brib [has moved again]

I am moving accounts, catch me at @brib@disabled.social .

So long tech.lgbt, and thanks for all the fish!

In Defense of AI Bans

Policies [that allow AI] are often presented as a more reasonable and moderate way of regulating AI, in contrast with the supposedly more extreme and draconian measure of an AI ban.

However, this presentation does not do justice to the nature of an AI ban, or the reasoning behind it. In addition to this, I believe permissive policies are not as reasonable as they first appear, and instead encourage using AI in ways that do not work well with the human brain.

https://theweeklymiscellaneous.co.uk/posts/2026/03/in-defense-of-ai-bans/

#noAI

Now I've drafted a post explaining why AI bans are a good idea, and addressing some common criticisms of them. I will aim to publish tomorrow morning

I'm building a list of #slopfree software projects to help developers, businesses and software users make choices about their software usage.

And I wanted to provide a (semi-)positive counterpart to the AI doom.

https://codeberg.org/brib/slopfree-software-index

Happy to take suggestions and contributions!

EDIT: Thanks everyone for their support! I will need time to process all the replies, I will get back to you over the next few days.

EDIT 2: I've compiled the contributions into the project - thanks for your suggestions! If any are missing, please file an issue or PR so I can easily track suggestions

#noai

If anyone is looking for #slopfree #Vim I found the alternative #Vis:

https://github.com/martanne/vis

#noai

@statsguy@mas.to Oh the UK media have swung pretty far to the right. I have still not forgiven the Beebs for the time they tried to downplay the fascism of actual fascist groups. Or all the times they call trans women "men who identify as women" 🤮

@taylorlorenz@mastodon.social Given The Guardian has been so pro-do-web-surveillance-for-the-kids as of the past few years, kudos for getting this published

@david_chisnall@infosec.exchange My main worry that it will be some sort of gateway for further age verification creep. We're seeing this in the UK where the OSA, having failed to achieve any of its actual objectives (as many of us predicted a few years ago), is now being extended to incorporate broader-scope social media bans and even VPN bans. Similarly the AV lobby could say that simple age attestation isn't accurate enough and start to demand more intrusive monitoring. Idk if that's far-fetched (maybe it is), but the situation in the UK does not make me hopeful for these kinds of laws

@WeirdWriter@caneandable.social On the bright side, the bookstore owner said I could write in there for free anytime, any day, and I get free hot chocolate for life because that beatdown was golden. Techbro gets rekt, you get free hot chocolate for life, that's quite a silver lining 😀

@taylorlorenz@mastodon.social The result is a social media experience that feels a lot more like the old Internet - people talking to people, rather than ads and brands getting in the way. The way decentralised social media works can feel unfamiliar at first - for example, which server do you pick out of the hundreds online? - but it is also key to its resilience and to maintaining its quality. (2/2)

@taylorlorenz@mastodon.social In https://theweeklymiscellaneous.co.uk/posts/2025/10/an-autistic-persons-guide-to-mastodon/ I end up describing it as: Mastodon distributes power. No one admin has control over the whole network, and while an admin temper-tantrum can disrupt the network, it cannot engulf it in the way that it can engulf Twitter or Bluesky. Instead, it is entirely possible to avoid the tantruming admin while still being on Mastodon. This changes the incentives involved. Mastodon is easier to run out of a furry’s basement, so there is no incentive to raise huge amounts of venture capital money (and be beholden to what venture capitalists want). If anyone wants to enshittify their Mastodon server, users will pack up and move servers - this makes Mastodon incredibly resistant to enshittification. Since advertising is a form of enshittification, this means Mastodon is entirely ad-free - and by extension, it is surveillance-capitalism-free, because why do all that spying if you can’t have ads? (1/2)

@AnachronistJohn@zia.io @ShadowJonathan@tech.lgbt This reminds me of David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs theory. Jobs which are useful (shit jobs) don't get paid because the people doing them are supposed to live on the warm glow of doing actually useful things with their lives. Meanwhile the jobs with pay don't help anyone and don't need to exist (i.e. are bullshit jobs)