isn't it.

"Some customers will happily accept a lettuce that's a little gross and liztruss if it means a discount." @pluralistic takedown of public choice theory and surveillance pricing on anything from lettuce to nurse's wages.

Also, liztruss lettuce, oh my...

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/11/socialism-for-the-wealthy/#rugged-individualism-for-the-poor

#surveillance #surveillancecapitalism #advertising #wagetheft #

@pluralistic @Greengordon I meant as: the story line has been explored. And indeed, well written and researched. Lived near Zurich when I read it and some Swiss references were on the nose.

@Greengordon @pluralistic Different author, that's in "The Ministry for the Future" by Kim Stanley Robinson.

There is something very liminal about this place where people fear a theoretical AI apocalypse while collectively ignoring a very real and ongoing climate crisis.

#climatechange #climatecrisis #AI

The most profitable patient is one with a chronic (highly functioning) illness, not a cured one.

When I lived in the US I was always amazed by the amount of ads for painkillers and other fixes. I came to the understanding that healthcare for many was not about curing people, but about making people able to work. I've never seen so many people with chronic illnesses poorly addressed as in the US.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html

#healthcare #business #LateStageCapitalism

@ai6yr I should do a blog post on these, as a lot of science is run like this. Shining example of this attached. In hindsight this probably was way over thermal limits, and would give any fire chief a heart attack.

@ai6yr Lessons were learned, although space often comes at a premium on top of these tower based measurement platforms.

@pluralistic @academicchatter The parallels with the worker abuse in big tech industry are no coincidence. I've often joked that doing academic research as a Phd/post-doc is like being a part of a startup without the option to cash out on stock options.

Scathing piece on Benevolent Dictators For Life (BDFL) by @pluralistic and how they go off the rails. I can't but think about academia. Getting tenure, defacto, is gunning for being a BDFL.

If a PI finds themself "... beset by people demanding that you confront your privilege, perhaps what's changed isn't those people, but rather the amount of privilege you have."

You can easily find yourself on the wrong side of history.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/10/bdfl/

#academia #AcademicChatter
@academicchatter

@hye @pluralistic It is the dog ate my homework excuse for software, e.g. the whole itch.io snafu. These things rarely end in favour of those most impacted. How do you file a CVE for an inherent stochastic system?

When I look at the large language models (LLM) I see meta-software. Software which isn't. It is multi-modal, yet disembodied. It is search, but not search.

Where this tech exposes a huge attack surface security wise, it opens up an equally large legal attack surface.

Currently the focus has been on copyright infringements by LLM, but by and large the weight of the industry will judge in their favour and content will be licensed.

2/

It is Daniel Davies who popularized the idea that these LLMs are an excellent "accountability sink" (@pluralistic put it on my radar). Plausible deniability. Shroedinger's search engine, where things are correct and hallucinations at the same time. Computer said no.

Where (poor) AI models were previously limited to certain industries, they are now injected in every application possible (i.e. blowing up that potential legal surface).

Software ate the world once, LLMs will do it once more.

fin/

When turning the tables, what will interoperability look like in this new LLM software age. If it is at all possible.

Will people be prosecuted for using LLMs "the wrong way", asking "bad" questions? Is prompt hacking, or prompt injections, really a hack and reason for criminal charges?

What is considered a copyright infringement when this meta-software is built largely without consent?

It leaves me with the feeling that LLMs are the new walled gardens and an interoperability disaster.

3/

Finished the "The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation " by @pluralistic. Necessary reading in this day and age, for a few reasons:

1. It introduces the concept of universal computing devices really well
2. and in this context how (internet) technology underpins societal and justice movements, stifled by software copyright "wrappers"

In the context of the former it also shows were we are headed IMO.

1/

#privacy #copyright #software #opensource #enshitification #technology

@dbattistella I always say if you want to know the difference between what is legal and what is ethical, go talk to an accountant.

@eldelacajita @detritus @pluralistic This is worth the read within the context of #enshitification and the cycling industry (only talking shifters). What is the cost of convenience, and what are we willing the bear to not have things fail on us in unexpected ways. Many who are informed are now considering these questions. I will probably never use electronic shifting.

https://bikepacking.com/plog/cost-of-convenience-wireless-shifting-review/

@pluralistic Many of these problems originate from shifting failure modes from a focus on weak-link problems to strong-link problems, to increase profit.

Weak-linked problems are defined by their worst performance, while strong-linked problems are defined by their best performance. Problems don't reside strictly in either category, but when dealing with infrastructure (which isn't an easily replaced discretionary purchase) the focus should not deviate too far from a weak-link assumption.

When I read about these things I always think about some of the writing of @pluralistic on graceful failure modes. A product (system) is not defined by its success but by how good or poorly it fails. I've been teaching students that not considering (poor) failure modes is a huge liability.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/12/nightmare-zipcar-outage-is-a-warning-against-complete-app-dependency/

#failure #scalability #devops #management #governance

Brutal takedown by @pluralistic of the prepper mindset that has infected many.

The world has a collective action problem, and this for many issues (large and small). We've been individualized to the core, and this is indeed reductive. Societies of people are more than the sum of their parts. This historical truth of solidarity is consistently denied and leveraged by the select few for their personal gain.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/24/mall-ninja-prophecy/#mano-a-mano

#LateStageCapitalism #solidarity #Union