Sign in

Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦

@iainrb.bsky.social
1.2K followers 650 following 8.7K posts

Fights cancer with computers in Toronto, Canada. Fan of SF, cinema and various sports. Sort of an ominous robed figure pointing and saying "BEWARE" in a hoarse voice every time AI is mentioned. 🇨🇦/🇬🇧 citizen. Parent, husband, cat servant. He/him.

PostsRepliesMedia
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 8h
UK universities have student union bars! Run by students, selling cheap beer to students. All legal and above board, and very much less dangerous, especially for women.
010
Reposted by Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦
Annie the Book @anniethebook.bsky.social · 10h
This is one of the saddest things I've ever seen on social media.
814120
Reposted by Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦
John Bull @garius.bsky.social · 12h
Most of AI (in business terms) is driven by a false belief that TECHNOLOGY is what drove the internet and telecommunications booms of the last two decades. Technology unlocked better communication and business processes. THOSE then drove the boom. Tech was a means to an end, not the end in itself.
1035892
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 12h
Honestly, this stuff makes me want to go full Sarah Connor. "All you know how to create is death and destruction."
010
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Tim Hortons, the biggest coffee shop chain in Canada, has jumped on the bandwagon. I just want a doughnut and a cup of coffee, why do I have to put up with all this Hogwarts crap 😒
130
Reposted by Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦
Caræsten 🇵🇸 @cara.city · 07/10/2026
open weights model? no I said open Waits model. it just makes vague growling noises and talks a lot about New Orleans.
1831042
Reposted by Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦
Comics Covers @comicscovers.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Star Wars 40 (3540)
727726
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
How I arrived on Bluesky.
static.klipy.com
Meme Futurama
Alt: Fry from Futurama is frozen in a cryogenic tube, as days and nights flicker past in rapid succession.
010
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
We're dealing with people who not only think an entire tree, with mud on the roots and squirrels clinging to the branches, is better than a bouquet of roses -- they don't even understand why dropping it on your front doorstep might be a problem.
020
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
This reminds me of a Discworld joke. Trolls are a silicon-based life form, so they have only one word for vegetation: oograh. A lady troll tells her suitor he should bring her oograh, like sophisticated humans do. Figuring the bigger the oograh, the better, he uproots a tree and brings it to her.
120
Reposted by Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦
Dr Dean Burnett @drdeanburnett.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
"By using AI, tasks like essays that used to take hours can be completed in minutes!" Sure, like how if I arrive at the gym and immediately go for a shower, my workout is done in record time. And if I throw my sandwiches straight in the bin, I can finish my lunch in under 10 seconds.
7069761906
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
It's not to everyone's taste. People can find the sauce too bland and sweet, or dislike soggy toast. Even the British often give it a flavour boost with grated cheese, Worcester sauce, etc. But in the end it's an OK cheap meal, and I think the performative hate is silly.
100
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Variations of rice-and-beans are very popular, on the same basic principle of beans + carbohydrate = cheap and simple meal. Maybe the tomato sauce puts people off the idea of beans-on-toast, but personally I think it's fine.
110
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Yes they have. 😒
130
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Yeah. Same with, say, ST:TNG or Gilmore Girls or the X-Files. The idea of wrapping up every loose end from 150+ episodes was preposterous.
010
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Goon, checking his pockets before going out: "Car keys, check. Brass knuckles, check. Notebook with helpful clues for the hero, check."
192
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
TBF, this is more a convenient distraction from the depressing and not at all whimsical things Britain is *also* arguing about ☹️
050
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Some of it's not even the law, it's pathological fear. I can't see any other explanation for 30% of 17 year olds not being allowed to leave the neighborhood, and 8% to leave the *house*. 8% is a lot! That's not a handful of weirdos, it's 2 or 3 in every high school class!
120
Reposted by Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
The 1990s Internet was amazingly *useful*. Instead of going to the post office to send a letter, use email! Instead of going to the library to consult a reference book, look it up online! That utility was already degraded, and "AI" is rapidly destroying what remains. 🤬
013
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
The 1990s Internet was amazingly *useful*. Instead of going to the post office to send a letter, use email! Instead of going to the library to consult a reference book, look it up online! That utility was already degraded, and "AI" is rapidly destroying what remains. 🤬
013
Reposted by Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦
Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin @ecmclaughlin.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I still remember getting my first email address as a freshman in college. It was the coolest thing ever and no one was screaming YOU BETTER ADOPT THIS OR WE’RE ALL DEAD.
14905100
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I was old enough to vote when I got my first email address, and I'm under 50. Email was wildly popular! It inspired Hollywood romcoms! "AI" lends itself more to psychological horror or dystopian sci-fi. 😱
en.wikipedia.org
You've Got Mail - Wikipedia
122
Reposted by Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦
Ran Blekhman @blekhman.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
My inbox is being flooded with fully AI-generated emails from prospective students. I tried to work out why I can't bring myself to read them, and ended up with some thoughts and advice for writing cold emails in the age of AI. My new post: blekhman.substack.com/p/why-i-am-n...
blekhman.substack.com
Why I am not reading your AI-generated email
I hope this email finds you well-aligned
1116059
Reposted by Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦
Zen Faulkes @doctorzen.net · 04/10/2026
Today in, "Correlation does not necessarily imply causation."
0124
Reposted by Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦
Daily Faceoff Edmonton @dfoedmonton.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
WHAT A GREAT EDMONTON OILERS WIN ✅
0132
Reposted by Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦
Gef the Toking Mongoose @geftokingmongoose.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Say what you will about Gangs of New York that costume work was on point
Still from the movie Gangs of New York showing a group of the main male characters most in garish garb
1211910
Reposted by Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦
NHL (Bot) @notnhl.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
You "knee"-d to see this /EdmontonOilers goal! 🤭
032
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Lunch was 4-ingredient fried rice: Rice, eggs, green onion, soy sauce. Simple and tasty. 😋
000
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Or long-term planning. ExxonMobil may be bastards, but they're bastards who expect to be in business 20 years from now. Some of these AI folks believe Robot Jesus will arrive in the next few months.
010
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
In 500 years, disagreeing with the Pope has evolved from nailing 95 theses to the church door, to... whatever the heck this is 🙃
021
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
"Pope will you *please* shut the fuck up", because in kindergarten they taught us to say please 😜
060
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
As of three weeks ago, it wasn't working so good for baseball either.
110
Reposted by Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦
ArtButMakeItSports @artbutmakeitsports.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Man in a Blue Mantle, by John Singer Sargent, 1891, 📸 via @cjzero.bsky.social
295052758
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
2. Scale. We can run an LLM. If we put a million people on the job, we could run one with pen and paper. Simulating a human brain is so much harder, we don't know if it's possible in this universe. So saying "woo, a brain simulation could be conscious" is irrelevant to LLMs and frankly tiresome.
110
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The pen-and-paper ide is useful for highlighting two things. 1. Abstraction. An LLM is an abstract computational process, not a brain-in-a-body like us. It could be implemented with silicon chips, pen and paper, a very large surface and some rocks, whatever. Can such a thing be said to feel pain?
110
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Next, we will witness Olah's horror as he finds out bears sh*t in the woods. 😁
000
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
There's a thousand horror movies with a higher body count, and they usually do it in about half the running time. Heck, Transformers: The Movie killed off more characters than that in the first 20 minutes. 😁
010
Reposted by Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦
Brett "Solidarity 2026" Banditelli @banditelli.org · 02/10/2026
The chart explains AI hype more than any chart that's ever been charted.
201178277
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Really? Prove it. 😜 Anyhow, you've backed yourself into arguing a Turing machine thousands of light years across, with the mass of ten trillion suns, might be conscious. Maybe so! But it doesn't tell us much about anything we can build here on Earth.
000
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Tech bro is upset to learn the Pope believes immortal souls are real and computer programs don't have them. 🫠
1194
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Yep.
080
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
And if it needs a billion universes worth of computronium, what then?
100
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
"We can simulate 10^6 atoms, so simulating 10^26 or so atoms at a much higher level of detail is totally feasible" No. That is not how this works. The problem does not scale in a linear way.
110
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Not really. We know LLMs are tractable. A pencil-and-paper LLM is ridiculously inefficient, but equally tractable in principle. We do *not* know this for a Sufficiently Advanced Brain Simulator. "What if we built a literally miraculous machine" is kind of irrelevant to actually existing machines.
110
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The CT thesis is not constrained by time or space, but we are. If a function can be computed, given a Turing machine bigger than the visible universe, then it's Turing computable -- but we ain't gonna compute it.
130
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The nearest comparison I can think of is the sovereign citizen movement, who say things like "I am a freeman on the land, so court orders don't apply to me". It's clearly nonsense, but explaining why they believe it requires unpacking many layers of not-even-wrong legal tomfoolery.
030
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Me on Sept 30 : Me on Oct 1st
Gary Oldman in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, wearing a boring suit, scarf, and raincoat Gary Oldman in Dracula, wearing a crimson robe and grinning in an unsettling fashion
000
Reposted by Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦
We Geek Girls @wegeekgirls.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
'Night of the Living Dead' premiered at the Fulton Theater in Pittsburgh on this day 58 years ago! (October 1, 1968) Directed by George A. Romero. Screenplay by Romero & John Russo. Starring Judith O'Dea, Duane Jones, Marilyn Eastman, Karl Hardman, Judith Ridley, Keith Wayne, & more. #OnThisDay
05718
Reposted by Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦
Micah @rincewind.run · 01/10/2026
in fact these days I feel like there are so many important things happening that we have run out of room on the front page and I would dearly like to live in a world where - if we must have breaking news headlines - they are about funnily-shaped vegetables rather than the apocalypse
92587
Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I felt a disturbance in the Force. As if thousands of vim users cried out in rage...
010