1. Yann LeCun: AI one-percenters seizing power forever is real doomsday scenario
Total comment counts : 53
Summary
Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist at Meta, has accused prominent founders in AI, including Sam Altman from OpenAI, Demis Hassabis from Google DeepMind, and Dario Amodei from Anthropic, of engaging in massive corporate lobbying and attempting to control the AI industry through regulatory capture. LeCun warns that if their efforts succeed, a small number of companies will control AI, which will have catastrophic consequences. He argues that the real danger lies in the development of AI being monopolized by private, for-profit entities, while the open-source community is sidelined. LeCun advocates for transparency and open-source development to prevent concentrated power and ensure cultural diversity and democracy are preserved.
Top 1 Comment Summary
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Top 2 Comment Summary
The article criticizes the attempts by incumbents to gain control over technology through regulatory capture. It argues that using “X-Risk” and exaggerated claims of human extinction is a cynical tactic. The article also highlights the importance of open source and criticizes the push to restrict AI with licensing and reporting requirements. It suggests that existing laws already address malicious and abusive uses of software applications.
2. EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram
Total comment counts : 46
Summary
The European data regulator has extended a ban on “behavioural advertising” on Facebook and Instagram to cover all 30 countries in the European Union and the European Economic Area. The ban, which targets users by collecting their data, is a setback for Meta Platforms, the owner of the two social media services. Meta could face fines of up to 4% of its global turnover if it fails to comply. The decision by the European Data Protection Board instructs the data regulator of Ireland, where Meta’s European headquarters are located, to impose a permanent ban within two weeks. Meta has already announced plans to offer a subscription model to comply with regulations.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author of the article believes that personalized ads are more useful than ads that are irrelevant to their interests. They express annoyance towards ads that do not cater to their needs and interests, even though those types of ads are still the most common ones they encounter.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article states that Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has announced plans to offer users in the European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA) the option to provide consent for personalized ads. In order to comply with regulatory requirements, Meta will introduce a subscription model in November. Therefore, users in the EU who wish to use Facebook or Instagram will likely have to pay for a subscription, as the services won’t be available for free without personalized ads due to legal restrictions.
3. Last Chance to fix eIDAS: Secret EU law threatens Internet security
Total comment counts : 50
Summary
The near-final text of the eIDAS regulation, which regulates electronic identification and trust services in the European Union (EU), has been agreed upon by negotiators. New legislative articles have been introduced that require web browsers distributed in Europe to trust certificate authorities and cryptographic keys chosen by EU governments. This grants EU governments greater surveillance capabilities by allowing them to intercept encrypted web traffic across the EU. Each member state can designate cryptographic keys for distribution and browsers are not allowed to revoke trust in these keys without government permission. There is no independent oversight of these decisions, which is concerning considering the varying adherence to the rule of law among member states. The text also prohibits browsers from applying security checks to these EU keys and certificates, except those pre-approved by the EU’s IT standards body, ETSI. ETSI has a worrying track record of compromised cryptographic standards and has a working group focused on interception technology. The introduction of this text behind closed doors and late in the legislative process raises concerns about democratic norms. Over 300 cybersecurity experts and researchers have signed an open letter urging the EU to abandon these plans. Civil society groups and companies in the internet industry have also expressed their opposition. The text will undergo a closed-door trialogue meeting in November 2023 and is expected to be ratified in the European Parliament in early 2024. European citizens and cybersecurity experts can voice their concerns through various channels.
Top 1 Comment Summary
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Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses legislation that allows a certificate authority (CA) to issue any certificate, which could be used for surveillance purposes. It references a recent incident in Germany where surveillance was attempted on jabber.ru users. The author argues that the surveillance aspect is the main point of the legislation.
4. Talk-Llama
Total comment counts : 19
Summary
The article discusses the use of the talk-llama tool, which relies on the SDL2 library to capture audio from the microphone. The tool supports session management, allowing for more coherent and continuous conversations. By saving and loading the model state from a specified file, the tool can maintain context and provide relevant responses across multiple sessions. The article also provides an example usage and suggests using a TTS tool to convert text responses to voice. Feedback can be provided in the provided discussion link.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses improvements in the performance of Apple Silicon. It mentions that the performance should be better than what is shown in a video, as there have been significant improvements in the speed of generating llama.cpp and whisper.cpp now runs fully on the GPU.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article discusses the author’s experience using an open-source TTS model called Llama for a recent engineering project. They mention that there was a lot of fun engineering involved in the process. Additionally, the author expresses their thoughts on coding copilot tools, stating that the most useful ones are those that reduce manual overhead without solving problems for them. They also discuss the idea of a tool that would incorporate their speech into a context vector to provide a better starting point for the copilot model. The author admits to being a late adopter of copilot and expresses curiosity if anyone knows of a tool like the one they mentioned.
5. Grist is a modern, relational spreadsheet
Total comment counts : 29
Summary
The article discusses Grist, which is described as the evolution of spreadsheets. It combines the flexibility of a spreadsheet with the robustness of a database to organize data and increase productivity. Grist offers various options for viewing and editing spreadsheets, including a desktop app and an in-browser build. The article also mentions that Grist is open-source and provides specific feature highlights and instructions for running and configuring Grist. It emphasizes the importance of data portability and autonomy and highlights Grist Labs’ commitment to maintaining and improving the grist-core codebase. The article concludes by mentioning that Grist can be configured in various ways and provides information about the plugin system and running tests.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The author is expressing their positive experience using a self-hosted version of Grist for their government agency team. They appreciate that the product is open-source and allows for easy use by those familiar with spreadsheets while also offering customization options for more technical users through custom widgets and python formulas.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article highlights a concern regarding the display of legal processes and HR records, including people’s pay, on a website. While the content is meant to serve as an example, the author suggests that more marketing collateral should be provided to address the importance of securing such sensitive data.
6. Lemming Suicide Myth: Disney Film Faked Bogus Behavior
Total comment counts : 21
Summary
This article debunks the myth that lemmings commit mass suicide. The myth originated from a Disney documentary in the 1950s called “White Wilderness,” which falsely portrayed lemmings jumping into the ocean. The lemming scenes in the documentary were actually staged using careful editing and throwing lemmings off a cliff. Lemmings are a species of rodent found in tundra and grasslands, and they do not have a compulsion to commit mass suicide. Their population fluctuations are influenced by predators, food availability, and climate. When they disperse, they may accidentally drown while crossing bodies of water. Overall, lemmings do not deliberately take their own lives.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the misconception surrounding lemmings and their alleged mass suicide behavior. Contrary to popular belief, lemmings do not intentionally choose to die in large numbers. Instead, their migratory behavior, driven by biological urges and high population density, may lead them to swim across bodies of water in search of new habitats. Many drown in the process, contributing to the false stereotype of lemmings committing suicide. This misconception can be traced back to the late 19th century but was popularized by the staged behavior shown in the 1958 Walt Disney documentary “White Wilderness.” The film describes the lemmings’ compulsion and obsession to move forward, which aligns with their migratory behavior.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author recalls an experience while hiking during a “lemming year.” This particular year, there were thousands of lemmings’ dead bodies scattered everywhere. The author describes accidentally stepping on them as they ran under their hiking boots mid-step. Furthermore, the lemmings would approach and attack if the author sat down off the trail. The author finds this behavior both cute and fierce, especially when a lemming exhibited a defensive stance by standing up on its hind legs and emitting a high-pitched shriek. The author concludes that lemmings are peculiar creatures.
7. Window-swap – open a new window somewhere in the world
Total comment counts : 26
Summary
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Top 1 Comment Summary
The article is about a website where users can record and upload 10-minute videos of the view from their window. Visitors can then view these videos on the website. The article notes that there have been no updates on the site since September 21st. The idea of the website has been discussed on HN (Hacker News) multiple times.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The article talks about a website called “insecam.org” that used to list unsecured security cameras from various countries. It allowed users to view live feeds of things like forklifts in Chinese factories or people parking in Japanese car parks. The website was initially believed to be dead, but it turns out that it is still accessible through “insecam.com”.
8. 4th edition of Physically Based Rendering is now freely available online
Total comment counts : 15
Summary
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Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the significant update in the 4th edition of a book, which includes a new chapter on GPU rendering. The chapter focuses on wavefront rendering on GPUs. The preface of the book explains the differences between the 4th edition and the previous edition.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author is fascinated by the seamless integration of prose and code in a book. They compare it to literate programming, but notice that the GitHub source code does not have any annotations. The author is seeking information on the software used to create the book and its relationship to the GitHub sources.
9. Raspberry Pi receives strategic investment from Arm
Total comment counts : 19
Summary
Arm Holdings plc has announced a strategic investment in Raspberry Pi Ltd, acquiring a minority stake in the company. The investment strengthens the partnership between the two companies as they collaborate to deliver solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT) developer community. Raspberry Pi’s low-cost, high-performance computing solutions are in high demand as the need for edge compute accelerates due to the proliferation of IoT and AI applications. The investment demonstrates Arm’s commitment to the developer community and partnership with Raspberry Pi. The article also includes additional information about Arm and Raspberry Pi’s vision and goals.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the connection between the Raspberry Pi Foundation and ARM, noting that their offices are located near each other and that there are engineers from Broadcom (which previously owned ARM) working at the Foundation. The author believes that the idea of switching to the RISCV instruction set, similar to the “lets rewrite everything in rust” trend, will not gain much traction because ARM is a stable and reliable player in the industry. The cost of ARM licenses is not seen as a significant concern for the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and their success is not threatened by sticking with ARM. The author suggests that the strategic investment by ARM is more like a marketing cost, which will help the Raspberry Pi Foundation reach a larger audience. The article concludes that this investment will not prevent the Foundation from exploring RISCV, as they would not have pursued it anyway.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The author expresses hope for a future desktop version of Raspberry Pi that improves upon the existing options. While the Raspberry Pi 400 exists, the author finds its use of an SD card as primary storage inadequate. They desire a version with NVMe storage and non-USB connected networking, as well as sufficient cooling and a good keyboard. They also hope that GPIO connections, similar to the Pi 400, are still available. While they do not expect a PCIe expansion slot, they want a more powerful version of the Pi 400 that can serve as a true successor to the BBC Micro. Finally, they emphasize the importance of proper HDMI ports and a high-quality keyboard design, such as that of the Amiga 600.
10. macOS Sonoma Broke Grep
Total comment counts : 15
Summary
The article discusses an issue with the ‘grep’ command on Sonoma, macOS. The author provides details of the problem and shares links to bug reports. They explain that the issue occurs when the command encounters multibyte characters and go on to describe the code where the problem originates. The author suggests a possible fix and mentions that the issue is not present when using certain locales. They then discuss the behavior of the ‘grep’ command when run through SSH and the macOS terminal, pointing out the difference in the LANG environment variable. Finally, they mention that the issue is related to multi-byte character encoding and suggest that using UTF-8 or other similar encodings can resolve the problem.
Top 1 Comment Summary
The article discusses the author’s partner, an astrophysicist who relies on Gnu Emacs for her work. She manages legacy code in various languages and needs a specific computing environment. Each time she gets a new Mac, she has to set up her environment from scratch because the migration assistant does not meet her needs. Despite having a powerful MacBook Pro, she avoids annual OS upgrades because they used to cause problems with her setup. She has been avoiding OS upgrades for around 7-8 years and using Docker as a potential solution. However, Docker still requires her to take on administrative responsibilities, which can be a distraction in her busy research life.
Top 2 Comment Summary
The comment suggests that using lower-case LANG on macOS is invalid and the system will automatically default to LANG=C.