I made a note of it, but Bryan Cantrill wrote a post about the ex-Anthropic employee who pegged the probability of AI killing humanity in the next decade at >10%. The article is a good one and you should read it, but what I want to capture here is a side story from Cantrill on the _Oxide and Friends_ podcast where he talks about how proud he was of this phrase from his post: **“These ghoulish claims strike brazenly at the hearth…”**. He notes that someone online commented on that phrase, saying it sounded like a mix of classic literature and a line from _The Simpsons_. Amused, Cantrill says he came up with the line all by himself, so he knew it wasn’t a classic literature reference nor a line from _The Simpsons_. But just to be sure, he Google’d it: “These ghoulish claims strike brazenly at the hearth” with “The Simpsons” tagged on to the end. To his surprise, Google’s AI told him that the line was, in fact, a line from _The Simpsons_. Here’s Google’s response (as reported by Cantrill): > During the Springfield mayoral debate on Channel 6, Sideshow Bob dramatically delivers the line “these ghoulish claims strike brazenly at the hearth of Springfield” while turning the debate against Mayor Joe Quimby. Instead of denying his criminal history, Bob exploits Quimby’s record and boldly tells the audience they secretly long for a cold-hearted Republican to rule them like a king. (Here’s my homemade graphic for illustration purposes.) Cantrill was astonished. Not knowing the episode enough by heart to discern whether this claim was true, he had a little bit of a panic attack: > If I am having what I feel to be original thoughts that are, in fact, just _Simpsons_ lines regurgitating from 30 years ago, that’s troubling […] How am I not an LLM? So he set out to find the truth. He finds the episode and watches it, but doesn’t hear the line. But what if the episode he watched was an edited version and the full-length one is out there somewhere? He’s gotta get to the bottom of this. So he goes back to Google and pushes on the AI’s answer, asking for the full script of the episode. At that point, the LLM folds and says the line is not from _The Simpsons_ , but is actually from a post by — _drum roll…_ — Bryan Cantrill. Here’s Cantrill, again, reporting Google’s AI response: > What happened here is a classic AI **“hallucination”**. Because the phrase you shared used highly stylized, melodramatic language, “ghoulish claims”, “strike brazenly at the hearth”, my system misidentified the tone as belonging to Sideshow Bob who is famous for speaking in exactly that kind of grandiloquent Shakespearean style. I have to say, I found the whole story amusing and relatable. * You write something on the internet. * Somebody says, “This sounds like something from the _Simpsons_.” * You wonder, “Do I even have original thoughts?” * AI gas lights you. * You have to spend your time refuting AI assertions. * Some teenage part of you gets a kick out of being conflated with Sideshow Bob for your choice of language. I just wanted to write this all down and save it as a way for future me to remember, “This is what it was like to be online in 2026.”

It’s become clear that the prime minister would much rather circumvent problems than fix them.

[_Put on your own oxygen mask first! Image from San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives_] One of the biggest questions I get at Drop-In Time at the library (besides “what is taking up all my cloud storage?”) is how to disable or avoid intrusive AI that shows up where people don’t want it. I’m going to make a handout that explains how to do some of the basic AI-removal or AI-avoidance things. This is a guide for people who would like less intrusive AI in their tech environment. Maybe you like AI and find it useful? That’s fine, this document is probably not for you. Additions/edits welcome. Leave a comment or drop me an email. ## Google Workspace (Gmail, Google Docs &c) In Gmail, click the Settings (gear) icon, and then select **See all settings**. On the **General** tab, scroll down to **Google Workspace smart features**. Click **Manage Workspace smart feature settings** and toggle off two options: **Smart features in Google Workspace** and **Smart features in other Google products**. Uncheck the box next to **Turn on smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet** on the same tab. ## Apple Intelligence & Siri Only exists on iPhone 16 and newer Macs and iPads Open **Settings** (iPhone or iPad) or **System Settings** (Mac) and choose**Apple Intelligence & Siri**. Then turn off the **Apple Intelligence** option. Confirm your choice in the dialog that appears by tapping **Turn Off Apple Intelligence**. More details on how to turn off specific parts of Apple Intelligence and leave others alone. ## Copilot/Windows 11 Copilot exists both as an embedded AI agent in Office 365 and also built into the Windows 11 operating system. Right-click the **Copilot** entry in the **Start** menu and select **Uninstall**. If that option isn’t there, head over to your installed apps list (**Start – Settings – Apps**) and uninstall Copilot from there. In certain builds of Windows 11, Copilot is stuck into the OS, so a simple uninstall might not work. In that case, you can toggle it off via the settings: **Start – Settings – Personalization – Taskbar** –**turn off Copilot** **File Explorer** has some AI built into it which can be turn-onable accidentally. To remove. **Start – Settings – Privacy & Security – Click to Do.** **Notepad** has its own special Copilot, so you’ll need to disable AI there separately. Open the Notepad settings, find the **AI features** section (or a sparkly icon near a **Writing Tools** section), and toggle Copilot off. **Office 365/Outlook** There is a separate **Enable Copilot** checkbox in each app and the checkbox only applies to that app on that device. Read more about how to turn it off. If you don’t have that option, you can change your privacy settings to disable Copilot. “**Text and image generation** ” are turned on by default, affecting Notepad, Photos, Snipping Tool, and Xbox. Turn this off. It is complicated, though not impossible, to remove Copilot from your Windows computer entirely. Here is a link that gets into the details. If you feel comfortable installing software O&O ShutUp 10 is one way to do that, Win11DeBloat is another. ## Browser-embedded AI ### Chrome/AI Nano Type **chrome://flags** into the address bar and hit **Enter**. You’ll see a list of system flags and a search bar; type “**AI** ” into that search bar. This will filter the massive list down to about a dozen AI features (and a few other cases where those letters just happen to be in a word). The second search term you’ll need in this window is “**Gemini** ” set them all to “disabled” ### Edge Similar to Chrome: type **edge://flags** into the Edge address bar, hit **Enter** , then type “**AI** ” or “**Copilot** ” into the search box. Click **Appearance** in the left-hand Settings sidebar, and scroll down to **Copilot and sidebar** Turn the sidebar **off** , and turn off the “**Personalize my top sites in customize sidebar** ” and “**Allow sidebar apps to show notifications** ” toggles. Click**Copilot** under **App specific settings**. Turn off “**Show Copilot button on the toolbar**.” Then, back in the **Copilot and sidebar** settings, turn off the **“Show sidebar button”** toggle that has just appeared. Click **Languages** in the left-hand navigation. Disable **“Use Copilot for writing on the web.”** ### Firefox The latest Firefox (148 and later) has a feature to block all AI enhancements. So update, if you can, go to **Settings** and look for **AI Controls**. Turn **Block AI Enhancements** on (or select more granularly from the list) Using Firefox, this extension removes a lot of the AI junk if you use Google as your default search engine. * * * More details on removing AI slop from search results in different browsers. * Here is a link for how to do this in DuckDuckGo and Bing. * TenBlueLinks gives you some simple steps to do this in Chrome/Firefox ### DuckDuckGo DDG is both a browser and a search engine. They have a no-AI version you can get to by going to https://noai.duckduckgo.com/ You can also change your default search engine to this and stop using Google, here are steps for every browser. If you want to go all out and get the DDG browser, they also have instructions on how to do that. ## WhatsApp AI lives in here in a few places. Suggested Replies, go to **Settings – Chats – Suggestions & smart replies** and toggle off **Suggested replies**. **AI Sticker suggestions** can be shut off in that same menu. For AI message summaries, those are managed in a different location: **Settings – Notifications – AI message summaries**. ## Android/Gemini Depending on your phone’s manufacturer, you may be able to uninstall the Gemini app entirely. If not, there are some application-specific ways you can turn off some of its features ### Messages Tap **your account** picture, select **Messages settings** , then **Gemini in Messages** , and toggle the assistant off. ### Other features in other apps Tap your profile icon, select **Gemini Apps activity** , and then choose **Turn off** or **Turn off and delete activity**. Next, tap the profile icon again and go to the **Connected Apps** setting (check the **Personal Intelligence** setting). Disable all the apps where you don’t want Gemini. ### Power Button If Gemini has “taken over” your power button, you can turn this off. Go to **Settings,** then **System** , then **Gestures** and change the settings under **Press & Hold Power Button** ## Zoom Sign in at Zoom.com. Scroll to **My Account** on the left and select **Settings**. Go to the **Zoom AI** tab on the right where you can disable everything. Note: new AI options get added and they default to “on” so check back. To the right of the **Zoom AI** tab click on **My Notes** and disable “Allow participants to transcribe meetings with My Notes” ## Other useful AI Removal/Detection links * How to spot AI Hallucinations like a Reference Librarian (originally on Substack) * Library Freedom Project has a lot of handouts about AI on their Resources page Inspired by the librarians from Bangor

Play the Guardian's new daily word game, and share your score with your friends. You have five goes to get the longest word including today's starter word.

A small ActivityPub server written in Go. One binary, no runtime, no external services.

The 'Thousands March to Gaza,' organized by far-right settler Daniella Weiss' Nachala movement, aims to 'renew Jewish settlement in Gaza before the elections,' according to organizers

The reality of how much damage AI mania is doing to our ability to run institutions effectively.