What 81,000 people want from AI
Last December, tens of thousands of Claude users around the world had a conversation with our AI interviewer to share how they use AI, what they dream it could make possible, and what they fear it might do.
The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 1,045 posts.
Last December, tens of thousands of Claude users around the world had a conversation with our AI interviewer to share how they use AI, what they dream it could make possible, and what they fear it might do.
After decades of explosive growth, Austin, Texas, in the 2010s was a victim of its own success. Lured by high-tech jobs and the city’s hip reputation, too many people were competing for too few homes. From 2010 to 2019, rents in Austin increased nearly 93%—more than in any other major American city. And home sale…
On the Strait of Hormuz, fertility research, and the millions of dollars bet on artificial wombs that missed the point
The small web is growing, and getting more active. Good news.
An underrated strategy for urbanist persuasion, powered by open source tools
How to rig an index to appease a billionaire
The decades-long battle over lawful access entered a new phase yesterday with the introduction of Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act. This bill follows the attempt last spring to bury lawful access provisions in Bill C-2, a border measures bill that was the new government’s first piece of substantive legislation. The…
Some days I get in bed after a tortuous 4-5 hour session working with Claude or Codex wondering what the heck happened. It's easy to blame the model - there'...
How early-stage clinical trials became unnecessarily expensive and inefficient—and how we can fix them, inspired by a recent story about a dog treated for cancer.
I have been thinking a lot lately about these two fellows. If you are not lucky enough to know them already, those are Harold and George from the Captain Underpants series of books (among others)…
I was a pretty avid reader as a kid, but as I transitioned to adulthood, my ability to focus on the written page withered. It seems I’m not alone: PISA reports reveal unprecedented drops in reading ability , professors in elite universities claim that humanities students can’t finish books , and looking around me, it…
PRAGUE, 18 February 2026 – A landmark international study across five Central European countries has found hazardous chemicals in every single pair of headphones analysed, from premium models to cheap imports. Authors say the results reveal a systemic failure in consumer safety regulation acros...
Why Universal Basic Income (UBI) Is the Only Way to Share AI and Productivity Gains With Everyone
In this piece, two researchers from PLA-affiliated National University of Defense Technology argue that Starlink will negatively impact global stability, in light of its clear military applications, increased risks of accidents and collisions in space, and SpaceX's close relationship with the U.S. military. The…
There is a certain kind of computer review that is really a permission slip. It tells you what you’re allowed to want. It locates you in a taxonomy — student, creative, professional, power user — and assigns you a product. It is helpful. It is responsible. It has very little interest in what you might become.
TL;DR: AI-assisted coding is revealing a split among developers that was always there but invisible when we all worked the same way. I've felt the grief too—but mine resolved differently than I expected, and I think that says something about what kind of developer I've been all along.
There's a lot more to replacing labor than just automating tasks
TL;DR: 62% as of September 2026. This is up from ~40% in February.
I saw this Mastodon post from Andy Wingo recently: in these days of coding agents and what-not, i often think of gerald sussman's comm...
Bots have taken over
A core tenet of the enshittification hypothesis is that all the terrible stuff we're subjected to in our digital lives today is the result of foreseeable (and foreseen) policy choices, which created the enshittogenic policy environment in which the worst people's worst ideas make the most money:
After several intense and incredible years building Bluesky from the ground up, I've decided to step back as CEO and transition to a new role as Bluesky's Chief Innovation Officer.
Social media was once hailed as the great democratizer of information. It promised a world where anyone could share their voice, connect with like-minded communities, and discover authentic human perspectives. But in 2025, the landscape looks very different. Social platforms are drowning in a flood of Generative AI…
Based on its own charter, OpenAI should surrender the race
The European Commission has accepted our request, and starting from today – Friday March 6 – has added the Open Document Format ODS version of the spreadsheet to be used to provide the feedback. We are grateful to the people working at DG CONNECT, the Commission’s Directorate-General for Communications Networks…
The Software Freedom Conservancy provides a non-profit home and services to Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects.
In 2021, being a good software engineer felt great. The world was full of software, with more companies arriving every year who needed to employ engineers to…