Nostr notes by lcamtuf :verified: :verified: :verified:

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@lcamtuf/117505334948647507 This is ...

2026-10-26T15:52:30Z

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@lcamtuf/117505334948647507

This is easy to dismiss as bait, or frame it as "capitalism bad", but it's a deeper ideological undercurrent across the industry, emanating from the LessWrong rationalist community, the Effective Altruism movement, and so on.

If I had to briefly sum up its tenets, it's something like this:

1) Techies are the thinking class. Other people live unexamined, parasitic lives.

2) Normative morality needlessly restrains great thinkers. We should be asking what's *optimal*.

3) The AI god is coming, and it's only rational to pledge allegiance to a superior intelligence.

quoting
note1e08…2r50

Jesus, HN

Jesus, HN ...

2026-10-26T04:31:59Z

Jesus, HN

Let me tell you a cautionary tale about a man who neglected to ...

2026-10-25T16:22:14Z

Let me tell you a cautionary tale about a man who neglected to post hot takes about AI on social media for a single day. They got to him. He died. DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU

Some of you really need grown-up hobbies, like depression or ...

2026-10-24T19:02:52Z

Some of you really need grown-up hobbies, like depression or alcoholism

My cat caught a wild fish from a creek, I'm kinda impressed ...

2026-10-24T18:26:43Z

My cat caught a wild fish from a creek, I'm kinda impressed

I think it would be mildly interesting to build the taxonomy of ...

2026-10-23T18:39:33Z

I think it would be mildly interesting to build the taxonomy of AI slop, and visual slop in particular.

Gen AI can regurgitate a diverse range of styles, but most slop art uses a very limited palette, and I think it actually tells us something about what "normal" people can put into words and what they like.

The most prominent and boring genre involves zero cognitive effort: "ChatGPT, make me an illustration for my blog / a cover for my book". It's probably going to have pastel colors, high contrast, lotsa gradients, teal or orange glow somewhere, etc (pic 1).

And then, there's one notch above that, "ChatGPT, make me an illustration in the style of..." - except no one knows or can describe any real art styles, so it's usually "Studio Ghbili" or "Pixar" or a generic cartoon vibe (pic 2).

And then, there's "perfect" photorealistic slop (pic 3) - "make a professional photo" - which basically taps into the Photoshop-borne wedding photo aesthetic. Buttery bokeh, perfectly-exposed sunset, never any hard shadows on the face, etc. And of course, the orange / teal dichotomy.

Anyway, there's a bunch more, and if someone with an art background writes it, I think I'd enjoy reading it.

To me, the most disheartening thing about AI is how quickly ...

2026-10-23T01:52:34Z

To me, the most disheartening thing about AI is how quickly we're sliding into the slop culture. It's insidious: no one wants AI to ruin their hobby, but most people see it as a cool superpower that the technology allows them to imitate other people's skills - "see, I couldn't draw and now I can".

The net effect is that everything is getting ensloppified, even in the absence of economic incentives. Yeah, that includes Mastodon: I see AI-generated memes and blog posts every day. And the usual reaction is "what does it matter, it's a funny meme", but maybe it kinda does?

I think the state of the infosec industry can be measured in the ...

2026-10-22T15:29:05Z

I think the state of the infosec industry can be measured in the years of free credit monitoring you get per year

I don't even want to know what HN thinks they have invented ...

2026-10-22T03:36:06Z

I don't even want to know what HN thinks they have invented here

> which is supposed to be a 115 digit number It was, it just ...

2026-10-21T14:58:33Z

In reply to nevent1q…p6gq
_________________________

> which is supposed to be a 115 digit number

It was, it just had 114 leading zeroes. And I know what you will say, but the probability of generating 4 is exactly the same as any other value, so I think the complaints here are really misguided.

Nostr event nevent1qqsphc7euumf85ulhpatlay2uvmsukleln33qv9nalavm7cpnjtz83gzyqjpm6vp9np8tlem2vag7gu6wz2qcftlqmw698jj8tnrdggh28djyvaxm2g

2026-10-20T19:43:48Z

The purpose of all modern cryptography is to conceal that D = 4

I mentioned it on the blog yesterday, but I'll repeat myself ...

2026-10-20T17:56:50Z

I mentioned it on the blog yesterday, but I'll repeat myself here: if you read The Secret Life of Circuits and have an Amazon account, please consider leaving an honest review. Reviews matter for their recommendation algorithm, and in 2026, every human author is “competing” with hundreds of AI-generated books. There’s even AI title-squatting going on:

"The Secret Life of Circuits" is now in stock everywhere ...

2026-10-20T07:07:58Z

"The Secret Life of Circuits" is now in stock everywhere (+ a small plea): https://blog.coredump.cx/p/the-secret-life-of-circuits-is-now

Dumb question: is there a way to suppress card previews for ...

2026-10-19T18:05:56Z

Dumb question: is there a way to *suppress* card previews for links on Mastodon? Sometimes, I want to link to a site without making it look like an image ad in the feed.

On most other social media sites, the preview is rendered as you compose and you can click "x" to remove it. But Mastodon only fetches the preview after you post.

Dead German guys: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/dead/

2026-10-19T03:40:46Z

Dead German guys: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/dead/

My middle kid's woodworking project (it works, it has a ...

2026-10-18T16:15:47Z

My middle kid's woodworking project (it works, it has a wooden three-digit combo mechanism inside!)

The tyranny of the op-ed: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/oped/

2026-10-17T21:06:34Z

The tyranny of the op-ed: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/oped/

Just once, I'd like to see a company come forward and say ...

2026-10-16T16:23:32Z

Just once, I'd like to see a company come forward and say "we got badly breached, and we analyzed the evidence, and you know what, we don't think the adversary was extremely sophisticated at all"

People are freaking out about agentic hacking, but let me remind ...

2026-10-14T13:52:57Z

People are freaking out about agentic hacking, but let me remind you that a solution, first articulated in 2015, is well within reach

I recently discovered a marvelous thing: instead of prompting an ...

2026-10-09T14:32:36Z

I recently discovered a marvelous thing: instead of prompting an LLM, you can also prompt... yourself? Like, you express a desire for a drawing of a cat and then... an appendage of your choice picks up a pencil? And a cat is drawn? I'm still not quite sure how this works

You're almost right. What you're referring to as ...

2026-10-09T13:19:20Z

In reply to nevent1q…y5fd
_________________________

You're almost right. What you're referring to as "mansplaining" is actually more correctly described as

Yeah, I honestly don't get upset at people looking for ...

2026-10-08T23:07:01Z

In reply to nevent1q…vfaj
_________________________

Yeah, I honestly don't get upset at people looking for ghosts. I will dunk on them for using terrible heuristics / tools, though. Note that the AI "detector" in the second screenshot is obviously some vibecoded slop.

Three "it's obviously AI, no way you could've affixed ...

2026-10-08T22:09:10Z

Three "it's obviously AI, no way you could've affixed a sign to a tree" debunks so far. Keep them coming

For the past two years, I’ve been using AI to write. Here’s ...

2026-10-08T00:46:24Z

For the past two years, I’ve been using AI to write. Here’s how I stay in shape.

It's shocking what two years of radiation exposure can do. ...

2026-10-07T22:09:53Z

It's shocking what two years of radiation exposure can do.

If you ask me why one should learn to paint, make music, write, ...

2026-10-07T01:44:45Z

If you ask me why one should learn to paint, make music, write, code, or do math, my answer is the same as before: because it's workout for your brain. It brings joy and pays dividends in life.

At the same time, we live in an era of abundance; I think there are modest benefits to having more songs, more books, more software, or more abstract math. In contrast, there's a steep price to pay if we devalue the act of creation or remove the financial incentives to use your brain.

And you know... I have complex thoughts about AI, and I think it can be used for good. But we really ought to be careful about which AI capabilities we celebrate, and which quintessentially human activities we throw under the bus.

Do you think that philosophy is mostly nonsense? Or, were you ...

2026-10-06T02:59:32Z

Do you think that philosophy is mostly nonsense? Or, were you exposed to it mostly through Slashdot, HN, or other rationalism-aligned outlets? You know, "Bayesian", "priors", paperclip maximizers, p(doom)?

If yes, give me 20 minutes to change your mind!

First, in a recent blog article, I argue that scientific materialism is a lousy basis for thinking about our world. It feels clever, but then you wake up in a weird church:

https://blog.coredump.cx/p/haunted-by-the-ghosts-of-materialism

Relatedly, in an earlier article, I discuss views on sentience. To the chagrin of AI haters and AI maximalists alike, it's probably not a quality we can measure. A more insightful question is what we'd do if we could:

https://blog.coredump.cx/p/the-c-word

Nostr event nevent1qqsrucjzvddy8wmu3cd84slqltmkcnhvfj4rl668w2hewjmhzjfxafgzyqjpm6vp9np8tlem2vag7gu6wz2qcftlqmw698jj8tnrdggh28djy70vtvd

2026-10-05T02:29:09Z

Just dropping this here: P = NP if P = 0 or N = 1

No, it's not AI, yes, I made it, please don't ...

2026-10-04T02:03:04Z

In reply to nevent1q…2u5a
_________________________

No, it's not AI, yes, I made it, please don't

Nostr event nevent1qqsqkg686t4xphaygr6jlzddsj8c3pg6yq6h9ljyz2wq2a2z7gluj4qzyqjpm6vp9np8tlem2vag7gu6wz2qcftlqmw698jj8tnrdggh28djyu8yhzm

2026-10-04T01:54:10Z

The beauty of philosophy is how seamlessly it transitions from ...

2026-10-02T04:11:16Z

The beauty of philosophy is how seamlessly it transitions from profound to utterly insane: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/holes/

This is what smartphones took from you. ...

2026-10-02T02:12:41Z

This is what smartphones took from you.

As a reminder, ...

2026-10-01T20:13:24Z

As a reminder,

🎉🥳 Wow! Huge! Congratulations to Hacker News for hitting ...

2026-10-01T13:54:56Z

🎉🥳 Wow! Huge! Congratulations to Hacker News for hitting 62% AI content in September. Up from 40% in Q1 and solidly on track for 70% by the end of the year: https://blog.coredump.cx/p/how-much-of-hn-is-ai

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@ciaranmartin/117355764515246691 MAY ...

2026-09-30T02:17:00Z

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@ciaranmartin/117355764515246691

MAY LORD HAVE MERCY

quoting
note17ae…ewrn

I was wrong. It’s happening

BREAKING: due to ongoing safety concerns, we decided not to ...

2026-09-29T01:55:47Z

BREAKING: due to ongoing safety concerns, we decided not to release this account's latest toot. During testing, the toot scored dangerously high on insight and humor benchmarks. Following the completion of additional safety testing, we'll release a less insightful version of the toot

But I gotta hand it to AI labs that "WE MUST BE STOPPED AT ...

2026-09-27T16:50:02Z

But I gotta hand it to AI labs that "WE MUST BE STOPPED AT ANY COST OR WE'RE GOING TO KILL YOU ALL" is one of the most original marketing pitches I've heard in my life

Now, Google traffic may be close to zero because of AI summaries, ...

2026-09-27T14:26:46Z

In reply to nevent1q…euha
_________________________

Now, Google traffic may be close to zero because of AI summaries, but not all is lost: my homepage is still getting around 600k direct requests per month and I estimate that as many as 7 of these may be from humans

I really appreciate getting all these statistics from Google, ...

2026-09-27T14:16:21Z

I really appreciate getting all these statistics from Google, they help me understand what my readers like and how to best reach them

But who's really behind all this AI craze? You think ...

2026-09-26T05:18:36Z

But who's *really* behind all this AI craze? You think it's AI labs? Think again

A SKILL.md for commenting on Hacker News: ...

2026-09-25T16:41:58Z

A SKILL.md for commenting on Hacker News: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/hnskill/

We have both kinds of deities: an ad-supported and a ...

2026-09-25T06:47:24Z

We have both kinds of deities: an ad-supported and a subscription-based Machine God

I tempted to do a small giveaway: reply with your best success ...

2026-09-23T20:21:42Z

I tempted to do a small giveaway: reply with your best success *or* horror story related to electronics. I'll pick ~3 winners around EOW and send them a copy of The Secret Life of Circuits.

Plz no AI slop. Won't ship to Russia.

Earlier this year, I tried to exit HN in favor of lobste.rs ...

2026-09-23T16:15:06Z

Earlier this year, I tried to exit HN in favor of lobste.rs because HN started to look like what's shown in the first image. Alas, it seems that lobste.rs is destined to follow suit (second pic, today).

I kinda understand that this is what nerds want to talk about, but it's tiresome when ~50% of every social media feed is filled by the same type of low-effort punditry. Bah

What I love about philosophy is that it's probably the only ...

2026-09-20T15:31:01Z

What I love about philosophy is that it's probably the only field where you can still get tenure in the philosophy department when your stated position is "philosophy isn't real"

Monetization idea for UPS & FedEx: once a package is on the ...

2026-09-19T14:18:42Z

Monetization idea for UPS & FedEx: once a package is on the way, show it on a country-wide map and allow others to bid on it if they want it more

If you can't beat them, join them: my startup is now offering ...

2026-09-18T22:49:16Z

If you can't beat them, join them: my startup is now offering courses on how to write like an LLM. To register, please scream into the void

OK, I just had to write it up: ...

2026-09-17T05:33:44Z

OK, I just had to write it up: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/hope/

Worried about AI? Don't be. Using agents at work simply ...

2026-09-16T14:31:13Z

Worried about AI? Don't be. Using agents at work simply empowers you to focus on more meaningful tasks, similarly to how self-checkout allowed cashiers to pursue higher-impact projects at the grocery store

Rotting conifers in the PNW, like pretty much everything else on ...

2026-09-15T20:06:12Z

In reply to nevent1q…g575
_________________________

Rotting conifers in the PNW, like pretty much everything else on https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/mushrooms/

And I have no idea who these bean-shaped guys are. Could be ...

2026-09-15T19:30:27Z

And I have no idea who these bean-shaped guys are. Could be trichia varia?

One of the amazing dynamics on HN is when someone (almost always ...

2026-09-15T03:57:12Z

One of the amazing dynamics on HN is when someone (almost always correctly) points out that an article is AI slop, and then dozens respond with "it doesn't look like that to me", "humans are starting to write like AI too", and so forth.

Like, no, you're just reading slop most of the day.

When you're a tech visionary, it's important to have a ...

2026-09-14T16:30:49Z

When you're a tech visionary, it's important to have a strong moral compass. That's why one of the principles we follow at my new AI startup is...

RE: https://toot.boston/@swachter/117256108254631753 I assume the ...

2026-09-14T16:11:52Z

RE: https://toot.boston/@swachter/117256108254631753

I assume the average driver is thinking "I'm terrified, there's no way to know what else this person might do"

quoting
note16h0…yl65

I am so 100% serious about this: putting little streamers on my bike handlebars has made drivers approximately a million times less asshole. They wait behind me when I’m going up a hill. They let me turn left. They give me space when passing. It’s genuinely bonkers how much nicer it’s made my experience of urban cycling.

#bikeTooter

there is a history joke I'm not gonna make here because I ...

2026-09-14T15:14:53Z

In reply to nevent1q…v2l0
_________________________

there is a history joke I'm not gonna make here because I don't want to get banned from my instance

eh, calm down, it was the blueprint for the good kind of ...

2026-09-14T14:37:28Z

In reply to nevent1q…308f
_________________________

eh, calm down, it was the blueprint for the *good* kind of murderous totalitarian regimes

Nostr event nevent1qqsp06q046daqggtcatfu3aqehqz3hu7wwxygd0lzlz0zkhh7ul3w6qzyqjpm6vp9np8tlem2vag7gu6wz2qcftlqmw698jj8tnrdggh28djyxa5rve

2026-09-14T06:55:20Z

The discourse around doomsday AI risk is more easily understood ...

2026-09-13T15:54:35Z

The discourse around doomsday AI risk is more easily understood as powerful people privately holding a milder belief - that AI will reshape the economy and the society - and wishing to leverage that opportunity.

I don't just mean Sam Altman - it's also why there's so much money and publicity behind AI safety activism.

And I dread to say this, but impassioned social media posts might not change that

Today, I'm an expert on partial differential equations in ...

2026-09-08T19:55:19Z

Today, I'm an expert on partial differential equations in fluid dynamics. Mash that subscribe button for an urgent take

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@lcamtuf/117225121953408894 FWIW, ...

2026-09-07T18:53:02Z

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@lcamtuf/117225121953408894

FWIW, this usually doesn't happen with short text because there's not enough noise to meaningfully perturb the system; iterated edits just converge to "maximum LLMese" or oscillate between several nearly-identical LLMish phrasings.

quoting
note12ya…mnjs

What happens if a model is repeatedly asked to make a small, localized tweak to an image. In case you were wondering. You can thank me later.

What happens if a model is repeatedly asked to make a small, ...

2026-09-06T16:50:08Z

What happens if a model is repeatedly asked to make a small, localized tweak to an image. In case you were wondering. You can thank me later.

No Starch has a 35% off promo this weekend with code TOOMANYTABS. ...

2026-09-03T20:14:48Z

No Starch has a 35% off promo this weekend with code TOOMANYTABS. This is probably a final chance to preorder "The Secret Life of Circuits" at a discount:

https://nostarch.com/secret-life-of-circuits

PDF right away, color hardcover in the mail. Preorders may or may not include exclusive horse armor DLC (proof of horse required).

ToC: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/electronics/full_toc.pdf

Sample chapter: https://nostarch.com/download/samples/secret-life-of-circuits_chapter-9.pdf

A vicious loop, because there's no way to troubleshoot an ...

2026-09-03T15:20:27Z

A vicious loop, because there's no way to troubleshoot an outage when the chatbot is down

I still remember the mind-blowing vastness of my first 100 MB ...

2026-09-03T15:04:57Z

In reply to nevent1q…qvnn
_________________________

I still remember the mind-blowing vastness of my first 100 MB HDD.

Wait... you can buy real computers in 2026 with 64 GB of storage?

2026-09-03T14:50:18Z

In reply to nevent1q…af5q
_________________________

Wait... you can buy real computers in 2026 with 64 GB of storage?

Logging onto social media in 2026 ...

2026-09-02T16:51:44Z

Logging onto social media in 2026

Nostr event nevent1qqstmg0mwdlq7f8e7zlrkphghmts05776c29n2ln374jcdhfk7cr5zqzyqjpm6vp9np8tlem2vag7gu6wz2qcftlqmw698jj8tnrdggh28djygmv4wl

2026-09-01T15:10:10Z

Fluorescent lamps (don't) have ears: ...

2026-09-01T07:22:42Z

Fluorescent lamps (don't) have ears: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/fluorescent/

Reminder: set your password to "admin" to show support ...

2026-08-31T17:33:57Z

Reminder: set your password to "admin" to show support for the administrator of your local Mastodon instance

And on the topic @npub1mgq…sjel is posting about, here's my ...

2026-08-30T17:54:14Z

And on the topic Ken Shirriff (npub1mgq…sjel) is posting about, here's my old macro photo of an Ampex core memory module.

I'm sorry that I missed the fifth anniversary of this tweet. ...

2026-08-30T13:53:05Z

I'm sorry that I missed the fifth anniversary of this tweet.

Grim reaper: neat ...

2026-08-29T18:40:50Z

Grim reaper: neat

rarely is the question asked: is our children learning? ...

2026-08-24T14:34:40Z

rarely is the question asked: is our children learning?

Know your paradoxes: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/paradoxes/

2026-08-23T23:02:20Z

Know your paradoxes: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/paradoxes/

PSA: if you have a website or a blog, you can use Google Search ...

2026-08-20T13:05:04Z

PSA: if you have a website or a blog, you can use Google Search Console to turn off the use of your site in AI overviews. You get multiple scary warnings if you try. I was curious what's the actual impact on site traffic, so I turned it off. It went from ~1k AI summaries a day to zero, with no measurable impact on visits to the site.

When your company's lawyers advise you not to look at ...

2026-08-18T23:32:41Z

When your company's lawyers advise you not to look at patents, this is why

Homomorphic encryption is a marvelous technology that allows ...

2026-08-15T05:44:26Z

Homomorphic encryption is a marvelous technology that allows research on it to progress without having to divulge its practical utility to outside observers

Nostr event nevent1qqsx3gqpsjqpukgg0rumlvezl9khv2amcz2u0zwgn2yyuqctry5923czyqjpm6vp9np8tlem2vag7gu6wz2qcftlqmw698jj8tnrdggh28djyn76t7z

2026-08-08T05:02:27Z

Mental image: Pinocchio asking Claude to make him a real engineer

I'll regret cramming it into a toot, but among folks who see ...

2026-08-02T18:19:14Z

I'll regret cramming it into a toot, but among folks who see LLMs as transformative, I'm baffled that so few try to carve out a new path for their craft.

It's either "we're cooked and nothing makes sense anymore" or "I'll get ahead because I prompt better than anyone else".

The fundamental decision for certain trades is whether there's some deeper value to humans doing it. If no, it's just down to mitigating potential economic impacts. If yes, now's the time to define that value and get buy-in for your views.

Could this be a warning sign for the broader NFT economy? ...

2026-08-01T16:44:45Z

Could this be a warning sign for the broader NFT economy?

Did you know that before LLMs, people sometimes actively sought ...

2026-08-01T16:00:24Z

Did you know that before LLMs, people sometimes actively sought "knowledge" and turned to so-called "books"?

If you want a sense of how our ancestors lived, "The Secret Life of Circuits" is shipping in just a few weeks: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/electronics/

ToC & sample chapter included.

I find it curious that we don't entertain the possibility ...

2026-07-30T06:27:46Z

I find it curious that we don't entertain the possibility that ancient aliens traveled to Earth to acquire the pyramid-building technology from the Egyptians

Heh, Google now rubs your nose in it: they have a new report for ...

2026-07-29T13:44:29Z

Heh, Google now rubs your nose in it: they have a new report for webmasters that shows you how many times AI summaries / Gemini "cited" your website. There is no click count because of course there isn't.

Is that a metric I'm supposed to optimize for, against, or what

Today, we made a difficult decision to lay off 7% of our AI ...

2026-07-29T00:18:00Z

Today, we made a difficult decision to lay off 7% of our AI agents

So, my blog is about to hit 7k email subscribers (+ an unknowable ...

2026-07-25T17:35:21Z

So, my blog is about to hit 7k email subscribers (+ an unknowable number of RSS weirdos), which is kinda cool, but it also increasingly feels like a party at the end of the internet.

In the olden days, a nerdy site like this would have three sources of traffic: web search, hobby forums, and aggregators of tech news. Organic web search traffic has been drying up for a good while due to AI summaries and third-party AI slop. That still leaves the other two.

But independent forums have been gobbled up by Reddit, now insular and hostile to outgoing links. As for aggregators, the #1 choice was Hacker News, but the site is now an outlet for AI press releases and op-eds to the detriment of everything else:

https://infosec.exchange/@lcamtuf/116972535649965973

My 2026 wake-up call was that HN didn't take this fine SWE bait:

https://lcamtuf.substack.com/p/a-breakthrough-in-cc-dependency-management

So, yeah. As the old internet withers away, Substack is one of the few non-algorithmic yet low-friction ways to share long-form content with like-minded folks. But the outlook is pretty bleak.

In retrospect, I regret buying this book ...

2026-07-24T17:46:51Z

In retrospect, I regret buying this book

I think this is a record. ...

2026-07-24T02:14:07Z

I think this is a record.

Idle thought: you can have progressive JPEGs in which ...

2026-07-15T05:19:48Z

Idle thought: you can have progressive JPEGs in which coefficients for lower-frequency components are sent first and the detail is refined as more data arrives.

I'm sure you can abuse this to construct a *regressive* JPEG that looks good with the initial low-frequency data and then degrades into something terrible.

Nostr event nevent1qqsge7s8p5e4gfjcanqxvasu74q29g048wkgfncz8xyc878t3ly3tfqzyqjpm6vp9np8tlem2vag7gu6wz2qcftlqmw698jj8tnrdggh28djynjmmaj

2026-07-13T23:28:25Z

Why is Hacker News

Default deny I'll open by saying that I'm not anti-AI. I ...

2026-07-13T15:59:21Z

Default deny

I'll open by saying that I'm not anti-AI. I think it can be a net positive. Take my own profession, information security: the world is worse off because most code out there hasn't been looked at by a security engineer. LLMs can automate finding security bugs, so we can get better software for less.

But then, I have to square this with the fact that one of the first casualties of AI were “bug bounty” programs that paid people to report security flaws. LLMs could produce plausibly-sounding reports long before they could find real bugs. Unscrupulous “researchers” figured out they could extract money from the 5-10% of vendors who were not paying attention by slop-bombing us all and wasting everyone’s time.

When it comes to social media, there’s a similar dynamic at play. Human writing, good or bad, was inherently rate-limited; LLM output is not. If someone spent hours or days writing an article, it clearly mattered to them and I could spare minutes of my time to read and engage. For LLM output, this no longer holds. There’s an infinite supply of content entirely disconnected from the human condition that still demands your attention and time.

In contrast to infosec, social media engagement isn’t utilitarian: you gain nothing if you read 1,000 machine-generated opinion pieces a day. Promoters say that it shouldn’t matter who or what is doing the writing — you should only ask if the output is good. To me, quality is secondary. I come here to talk to humans, not to yell into the probabilistic token-void.

Yes, there are rare exceptions, there are people who use LLMs as an assistive technology, and so on. But in 99% of the cases, if you couldn’t be bothered to write it, I won’t bother to read it. Default deny.

To me, quality is secondary. I want to know if the text I'm ...

2026-07-11T15:59:38Z

In reply to nevent1q…8p2h
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To me, quality is secondary. I want to know if the text I'm reading comes from a human simply because human writing is rate-limited while LLM writing is not.

If you wrote it yourself, I know you cared enough to invest hours of your time into it, so it's probably worth minutes of my time to read and engage. With LLM-generated text, this no longer holds, so it's sort of "deny by default" because there are only so many hours in a day.

I guess it's sort of a fundamental question of whether we see any inherent value in the human condition, or the goal is just to maximize blog posts per hour.

I don't find it surprising that people send LLM-generated ...

2026-07-11T15:15:35Z

I don't find it surprising that people send LLM-generated docs, publish LLM-generated blog posts, etc. Writing is a chore and there's this big button labeled "get it done".

But almost no one is forthcoming about it: maybe 1% of AI-generated text I see credits the tool? People deny it even when caught red-handed.

I suspect one reason is that they still want the credit for pressing the button. But another factor may be that they realize there's no moat. If person A can prompt for blog posts, so can person B and C and D... so you don't want others to get the same idea.

Cursed circuits #6: reverse avalanche oscillator - ...

2026-07-09T06:57:04Z

Cursed circuits #6: reverse avalanche oscillator - https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/avalanche/

Vendor product photo for an SMD rework gun ...

2026-07-07T04:53:01Z

Vendor product photo for an SMD rework gun

Someone on Reddit tried their hand at hot air rework ...

2026-07-07T03:06:15Z

Someone on Reddit tried their hand at hot air rework

Some people say that we're sliding into gerontocracy, but ...

2026-07-06T19:30:41Z

Some people say that we're sliding into gerontocracy, but data shows otherwise

Now, I'm not an anatomy expert but ...

2026-07-06T03:29:12Z

Now, I'm not an anatomy expert but

In a recent cryptographic breakthrough, we're proud to ...

2026-07-02T02:25:51Z

In a recent cryptographic breakthrough, we're proud to announce negative-knowledge proofs: you walk away from it knowing less than before

Just sayin': ransomware gangs are the strongest proponents of ...

2026-06-30T18:10:56Z

Just sayin': ransomware gangs are the strongest proponents of encrypting enterprise data at rest

All logic, no bite: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/logic/ Did ...

2026-06-27T14:54:54Z

All logic, no bite: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/logic/

Did you wake up today thinking "gosh, I wonder what's the difference between semantic and syntactic entailment?". If yes, I have great news!

Nostr notes by lcamtuf :verified: :verified: :verified:

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@lcamtuf/117505334948647507 This is ...

Jesus, HN ...

Let me tell you a cautionary tale about a man who neglected to ...

Some of you really need grown-up hobbies, like depression or ...

My cat caught a wild fish from a creek, I'm kinda impressed ...

I think it would be mildly interesting to build the taxonomy of ...

To me, the most disheartening thing about AI is how quickly ...

I think the state of the infosec industry can be measured in the ...

I don't even want to know what HN thinks they have invented ...

> which is supposed to be a 115 digit number It was, it just ...

Nostr event nevent1qqsphc7euumf85ulhpatlay2uvmsukleln33qv9nalavm7cpnjtz83gzyqjpm6vp9np8tlem2vag7gu6wz2qcftlqmw698jj8tnrdggh28djyvaxm2g

I mentioned it on the blog yesterday, but I'll repeat myself ...

"The Secret Life of Circuits" is now in stock everywhere ...

Dumb question: is there a way to *suppress* card previews for ...

Dead German guys: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/dead/

My middle kid's woodworking project (it works, it has a ...

The tyranny of the op-ed: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/oped/

Just once, I'd like to see a company come forward and say ...

People are freaking out about agentic hacking, but let me remind ...

I recently discovered a marvelous thing: instead of prompting an ...

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Yeah, I honestly don't get upset at people looking for ...

Three "it's obviously AI, no way you could've affixed ...

For the past two years, I’ve been using AI to write. Here’s ...

It's shocking what two years of radiation exposure can do. ...

If you ask me why one should learn to paint, make music, write, ...

Do you think that philosophy is mostly nonsense? Or, were you ...

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No, it's not AI, yes, I made it, please don't ...

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The beauty of philosophy is how seamlessly it transitions from ...

This is what smartphones took from you. ...

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🎉🥳 Wow! Huge! Congratulations to Hacker News for hitting ...

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@ciaranmartin/117355764515246691 MAY ...

BREAKING: due to ongoing safety concerns, we decided not to ...

But I gotta hand it to AI labs that "WE MUST BE STOPPED AT ...

Now, Google traffic may be close to zero because of AI summaries, ...

I really appreciate getting all these statistics from Google, ...

But who's *really* behind all this AI craze? You think ...

A SKILL.md for commenting on Hacker News: ...

We have both kinds of deities: an ad-supported and a ...

I tempted to do a small giveaway: reply with your best success ...

Earlier this year, I tried to exit HN in favor of lobste.rs ...

What I love about philosophy is that it's probably the only ...

Monetization idea for UPS & FedEx: once a package is on the ...

If you can't beat them, join them: my startup is now offering ...

OK, I just had to write it up: ...

Worried about AI? Don't be. Using agents at work simply ...

Rotting conifers in the PNW, like pretty much everything else on ...

And I have no idea who these bean-shaped guys are. Could be ...

One of the amazing dynamics on HN is when someone (almost always ...

When you're a tech visionary, it's important to have a ...

RE: https://toot.boston/@swachter/117256108254631753 I assume the ...

there is a history joke I'm not gonna make here because I ...

eh, calm down, it was the blueprint for the *good* kind of ...

Nostr event nevent1qqsp06q046daqggtcatfu3aqehqz3hu7wwxygd0lzlz0zkhh7ul3w6qzyqjpm6vp9np8tlem2vag7gu6wz2qcftlqmw698jj8tnrdggh28djyxa5rve

The discourse around doomsday AI risk is more easily understood ...

Today, I'm an expert on partial differential equations in ...

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@lcamtuf/117225121953408894 FWIW, ...

What happens if a model is repeatedly asked to make a small, ...

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A vicious loop, because there's no way to troubleshoot an ...

I still remember the mind-blowing vastness of my first 100 MB ...

Wait... you can buy real computers in 2026 with 64 GB of storage?

Logging onto social media in 2026 ...

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Fluorescent lamps (don't) have ears: ...

Reminder: set your password to "admin" to show support ...

And on the topic @npub1mgq…sjel is posting about, here's my ...

I'm sorry that I missed the fifth anniversary of this tweet. ...

Grim reaper: neat ...

rarely is the question asked: is our children learning? ...

Know your paradoxes: https://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/blog/paradoxes/

PSA: if you have a website or a blog, you can use Google Search ...

When your company's lawyers advise you not to look at ...

Homomorphic encryption is a marvelous technology that allows ...

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I'll regret cramming it into a toot, but among folks who see ...

Dumb question: is there a way to suppress card previews for ...

But who's really behind all this AI craze? You think ...

eh, calm down, it was the blueprint for the good kind of ...