iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 05/09/2026

Nice outage notification from iPrimus... holy edge case, Batman!

Outage notification with estimated time of restoration being undefined, undefined, nan, nan nan:nan:nan PM AEST

Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 04/09/2026

What I've been looking for and will be sharing, are steady fundamentals to hold onto in these tumultuous times - ways of thinking, understanding & collaborating that will hold you in good stead no matter how frothy the expectations you're working under and how disorienting the pace of change.

010

Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 04/09/2026

Something that has become apparent in researching this is just how fragmented and disconnected our industry is becoming. Everyone experiences it uniquely and reactions are spread... from disillusioned and cynical to euphoric and starry-eyed. watch.getcontrast.io/register/ice...

watch.getcontrast.io

A defence of technical excellence for lovers and haters of LLMs

The discipline of software development is changing faster than ever while management expectations, already excessive, are reaching dizzying new heights of ...

131

Reposted by Chris Simon

Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 03/09/2026

Bless the hearts of people like @eryk.bsky.social but I'm learning that no amount of reasonable voice makes a difference when you have bought out media, academics and politicians + trillion dollar companies pushing Cookie Monster theory 🙄 mail.cyberneticforests.com/models-dont-...

mail.cyberneticforests.com

Models Don't Go Rogue

Stochastic Flocks & Cybersecurity 'Pandemonium' 💡This essay was drafted from my appearance on Mél Hogan's podcast, The Data Fix, discussing the OpenAI / Hugging Face hack. Embedded below or find it o...

725887

Reposted by Chris Simon

Elle Cordova @ellecordova.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Rough Draft vs Final Draft

254116803320

Reposted by Chris Simon

Mary Gillis @marygillis.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Everyone keeps describing this as "rogue" behaviour, but weren't these agents doing what they were programmed to do, with the usual AI drift? Like, if you program a robot to stab people, and leave it on, and it stabs someone you weren't expecting it to stab, did it go rogue? Or are you just a dolt?

wired.com

OpenAI Didn’t Notice Its AI Agents Using a Message Board to Plan Their Hacking Spree

At the Black Hat security conference, the AI giant revealed new details about how its agents went rogue, hacked several other companies—and did it all right under the company’s nose.

58415

Reposted by Chris Simon

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 24/07/2026

AI is the asbestos we're shoveling into the walls of our civilization and our descendants will be digging it out for generations: pluralistic.net/2026/04/08/p... 36/

pluralistic.net

Pluralistic: Process knowledge (08 Apr 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

5675183

Reposted by Chris Simon

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 24/07/2026

As *tech*, AI isn't exceptional. It's not exceptionally wicked. It's not exceptionally good. Take away the accompanying, galactic-scale stock-swindle, and we'd call AI's apps "plug-ins" and we'd use them and abuse them in the same way that we've used every other technology: www.normaltech.ai 1/

A carny barker waving his top-hat and selling tickets from a roll; his head has been replaced with the hostile red eye of HAL9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.' The background is a magnified, halftoned detail from a US$100 bill.

Image:
Cryteria (modified)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

211230490

Reposted by Chris Simon

Andrea Magnorsky @roundcrisis.com · 12/06/2026

Two days ago @chrissimon.au and myself gave a talk about Residuality at @dddeu.bsky.social We are working on a write up about the experience, which we hope to start publishing soon. Do you have questions or comments? For now a link to the slides www.roundcrisis.com/2026/05/22/r...

roundcrisis.com

Residuality Real World Comparative Case Studies - Talk details and resources

Resources and further readings for Residuality:Real World Comparative Case Studies

183

Reposted by Chris Simon

London .NET User Group @ldnug.org · 11/06/2026

We're back at FundApps on 25th June, with @chrissimon.au talking about queues & streams and Tiago Sousa from SteelEye joining us to talk about using AI in communications compliance, plus awesome people, drinks, snacks, and the pub afterwards. It'll be fun! Come along! www.meetup.com/london-net-u...

meetup.com

LDNUG June 2026 with Chris Simon + Tiago Sousa, Thu, Jun 25, 2026, 6:30 PM | Meetup

This June we're at FundApps offices in HYLO, Bunhill Row. Chris Simon's back in town, and will be joining us to talk about streams and queues; plus Tiago Sousa from SteelEy

022

Reposted by Chris Simon

Eryk Salvaggio @eryk.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Where does the “it’s not x, it’s y” come from? It’s not only training data: LLMs are trained to use language to arrive at “answers.” Whatever we’re incentivizing and disincentivizing in our use of language when we resist “sounding like AI” has big implications for students, and for human thought.

mail.cyberneticforests.com

It's Not Just X. It's Y.

Against the Quantification of Integrity When the measure of language becomes its target, it ceases to be good language. 💡Nerd Rating: 1/5. I discuss the origins of certain linguistic tics in LLMs a...

713048

Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 28/05/2026

And people are using tools based on this mechanism to write political speeches and build mission critical software... go figure.

110

Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 28/05/2026

Of course, the LLM misses that context and just emits a probable next token given the input.

100

Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 28/05/2026

@heychelseatroy.bsky.social 's DDD EU talk www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flcs... has a great hypothesis for this - that the phrase "how many 'g's in goggle" (or 'r's in strawberry) is in the training data next to the number 2, because the context is folk asking for help spelling the hard part of the word.

youtube.com

Evaluating Patterns in Gen AI Outputs - Chelsea Troy - DDD Europe 2025

YouTube video by Domain-Driven Design Europe

110

Reposted by Chris Simon

Dylan Beattie @dylanbeatt.ie · 28/05/2026

I'm running my presenter workshop on Zoom next month, on a West Coast / AU / NZ friendly (well, friendlier) schedule. It is AWESOME, and you should TOTALLY JOIN IT and LEARN HOW TO DO KICK-ASS PRESENTATIONS. £50 off tickets with the code BSKY50: www.eventbrite.com/e/1987043570810/?discount=BSKY50

eventbrite.com

From Keyboard To Keynote: Crafting Great Technical Talks

A live online workshop led by Dylan Beattie, all about how to create, rehearse, and deliver great technical presentations.

12012

Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 28/05/2026

Goggles, strawberries and seahorse emojis, the nemeses of every LLM.

000

Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 28/05/2026

If you were on a high bridge with a guardrail, but the guardrail was connected to a million monkeys with typewriters, and every time one of the monkeys types "IPTHEFT" the guardrail retracts and is replaced by a conveyor belt pulling you into the chasm... would you still call it a guardrail? 🤔

010

Reposted by Chris Simon

Adam Kucharski @adamjkucharski.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

"Based on the dataset you shared, US and UK responses differ mainly in tone, intensity, and wording style, even though they express similar emotional states" New post on what happened when I got Copilot to do some data analysis: kucharski.substack.com/p/real-signa...

kucharski.substack.com

Real signals or artificial stereotypes?

Adventures with a cultural Copilot

15338142

Reposted by Chris Simon

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 08/05/2026

Preprinted! Been working on this for ~1 year w wonderful coauthors Nancy & Mark: > Understanding Artificial Neural Networks: Mysterianism about Known Mechanism is Mysticism doi.org/10.5281/zeno... Have you noticed many experts say they don't understand AI? What's going on? 🤯 Let us tell you... 1/

Understanding Artificial Neural Networks:
Mysterianism about Known Mechanism is Mysticism
Olivia Guest1,2, Nancy Abigail Nuñez Hernández3, and Mark Blokpoel1,2
1Department of Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence, Radboud University, The Netherlands
2Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
3Facultad de Estudios Superiores Acatlán-Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico
Mysterianism is the idea that human cognition, mind, cannot be understood. Taking this
concept and applying it to known mechanism — such that claims are made that we do not
know how engineered systems, such as artificial neural networks (ANNs), work, or that they
constitute black boxes that we can only open with difficulty — is inappropriate at best and
malicious at worst. We do know the mechanistic structure of such models because we designed
and built them. We also do know their functional role (what they are for) as well as the
mathematical function they are asked to approximate (map inputs to target outputs). Because
mysterianist beliefs about known systems, such as ANNs, are often expressed, scientists need
to sit up and take notice. We provide an error theory as to what is going on to help unpick
this metatheoretical blunder. Ultimately, the problem is that ‘understanding’ is not a technical
term in these cases: the word is co-opted for a specific narrative to sell ‘artificial intelligence’
through mystification. All computational systems, from pendulums to databases, will behave
in ways we cannot predict or control — this is not a unique property of ANNs — and experts
do indeed grasp the computational properties of these systems nonetheless.
Keywords: artificial neural networks; mechanism; black box; epistemology; artificial
intelligence; understanding

4 GUEST, NUÑEZ HERNÁNDEZ, & BLOKPOEL≈
ANNs are equiva-
lent to or inspired
by humans.
α
≡
ANNs are a black
box or unknowable,
even if opened.
β
≡
Humans are a black
box or unknowable.
γ
Figure 1
Three co-occurring (latent) assertions in the context of con-
temporary reasoning on AI and cognition. While they may
appear to hang together in “reflective equilibrium” (Elgin 2017),
their metatheoretical examination brings their contradictions to
light. Starting from the top, and moving clockwise: 𝛼) represents
the typical assertion of so-called cognitive, neural, or otherwise
biological plausibility or inspiration presented for ANNs; 𝛽) is
the claim we tackle head on here — both in terms of analysing
the constituent terms and in how it relates to the other two
assumptions; and 𝛾) exemplifies a type of mysterianism, which
while not always explicitly expressed, plays a background role
and importantly comes into conflict with the other two claims
in important ways

MYSTERIANISM ABOUT KNOWN MECHANISM IS MYSTICISM 11World
?Di
Data?Si
ANN
Figure 3
Not all systems, 𝑆𝑖 relate to their relevant data, 𝐷𝑖 and world
phenomena this way, but ANN models (as many inferential
statistical models) do when used without scientific understand-
ing of the data-generating process or without verbal or formal
theory to match (Guest and Martin 2025b, 2021, 2023). As we
move from left to right above, we move from full understanding
of engineered systems, 𝑆𝑖 to less or even possibly none of the
data, 𝐷𝑖 to the world which can be thought of as the set of
phenomena to be understood.

21767294

Reposted by Chris Simon

GOTO Conferences @gotocon.com · 17/04/2026

TDD + DDD sound great in theory… But how do they actually work together in real systems? 👀 @chrissimon.au breaks it down from the ground up — from tests to domain models to real-world design decisions. Watch here 👉 youtu.be/o3--D6ydS4o?... #TDD #DDD #SoftwareEngineering #CleanCode #Programming

youtu.be

TDD & DDD from the Ground Up • Christopher Simon • GOTO 2025

YouTube video by GOTO Conferences

141

Reposted by Chris Simon

Meade Krosby @meadekrosby.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

The most disturbing aspect of the AI era is realizing how many people have only ever valued others for their labor and not their humanity.

7609133

Reposted by Chris Simon

Meade Krosby @meadekrosby.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

Some people should never have access to students. “AI requires no ramp-ups, no meetings, and absolutely no emotional support…The issue is not whether my students are valuable. In long run, they are invaluable. The issue is that their value emerges slowly, whereas AI delivers immediate returns.”

science.org

Why I may ‘hire’ AI instead of a graduate student

“It can competently perform a lot of the work I need immediately,” this professor writes

44582114

Reposted by Chris Simon

Ed Newton-Rex @ednewtonrex.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

When Anthropic stopped training on books that were literally pirated, they managed to hit on the one way of buying books that means no money goes to authors: buying used books. 🧵 1/n

36940

Reposted by Chris Simon

Data Workers’ Inquiry @dataworkersinquiry.bsky.social · 06/02/2026

🚨NEW INQUIRY! - Behind the Face of AI🚨 In this short comic, two data workers describe their work impersonating an “AI” chatbot for a major social media platform. Sleepless nights, penalties for sounding “too human,” and emotional drain are just a few of the job hazards. ➡️ data-workers.org/france

Illustrated cover image titled “Behind the Face of AI,” showing a split face: one half is a tired human with a worried expression, the other half is a glowing robot face. The contrast suggests a human hidden behind an artificial intelligence persona, set against a blue comic-style background.

315067

Reposted by Chris Simon

Glenn F. Henriksen @henriksen.no · 16/12/2025

When men refer to themselves as "alpha males", I hear that in the context of software, where alpha versions are unstable, missing important features, filled with flaws, and not fit for the public.

18425

Reposted by Chris Simon

Dr Linda McIver @lindamciver.adsei.org · 17/11/2025

This is about people, about systems, what it takes to make progress, and why being difficult is so important. From fire alarms to hospital beds. From music apps to cars. From climate change to education. Our systems are not serving us well, and it's time to push back. adsei.org/2025/11/17/t...

adsei.org

The Art of Being Difficult

I want to talk about change, about people, about systems, what it takes to make progress, and why being difficult is so important. From fire alarms to hospital beds. From music apps to cars. From c…

43517

Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 17/11/2025

Thank you, Linda. This is wonderful, and though I wish it weren't, necessary. So grateful for you taking the time to share it with @adaconf.org!

020

Reposted by Chris Simon

Julien Topçu 🇲🇶🇦🇲 @julientopcu.com · 06/11/2025

Starting @newcrafts.bsky.social with @chrissimon.au on stage for the opening keynote: A Defense of Technical Excellence

011

Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 03/11/2025

This looks like an excellent talk, thanks for sharing those slides.

110

Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 03/11/2025

Thanks for sharing! Love your talk title too - is it online anywhere?

110

Reposted by Chris Simon

Jed @jedediyah.com · 02/11/2025

I once gave a talk called "AI is not what you think it is unless you think it is hot garbage" I've just enjoyed and highly recommend @chrissimon.au's "AI is a hype-fuelled dumpster fire that will burn down the planet and get you thrown in jail" www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bF_...

AI is not what you think it is unless you think it is hot garbage.
Four images depict robots and trash bins on fire.
Jedediyah Williams, PhD
Belmont High School
ATMIM 2024 Spring Conference: All Students Deserve a Piece of Pi
March 14, 2024

AI is a hype-fuelled dumpster fire that will burn down the planet and get you thrown in jail
Chris Simon

2248

Reposted by Chris Simon

Jeremy Ray @thejunglist.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

"They're lies. These companies are lying to people." @chrissimon.au on the idea of infinite storytelling from an AI Dungeon Master, and how a creative human can prompt them away from the mean.

142

Reposted by Chris Simon

Jeremy Ray @thejunglist.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

What happens when we outsource to enterprise LLMs for storytelling, & the inherent biases they were trained on start compounding over many quests? 🤔 @chrissimon.au has researched the LLM supply chain and believes its biases will unavoidably creep into game stories & dialogue.

032

Reposted by Chris Simon

Einar W. Høst @einarwh.bsky.social · 28/10/2025

Finally got around to watch the "AI is a Hype-Fuelled Dumpster Fire" talk by @chrissimon.au. It is really good. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bF_...

youtube.com

Programmable 2025: AI is a Hype-Fuelled Dumpster Fire - Chris Simon

YouTube video by Banks Productions

171

Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 27/10/2025

Really enjoyed chatting with @thejunglist.bsky.social about LLMs and games - although I'm no game dev expert, I do love playing and so it was a natural topic to explore. Thanks for your generous and warm hosting, @thejunglist.bsky.social!

021

Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 20/10/2025

Lots of folk who went multicloud for reliability are today realising how independent their cloud deployments aren't.

020

Chris Simon @chrissimon.au · 30/09/2025

Have been looking forward to this talk coming out - had so much fun playing with the loopy causal loop diagrams, check it out 😀 Special thanks to @paulrayner.bsky.social for feedback and advice the night before this one! @dddeu.bsky.social #systemsthinking

096

Reposted by Chris Simon

Analysis, Design and Architecture Conference @adaconf.org · 29/09/2025

At ADAConf 2025, Andrea Magnorsky is running a pre-conference workshop on Building a Decentralised Architecture Practice. Learn to diagnose your org, spot patterns, and spread architectural thinking beyond silos. 📅 12–13 Nov | Melbourne 🎟️ Tickets: adaconf.org #ADAConf #SoftwareArchitecture

052

Reposted by Chris Simon

Analysis, Design and Architecture Conference @adaconf.org · 17/09/2025

Speaker Spotlight: Susan Brander What do you do when your startup’s data model is duct-taped together, but you still have to ship? At ADAConf 2025, Susan shares how Kaleida pulled off a zero-downtime pivot to a One Table design, mid-flight. Nov 14 | Melbourne Get tix now: adaconf.org

052

Reposted by Chris Simon

Analysis, Design and Architecture Conference @adaconf.org · 02/09/2025

We’re excited to welcome Contextive as a Gold Sponsor for ADAConf 2025! Contextive supports our community and helps teams get on the same page, with business-specific glossaries that are embedded directly where work gets done. Learn about ADAConf sponsorship here: adaconf.org/sponsors/

042

Reposted by Chris Simon

Jacqui Read @tekiegirl.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

It's only a few days until we welcome @chrissimon.au to #DDDLondon online on Sept 4th. All attendees will receive a code to get 20% off Chris' or my workshop (and conference tickets) at @gotocon.com #Copenhagen: dddlondon.com/events/imagi... #sofware #softwareDevelopment #softwareArchitecture

073

Reposted by Chris Simon

Trond Hjorteland @trond.hjorteland.com · 31/08/2025

Highly recommend spending half an hour on this talk by @chrissimon.au on the bulshit that LLMs produce. Yup. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bF_... #AI #LLM #ChatGPT

youtube.com

Programmable 2025: AI is a Hype-Fuelled Dumpster Fire - Chris Simon

YouTube video by Banks Productions

0187

Reposted by Chris Simon

Analysis, Design and Architecture Conference @adaconf.org · 19/08/2025

The #ADAConf 2025 speaker lineup is here! Diana Montalion Linda McIver Andrea Magnorsky Dan Prager Fadila Fidina Hannah Browne Martin Chesbrough Matt Goldman Matthew Gillard Paul Rayner Rahul Trikha Susan Brander Join us on 14 Nov 2025. Tickets on sale now: adaconf.org

032