Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

This LA Times piece on the hype that is almost everytthing artificial intelligence has to offer, describes it as a bubble. A bubble that is about to burst.

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-08-20/say-farewell-to-the-ai-bubble-and-get-ready-for-the-crash

'The value of Bender’s and Hanna’s book, and the lesson of GPT-5, is that they remind us that “artificial intelligence” isn’t a scientific term or an engineering term. It’s a marketing term. And that’s true of all the chatter about AI eventually taking over the world.'

If he gets hit with something spicier than mayo, that's assault. https://patreon.com/BrianMcFadden

Do YOU have $100 million in bonds to tide you over for when Trump and Republicans crash the stock markets?

No? Why not? You should plan ahead!

#BondMarket #StockMarket #Trumpcession #GOPGrifters #USPol

A California Sheriff paid $180,000 for technology to monitor online activity. We settled a case to get the details. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/08/victory-pen-links-police-tools-are-not-secret

HRW usually focuses on wars and atrocities. Now, they're investigating LA cops' violence against protesters and journalists.

It's not because it's a slow atrocity news week — it's because the situation in LA really is that bad.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/08/18/us-excessive-force-against-la-protesters

For only $5 a month you can ensure EFF's lawyers and activists are prepared to defend your right to speak freely online. https://eff.org/35rm

“All licensed attorneys — but especially top prosecutors entrusted to protect the public, not just their clients — should know better than to retaliate against newspapers for basic public-interest journalism," Seth Stern said.

https://freedom.press/issues/rights-groups-oppose-us-attorneys-retaliation-against-press/

"Earlier this year, MERL Tech Initiative (MTI) undertook a sprint for Shared Services Canada (SSC), a department in the Government of Canada (GoC), with the question: Can Generative AI help government evaluators identify what might be missing from reports to refine the next cycle of evaluations?"

Is it the government's job to try to find a use case for an automated BS generator? 🤔

https://merltech.org/hey-chatgpt-what-is-missing-from-our-reports-a-generative-ai-use-case-for-public-sector-merl/

⚖️ New Legal Corner Article ⚖️

Bringing SumUp to compliance: a case study of license enforcement

What happens when those who benefit from the four freedoms fail to comply with the terms of a #FreeSoftware license?We take a look at the experience of license enforcement by one of our FSFE volunteers against the fintech company SumUp, and examine the lessons that supporters of Free Software can take away from it

https://fsfe.org/news/2025/news-20250820-01.en.html

🔴 Brand new comic now up on Boing Boing
-
The Smythe family of Chagrin Falls, USA, enter an "AMERICAN HORROR STORY"
-
https://boingboing.net/2025/08/20/tom-the-dancing-bug-an-american-horror-story-in-chagrin-falls-usa.html

https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/clear-spot-a-span-of-autonomy-14th-august-2025/

School of Subversion. All punk and education books are 40% off through 9/1 with code THINK at checkout.
Shop Punk Titles: https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_list&c=149
Shop Education Titles: https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_list&c=137

@rolenthedeep amen. my one wish is for computer guys who understand how viscerally users loathe their working tools changing out from under them.

(i started on xfce in 2010 and continue to be pleased)

Just got contacted by a recruiter for a venture-backed startup looking to replace 911 operators with LLMs to triage emergency calls and boy I can’t express how much A) no I do not want to join your company, and B) how much I do not want to live in the world where 911 calls are handled by LLMs

Getting an Old Fashioned... but not in a nice way.

"Majority (55%) of Britons think under 18s should be banned from using #VPNs" - https://yougov.co.uk/topics/technology/survey-results/daily/2025/08/19/acbfe/2 most people are idiots, and don't understand why VPNs are vital #security #privacy

Privacy‑Preserving #AgeVerification Falls Apart On Contact With Reality - https://www.techdirt.com/2025/08/19/privacy%e2%80%91preserving-age-verification-falls-apart-on-contact-with-reality/ "It adds identity friction to lawful speech, supercharges data linkage, and hands governments and intermediaries a revocation switch. That’s not child protection; it’s infrastructure for control."

Exposure to "AI Assistance" lowers doctors' ability to diagnose cancer just after a few weeks.

"AI"s main effect on people is skill decay.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langas/article/PIIS2468-1253(25)00133-5/abstract

I read @oblomov's piece on the assault on the #OpenWeb by #BigTech and, yes, I got riled up just as @elena predicted.
So I curated some #RSS feeds in #Nextcloud News to calm myself and looked into replacing my dusty website with a home-built #XML / #XSLT #indieweb #blog now that development for #PicoCMS has stopped.
https://wok.oblomov.eu/tecnologia/google-killing-open-web/