why anyone would trust these companies to pay out

AFAIK, they historically have

why anyone would help them fix their problems at this point

They’re not “helping,” they’re trying to get paid by finding exploits legally, rather than using them illegally. And if someone is particularly good, it can be lucrative work. It’s historically been a mutually beneficial arrangement, so it’s ironic if M$lop thinks they can cut out human researchers (ostensibly swapping them for AI agents) and still maintain a secure codebase.

To me, this is M$lop trying to cut costs from the wrong thing; may they get what they deserve.

ETA: and if they make it impossible to make a living at reporting exploits legally, there’s really only one option left to make a living…

Not really that crazy when you consider that the people in charge could have had a sweetheart deal with manufacturers in China, but they cut off all trade partners and all soft power channels, because they’re drooling buffoons who won’t accept that the US shifted to a global economy decades ago nor do they grasp how global economies work—mainly because they fired every expert under the pretense of “government waste.”

All they know how to do is grift and defraud, and the chance to maintain global hegemony is long past. It’s China’s time, now, and they know it.

Classic abuser language. Take it to the extreme to make the reasonable person sound unreasonable, then make it out that you’re their victim.

Conservatism and DARVO go hand in hand.

That’s nuts. Thanks for the source! I hadn’t heard about that

if you do not comply with court orders of the country you are based in, you can close up shop

This is exactly the case for every VPN and network operator. Some take steps to remediate issues around anonymity, and some even offer ways to pay anonymously, but no company is going to break the law for you.

I have issues with Proton’s head being far too conciliatory to Trump, but the email thing wasn’t something they could do anything about, because it’s an inherent flaw with how email works; it was a court order to which they were compelled to comply, whether they wanted to or not.

I’ve never heard of either of these things. Do you have sources?

It’s hilarious to me that news companies keep interviewing AI companies to ask them if they think AI is all hype. What kind of answer do they expect?

“Yeah, this is just smoke and mirrors, and I’m just trying to make a ton of money before the bubble pops.” Bruh, no CEO is gonna be honest about that.

Agreed, but maybe for different reasons. Could you use Signal for government communication? Probably, but it would take intentional preparation, setup, and training of the end-users (most of whom are likely not security-minded or tech-savvy).

But practically speaking, governments should reasonably be developing an option that uses their own servers as relays, not ones controlled by a third party. Signal is run by a nonprofit (i.e. not driven by moneyed interests) and has survived court subpoenas for user data (because of how the useful data is stored encrypted at the endpoints, not the relays), but they do not have the same interests in nor are they developing a platform to keep government secrets safe.

Also, it’s a central point of failure; even if it remains entirely uncracked throughout its lifetime, if the company goes under, those server relays will go, too.

I feel pretty safe as an end-user nobody, but I would be thinking twice if I was a government official.

“He’s eccentric! A visionary!” —Rich assholes, probably

Digital Oil Rig is such a great analogy for multiple reasons.

“Digg watches what 1,000 of the most thoughtful voices in AI are paying attention to, and ranks the stories they’re pointing at by what’s rising fastest,” Rose said.

…

It also uses AI from services such as xAI, OpenAI, Anthropic and Google Gemini to “classify public accounts, summarize public posts and linked articles, describe public media, generate topic labels, score public content and power search.” That would explain how Digg quantifies user sentiment into a percentage for its posts.

Focus on AI. AI apologists from Xitter. Powered by AI summarizers.

Barf.

That’s bad, but at the same time, there’s public data aggregators that sell your info, and you could go out right now and find your name, phone numbers you’ve had, former and current addresses, people you’ve lived with, former and current jobs, etc. It’s kind of terrifying what’s “public information,” and yet they continue to be allowed to operate with virtual impunity.

I’m not saying we should just accept things, but cutting off this “training data” would be a great start, and if companies can’t, then they should be forced to cease operations (including AI chatbots).

It’s like when the internet first came about for the general public, and we had to constantly remind people, “Don’t believe everything you read. Nobody has to tell the truth.” I’m still unsure if we learned that lesson, but unlike the internet, AI is additionally and already largely hated by a majority of people.

I wasn’t actually trying to argue. I wanted to get to the bottom of why OP felt it was AI slop. This was and is an earnest question, because if y’all are seeing something, I’d like to know what that is, so I can stay attuned to the various tricks people use to hide when an LLM is speaking for them.

I mean, that doesn’t mean they had an LLM write their article(s). There’s no shortage of people who praise AI, and they don’t need an LLM to do it. That’s a pretty weak connection.

I may not agree with their stance on AI at all, and I think it’s fundamentally flawed, but I’m not going to accuse someone of outsourcing their writing when all we’ve got is “but they like AI, tho.”

Why do you think so? I’m not seeing anything that immediately screams “AI wrote this,” but I’m open to learning.

Sounds like it’s still an alternative!

Bandcamp

https://blog.bandcamp.com/2026/01/13/keeping-bandcamp-human/

And unlike streaming sites, you own what you buy, and the artist gets paid much better; you’d have to stream the same song 200+ times with a premium Spotify account to generate the same profit for the artist as just buying the song outright on Bandcamp.

Be honest. Did you have an LLM write that? Because boy howdy, does it read the way LLMs output text, right down to missing the point.

Regardless, in only one place did I mention climate change effects, and that was in passing as the last item in a list of issues with AI and LLMs in particular. That was on purpose.

You can throw out the environment as an argument entirely, and accept Andy Masley’s entire premise (I don’t), and AI still has much for which it needs to reckon.

This is a great point. They’re vague concepts, used as shorthand to communicate someone’s philosophies in very broad strokes. They’re not philosophies or even true political movements in and of themselves.