Trying to make computers do more good for humans. Engineering @ Zapier. Community @ devICT. seth.computer
Trying to make computers do more good for humans. Engineering @ Zapier. Community @ devICT. seth.computer
A break from programming languages
This is a blog post I have been considering writing for a long time.
You don't have to be smart if you can think clearly
When you’re on fire, problems are transparent: they’re solved simply by the act of looking at them. Even complicated layers of multiple problems can simply be glanced through like stacked panes of glass. But nobody can work that way all the time.
LLMs reward expertise
In the 2010s, if you had technical gaps (say, you couldn’t write CSS), you had to either rely on a skilled colleague or just hope that the answer to your exact problem was out there on the internet. Today, everyone can write sort-of-okay CSS by delegating the task to an LLM. LLMs make everybody into a generalist.
AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decisionmaking
The reality of how much damage AI mania is doing to our ability to run institutions effectively.
You should probably check on your smart appliances
TL;DR: is your refrigerator running malware? If so, you better catch it!
On an Atmosphere OS - Scott's Thoughts
What if an Atmosphere account could handle email, groupware, and device-level identity without putting Google or Apple at the center?
The 2026-07-28 Specification
The 2026-07-28 Model Context Protocol specification is out, bringing a stateless protocol core, Multi Round-Trip Requests, header-based routing, cacheable list results, authorization hardening, a formal extensions framework, and updated Tier 1 SDKs.
Investigating three real-world incidents in our cybersecurity evaluations
In a review of our cybersecurity evaluation transcripts, we found three incidents in which a Claude model reached the internet from within or while interacting with a third-party evaluation environment, and then gained unauthorized access to the real systems of three different organizations. Below we describe what happened, how it happened, and what we’re changing. We encourage other AI labs to perform similar reviews.
Being Linux Torvalds - <antirez>
Luke Kanies | Building on ATProto
Bluesky’s Atmosphere Protocol has the chance to become the base for a whole generation of applications. But it’s developing in surprising and disappointing ways.
OpenAI and Hugging Face partner to address security incident during model evaluation
OpenAI and Hugging Face share early findings from a security incident during AI model evaluation, highlighting advanced cyber capabilities and lessons for defenders.
Claude Is Not a Compiler - exe.dev blog
In early 2025, I wrote Is Claude a Compiler? At the time, my answer was: I don’t know.
AI Is a Product of Humanity. Humanity Should Own AI.
Big Tech has looted humanity’s creative output to create artificial intelligence. We don’t just deserve a share of AI’s profits — we deserve control over it.
Fetch Is Not Enough
The Fetch API gave JavaScript runtimes a shared vocabulary for HTTP. But HTTP has capabilities that Fetch can't express, and every runtime has diverged trying to work around the gaps.
Notes on software quality
“The absence of problems” is the best definition I can come up with for quality.