achrono (u/achrono) - Readit News

achrono commented on How ancient people saw themselves worldhistory.substack.com... · Posted by u/crescit_eundo

> The progress

Progress towards what, exactly?

achrono · 2 months ago

Towards maximizing the sum of individual happiness, power, beauty and knowledge. Maybe a few other attributes in there, but these are the bare minimum that no civilization would deny for itself.

The question of course is 'how'. For the last few centuries, the answer has been technology.

achrono commented on Ex-WhatsApp cybersecurity head says Meta endangered billions of users theguardian.com/technolog... · Posted by u/mdhb

lordofgibbons · 3 months ago

Given how WhatsApp is the de-facto way to communicate outside of the West and China, these security/data-handling "weaknesses" are most likely a feature, not a bug. An absolute bonanza for the certain intelligence services.

Remember, kids: End to end encryption is useless if the "ends" are fully controlled by an (untrustworthy) third party.

achrono · 3 months ago

From the article:

> According to the 115-page complaint, Baig discovered through

> internal security testing that WhatsApp engineers could “move

> or steal user data” including contact information, IP addresses

> and profile photos “without detection or audit trail”.

That isn't really the breach you're making it out to be. Profile photos, unless made private/contacts only, are already publicly visible, and so is "contact information".

Of course these are useful to intelligence services, but this doesn't mean that Baig found they don't have true end-to-end encryption.

achrono commented on Microsoft BASIC for 6502 Microprocessor – Version 1.1 github.com/microsoft/BASI... · Posted by u/marvinborner

pico303 · 4 months ago

I love how the initial commit is "48 years ago."

achrono · 4 months ago

I love even more how it's a .md file from well before Markdown even existed.

achrono commented on Ask HN: Did modern AI's coding abilities make you lose interest in programming? · Posted by u/amichail

taylodl · 4 months ago

AI's coding abilities take care of the mundane so I can focus on the more interesting bits. Plus, it sharpens your code review skills - you have to review the results and adjust as necessary.

achrono · 4 months ago

Really want to know what these "more interesting bits" are that GPT-5-thinking and other models of this calibre cannot do. Unless of course you choose to do them even though these models can in fact do them, in which case, please do share regardless.

achrono commented on Google will allow only apps from verified developers to be installed on Android 9to5google.com/2025/08/25... · Posted by u/kotaKat

eraviloi · 4 months ago

Lol all these things work via the web. You just log on via the browswer. Not everything needs an app.

achrono · 4 months ago

Other than banks & ticketing, there is a whole host of things that do in fact need an app.

* Mobile payments

* Navigation

* All manner of IoT devices

* Wearables!

* Digital versions of ID (Mobile Passport Control)

etc.

So no, you can't just use the web.

achrono commented on GPT-5 openai.com/gpt-5/... · Posted by u/rd

Aurornis · 4 months ago

As someone who spent years quadruple checking every figure in every slide for years to avoid a mistake like this, it’s very confusing to see this out of the big launch announcement of one of the most high profile startups around.

Even the small presentations we gave to execs or the board were checked for errors so many times that nothing could possibly slip through.

achrono · 4 months ago

I think this just further demonstrates the truth behind the truly small & scrappy teams culture at OpenAI that an ex-employee recently shared [1].

Even with the way the presenters talk, you can sort of see that OAI prioritizes speed above most other things, and a naive observer might think they are testing things a million different ways before releasing, but actually, they're not.

If we draw up a 2x2 for Danger (High/Low) versus Publicity (High/Low), it seems to me that OpenAI sure has a lot of hits in the Low-Danger High-Publicity quadrant, but probably also a good number in the High-Danger Low-Publicity quadrant -- extrapolating purely from the sheer capability of these models and the continuing ability of researchers like Pliny to crack through it still.

[1] https://calv.info/openai-reflections

achrono commented on GPT-5 Announcement openai.com/index/gpt-5-sy... · Posted by u/achrono

achrono · 4 months ago

Key highlights in addition to the model quality itself:

* real-time router that quickly decides which model to use based on conversation type, complexity, tool needs, and explicit intent (for example, if you say “think hard about this” in the prompt)

* router is continuously trained on real signals, including when users switch models, preference rates for responses, and measured correctness, improving over time.