Simon @spoltier@qoto.org

Awoo!

Working on a draft. Is it too hard to lead with this?

The deployment of generative artificial intelligence tools has been a disaster for the human race. They have allowed a select few to gain "higher productivity"; but they have destabilized society, have made work transactional, have subjected artists to indignities, have lead to widespread psychological suffering for the hackers that build the tools AI companies rely on, and inflict severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of this technology will worsen this situation. It will certainly subject human beings to greater indignities and inflict greater damage on the natural world, it will probably lead to greater social disruption and psychological suffering, and it may lead to increased physical suffering even in "advanced" countries.

It's another kind of space race, so we all "win" in the end. https://blog.codinghorror.com/the-2030-self-driving-car-bet/

Some notes on Shisa v2 405B, a new open weights LLM release from Japan that's an example of Sovereign AI - the ability for nations to build models that reflect their own language and culture
https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/3/shisa-v2/

Last week, @steveklabnik.com indicated his disappointment with AI discourse:

https://steveklabnik.com/writing/i-am-disappointed-in-the-ai-discourse/

Perhaps unsurprisingly, @ahl and I are going to be joined by Steve today to talk AI discourse; join us, 5p Pacific!

https://discord.gg/QrcKGTTPrF?event=1379120814452113428

An extra special Cat Talks announcement: I'm going to be at Comic-Con to join a panel exploring the latest season of ANDOR: "From Resistance to Rebellion." I'll be repping as a psychological scientist sharing about the psychology of coalitions, the psychology of conformity, and the psychology of courage under authoritarianism!!!!!!!!

Details to follow closer to. But yes, this IS the most Dr. Cat event imaginable 😎

Was reminded of this great piece today by another tech dopamine post

https://medium.com/the-spike/the-crimes-against-dopamine-b82b082d5f3d

Some notes on the new DeepSeek-R1-0528 - a completely different model from the R1 they released in January, despite having a very similar name

Terrible LLM naming has managed to infect the Chinese AI labs too

https://simonwillison.net/2025/May/31/deepseek-aideepseek-r1-0528/

This is likely a historic mistake, but I’m starting to wonder if the line between “science” and “engineering”—which we’ve learned to bracket in the case of CS—could get bracketed in certain social science contexts as well.

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:565ebob5f6hw33hjdkxty6qj/post/3lqgjx4aqls2x

Normalise not finishing your slides 😳 @TodePond

I am disappointed in the AI discourse steveklabnik.com/writing/i-am...

I am disappointed in the AI di...

How are we doing at "being technical"? @grimalkina - looks at how technical teams work, finds it fascinating!

Questions for engineers:
- what does your work help people do?
- how many people a day does your people help?

A small slide deck for a 15 minute impulse talk at Cycon 2025 in Talinn: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_3Iu74UijAjfSLHzqWDkDEaIwoB6WBSo9-mY5e0u0HM/edit?usp=drivesdk

Never use the first version of a database. You want to use the SQL.

Okay this is very cool and anybody who is touching big data should pay attention to how this evolves: https://ducklake.select/manifesto/

We are planning an interaction and multi-turn conversation workshop (from games to RL to chat), would it interest you?

Dr. Meredith Palmer and embedded engineer Akiba(of http://freaklabs.org/ ) joined Chris and Elecia this week to talk about lions, terror, conservation, and technology.

Akiba designed BoomBox - a device that picks up on the trigger signal of animals passing to start recording, and then wait a few seconds and play a sound.

https://embedded.fm/episodes/501.

Here's an excerpt:

#biology #ecology #science #conservation #engineering

arguing with my dad. am i wrong?