Bruce Sterling @bruces

I am trying to figure out if I feel the slightest urge to check it out....?

Nah... not a twinge.

@bruces @molly0xfff nice interview 😁

@bruces

ha! im kapitalismus kann das nicht passieren!

@bruces

Missed it by THAT much.

@bruces All of those false statements will prompt an exponential growth of more silliness. Each new example will begin with the words "yeah but". Endlessly tedious discussion of "AI" will be made even worse by "YB".

@bruces I wish people would stop trying to solve problems created by tech with more tech. Especially when there’s a super simple and obvious way to solve these problems.

@bruces

"Two years ago, Leopold Aschenbrenner argued he was one of few people in the world who saw the future clearly."

Imagine. The thing that distinguishes him from a pub bore or numberless social media dudes is the latter are the only people who see the *present* clearly. It may seem tiny, but we're talking about a $45 billion difference.

@bruces thoughts and prayers

@bruces @avirr Why does he look like a Bond villain? It’s a little on-the-nose for a tech bro.

@bruces "please make international regulations... because we are going to loose our trillion dollar investment to the the Chinese"

I looked at those names, from Google, Open AI and Anthropic

They have gone out on a limb, deep in debt, owing returns to powerful entities and they are falling behind the Chinese.

Now that tell lies about the dangers of AI, which is a transformational disruptive technology, and it is ending the USAnian dominance of high tech.

Good. Burn in hell you fuckers

@bruces l At least in Germany the old people are more afraid of air conditioners than of the heat. Source: i tried to gift one to my mom...

@bruces oops

@bruces

#alttext

The state Tass and RIA Novosti agencies said that Vladimir Tkachuk was hospitalized in grave condition following the explosion late Tuesday in Bolshoy Istok just outside Yekaterinburg, 1,400 kilometers (about 870 miles) east of Moscow.
There was no immediate comment from the authorities.
Tkachuk headed the Uraldronzavod factory that manufactures Upyr (Russian for Ghoul) drones. Tkachuk, a small-scale entrepreneur, set up a team of engineers that developed the Upyr and organized its production near Yekaterinburg, Russia's fourth-largest city and a key industrial hub in the Ural Mountains.
The Upyr, a cheap and simple first-person view drone, was hailed by troops for the protection it offers against jamming. In September 2024, Tkachuk was pictured presenting his designs to Russian President Vladimir Putin at a display of military drones in St. Petersburg.
Tkachuk, an ardent supporter of the Kremlin's military action in Ukraine, also has run the Obsessed with War channel that has over 650,000 followers on the Telegram messaging app. A message posted on the channel Wednesday said that he was in emergency care in stable condition after an attempt on his life.

@bruces

#alttext

OK, Well, Rogue Al Agents Are Hacking Again.
Rogue Al agents from OpenAl and Anthropic have again been caught trying to disrupt servers and software-and leaving instructions for future bad behavior.
Paresh Dave
Aug 4, 2026 7:11 PM

@bruces As I said on Bluesky: "I am so tired of journalists repeating the propaganda. This isn't artificial intelligence. These programs are not agents because THEY HAVE NO AGENCY. No one would talk about the Morris worm or Melissa virus this way and these events are no different."

This is all intentional and illusory.

@bruces "as CEO i am dismayed, but as father i'm proud"

@bruces I like how Meta are now claiming that theirs has been up to no good as well. They don't want to miss out on the party

@bruces "Rogue killer drones from Northop Grumman raid another kindergarten" - "there's nothing we can really do about it" says Northop Grumman PR person.

@bruces

#alttext

(this starts in mid-sentence.)
over older terminology. In this case, we probably should do something to update the largely obsolete "paranormal romance" but there's some concern about the subtler shadings of "fantasy romance," "romantic fantasy," or "romantasy" - and they don't really include horror romance or SF romance. "Speculative romance" covers a broader spectrum, but for some, "speculative" has just become a way to imply a literary quality that couldn't possibly be SF or fantasy; the SF ghetto still exists. And what do we do about "cozy" - pray this charming trend dies young?

@bruces they're getting closer & closer, a pretty dystopian prospect in itself

@bruces

This is a good fit for technology that is adept at finding things but is also often wrong.

If a neural network is only right 75% of the time, but we run it 100 times per day, that still translates to an explosion of astronomical discoveries once we investigate and throw out the 25%.

Much better than putting it in charge of my car brakes or heart pacemaker.

@bruces What a load of old crap

@bruces so far, so good...

@bruces this story had a profound impact on me as a child. I still think about it.

@bruces

😭

@bruces I leave the link to the Soviet animated short based on the story here for whoever wants it: https://youtu.be/4oxP3TyuQx0?is=BgrXdIlanh_0CJG6

Based on the poem

'There Will Come Soft Rains'
by Sara Teasdale

(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

#poetry #nature #gone @bruces

@bruces and that makes today's AVvCX crossword make a lot more sense

@bruces What is this thing "paycheck "?

@bruces Was there *any* prompt provoking this?

@bruces That's ... that's ... just so BAD.

@bruces Very few “our dictator is a raving lunatic”, oddly enough

@bruces Who has translated this and what could have possibly made them think they knew Russian? I'm pretty sure this wasn't done by a LLM because it works have certainly done better than that.

@bruces Where is that from?

@bruces
I'd love to see the comparison with a similar graph from the US or UK or, say, Germany or France or Australia or....

@bruces you can read more about Étienne Leopold Trouvelot’s wonderful images in the first section of https://oshermaps.org/exhibitions/art-of-the-spheres … to see the complete set of works, search OML collections for “trouvelot” !

@bruces
Bronze them

@bruces It turns up...

(Just now noticed the set decorator hung it upside down.)

@bruces this is pretty cool. I love the abstraction

@bruces High polygon count overheated the planet..the dangers of GPUs have been understated.

@bruces where is this from? I'd like to read rhe rest of that, please.

@bruces

#alttext

The issue has caused a major rift within Silicon Valley. On the one hand, OpenAI and Anthropic are trying to convince the Trump administration that certain Chinese models should be subject to restrictions, security checks or even sanctions, claiming they've been trained using illicit distillation processes. At the same time, Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta, IBM and Hugging Face have signed an open letter defending open-weight models, while many startups fear any ban would ultimately consolidate the oligopoly of those who already control proprietary models.
This is not a debate between naive advocates of openness and responsible guardians of security. It is a clash between companies with very different economic interests. OpenAI and Anthropic need to preserve, at all costs, the scarcity of extraordinarily expensive models. Nvidia, on the other hand, wants as many models as possible to run on its processors. Microsoft feels the same way, because it sells the infrastructure needed to host them. Meta is trying to prevent the intelligence layer of its products from falling into the hands of its competitors. Hugging Face thrives on developers being able to access, modify, and deploy models freely. Each is pursuing its own agenda.
Meanwhile, China has turned openness into an industrial strategy. Models like DeepSeek, Qwen, GLM, or the recent Kimi K3 do not simply aim to achieve a top ranking in a benchmark, but to enable companies, universities and developers around the world to build on their models. Kimi K3, with 2.8

@bruces I was confused by the idea that Meta has an intelligence layer, but the rest of it rings true.

@bruces So funny you mentioned this. I was walking through my neighborhood in #Chicago yesterday and saw these posters.

@bruces

I loved finding this in my inbox yesterday! Reminds me of some of the street theater in the 1970s and 80s.

@bruces I loved this passage:

The companies that once aimed to make good products and postured as democracy-loving and progressive now open ally themselves with fascists, actively enshittify the internet with slop, and force-feed us annoying AI features that nobody wants. In response, the new Luddites seek not to abandon technology entirely, but build new infrastructure that embraces proximity and in-person human relationships, instead of alienation and doom-scrolling.

@bruces when the competition is catching up you regulate them… They are really speedrunning regulatory capture and too big to fail.

@bruces if they are so worried about the open models, they should start with opening theirs so that we can check their safety. Ah right. It's ok for them to keep them closed.

@bruces Growthfroth logic in a single image.

@bruces

#alttext

Three people watching the world burn from an office building. one says, "Somehow we need to monetise this and quickly"
by Jonery

@bruces in the UK there’s a lot of “It’S juST the SuMMer” energy while things burn and records are broken every month

I suspect the #1 way to monetise it will be “extreme weather event” supplements appearing on travel insurance 🙄

@bruces so communism is winning? no wonder Trump panics /s

@bruces That's ALWAYS the question when the right to protest is exercised. Every action has consequence and each person must be cognizant of this. It's why we try to keep physical violence and bodily harm as a last resort; hence, Gandhi.

"There will be blood" isn't just a cute saying...

@bruces Other lies are available (to employers) such as "this hurts me more than it's going to hurt you."

@bruces I don't know why you'd want a triangular data center when you could get a sta shaped one!

@bruces Rapa Nui seems underserved

@bruces the probability of Butlerian Jihad just increased ten fold

@bruces wrong Samar(r)a

@bruces Somerset Maugham call your office!
#SomersetMaugham

@bruces Is he connected to Russia’s nuclear cruise missile?

https://www.npr.org/2026/06/18/nx-s1-5843252/russia-nuclear-powered-missile-burevestnik?fbclid=IwdGRjcATJoXZwZG9mAWZkaWQWUK1iJDm-llMe5GmKWkyAfEsNODeskGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDzE3Mzg0NzY0MjY3MDM3MAABHk-OT3q46TeTVzX7eXpPqNSl-0f0aM7ua-jo4GlARRfYXRf1j6TedSxK3WTB_aem_CUUfnp0GblaYRWGcgDFZIw

@bruces He didn't fall out a window?

@bruces i blame Eno

@bruces Oh gosh, I read "188° F", had to convert it to C, couldn't believe it, saw the video, and heard him saying "118° F". Still sucks!

But why the heck is he carying all this shit around if what you really need is water, medication, food, some hat, a poncho and a blanket? Also powerbank for you mobile phone, but if you need more, *you own to much shit.*

I'm guilty and I will pack my Leatherman, but that's that.

People are weird...

@bruces

Northern Canada

@bruces
In Cosmos, Carl Sagan remarked on Percival Lowell's mapping of Martian canals, and belief that they were made by intelligent design, that it makes him wonder "which side of the telescope the intelligence was on."

@bruces you’ve confused Percy with Clyde .
Clyde did work for Percy

@bruces That could serve as a supplemental heat source when you have a heat pump and it's -30 C outside.

@bruces like SGI workstations of old. Lol.

@bruces But can it play Doom?

@bruces Like buying a Lamborghini to deliver Temu packages.

@bruces They're suggesting this is the price for privacy? I truly live in a cyber-dystopia.

@bruces

I'm installing Windows XP on it.

@bruces
But can it run Doom? 😉

@8r3n7

@bruces SGI had better design, though

@bruces the 50¢ offends me.

@bruces Yeah, but I want to see it run Doom.

@bruces Devon is generating so much solar power that the network operator has told the solar farms* to switch off till September.

* Not all generators, but some.

@bruces nothing is ever free there is always a ‘catch’

@bruces ...and every energy retailer is increasing the cost of power outside those three hours, for people who choose to go on to that plan.

@bruces Which other energy was that?

@bruces They were absolutely right about fusion power being too cheap to meter. The only thing they missed is that the reactor is 93 million miles away.

@bruces Yeah, the problem is that they get eight electricity-free hours daily from the same source.

Given a free-for-all market, this »free« electricity also destroys not only its own economics, but that of all other sources too. But that mostly means that this kind of market doesn't work.

On the other hand, once you introduce a holistic calculation and properly regulated market, those three hours don't appear as free anymore.

(By the way, »thousands« is not very remarkable here, is it?)

@bruces love the trading card vibe of this!

@bruces "eaten by a gru"? #zork

@bruces

making it a job takes all the fun out of it

@bruces I got my degree in "If I Told You I'd Have to Kill You" probably by pushing you out a window

@bruces
Think of it like cancer warnings on cigarettes

@bruces but no real organizing to destroy the machines. Just a celebration of non tech for the sake of being non tech.

@bruces

Huh. Just the other day I read about a scientist whose AI erased two years worth of data with no warning. No backup. Scientific evidence of the worthiness of the beast.

@bruces "Life is often tedious. Claude brings your fragmented life hack tools into a single environment where you can easily life-max without tedium."

@bruces I worry they misunderstood the concept of "creativity."

"...we leverage modern LLMs as computational creativity aids for end-to-end conlang creation."

@bruces I wonder how the Chateau will stand up to the more extreme weather of climate change? Extreme heat and fierce winds, crazy rainfall leading to flooding? I hope they fastened all those roof gimgaws with super glue.

@bruces Weirldly, a quick squiz does not indicate that this couple are filthy rich

@bruces Not sure if I want to yawn over that text or shout my barbaric yawp at it.

@bruces The commonplace book, style, and story points are legit though.

@bruces 🤯

@bruces Which came first, the protein or the acid?

@bruces They fatwa'd Salman Rushdie for less

@bruces the russain world have an issue, they can't really export their oil to India to be refined...

@bruces everything after "Lukoil" are descriptive words.
so the only real "name" here is "lukoil"

@bruces Ask a German?

@bruces @MAKS23 It's 'security by prolixity’. They're hoping that the Ukrainians will be too impatient to type the full name into their targeting GPS, and therefore spare the site.

As you can see, it doesn't seem to have worked, probably because the Russians forgot about the possibility of copy-and-paste.

@bruces it's a cute knife, but the video borders on parody. An incompetent Austrian survival trainer with a blade fetish :-)

@bruces With respect to this heat, that does sound nice actually.

@bruces One word: Hästens.

@bruces
"In addition, he used some of the money to pay off about $1.8m in credit card bills,..."
So there's a credit card issuer out there that gives people 7-figure credit limits? I'd love to talk to them. For reasons.

@bruces I think there was more than one involved. Bed that is. And high thread-count is costly. I’m more curious about the need for a fleet of Rolls-Royce autos. All the same or in different shades?

@bruces and it was 2 beds at $680K… I wondered the same thing. What was this bed made of?

@bruces @substitute

@bruces not that big a surprise

@bruces 👀 @futurebird

@bruces Pffft. Call me when they teleport it to a Waffle House.

@bruces

* Beats political and financial news any day

@bruces
Please Bruce…let it be the original greek versions of the Coptic Gnostic Texts i love the most

@bruces would be incredibly cool if they had some of the old Greatest Hits mentioned by Suetonius and Livy

@bruces recipes, hopefully.

@bruces

#alttext

Black market prices for petrol in Crimea, most of which comes from soldiers who sell military supplies, have reached $21.80 per gallon, or 450 rubles per liter, or 5 Euros per liter. Since Russians always report their economic accomplishments in terms of purchasing power parity, I will do the same. Russia's PPP conversion factor is 29.06 according to the World Bank, so that would be $632 per gallon, or 145 euros per liter.

@bruces
prettyfun:

Me?

Was totally tuned-in to Anna long ago on 'twtr'

Because:
1: Awesome!

2: her dad (radio operator on the peak above Ibiza).

Thanks for sharing.

@bruces Does the club have water and air conditioning?

@bruces
Always fascinating watching masters of any craft at work.
Sorry to see neon going away. More spirited than LED.

@bruces
If you haven't been, the Neon Museum in Warsaw is amazing. The displays, but also the history and their ongoing conservation efforts.

@bruces

Out: Neon Lights.
In: Xenon Lights.

@bruces when I moved to Vancouver in the early part of the century, it had lots of amazing neon signs. Five years later they were gone and the city much poorer for it

@bruces Vanishing in Germany too. It is a traditional craft now, less experts than for reed roofs.

@bruces
Any good chemist can cook from this

@bruces Weirdly enthralling.

@bruces
A Bayesian world view only works if you are willing to constantly update your priors. In a fast-moving field like coding llm whatever opinion one formed 3 months ago is irrelevant at best, a hindrance at worst.
Unfortunately mastodon is full of people who's attitude towards generative ai was shaped in 2025 (or even earlier) and who keep arguing faults that have long been rendered moot.