"If the authors of computer programming books wrote arithmetic textbooks..."
A colleague used this image to describe the documentation of a library. Meaning that the documentation was the example with the rabbits, but they have to use the library as the second part of the image. #programming
it’s a little disingenuous to refer to #LLMs as #opensource because you can really only open source an LLM in roughly the same way you open source a microprocessor — RISCV is open source, the plans for it anyway, but it still costs millions to riff off it and make your own custom version, same with LLMs. that’s not exactly what open source was going for
it’ll be fascinating to read a hindsight analysis of the #recall debacle in 5 years. i think it represents a significant business failure, maybe a critical one. i know there’s a lot of undercurrents and dynamics at play, it’ll be a great case study down the road
the reason i think it’s interesting is that windows isn’t important to microsoft, and hasn’t been so for a while. and this move is in line with their general strategy — move from software to SaaS. and also more current, their deep and risky bets on AI. there’s so much that makes sense about #recall that i understand why it happened, but why aren’t they acknowledging and reacting to a very obvious mistake? disfunction? some other dynamic?
and further — if microsoft culture is now one where something like recall is encouraged, that also means their security culture is one where something like recall isn’t red flagged. that’s probably the most telling aspect
i love #LLMs and all, but #ML has always had a more difficult security profile and LLMs even more so. lots of subtle issues, and conflict with business opportunities
but that means that if you want to “invest heavily in #AI”, you HAVE TO also invest heavily in security. they go hand in hand.
if #recall is showing cracks in microsoft’s security culture, you can probably use that information to make predictions about their long term health
i haven’t been given many “performance problems” talks in my career, but one notable exception was when i printed out business cards for myself with the title “Code Efficiency Officer”
the CEO (uh, the chief executive) couldn’t maintain a straight face when talking to me but i think he may have disliked them
another time, at the same startup, my brother “gifted” me with a roll of toilet paper with $100 bills printed on them. the investors were coming over to the office for a board meeting and the CEO was busy making sure all the kegs were full, etc. so i did the obvious thing and installed said $100 toilet paper into the bathroom. i never owned up to that one (although he probably deduced it)
@kellogh Yep, #recall is one of those bad names, that makes you wonder what else was on the shortlist in the meeting.
"Right team, here are the options from the focus groups, it should be MS...
I-Spy
Peeping Clippy
Privacy Nightmare
Torment Nexus...Ahem, sorry, no, but Torment Nexus is already taken for that, you know, 'other', project...
@tob@carnage4life i’m no expert, but i think there needs to be a more clear handoff of assets. especially since tesla is public, and not primarily owned by Musk, siphoning resources from Tesla is effectively stealing from investors
Microsoft does so much so well these days. But this Microsoft Recall product is like watching a grown man carefully placing his hand in a door jamb and then repeatedly slamming the door on it. Obviously stupid from conception.
@williamgunn@Cmastication@SecurityWriter yeah, thus far they weren't subject to an ad business, so they've never had tension between privacy and business, but AI does change this.
i've heard news that they're partnering with OpenAI/Anthropic. So maybe they deal with it by not dealing with it. But I also see a lot of academic papers from them training new (small) models. So idk, but i do know they're not going to directly endanger consumer trust, that seems clear