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The LLM Critics Are Right. I Use LLMs Anyway
I almost agree with all of the LLM critics, yet I still use LLMs a lot. I know this sounds like I am delusional, but I don't think I am alone with it.
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Society, Policy & Culture
The most popular blog posts about society, policy & culture on Hacker News. 1,045 posts.
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The arguments against open source AI are bad
The release of Kimi K3 has opened a fresh round of angst and confused discourse. There's a loud cohort of journalists, business leaders, and politicians arguing that open source AI is a dangerous threat. OpenAI's Dean Ball:
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LibreOffice: Request to the European Commission to adhere to its own guidances
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…
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Private equity firms acquired more than 500 autism centers in past decade: study
A new study from researchers at the Brown University School of Public Health highlights a push from private equity investors into autism therapy centers across the nation.
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Pinocchio is weirder than you remembered
The original 1881 serial ended in chapter fifteen with the puppet hanging dead from an oak tree. Italian children wrote in begging the author to continue. He resumed reluctantly. What followed — donkey-skin drums, dead-girl fairies, a satire of every other moralising children's book in Italy — became one of the most…
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An open letter to Dario: if you mean it, open the weights
Dear Dario, You published We Must Pace the Frontier today, which committed Anthropic to embedded third-party evaluators and asked governments to require every other frontier company to match. Sam Altman agreed within hours.1 The stated goal is to slow down the pace of AI progress. I believe you’re being sincere, so…
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Techno‑feudal elite are attempting to build a twenty‑first‑century fascist state
Introduction: Fascism at the End of Industrial Civilization This essay argues that the United States is drifting toward a distinctly twenty‑first‑century form of fascism driven not by mass parties …
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Slop is not necessarily the future
Everyone's worried about slop, but good code will prevail, not only because we want it to, but because economic forces demand it.
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How AI destroys institutions
Civic institutions—the rule of law, universities, and a free press—are the backbone of democratic life. They are the mechanisms through which complex societies encourage cooperation and stability, while also adapting to changing circumstances. The real superpower of institutions is their ability to evolve and adapt…
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Taylor Farms: How One Company's Reach Became a National Risk
Our report examines how Taylor Farms became one of the largest produce suppliers in the U.S. and what its power means for food safety, farmers, and workers.
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A new bill takes aim at government pressure to silence lawful online speech
The bipartisan legislation creates a federal cause of action against government officials who coerce or attempt to coerce broadcasters, interactive computer services, or AI providers into taking actions against lawful, First-Amendment-protected speech, and establishes a transparency system for government…
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ArXiv's Next Chapter
On July 1, 2026, arXiv will spin out from Cornell University, its home for the past 25 years, to become an independent nonprofit organization. With this next…
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The Nobel Prize and the Laureate Are Inseparable
The medal and the diploma are the physical symbols confirming that an individual or organisation has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The prize itself – the honour and recognition – remains inseparably linked to the person or organisation designated as the laureate by the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
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The government uses targeted advertising to track your location
The online advertising industry has built a massive surveillance machine, and the government can co-opt it to spy on us.
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Unsealed court documents show teen addiction was big tech's "top priority"
New documents show the tactics Meta, Google, Snap, and TikTok execs used to disrupt learning, prey on minors, and co-opt the PTA to control the narrative with parents WASHINGTON, DC – Today, The Tech Oversight Project published a new report spotlighting newly unsealed documents in the 2026 social media addiction…
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Oura says it gets government demands for user data
Oura users' data is not end-to-end encrypted and can be handed to the government. Will the wearable tech maker say how often it turns over data?
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California is chasing wealth that has feet
California has $8.14 trillion in land sitting right under its feet. It's chasing billionaires instead.
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SMPTE Makes Its Standards Freely Accessible
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — June 17, 2026 — SMPTE®, the home of media professionals, technologists and engineers, has announced that its entire Standards catalog is now freely available to the global media technology community.
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Solar and batteries can power the world
Solar and batteries are cheap enough that most people can get most of their electricity from them, and save money. This equation gets better and better over time as their costs decline.
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Apple announces changes for apps in the European Union
Apple today announced changes to its business terms for apps in the European Union, following close collaboration with the European Commission.
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Australian energy retailers must offer three hours of free daytime electricity
The Solar Sharer Offer launches 1 July 2026. Here's what changed, how the cap works, and how to maximise free daytime electricity for your home.
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Meta censored the No Kings Instagram account during a nationwide campaign
Meta censored a political organisation during a national voting campaign, blamed its own automation, then claimed its automated systems had detected another automated tool.
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The future of everything is lies, I guess: Work
This is a long article, so I've broken it up into a series of posts, listed below. You can also read the full work as a PDF or EPUB .
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New Worlds: We are living in the future of J.G. Ballard or William Gibson
Don’t let the absence of a flying car in your garage distract you: we are definitely now living in a version of the future out of J.G. Ballard or William Gibson. Every day I notice a news story tha…
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The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed itself
The Billion-Dollar Surveillance Pipeline: From Occupation Technology to Global Control