The abyss that exists between factions of LLM users and abolitionists stems from differing perspectives on the harms produced by the industry.

I refuse to imagine that the majority of LLM users are so enamored with this technology that they purposefully ignore the possibility that their prompts are accelerating the destruction of humanity as we know it.

The offset of harms and benefits must somehow be worth it.

Either the benefits afforded are substantially better than an alternate timeline without these tools, or the harms are overstated and merely collateral damage of inevitable progress.

Ten days ago, the social chat app Discord announced that it would launch “teen-by-default” settings for its global audience. As part of this update, all new and existing users worldwide will have a teen-appropriate experience, with updated communication settings, restricted access to age-gated spaces, and content filtering that preserves privacy and meaningful connections, the platform said.

Entre 2005 et 2008, j’étais devenu le « conseiller Internet » officieux de mon groupe d’amis. Mes potes débarquaient avec leurs envies créatives, toujours plus ambitieuses : « Fais-moi un truc street avec du Jay-Z en lecture automatique », « Je veux quelque chose de coloré pour mettre mes photos de skate », « Peux-tu me faire un fond étoilé qui bouge ? » Sur MySpace, tout un écosystème de générateurs de code transformait ces rêves d’ados en HTML bidouillé.

A newly uncovered flaw in Discord’s age verification rollout has added fresh pressure to the company’s 2026 compliance plans.

Life is complicated. Regardless of what your beliefs or politics or ethics are, the way that we set up our society and economy will often force you to act against them: You might not want to fly somewhere but your employer will not accept another mode of transportation, you want to eat vegan but are at some point in a situation where the best you can do is a vegetarian option.

I wanted the blue checkmark on LinkedIn. The one that says “this person is real.” In a sea of fake recruiters, bot accounts, and AI-generated headshots, it seemed like a smart thing to do.

So I tapped “verify.” I scanned my passport. I took a selfie. Three minutes later — done. Badge acquired. I felt a tiny dopamine hit of legitimacy.

Then I did what apparently nobody does. I went and read the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not LinkedIn’s. The other company’s.

That comes from a 1999 essay for the Sunday Times News Review, in which Adams railed against the way the BBC’s John Humphrys pronounced internet addresses like some strange, incomprehensible alien language – a fact which makes it feel just wrong somehow that Humphrys would continue to be bothering the listeners of the Today programme for another 20 years while Adams would be dead inside two. If it’s ringing any bells, that’s probably because it’s been widely reproduced all over the internet – though often, strangely, with slightly different wording which pushes the cut off to 35, in a manner that makes it look hilariously like some tech-savvy 33 year old somewhere felt miffed.

x86CSS is a working CSS-only x86 CPU/emulator/computer. Yes, the Cascading Style Sheets CSS. No JavaScript required.

What you're seeing above is a C program that was compiled using GCC into native 8086 machine code being executed fully within CSS.

GitHub ⧸ Fedi, Bluesky, Twitter