benatkin (u/benatkin)

benatkin commented on AWS CEO says using AI to replace junior staff is 'Dumbest thing I've ever heard' theregister.com/2025/08/2... · Posted by u/JustExAWS

foxyv · 6 days ago

You are entirely correct. The enshittification will continue. All we can do is enjoy these things while they are still usable.

benatkin · 6 days ago

Nope, this only applies to a small percent of content, where a relatively small number of people needs access to it and the incentive to create derivative work based on it is low, or where there's a huge amount of content that's frequently changing (think airfares). But yes, they will protect it more.

For content that doesn't change frequently and is used by a lot of people it will be hard to control access to it or derivative works based on it.

benatkin commented on Pixel 10 Phones blog.google/products/pixe... · Posted by u/gotmedium

hajile · 7 days ago

File System Access API has some serious issues. To quote Mozilla's position on the topic

> There's a subset of this API we're quite enthusiastic about (in particular providing a read/write API for files and directories as alternative storage endpoint), but it is wrapped together with aspects for which we do not think meaningful end user consent is possible to obtain (in particular cross-site access to the end user's local file system). Overall we consider this harmful therefore, but Mozilla could be supportive of parts, provided this were segmented better.

I think most users would probably be better off without this proposal.

benatkin · 7 days ago

It sounds like this would prevent users from backing up their own data, which is hard with localStorage and sessionStorage, and instead having to rely on the site owner.

However this doesn't go into any detail, so maybe they have some convenient way of being able to access these files in mind, but we'll never know. It reminds me of another shallow dismissal by Mozilla: https://github.com/mdn/content/pull/36294 https://webreflection.medium.com/mdn-doesnt-trust-you-should...

benatkin commented on OpenAI Progress progress.openai.com... · Posted by u/vinhnx

actuallyalys · 11 days ago

One thing that appears to have been lost between GPT-4 and GPT-5 is that it no longer reminds the user that it's an AI and not a human, let alone a human expert. Maybe those genuinely annoyed people, but it seems like they were potentially useful measure to prevent users from being overly credulous

GPT-5 also goes out of its way to suggest new prompts. This seems potentially useful, although potentially dangerous if people are putting too much trust in them.

benatkin · 10 days ago

If you've ever seen long-form improv comedy, the GPT-5 way is superior. It's a "yes, and". It isn't a predefined character, but something emergent. You can of course say to "speak as an AI assistant like Siri and mention that you're an AI whenever it's relevant" if you want the old way. Very 2011: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzgvod9BrcE

Of course, it's still an assistant, not someone literally entering an improv scene, but the character starting out assuming less about their role is important.

benatkin commented on PYX: The next step in Python packaging astral.sh/blog/introducin... · Posted by u/the_mitsuhiko

tomwphillips · 14 days ago

>Modern

I'll pass. I'd rather have the battle-tested old thing, thanks.

benatkin · 13 days ago

uv is battle tested

It's the default installation path for aider, for instance.

benatkin commented on Sandstorm- self-hostable web productivity suite sandstorm.org/... · Posted by u/nalinidash

MissTake · 18 days ago

Is it just me, or is Sandstorm just not maintained any more?

The most recent closed issues were self closed rather than as the result of development, while meanwhile the open issues continue to pile up with virtually no code changes made to the tree…

It’s a shame because it seems like it could have been a thing. Sadly though it’s hard to justify time investment into a platform like this if you know there’s little to no chance of getting any issues fixed.

benatkin · 18 days ago

They didn’t quite reach the MVP level and so in a way it wasn’t really maintained in the early days either.

benatkin commented on Spotting base64 encoded JSON, certificates, and private keys ergaster.org/til/base64-e... · Posted by u/jandeboevrie

benatkin · 22 days ago

I'm more partial to PCFkb2N0eXBlIGh0bWw+