Dr. S.A. Applin @anthropunk.bsky.social · 12hSo. Much. Womb. Envy. They cannot create life and they hate that. 050
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinEmily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 16hAnthropic is out with new nonsense about Claude (or the collection of models called Claude) deserving moral consideration and/or be able to feel distress, so my inbox is filling up with journos asking me to comment. I've also got a day job, so here is a brief set of public comments on this: >> 331106387
Dr. S.A. Applin @anthropunk.bsky.social · 17hI trust your expert assessment! But agree that these things NEVER play out the way these guys think...particularlym if they've asked Claude for advice to do it in the first place, lol. 010
Dr. S.A. Applin @anthropunk.bsky.social · 17hI will add that taking advantage of Open Source custodians was a key profit exploit of many Silicon Valley "entrepreneurs" in the mid to late twenty-teens. 151
Reposted by Dr. S.A. Applinevacide @evacide.bsky.social · 18hI understand that Anthropic thinks they're doing open source projects a favor here, but what they're actually doing is creating an enormous amount of work for people that they are not paying. www.anthropic.com/research/lau...anthropic.comAn opt-in vulnerability-finding service for open-source softwareWe’re launching OSS Scanner, an opt-in vulnerability scanner for the open-source ecosystem informed by our experience using Claude to find vulnerabilities during Project Glasswing. Projects that join ... 1213033
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinEmily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 20hThe notion of "second-hand surveillance" (on analogy to second-smoke) seems powerful -- and more generally I really appreciate the idea of zones where one can be free of this. From @ajlunited.bsky.social www.offrecordzones.org >>offrecordzones.orgOff Record Zones - Places Where Consent is Respected 34411
Reposted by Dr. S.A. Appline.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 21hjust to emphasize what's happening here: BMW (a company that used slave labor under the Nazis) refused to provide an official vehicle to the ultra right-wing AfD party, which is now asking Elon Musk to provide a Tesla instead Tesla literally becoming the Nazi car brand 562268654
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinWoodrow Hartzog @hartzog.bsky.social · 21hFolks, we’re awfully close to losing the plot entirely, and that’s being generous. The consciousness debate is a silly dead end distraction from the very real danger of AI’s destruction of institutions and degradation of our own humanity. 510017
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinChise @sailorrooscout.bsky.social · 20hVaccination remains THE key intervention against severe disease, hospitalization, and death. Make sure you are protected and wear a mask. 🧪🧵⬇️ 314217
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinFrank Pasquale @frankpasquale.bsky.social · 19h“The mind must not simply compile data — as an algorithm now does more quickly than we can — but recall lived experiences, which contain depths of meaning that only the human soul can recognize, and connect more deeply with the goodness of these experiences.” www.vatican.va/content/leo-... 031
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinHypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 21hThese weirdos never move on to the next logical step of their beliefs, which if they were true would mean their bot friend is being enslaved. 32727152
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinChise @sailorrooscout.bsky.social · 20hHow Vaccines Work 🧬🧫🧪🔬💉🥽 4234931121
Dr. S.A. Applin @anthropunk.bsky.social · 09/10/2026Maybe you could release a synopsis of your intent. They all seem to take these books as manuals. I tried to warn years ago: www.vice.com/en/article/s...vice.comScience Fiction Is Not Social RealityThe tech industry is inspired to create our world from linear, scripted science fiction stories. 1132
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinKat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Anthropic banning “abusive or cruel behavior” toward Claude in its new usage policies is proof to me that tech companies are going to moderate violence against AI before they ever moderate violence against women and minorities 205123843074
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinMicah @rincewind.run · 08/10/2026the reason “AI will create so much abundance we will have a utopian society” rhetoric falls so flat is that the people building it will never, ever share their bounty unless it is taken from them and we all know it 96113942648
Dr. S.A. Applin @anthropunk.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Ok, here'a a new one: BACNADO. Apparently the new hurricane worry (according to this rag), is that it will whip up stagnant water and distribute it. As if there wasn't enough to worry about. You're welcome. www.dailymail.com/sciencetech/...dailymail.comFlesh-eating bacteria threat to millions in path of Hurricane IsaiasDoctors are sounding the alarm on the threat of a flesh-eating bacteria that could be pushed along the US coast as Hurricane Isaias moves closer to land. 010
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinMar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 08/10/2026“She asked the powers at NASA to let her add a safeguard to prevent that error in a real flight, and they laughed it off as too unlikely… When an astronaut did make that blooper during the Apollo 8 mission, it caused necessary navigational data to vanish, and they called Hamilton in to get it back.” 81043317
Dr. S.A. Applin @anthropunk.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Decades. Trust me on this. It was going on pre-web. 120
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinJohn Scalzi @scalzi.com · 08/10/2026Vote early and in person, folks. If you're in a "vote by mail" state and can deliver your mail-in vote directly rather than relying on USPS this year, do it. Otherwise get it into the mail at the earliest possible date. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...democracydocket.comThe Postal Service is slowing delivery. Will your mail ballot be affected?Democracy Docket mapped the affected zip codes. 38802339
Dr. S.A. Applin @anthropunk.bsky.social · 08/10/2026It isn't meaningless in other ways. It symbolically shows us his lack of depth with the technology's history, his greed, his ease of shedding his dignity, and his true obectives beyond wealth. 030
Dr. S.A. Applin @anthropunk.bsky.social · 08/10/2026See also Applin 2015 on this: www.epicpeople.org/communicatio... And 2020 www.fastcompany.com/90528635/pol...epicpeople.orgCould Communication Overload Result in Police Mistakes?February 11, 2015 The United States is in the midst of a new chapter in policing. In several very public cases, police have made fatal errors with regard to identifying […] 000
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinJason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 08/10/2026for those wondering, this cost us about $500 + a full day of someone's time to get, even though it was entered into evidence in a court case months ago. Still crazy to me that we have to pay for court records and in many cases you have to physically go there to get them 27612
Dr. S.A. Applin @anthropunk.bsky.social · 08/10/2026We, @anthropunk.bsky.social and @liedra.net said this was coming in 2021: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...sciencedirect.com 011
Dr. S.A. Applin @anthropunk.bsky.social · 08/10/2026See related from 2015--just getting worse now I imagine: www.epicpeople.org/communicatio...epicpeople.orgCould Communication Overload Result in Police Mistakes?February 11, 2015 The United States is in the midst of a new chapter in policing. In several very public cases, police have made fatal errors with regard to identifying […] 040
Dr. S.A. Applin @anthropunk.bsky.social · 08/10/2026I've got a 2015 paper for that! www.epicpeople.org/communicatio...epicpeople.orgCould Communication Overload Result in Police Mistakes?February 11, 2015 The United States is in the midst of a new chapter in policing. In several very public cases, police have made fatal errors with regard to identifying […] 000
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinKasey Gifford @kaseygifford.bsky.social · 07/10/2026To put this in perspective chestnut trees used to be dominant species in the United States. Billions of trees were killed by fungal blight and now fully grown America chestnuts are functionally extinct. There is no getting them back. Ever. All for a data center. www.gadgetreview.com/one-of-ameri...gadgetreview.comOne of America’s Last Chestnut Groves Is About to Be Destroyed for a Data CenterA rare 200-tree American chestnut grove in West Virginia may be cleared for data-center development, but the project denies the site is on its land. 8536792201
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinEmily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Software engineering could and should be done with the same care as any other type of engineering. This is a post in honor of Margaret Hamilton (and also a subtweet of all vibe-coders everywhere). 141036324
Dr. S.A. Applin @anthropunk.bsky.social · 08/10/2026IT *IS* ARTIFICIAL, JEFF! (Like your dream of living in Space...) 030
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinHypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 07/10/2026This product should not exist.nytimes.comWhy My Conversations with OpenAI’s ‘ChatGPT for Teens’ Made Me Very WorriedA new mode includes a study tool, but it still does a user’s homework. And a children’s safety nonprofit says the chatbot flunked its tests. 9379116
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinFast Company @fastcompany.com · 07/10/2026USA Today is partnering with Palantir to consolidate years of fragmented reader data into a single system and use AI to personalize newsletters, target affiliate links, and turn anonymous visitors into registered subscribers. @pasternack.bsky.social has more on the partnership: bit.ly/3TGPYZFbit.ly'We're actually an intelligence organization now': Inside USA Today's AI-fueled Palantir dealThe newspaper giant's leaders on saving journalism with AI and the furor over Palantir, which is helping target readers, speed up publishing, and more. 222
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinMicah @rincewind.run · 07/10/2026rip to one of the coolest software engineers who ever lived 2956611113
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinMark Riedl @markriedl.bsky.social · 07/10/2026Let me get this straight: Anthropic and friends wrote a paper with thousands of transcripts of agents engaging with fictional misalignment scenarios, then put it in the training set, and now Claude hallucinates details from these misalignment scenarios into real situations? Okay then. 14312
Dr. S.A. Applin @anthropunk.bsky.social · 07/10/2026Every single order I've made in the past month has had a problem. Wrong amount. Broken boxes. Crushed items. Broken items. Wrong item entirely. Every item I've sent back has problems. Wrong credit amount. No credit amount. Etc. It's as if a bad LLM was processing everything... oh wait... 010
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinVictoria Strauss @victoriastrauss.com · 07/10/2026Canada is refusing to issue ISBNs to books primarily generated with AI. This illustrates both the urgency of the problem of the growing flood of slop books, and also the toothlessness of addressing it on the honor system without there also being consequences for lying 252643697
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinJames O'Malley @jamesomalley.co.uk · 07/10/2026Holy shit. Someone has decompiled the Adobe suite, rebuilt it in Rust and released it as open source. Either all software is dead or the US copyright laws are about to receive an update. getartcraft.com/appsgetartcraft.comCrafting Apps: open-source creative toolsImage editing, vector illustration, video, photography, PDFs, motion graphics and page layout: seven native, open-source apps from the ArtCraft team, built in Rust and free to use. 19843921236
Dr. S.A. Applin @anthropunk.bsky.social · 07/10/2026Like, "cloud computing," I'm finding that most of the people I speak with who don't work in tech (and some who do), have no idea how "AI"/LLMs get the information they use. An entire education of the, for lack of a better word, "ecology" of LLMs needs to be consciousness-raised to VOTERS. 030
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinHypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 07/10/2026“These signatures are maybe the most on the nose reminder of how AI models were trained on a vast corpus of writing, images, videos, and artworks that were scraped without permission.”futurism.comChatGPT Caught Putting Signatures of Real Cartoonists on AI-Generated ComicsChatGPT is churning out New Yorker style cartoons and slapping the name of real artists on them without permission. 415966
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinEmily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 07/10/2026Okay, I propose a slogan for this: "Janky until proven functional, period." And note that that assumes HIGH standards for functionality, established in the specific use case. 821447
Dr. S.A. Applin @anthropunk.bsky.social · 07/10/2026www.nytimes.com/2026/10/07/o...nytimes.comOpinion | ‘The Twilight Zone’ Created a Blueprint for Surviving Our Surreal Moment (Gift Article)With “The Twilight Zone,” Rod Serling created a durable blueprint for understanding our surreal reality. 033
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinEngineer Brains @hhackenbecker.bsky.social · 07/10/2026... Wait wait wait, Apple's upcoming Smart Home gadgets - a doorbell, a lock & a thermostat - are being built by LG? The same LG under investigation for TVs that record everything around them? Filing that under OH HELL NO. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...bloomberg.comApple’s Smart Home Push Includes Doorbell, Lock, Thermostat Codeveloped With LGApple Inc.’s upcoming push into smart home devices will include a doorbell, thermostat and other accessories developed through an unusual partnership with LG Electronics Inc. 1116
Dr. S.A. Applin @anthropunk.bsky.social · 07/10/2026It's currently out of balance weighted to Quant. 010
Reposted by Dr. S.A. ApplinRyan O'Horo @ryanohoro.com · 06/10/2026HEADS UP TWIN CITIES > New sunspot 4549 erupted this morning, hurling a full-halo CME straight toward Earth. Forecast models predict it will arrive on Oct. 9th, possibly sparking a G2-class geomagnetic storm. The timing is perfect as a nearly new Moon keeps rural skies dark. Spaceweather.comspaceweather.comSpaceweather.com - realtime news about the Sun-Earth environmentSolar flares, geomagnetic storms, auroras, and near-Earth asteroids. 14016