Jeff Waugh

Jeff Waugh

@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

I build castles* in the sky* made of fairy floss*. 😎⛅️

89 followers32 following162 posts

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

“Lord Watson, now a senior vice-president at the US tech corporation… Since stepping down from parliament in 2019, he has been an adviser to the gambling and music industries and, since 2024, he has been a part-time adviser to Palantir.” … which part of the music industry … … yikes …

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

Strange times make for strange bedfellows. Potential minor precedent on fair use and LLM training in an action brought by… Thomson Reuters. 😬 Strongest voice of moral clarity about big tech and LLMs… the Pope. 😬 Calmly dismantling Tucker Carlson's… well, Tucker Carlson… Jacob Rees-Mogg. 😬

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

This comparison is unfair. But it is funny. Stallman quibbled about attribution and precision, having lost control of a brand. But this convo is about systems that gain trust by exploiting our empathy. How we talk and think about them has psychological and cultural ramifications… (cont'd)

Steve Klabnik@steveklabnik.com

it has big richard stallman energy look how impactful trying to play word games is at actually causing change. didn't help. mostly just makes you look out of touch. scolding people on saying gnu/linux instead of linux produced only a (admittedly, legendary) copypasta and not much else

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Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

But in spite of all the purported inevitability, the ever-present industry dipshits, and the vacuum of political leadership, I think we're doing okay right now… Growing cultural skepticism. Anger about externalities. Near-universal disgust among creators. Kids think it's dogshit. "Slop." (cont'd)

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

And to bring us around, here's AP, describing very clearly why we should be careful about the language we use when we talk about "artificial intelligence". x.com/APStylebook/...

x.comAPStylebook (@APStylebook) on XArtificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics. This is called anthropomorphizing, when we ascribe human traits, emotions or behaviors to non-human things, such as animals or inanimate objects. Instead, explain what a sys…
Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

This comparison is unfair. But it is funny. Stallman quibbled about attribution and precision, having lost control of a brand. But this convo is about systems that gain trust by exploiting our empathy. How we talk and think about them has psychological and cultural ramifications… (cont'd)

Steve Klabnik@steveklabnik.com

it has big richard stallman energy look how impactful trying to play word games is at actually causing change. didn't help. mostly just makes you look out of touch. scolding people on saying gnu/linux instead of linux produced only a (admittedly, legendary) copypasta and not much else

View full thread
Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

Anthropomorphising is part of our humanity. When we name (and gender!) a ship, it's a form of respect and endearment. There's no threat or risk. It's a fiction, but it's not false. It's safe to think your dog has the soul of an English professor. These don't enter the uncanny valley. (cont'd)

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

Imitative generative techniques exploit our humanity to make us believe they are something they are not. Clear and accurate language can help us think about these things in a healthy way, and defend against misinformation and obfuscation. But yeah, language scolds won't achieve that! (cont'd)

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

This comparison is unfair. But it is funny. Stallman quibbled about attribution and precision, having lost control of a brand. But this convo is about systems that gain trust by exploiting our empathy. How we talk and think about them has psychological and cultural ramifications… (cont'd)

Steve Klabnik@steveklabnik.com

it has big richard stallman energy look how impactful trying to play word games is at actually causing change. didn't help. mostly just makes you look out of touch. scolding people on saying gnu/linux instead of linux produced only a (admittedly, legendary) copypasta and not much else

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

Steve's comparison highlights a failure mode when we focus on language: it's easy be consumed by the low-effort "activism" of language policing. When that takes over, it's unlikely or unusual that we're still effectively communicating the ideas behind it. This happens in… so many cases. 😬 (cont'd)

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

Regulating how it's built is a feel-good nothing-burger. Regulate how it's used. With gusto. And make it crystal clear that operators will be held legally responsible for the actions of their agents. With gusto. A conga line needs a disincentive at the head and the tail.

Congressman Greg Casar@repcasar.bsky.social

You may have heard about my AI bill with @sanders.senate.gov. We're introducing the legislation today, and I wanted to highlight one of the most important aspects: A ban on “recursive self-improvement.” What does that mean? 👇🏽

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

Etymology is frequently delightful, and deeply human. 🥰 Faced with an astonishingly versatile and hardy tuber from the New World, the French took one look and said, "ground apple", and almost everyone else agreed. Not the Spanish, who stole it in the first place. Or the English, who admire theft.

Jeff Waugh reposted

steve o’grady
@sogrady.org

a sportswriter's take on your p/doom available options

Craig Calcaterra@craigcalcaterra.bsky.social

Free newsletter today: Ohtani and Jazz hit the IL, Aaron Judge's grumbling, a Vivek batting cage update, that plane sure seems safe, Anthropic: Age of Ultron, when you know you're doing good work, and the foldable iPhone. www.cupofcoffeenews.com/cup-of-coffe...

cupofcoffeenews.comCup of Coffee: September 10, 2026Ohtani and Jazz hit the IL, Aaron Judge's grumbling, a Vivek batting cage update, that plane sure seems safe, Anthropic: Age of Ultron, when you know you're doing good work, and the foldable iPhone
Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

# GRUB lacks write support for lvm, so recordfail support is disabled. ^ use LVM and UEFI on Ubuntu? surprise, you get to wait 30s at the grub menu every time you boot

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

Especially in FLOSS circles, you might’ve heard: “If you didn’t run code written by assholes, your machine wouldn’t boot.” [1] Which is true. And sometimes we have to work with people we don’t like. But questioning your complicity is a worthy exercise.

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

It was bad enough when zombie fascism was getting in the way of climate action. Now we’ve got oligarchs and idolators building bigger fossil fuel burning power plants than ever before.

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

Amazon’s behaviour is especially disappointing: Once a leader in emissions reduction, now building one of the world’s largest fossil fuel burning and emitting power plants ever.

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

Strong concur. Bonus: An amusing technical review of Omarchy. It's like bad Linux desktop fan fiction. xn--gckvb8fzb.com/a-word-on-om...

kat cosgrove@kat.lol

Before you say positive things about DHH because of Omarchy, a reminder that it's been like 3 weeks since he published a blog that compares Roma people to the wolves Denmark eradicated in the 1800s. He's an open, virulent racist and always has been. Everything he touches should be radioactive.

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

“it’s inevitable” and “the genie is out of the bottle” are thought-terminating clichés, and boil down to the same thing: hopeless surrender we *can* make better decisions, and fix our mistakes – and we *have*!

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

Racist ideology is not welcome or acceptable. When it’s inconvenient. When they want to join your creative community. When they want to support your project. You gotta hold the line. Racist ideology is not welcome or acceptable. Tell fascists to fuck off.

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

“The Singularity happened 8 months ago so we bought an LLM API proxy.” – Shopify’s flavour of AI psychosis (whatever the merits of the acquisition, the rationale is batshit)

Jeff Waugh reposted

Ada Palmer
@adapalmer.bsky.social

In the Renaissance people theorized, since the Aeneid is great, if you wrote poems made only of words & phrases from the Aeneid rearranged they should be great too, since a great source regurgitated should yield greatness. They produced NOTHING we still read. Thinking about that a lot lately.

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

You're supposed to be a writer. And yet here we are, talking about watermarking. We're talking about watermarking. Watermarking. Not prose. Not prose. Not the prose you claim to care about, right? Prose you asked a machine to generate, right? No, we're talking about watermarking, man. Watermarking!

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

A piece of writing is not merely a product. It is an act. A verb. Consequential writing tends to involve many acts: experience, thought, synthesis, judgement, creation, editing, vulnerability, courage, accountability…

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

Scene: A uniformed Marine puts an apple on his young son's head and shoots it with his service pistol. Rationalise all you like about dramatic effectiveness, that is a truly insane thing to put on television. (American television! Where adults and children can't stop shooting each other!)

Jeff Waugh
@jeffwaugh.bsky.social

Suggestion: SNL with host and musical guest, Phoebe Bridgers, but the rest of the cast is trapped outside 30 Rock by a snowstorm so Phoebe and Jane Wickline have to save the live show with only their wits, a 1980s Casio keyboard, and a rubber bridge acoustic guitar.