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Immigrant, Volunteer, Lifelong Learner, Hiker, Bookworm, Software Engineer
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Let’s start the year by reflecting on the colossal growth in the resource consumption of AI and what it means for 2026.

At the start of 2025, the worldwide power demand of AI systems was approximately 9.4 GW. By the end of the year, this demand had likely increased to around 23 GW. This level of electricity consumption is comparable to that of Bitcoin mining and is also approaching half of total global data center electricity consumption (excluding crypto mining) in 2024.

ChatGPT falls to new data pilfering attack as a vicious cycle in AI continues
Will LLMs ever be able to stamp out the root cause of these attacks? Possibly not.
https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/01/chatgpt-falls-to-new-data-pilfering-attack-as-a-vicious-cycle-in-ai-continues/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

🚨 Google is killing Android freedom.

Starting 2027, unverified apps can’t be side-loaded.

āž”ļø F-Droid harder to install
āž”ļø Custom APKs blocked
āž”ļø Google decides what runs on YOUR phone

Google’s Android is becoming Apple: Your device, their rules.

It’s time to switch to open alternatives: Graphene, Calyx, Lineage. ✊

https://tuta.com/blog/android-side-load-apps-google

Sign the petition to stop Google from limiting APK file usage: https://www.change.org/p/stop-google-from-limiting-apk-file-usage

When an LLM outputs, ā€œI panickedā€, it does not mean it panicked. It means that based on the preceding sentences, ā€œI panickedā€ was a likely thing to come next.

It means it’s read a lot of fiction, in which drama is necessary.

It didn’t ā€œpanicā€. It didn’t *anything*. It wrote a likely sequence of words based on a human request, which it then converted into code that matched those words somewhat. And a human, for some reason, allowed that code to be evaluated without oversight.

"Analysis by MIT Technology Review provides an unprecedented and comprehensive look at how much energy the AI industry uses—down to a single query—to trace where its carbon footprint stands now, and where it’s headed

The latest reports show that 4.4% of all the energy in the US now goes toward data centers.
Individuals may end up footing some of the bill for this AI revolution."

https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1116327/ai-energy-usage-climate-footprint-big-tech/

We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard.

The emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn’t tracking and consider where it’s heading next.

MIT Technology Review

Casual thoughts about memory and our misconceptions about it, based on the last few weeks of seeing a LOT of lay mental models about memory and cognition:

- it is well known in the psychological and cognitive sciences that memory is not like a man-made recording device. Your memory is not a tape recorder, or analogous to computer memory. Nevertheless people will insist on constantly using computer metaphors for memory. Just know this is widely regarded as inaccurate

"In her new book, ā€˜Empire of AI’, Karen Hao debunks myths that surround AI and exposes us to the full breadth of this global industry, from it’s cult-leader like CEOs to the workers that power the technology."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8enXRDlWguU
Silicon Valley Insider EXPOSES Cult-Like AI Companies | Aaron Bastani Meets Karen Hao

YouTube

Me, two weeks ago:

"Strange days indeed; imagine listening to a carpenter describe themselves as "hammer-first."

"But do you... build houses?"

"Incidentally, yes; but our main focus is on hitting nails with hammers."

Microsoft today:

"AI is now a fundamental part of how we work," Liuson wrote. "Just like collaboration, data-driven thinking, and effective communication, using AI is no longer optional - it's core to every role and every level."

https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-internal-memo-using-ai-no-longer-optional-github-copilot-2025-6

Microsoft internal memo: 'Using AI is no longer optional.'

Executive Julia Liuson recently told Microsoft managers to include internal AI tool usage when evaluating employee performance.

Business Insider

In case people didn't know, Creative Commons has been on the side of "screw your rights and livelihood, it's fair use" regarding GenAI training since at least 2021.

https://creativecommons.org/2021/03/04/should-cc-licensed-content-be-used-to-train-ai-it-depends/

The new "AI" license 'signals' are interesting as a development (assuming anyone honours them when companies mass pirated commercial creative works!) but not a surprise (and apparently don't include a "no" option, because that's elsewhere in a spec and this is for granularity of yes)

#Copyright #CreativeCommons

Should CC-Licensed Content be Used to Train AI? It Depends. - Creative Commons

While we generally support broad access to content to train AI, we also aim to increase our understanding of the ethical concerns.

Creative Commons