My spouse sent me this rage bait photo. It wasn't even the ego rubbing graphic on the front page that got me (though that's bad enough). It's' the "Moral panic over data centres" that really gets my goat. Ah yes, it's the moral panic that's the issue, right? Right?!
Now AI blocking will get you more precise control over your website! Now AI crawlers will be allowed to grab your website! But don't worry! They promised and pinky swore they wouldn't train any AI on your data. So your data is protected!
Isn't that great!!?
cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/56563524
We're about to learn a painful lesson about delayed gratification in software engineering.
New data from China, 26,811 students tracked January 2023 through June 2025. Students using AI for homework saw their scores jump 20 percent. Completion time dropped nearly half. They aced the assignments.
Then exam season came. Those same students scored 20 to 40 percent worse when they couldn't use the tool.
The homework phase is over. The exam phase is coming.
We're doing this in software right now. Vibe coding feels incredible. Features ship fast. Nobody's asking what happens in Month 18 when the original dev has left and nobody understands the codebase.
Commercial pilots fly with autopilot for most of every flight. They're required to maintain manual flying proficiency regardless. If the system fails mid-air and the pilot can't take over, people die.
Most teams using AI right now have forgotten how to fly manually. They've become passengers in their own systems. The autopilot flies, nobody checks instruments, and the first sign of trouble will be a breach notice or outage.
Three rules:
- Command the mission. Define architecture before prompting. Ambiguity kills in code and in flight. Delegate selectively. Offload mechanical work. Keep design and security reviews human. Verify everything. Audit before production.
- Never trust the automation without checking instruments.
- Quick wins feel good. Sustainable engineering feels boring. Boring keeps systems standing.
Organisations surviving the next two years won't ship the fastest. They'll be the ones who remember how to fly without the aids.
people insisting that you actually be skilled, independently of your tools, doesn't make them Luddites. Rather, being unable to do so makes you a phony.
Edit: fixed the link
This post is primarily for the people here that are forced to work with AI. But it may be interesting for everyone.
We all here are aware how bad AI is for people and the environment. During some research I found out that this effect is most likely multiplied by pure greed (no even worse then you thought).
A little bit of context: I am currently responsible for a small R&D Team (me and some trainees) for a EU managed Services provider. Because of corpo pressure we need to evaluate AI usage.
I gave multiple models, nearly all run on 150W hardware a shot. And of course I was forced to test Claude also.
And what I found buffled me: the "frontier" top nodge best of the best model by Anthropic was the only one that did not even complete the task.
It constantly violated against clear rules. All of them about code simplicity and maintainability.
For example QWEN solved the task in about 30 minutes, one shot
And this would be the bill we would have paid for Claude without any usable result.
Having a deeper look at what happens if you let different models work on an existing codebase:
Claude will introduce complexity on every change. Wasting compute and energy.
As open source models clearly can do the job, why can those super huge big models not do the job?
And I think the answer is greed:
And that cost is really high. Not only those absurdly high token prices (factor of 100 higher then open models) it burns the employees out.
Is anyone here forced to work with AI and had made similar observations?
Luckily for me, I have some influence at my job and can minimize the AI impact in every sense. And maybe such experiments and research can convince other employers to not go down this road.
Google Translated from German to English:
GDPR vs. Smart Glasses: Why Ray-Ban Meta Carriers Can Be Held Liable
A new data protection report teaches: Anyone who films uninvolved third parties with smart glasses or allows Metas AI training loses the privilege of the budget exception. reading aloud Print view 53 Read comments Close-up of a black Ray-Ban-Meta-Smart glasses with integrated camera in the eyeglass frame and mirrored lenses on a wooden table. Close-up of a black Ray-Ban-Meta-Smart glasses with integrated camera in the eyeglass frame and mirrored lenses on a wooden table.
(Picture: Tada Images/Shutterstock.com) 13:54 Clock Reading time: 4 min. From Stefan Krempl
The dispute over smart glasses in everyday life continues. After prohibition demands occupied the policy and the Federal Network Agency fit in due to lack of handling, the Hamburg data protection officer Thomas Fuchs has followed up with an investigation by the Ray-Ban Meta AI Glasses. The analysis is clear: For the everyday use of data glasses in public spaces, there is therefore hardly a legally compliant basis, as long as Meta does not improve on construction method and presets.
In the laboratory, the Hamburg data protectionists dismantled the first-generation Meta Wayfarer model and analyzed the traffic. They quickly reached their limits: The 32-gigabyte flash memory had no standardized connections, the data transmission of the app remained encrypted. In the application memory of the smartphone, however, the examiners came across a discovery: In the internal SQLite database, there are table structures with designations such as “face”, “face_group” or “face_low_confidence_pair”.
Although these tables remained empty in the tests and currently no biometric facial recognition takes place, the substructure for automated person matching is already anchored. The authority also refers to security researchers who briefly managed to unlock a facial recognition function. Meta responded with a covert update. The fact that the Group is technically providing for the identification of people in the future by comparison is a bad blow to the inspectors.
Another point of criticism concerns transparency towards third parties. Externally, the data glasses hardly differ from the Wayfarer classic from the 1950s. Passers-by do not realize that they are captured by video camera, five microphone systems and AI assistant. The signal light proves to be largely ineffective: In daylight, the white LED is barely perceptible and sometimes does not signal direct AI interactions at all. When spectacle wearers become data processors
In addition, there is the vulnerability to manipulation. The protective mechanism, which is intended to prevent images when the LED is concealed, can be tricked with foils or caps. Video recordings launched once continue, even when the signal light is subsequently taped off. This means that the glasses miss the European privacy-by-design requirement. According to the report, this allows for secret surveillance that is incompatible with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
The classification of data protection law is of serious consequences for the buyers themselves. The budget exception protects private individuals from the GDPR obligations when taking up in a private environment. Anyone who films strangers in public spaces or publishes recordings on social media loses this privilege. The authority clarifies that carriers then become fully responsible data processors. Intractable hurdles in everyday use
The situation becomes even trickier if users do not object to the meta default setting and train the AI model with interaction data. If images and audio signals of third parties are transmitted to the USA for AI training, the data leaves the private purpose. Users thus slip into joint responsibility with the US group pursuant to Article 26 GDPR. Since Meta does not offer an agreement to divide the duties, spectacle wearers move on thin ice.
In order to lawfully process images or conversations of third parties, institutions would either have to obtain informed consent or prove an overriding legitimate interest. Both fail because of everyday realities: effective approval requires prior enlightenment, which is in fact impossible in the face of the inconspicuous glasses. It doesn’t look like a common camera. Video recordings in public spaces can exceptionally be based on legitimate interests. With activated AI functions, however, the rights of the filmed almost always outweigh the rights.
Anyone who walks through the city with the glasses would have to inform passers-by in advance orally or even wear safety vests with inscriptions in order to meet the requirements of the European Court of Justice. Particularly sensitive are medical practices, demonstrations, women's shelters or playgrounds. The use of the Ray-Ban Meta AI Glasses in public space is thus difficult to legally design under data protection law.
"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
