As if we needed more reminders how dangerous relying on unchecked AI content is:

"In preparation for the force response to the HMICFRS inquiry into this matter, on Friday afternoon I became aware that the erroneous result concerning the West Ham v Maccabi Tel Aviv [UK football] match arose as result of a use of Microsoft Co Pilot."

bbc.co.uk/news/live/c394zlr8e1…

Police chief admits misleading MPs after AI used in justification for banning Maccabi Tel Aviv fans

An intelligence report referred to a football game that never happened - Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will make a statement later today.

^{BBC News}

As I just came out of a meeting with 16 people who use Apple devices daily and all assumed there's no undo, here's a tech* tip that a lot of people appear to need:

Undo on 🍎 iOs: Do a three-finger tap and you'll get a toolbar with undo, redo and copy functionality.

edit: yes you can also shake the device to undo. Apple is currently breaking that functionality. Anyhow, for an interesting experience try to shake your laptop and see what it does!

#apple #ios #absolutelyShitNonIntuitiveUIDesign

UPDATE: One of the company owners (whom I've known for many years and is a good person) has asked to speak with me in about fifteen minutes. I've agreed. I'm curious to see what he has to say. I'll update this post after the call.

Yesterday I lost a client. And I couldn't be happier about it.

It's a long-standing client, but the management changed a few months ago. On Monday, they requested an emergency intervention, which I handled immediately.

On Tuesday (yesterday, evening), they asked for a non-urgent enhancement to be closed by Wednesday evening. I explained that due to various reasons (including urgent family matters), I wouldn't be able to finish the task before Friday. That's when the lecturing started: they told me they set tight deadlines even for non-emergencies because "that's the proper way to do things", and anyone working with them must respect them without exception.

I requested a video call to clarify. I explained that the work requires nearly a full day and that I simply couldn't close it by Wednesday. Even the physical time required to copy the data exceeded their deadline. But the new management believes that by applying pressure, you can overcome anything. Even the laws of physics.

Their response was sarcastic: "Our requests take priority, even if you are dying". I smiled and reiterated that I had no other way. "We will therefore have to find a new consultant who respects our timing", they said.

My response: "Okay. Our agreement expired on 31st December. I was waiting for a renewal, but it never arrived. Meaning, I have no legal obligations toward you. You have the data, the passwords, everything. Have a great day.".

The manager, annoyed and failing to understand the implications, replied: "Fine, we’ll look for someone younger with fewer family ties to manage.".

This morning, the phone rang. It was the manager, asking me to reconsider. His tone remained contemptuous, so I told him my decision was final. Two minutes later, I got a call from their biggest client - the one responsible for over 50% of their revenue. They had been notified I was leaving and informed the company they would also leave if I was no longer the one supervising their machines.

I called the manager back, friendly, trying to see if they were willing to change their attitude - to move from peremptory orders to requests between human beings. He started talking about "suing for damages" if they lost their main client because of me (to be clear: I am not taking that client for myself).

I don’t know how this story will evolve, but right now, I'm just enjoying a breath of fresh air outside my window.

#IT #FreelanceLife #WorkLifeBalance #ToxicManagement #TechLife #Consulting #SelfEmployed

There are now sufficiently many different examples of Erdos problems that have been resolved with various amounts of AI assistance and formal verification (see github.com/teorth/erdosproblem… for a summary) that one can start to discern general trends.

Broadly speaking, we now see an empirical tradeoff between the level of AI involvement in the solution, and the difficulty or novelty of that solution. In particular, the recent solutions have spanned a spectrum roughly describable as follows:

1. Completely autonomous AI solutions to Erdos problems that are short and largely follow a standard technique. (In many, but not all, of these cases, some existing literature was found that proved a very similar result by a similar method.)

2. AI-powered modifications of existing solutions (which could be either human-generated or AI-generated) that managed to improve or modify these solutions in various ways, for instance by upgrading a partial solution to a full solution, or optimizing the parameters of the proof.

3. Complex interactions between humans and AI tools in which the AI tools provided crucial calculations, or proofs of key steps, allowing the collaboration to achieve moderately complicated and novel solutions to open problems.

4. Difficult research-level papers solving one or more Erdos problems by mostly traditional human means, but for which AI tools were useful for secondary tasks such as generation of code, numerics, references, or pictures.

(1/2)

AI contributions to Erdős problems

A community database for the problems on the erdosproblems.com site - teorth/erdosproblems

^GitHub

What is NVIDIA without AI?

NVID.

Random neurodivergence thought: Stereotypes are often very binary.

People with ADHD are either loud boys who can't sit still for a moment or normal people who are a little unorganized.

Autistic people are either nonverbal and obsessing over trains or normal people who are a little awkward.

People with schizophrenia are always raving and hearing voices though. They're never normal people who are a little spacey. That's how stigmatized it is.

I'm having the first Radicle CI office hour this Friday at 08:00 UTC at meet.ffmuc.net/radiclecioffice…

If Radicle CI, distributed CI, or just Radicle, or just CI, interests you, feel free to join.

#Radicle #RadicleCI #OfficeHour

Jitsi Meet

Join a WebRTC video conference powered by the Jitsi Videobridge

^{meet.ffmuc.net}

2026 will see #deMicrosoft trending - what's your pick?

#NoAI #MS365 #DigitalSovereignty #OpenSource

Not ready to pay increased prices for AI? Choose alternatives: tuta.com/blog/microsoft-365-pr…