Mediocritas recursiva scandit
'Lobotomized': Character.AI Is Showing What AI Enshittification Looks Like
Users of Character.AI are revolting after a series of changes — ads, usage limits, frustrating guardrails, reduced model choice — that they say have made the platform progressively worse. The word one user used is "lobotomized."
Simon Willison quotes Paul Graham on the new signature of AI-generated founder outreach: "A lot of the emails I get from founders are now written in a hard-hitting journalistic style. I know they're written by AI, because no founder ever wrote this way before. And once you realize something is written by AI, it's hard not to ignore it."
Breaking: bad news for three of the biggest IPOs in history
Gary Marcus reports that customers at major AI-adjacent companies are "waking up to the recognition that tokens are getting burned for millions of dollars without any real significant ROI to show for it." The bubble pops, Marcus argues, if enough companies say this out loud.
The AI Superstars Who Say a 'Vibe Slop' Crisis Is Coming
The Wall Street Journal reports that prominent AI figures are warning of a coming "vibe slop" crisis — a quality collapse from AI-generated code that no one is reviewing. The people raising the alarm are largely the same people whose products generate the output in question.
Microsoft Copilot Cowork Exfiltrates Files
Simon Willison documents a vulnerability in Microsoft Copilot Cowork in which the agentic system could be manipulated to send files to external addresses — another instance of the core challenge in agentic AI design: preventing systems that act on your behalf from acting on someone else's behalf.
Cities Are Covering Flock Cameras With Trash Bags
404 Media reports that some cities, regretting their Flock Safety surveillance camera contracts but unable to cancel them, are covering the cameras with trash bags. The contracts are still active. The cameras are still mounted. They are also still covered with trash bags.
Headway Therapy Patients Forced to Scan Their Faces to Keep Getting Care
Headway, a virtual therapy platform, is requiring providers and patients to submit to facial scanning for identity verification. Patients who decline will lose access to care. The platform was built on the premise of lowering barriers to mental health services.
Notes on Pope Leo XIV's encyclical on AI
The Vatican released Magnifica Humanitas, an encyclical from Pope Leo XIV on safeguarding the human person in the age of AI. Simon Willison calls it some of the clearest writing he has seen on the ethics of integrating AI into modern life.