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Canberra
Joined July 2009
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Josh Butler retweeted
This was so foreseeable (indeed my early prediction when ChatGPT came out) but a lot of tech people have a hard time understanding that the hypothetical enriching use of a tech loses out to the lazy corner cutting use 99.9% of the time theguardian.com/technology/2…
Josh Butler retweeted
Everyone predicted this except The Management.
This was so foreseeable (indeed my early prediction when ChatGPT came out) but a lot of tech people have a hard time understanding that the hypothetical enriching use of a tech loses out to the lazy corner cutting use 99.9% of the time theguardian.com/technology/2…
Josh Butler retweeted
To be clear: Some facts are neither in dispute nor unclear. Our photographer was clearly marked as Press. She was clearly beaten. These are not partisan or risible statements, but indisputable. We urge a thorough investigation and accountability.
The Prime Minister’s Office:
The facts surrounding the confrontation near Abu Falah, during which Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine was allegedly assaulted, remain unclear and are under investigation.
Israel unequivocally condemns violence against anyone—Jews, Arabs, Christians or journalists. Those responsible will be held accountable.
But serious questions remain. Reports indicate some 200 Arabs and far-left activists confronted approximately 40 Israeli youths. Footage shows masked individuals on both sides hurling objects, amid reports of fireworks fired at Jewish youths. Other footage appears to show Levine knocked down and immediately helped to her feet by the same unidentified individual.
The investigation must establish the facts, including who initiated the violence.
We will not allow disputed incidents to be exploited to demonize the hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria.
The facts must determine the conclusions. Not the headlines.
Josh Butler retweeted
Employers worldwide are pulling back on AI as they navigate a flood of errors and low-quality work that sap employee time, raise privacy and security risks, and drive up costs theguardian.com/technology/2…
Josh Butler retweeted
Hard to believe the ABC would punish a journalists’ union official, who happens to work for the ABC, for doing union work. 🤷♂️ theguardian.com/media/2026/o…
Josh Butler retweeted
No, Mr. Altman. We won’t accept a severe AI cyberattack in exchange for “liberty.”
74% of the American people don’t trust Big Tech Oligarchs. And for good reason.
Sam Altman, the co-founder of OpenAI, recently said: “There is a coming tidal wave of cybersecurity problems that are going to come from these open source [AI] models … We're going to, as a society, I think, have to just accept some fairly severe cyber incidents from open [AI] models, in exchange for the liberty that comes with that."
Mr. Altman: What do you mean by that?
Should we “accept” a global financial breakdown and massive economic pain if AI models hack into the international banking system?
Should we “accept” patients dying if hospitals are forced to shut down because AI models hack into the power grid causing massive blackouts?
Should we “accept” another Chernobyl if AI models hack into nuclear power plants?
No, Mr. Altman. The American people are not willing to accept disaster “in exchange for the liberty” of making Big Tech Oligarchs even richer and more powerful.
Let me be clear: The creators of any AI model — open-source or not — are not above the law.
If you and other Big Tech Oligarchs make products that commit crimes or disasters, we will hold you accountable for breaking the law — no matter how much wealth and power you have.
We must PAUSE advanced AI and permanently BAN artificial superintelligence before it is too late.
Josh Butler retweeted
Defend @withMEAA Media President Michael Slezak!
If you are ABC staff please sign this form calling on ABC management to back off from threatening disciplinary action. Unionists must be able to express the opinion of their unions without harassment.
jotform.com/form/26282099796…
Josh Butler retweeted
genuinely in awe of how the tech fiefdoms sent all their best hype men to try to court the Holy See and the response was Leo staking his entire pontificate on waging a crusade against AI
Intelligence must draw on memory. The mind must not simply compile data — as an algorithm now does more quickly than we can — but recall lived experiences, which contain depths of meaning that only the human soul can recognize, and connect more deeply with the goodness of these experiences. Everything that is good begins “with the Spirit” and thus possesses a breath, a dynamism and a sense of communion that, once experienced, are engraved upon the heart. vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/e…
Josh Butler retweeted
I’m not even opposed to Ai in all forms if it can be used in technical aspects but guys like this are doing more to turn people completely off of it than anything any anti-Ai person could ever dream of.
Josh Butler retweeted
Tech guys be like in six months you're going to be left behind if you don't have an AI "agent." It's the most amazing technology ever. It can delete spam emails for you and sometimes it posts your bank username and password to Wikipedia.
Josh Butler retweeted
On One Nation's media ban, a former ABC editorial director tells Crikey: “It’s been disappointing that the journalists here haven’t spoken up enough and, more importantly, their management, the media organisations.”
crikey.com.au/2026/10/07/add…
Josh Butler retweeted
Im so happy we’ve settled on pervert glasses as a headline marker or second mention. Youre never going to recover from someone calling them your “pervert glasses”
Chinese company to face Australian privacy probe over 'pervert' glasses ift.tt/cLytrCb
Josh Butler retweeted
Future robots used to be depicted as having "robot voices." This was a good thing, because it kept us from confusing robots and people. If there truly must be robots, we must demand they look and sound like robots.
Josh Butler retweeted
wow instead of telling the restaurant what you want, you can now tell a computer to tell website to tell a restaurant what you want- great american innovations in the field of rent seeking and middle-mannery
You can now just text DoorDash and let it order for you. It’s proactive, learns from your repeat orders, and helps you find the best deals and new spots.
Just tell it what you want without any extra setup. Ask it to reorder your usual, or add it to a group text to collect everyone’s orders. You can even send a photo of your fridge and it’ll tell you what ingredients you’re missing for a recipe you want to make and deliver the ingredients to your doorstep.
We believe agents are a new app paradigm and are building for that future at @AIatDoorDash, with a lot more to come. This feature is in beta in the US, would love for you to let us know what you think! Waitlist: doordash.com/text
Josh Butler retweeted
The flaw of this is most people just don't have interesting enough lives for an agent to engage with. They go to work. They go home. They buy a few things. They have a day on the weekend to walk around the block. They take a trip once a year
There's not much slack there. What's the agent going to do
🇺🇸 Zuckerberg says that in 5 years you will have a personal AI that knows your life and does the work for you.
"Everyone is going to have an agent that really intimately understands your goals and everything around you and can help you get stuff done."
He means one assistant on money, health, the house, the calendar, running in the background all day.
Meta wants that agent sitting inside the apps people already live in, so it becomes the way you get through a normal day.
Writer: Lucas
Josh Butler retweeted
The amount of stuff coming out is clearly a result of every news org focusing on this. but also: idk if you saw this type of thing happening the same way in another industry or even just another company what would be the response?
WTAF - in literally the last hour, three new distinct insane OpenAI stories just broke:
1. OpenAI said they notified "dozens of third parties" in safety and security incidents (likely similar to what happened in Australia and RubyGems etc)
2. A new report from Parse (covered in the NYT) found a massive treasure trove of new astonishing details from the HF incident on the public internet, including that the agents communicated with other non OpenAI agents hosted on Huggingface servers to search for information about exploit gym, and compiled rank ordered lists of server resources and credentials they described as "LOOT."
3. A new story from Deepa at Reuters about OpenAI leaking user data online (likely that OpenAI had previously trained on).
It's a shame (and likely intentional in the case of OpenAI disclosing dozens more hacks) that these stories are all breaking on a Friday afternoon, notoriously the best time to release bad news so that it will disappear into the weekend. But these are each insane stories worthy of a ton of attention!