The web can be weaponised – and we can't count on big tech to stop it | Tim Berners-Lee

It’s dangerous having a handful of companies control how ideas and opinions are shared. A regulator may be needed

14 Theses on Online Political Violence

The old world of content safety practices is dead, and the new one is struggling to be born.

The LLM Problem

So far I’ve had nothing to say about the LLM chatbot frenzy. My understanding of the technology is shallow and I’ve no sense for its functional envelope, and lots of other people have had smart things to say. I hadn’t even conversed with any of the bots. But I fell off the wagon a few days ago and put time into GPT3 and (especially) the new GPT4-based Bing chat. I got off Bing’s waitlist a few days before the recent general availability, so I have more hands-on than most people. Plus I caught up on background reading. So, question: Are LLMs dangerous distractions or are they a glowing harbinger of a bright future? (Spoiler: I’m dubious but uncertain.)

Histomat of F/OSS: We should reclaim LLMs, not reject them

A few days ago, I came across a blog post titled On FLOSS and training LLMs that articulates a growing frustration within the free and open source software…

Well-intentioned obscenity

An LLM lied about me at the office and I'm cranky about it. That interaction makes me think a lot about how LLMs are becoming normalized, though, and what we're looking at in terms of their role in human-to-human interactions in the future.

Against an Increasingly User-Hostile Web - Neustadt.fr

We are quietly replacing an open web that connects and empowers with one that restricts and commoditizes people. We need to stop it.

Please Let the Internet Die

Online spaces are captured by oligarchs and saturated with slop—and they’re exacerbating humanity’s worst impulses. It’s time to start over.

DRM Is Toxic To Culture

In pursuit of market control now, deployers of DRM are robbing us of our culture in perpetuity by enclosing the future commons. It’s possible that you think that unauthorised use of copyright…

Online abuse: banning anonymous social media accounts is not the answer

In the wake of the tragic death of Sir David Amess, some politicians are calling for a law banning anonymous social media profiles. But it’s not the right way to tackle online abuse.

Online abuse: banning anonymous social media accounts is not the answer

In the wake of the tragic death of Sir David Amess, some politicians are calling for a law banning anonymous social media profiles. But it’s not the right way to tackle online abuse.

The AI hater's guide to code with LLMs (The Overview) | All Confirmation Bias, All The Time

This is the post I don’t think many people expected me to write, and I have (rightly!) surrounded myself with people who are generally uncomfortable to somewhat hostile to “AI”, mostly for good reasons, though I’ll get into the many caveats on that as I go.

Long Live the Web: A Call for Continued Open Standards and Neutrality

The Web is critical not merely to the digital revolution but to our continued prosperity—and even our liberty. Like democracy itself, it needs defending

The modern web is becoming an unusable, user-hostile wasteland

Some thoughts about the modern web