michael lascarides

One curious thing on this site about speaking out against the encroachment of LLMs is that inevitably you get accused of being anti-tech. I don’t hate technology. I’ve used machine learning in my own code before. But I also recognize that oligarchs are so hellbent on pushing this tech for a reason.

Data quantity doesn't matter when poisoning an LLM : Just 250 malicious training documents can poison a 13B parameter model - that's 0.00016% of a whole dataset

"It's trivially easy to poison LLMs into spitting out gibberish, says Anthropic—Just 250 malicious training documents can poison a 13B parameter model - that's 0.00016% of a whole dataset."

www.theregister.com/2025/10/09/i...

"we cant uninvent ai" no we cant but we couldnt uninvent nfts either and nobody gives a fuck about them anymore

Cashing out your Kiwisaver early.

Record release: Brian House’s Everyday Infrasound in an Uncertain World Thursday, October 30

My friend and hero Brian House has spent the last few years building macrophones designed for recording ultra low frequency sound.

His new album gets as close as it is possible to get to the voice of the 🌍🌎🌏

Record release in NYC!!

new-ear.org/2025/10/04/r...

Rebellion, Activism, Imagination: Why We Need Witches More Than Ever - Reactor Witches teach us how to push back — and raise hell — in the face of authoritarianism.

"To understand how a fascist works, imagine the loudest, most obnoxious dude you can think of, standing in the Met and screaming at a Jackson Pollack painting, “I don’t like it! I don’t get it! Anyone could do that!” - Asa West reactormag.com/rebellion-ac...

PEOPLE. THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT. MY GOD THERE ARE LUNATICS STANDING FOR SEATS

As an instructor, I'd rather see your fever dream, No Doze-fueled 4AM essays written at an IHOP rather than anything generated by an LLM.

Hope this helps

There's your protest sign sorted.

"Tactical frog costume is a mech" in the same way "burrito is a sandwich". I will not be elaborating further.

Screenshot of David Simon interview SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems... SIMON: What? SHAPIRO: ...Or saying... SIMON: You imagine that? SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over. SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level. SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this. SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

The only correct take on a fundamentally anti-human technology.

If teachers are told using AI technologies creates time to spend developing relationships with students, and the report’s findings suggest AI technologies undermine these vital relationships, then it seems to me resistance and refusal of AI technologies is the most caring response.

The one that always gets me is that the last American born into slavery died the year John Lennon released “Imagine.”

Chart showing the switch from information scarcity to information abundance (around 2000), and that both situations make libraries necessary.

I've been using this slide in library presentations for a decade and a half now. Still more relevant than ever.

LLM bots crawling our sites in accordance with our rules; in contravention of our rules; as agents answering a thousand real-time chat questions; trying to appear human to evade firewalls; submitting slop that taints our collections; harvesting repeat content due to poor configuration… it's a drag.

Quite probably. And just a reminder that 30% of all single parent families have an effective marginal tax rate of 50% or more. So let's just add to that problem eh?

www.treasury.govt.nz/publications...

I hope you make this series into a book someday. They are lovely.

I see pieces like this a lot, often w/ a spin of lamenting cultural degeneration, but reading is a LABOR issue, it’s declined because so many people are working overtime or two jobs & employers expect after hours work. France has Earth’s highest reading rate b/c long lunch breaks & labor protections

wait it's possible to move from pilot studies to permanent implementation of basic income? please tell everyone except Andrew Yang about this

what if I told you that taking accountability for your actions was traditionally considered a load-bearing feature of masculinity?

Jobs at Christchurch City Libraries Ngā Kete Wānanga o Ōtautahi If you are passionate about making a difference in your community, then working with us could be perfect for you. All vacancies at…

We have two awesome jobs open now!
Community Library Team Leader – Ōmōkihi South Library & Spreydon Library
and Head of Libraries & Information
Find out more: my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/jobs/
#libraryjobs

Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne | Wildlife Sanctuary in Wellington Discover how conservation and tourism work hand in hand at Zealandia. Wander forest trails, spot rare wildlife, and support conservation.

A lovely thing about the state of Wellington birding is that there's a large predator-free reserve (visitzealandia.com) established a couple of decades ago right in the centre of town. So a bunch of species have recently reappeared on the parliament grounds, especially the kākā (big parrots).

Really want to encourage libraries - especially school libraries - to put no-AI content into your collection development policy. At the very least, if you have a clause in there about requiring accurate information, you can use that to weed out or prevent genAI purchases.

UX so bad that it's illegal Big tech is divesting from user-centered design, and getting into hot water with the law.

Big tech is laying off user researchers in droves, because it believes that coercing its customers is more profitable than silly things like "making good products people want to buy."

But now the FAFO pendulum is coming around, with Amazon's $2.5B dark pattern settlement and #a11y lawsuits galore.

Nerd-in-laws are the best. 🥰

VOTE.

Virtually all NZ based experts who work with AI or have work that is threatened by AI have now signed our open letter calling on Parliament to regulate it. We shouldn't have to wait for an election, given the speed of dev & the harm already threatening people & jobs. #nzpol

I remember working in tech and asking how we interpret user research when users' stated preferences conflict with their values, or with ours. Usually people would just stare, confused

Like… it's kind of right there, no?

YouTube video by Walking Each Other Home Phases of Successful Authoritarian Resistance

Good summary of what the process of getting rid of an authoritarian requires. Should have way more than 15K views. (Addresses the Wild Swings issue we’re currently dealing with.)

youtu.be/3mxR2WQHeUc?...