Artificial intelligence

In this article, I speak highly of AI

“How do I disable all WordPress widgets without using plugins?”

“What are Theodor Adorno’s major works — and where should I start reading them?”

“What is the best meditation routine for deep sleep?”

“How do I delete a Docker container from the command line?”

“Are vinegar and baking soda a good combination for household cleaning?”

“In the US, what is the average number of viewers per movie released in a given year? Use a recent year.”

“What does a screen with NCVM IPS technology mean?”

***

Sorry for the random questions. These are some I asked the AI (Duck.ai and Claude) recently. All were answered by the free models offered by the two companies, with varying levels of satisfaction. At the very least, they pointed me toward promising avenues to delve deeper into research, conduct tests, and ultimately solve my problem. (Except for the one about movie box office in the US; it seems data is missing for lower-grossing films.)

(more…)

Nvidia announces an AI filter for games, and gamers go wild

Something funny happened in the world of video games.

Nvidia realized that its graphics chips are also good for gaming, not just AI, and announced a technology called DLSS 5 that uses their power to, in the company’s words, “infuse pixels with photoreal lighting and materials to bridge the gap between rendering and reality.” With generative AI, obviously.

The public reaction was quite negative, even on Nvidia’s official YouTube video. DLSS 5 kind of turns the look of games into AI-generated videos. More photorealistic than the original, yes, but the criticism is that the technology interferes with the art of games.

The DLSS 5-on graphics do indeed look like AI-generated videos, or those artificial filters on Instagram and TikTok, but it’s not as if the originals, without the effect, were much better. That intrigued me a bit more than DLSS 5 itself. I haven’t played video games in ages, and these PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X graphics don’t seem all that different from what I remember of video games from two or three generations ago. Given that, I think I prefer Nvidia’s AI-filtered version…?

This article from Gizmodo has some comparisons and videos.

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, was unfazed by the widespread criticism. During a Q&A session at Nvidia GTC, the company’s AI-focused event, when asked by a reporter, Jensen began his response saying that “Well, first of all, they [critics] are completely wrong” (video).

Firefox 148, released on Tuesday (24th), features a kill switch for the browser's AI features. Below it are selective controls for specific features. All of them are located in a new area in the settings (about:preferences), called “Artificial Intelligence Controls.”

Why doesn’t Anthropic use Claude to make a good Claude desktop app?

Anthropic's Claude desktop app is built using Electron, a technology that combines a web app with an instance of Chromium in a cross-platform executable.

Several apps use this technology: Microsoft Teams, Slack, Signal, Discord, Spotify, VS Code. Electron facilitates the creation and maintenance of apps for multiple operating systems using a common language, the same as the web version of these apps.

The negative side effects, however, are just as significant. Each open app consists of an additional Chromium running, which can saturate the computer's resources, slowing it down or crashing it. And although it is possible to make adjustments so that the application feels at home on each OS, few bother to do so. It looks like… a website, just in a separate window from the browser.

(more…)

Comic strip. Character says to the computer: “Say ‘I am alive.’” Computer responds: “I AM ALIVE.” Character says: “Oh my God.”
Comic strip: @inpc@go.mxtthxw.art.

From Anthropic's “studies” claiming that Claude did this or that to Moltbook, a “social network for AIs” (which seems to be a lie), it's always the same story depicted in the comic strip above: people telling AI to behave in a certain way being shocked when AI behaves in that way.

Regarding Moltbook and its foundation, OpenClaw, I will limit myself* to giving one piece of advice: don't use it. The tool open the doors to your private digital life, with unpredictable consequences.

* I limit myself to this because, in my opinion, the press is doing a huge disservice by legitimizing this nonsense.

The AI industry doesn’t take “no” for an answer

For days now, I've had a quote from David Bushell stuck in my head:

Has anyone else noticed that the AI industry can’t take “no” for an answer? AI is being force-fed into every corner of tech. It’s unfathomable to them that some of us aren’t interested.

David complained about receiving communications from Proton offering Lumo, its generative AI, even though he had expressly indicated that he did not want to receive such messages. The worst part is that Proton, instead of owning up to its mistake and apologizing, insisted on absurd justifications to say that there was no mistake. It only gave in when an executive got involved, and only after the post went viral.

(more…)

For this [AI] not to be a bubble, by definition it requires that the benefits of this are much more evenly spread. I think a telltale sign of if it’s a bubble would be if all we’re talking about are the tech firms. If all we talk about is what’s happening to the technology side that then that’s just purely supply side.

Bald man wearing glasses, smiling.Satya Nadella,
CEO of Microsoft

I have some bad news for you, Satya…

In another excerpt from the interview, picked up by Pivot to AI, Nadella says that companies need to reorganize around AI to learn, in practice, how to use it in business. Destroy what is working to learn an innovation that might help them… do what they were doing before?

In his annual message to the public, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan says that “AI will be a boon to the creatives who are ready to lean in” and that more than a million channels used AI to create videos daily in December. At the same time, he promises measures “to reduce the spread of low quality AI content.” These seem like contradictory promises. Good luck to him.

Once again, Google threatens the 3 billion (!) Gmail users with Gemini (AI) features. This time, the change is dramatic: the inbox will be “smart”, which would be tempting if AI models were capable of summarizing correctly (they are not) and were not prone to mistakes (“hallucination” is an euphemism for mistakes). For now, the new Gmail is being released to Americans who pay for Google's expensive AI plans. The prophylactic measure is to disable all AI features in Gmail: in the settings, General tab, uncheck the option Enable smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet. You're welcome!

[…] What we’ve learned over the course of this year, especially from a consumer perspective, is they’re not buying based on AI. In fact I think AI probably confuses them more than it helps them understand a specific outcome.

White, unshaven man smiling.Kevin Terwilliger
Dell head of product

It is surprising that the first manufacturer to tell the truth about so-called “AI PCs” is Dell, Microsoft's early partner in the Copilot+ laptops initiative.

Note, however, that the full quote indicates that Dell will not stop investing in AI, only that the technology will no longer be the flagship feature of its marketing. It begins as follows: “We’re very focused on delivering upon the AI capabilities of a device—in fact everything that we’re announcing has an NPU in it—but what we’ve learned…”

Tech CEOs: Workers MUST be present in the office. The job simply cannot be done remotely.

Also tech CEOs: Most workers can be replaced by AI. Hosted remotely.

White woman, with glasses, sitting and wearing a free software T-shirt.SaraMG
@saramg@fosstodon.org

Dell and Microsoft, marketing geniuses

Remember when Warner Bros. changed the name of its streaming service from HBO Max to Max, and then less than a year later back to HBO Max? Or when the richest person in the world proved that money has no relation to intelligence and threw the “Twitter” brand in the trash? Marketing geniuses!

Maybe it's late capitalism, maybe it's a side effect of new drugs circulating among the bigwigs of the world's most powerful companies. Or maybe it's just plain stupidity. The fact is that the practice is spreading, and fast.

In early 2025, Dell revamped its line of notebooks and retired traditional names, including XPS, perhaps the most recognizable after Apple's MacBook. The goal was to simplify. No one understood anything.

Cut to 2026, and Dell announced at CES, to no one's surprise, that it will return to using the XPS brand. They look nice.

Running behind is Microsoft. When accessing the office.com website, we come across this gem (my highlight):

Welcome to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app

The Microsoft 365 Copilot app (formerly Office) lets you create, share, and collaborate all in one place with your favorite apps now including Copilot.*

Just imagine, replacing the brand that has been synonymous with productivity apps for three decades with… Copilot, a slop generator that people generally dislike and only use because their employer requires them to.

Good for us. The less we associate critical software with big tech brands, the better. Long live Microsoft 365 Copilot — or whatever other weird name Word, Excel, and company end up with in the future.

2025 has been a disaster for Windows 11  windowscentral.com

Zac Bowden wrote a long article stating that Windows fans (the author's definition) have been sold a “disastrous 2025 for Windows 11.” I haven't used Windows in many years and have barely touched version 11, so I read it with extra attention.

Anyway, I'm sure you can guess the most obvious problem with Windows 11 in 2025:

(more…)

Mozilla said Firefox will have a “kill switch” that disables all AI features in the browser. Someone witty quipped it will be the “Uninstall” button.

Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition — the open alternative to Alexa and Siri for controlling smart homes

by James Pond

When it comes to smart speakers, Amazon has Alexa, Apple has the HomePod, and Google has Nest. If you want something private — that runs locally — to control your home, there weren’t many alternatives.

Or there weren’t until now. To fill that gap, Nabu Casa, the sponsor of the Home Assistant open source project, released the Home Assistant Voice Preview Edition.

I bought six of these to replace six HomePods I had scattered around the house. After using them for a while, the question is: can you trust this for everyday use, or is it better to wait for a release without “preview” in the name?

(more…)