AI software assistants make the hardest kinds of bugs to spot: Errors that are tuned to be statistically indistinguishable from correct code.

mamot.fr/@pluralistic/11497084…

3/

Cory Doctorow

2025-08-04 13:57:04

It's easy to understand why some programmers love their AI assistants and others loathe them: the former group get to decide how and when they use AI tools, while the latter has AI forced upon them by bosses who hope to fire their colleagues and increase their workload.

--

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

pluralistic.net/2025/08/04/bad…

1/

Pluralistic: AI software assistants make the hardest kinds of bugs to spot (04 Aug 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

^{pluralistic.net}

Hey look at this

* How 'paper terrorism' hijacked a state system with bogus claims latimes.com/california/story/2… (h/t Super Punch)

* The Right of Return, from Arkansas to Israel coreyrobin.com/2025/08/02/the-…

* We Need a Strategy to Win Zohran’s Agenda. Call It Plan Z. jacobin.com/2025/08/zohran-ber…

* Bottom of the Rabbit Hole welovetheswitch.com/theswitch/…

* The Ancient Order of Bali damninteresting.com/the-ancien… (h/t Pete Harbeson)

4/

#20yrsago Napster loses $20MM on $21MM revenue in Q1 05 web.archive.org/web/2005111213…

#10yrsago NSA conducted commercial espionage against Japanese government and businesses washingtonpost.com/world/asia_…

#10yrsago Windows 10 defaults to keylogging, harvesting browser history, purchases, and covert listening bgr.com/general/windows-10-upg…

#10yrsago UK ECHELON journalist: “Snowden proved spies need accountability” theintercept.com/2015/08/03/li…

5/

#10yrsago David Cameron will publish the financial details and viewing habits of all UK porn-watchers theguardian.com/culture/2015/j…

#10yrsago Proof-of-concept firmware worm targets Apple computers wired.com/2015/08/researchers-…

#10yrsago What happened when we got subpoenaed over our Tor exit node memex.craphound.com/2015/08/04…

#10yrsago EFF and coalition announce new Do Not Track standard for the Web eff.org/press/releases/coaliti…

6/

#10yrsago Trophy hunting is “hunting” the way that Big Thunder Mountain is a “train ride” flickr.com/photos/bar-art/2028…

#10yrsago 3D maps of London Underground stations ianvisits.co.uk/articles/3d-ma…

#10yrsago Open “Chromecast killer” committed suicide-by-DRM techdirt.com/2015/08/04/matchs…

#10yrsago Privatized, for-profit immigration detention centers force detainees to work for $1-3/day latimes.com/nation/immigration…

7/

#5yrsago Papercraft Addams Family house pluralistic.net/2020/08/04/att…

#5yrsago Google acquires major stake in ADT pluralistic.net/2020/08/04/att…

#5yrsago Jack Dorsey's interop plan pluralistic.net/2020/08/04/att…

#5yrsago Collective Action In Tech For Black Lives Matter pluralistic.net/2020/08/04/att…

#5yrsago Papercraft Addams Family house pluralistic.net/2020/08/04/att…

#5yrsago Google acquires major stake in ADT pluralistic.net/2020/08/04/att…

8/

#5yrsago Jack Dorsey's interop plan pluralistic.net/2020/08/04/att…

#5yrsago Collective Action In Tech For Black Lives Matter pluralistic.net/2020/08/04/att…

#5yrsago Papercraft Addams Family house pluralistic.net/2020/08/04/att…

#5yrsago Google acquires major stake in ADT pluralistic.net/2020/08/04/att…

#5yrsago Jack Dorsey's interop plan pluralistic.net/2020/08/04/att…

#5yrsago Collective Action In Tech For Black Lives Matter pluralistic.net/2020/08/04/att…

9/

#5yrsago NSO Group cyberweapons targeted Togo's opposition pluralistic.net/2020/08/03/tur…

#5yrsago The sordid tale of We Charity pluralistic.net/2020/08/03/tur…

#5yrsago A universal remote for killing people pluralistic.net/2020/08/03/tur…

10/

My latest novel is "Picks and Shovels," a historical technothriller set in the Weird Era of the PC, about Ponzi schemes, techbros, and the dawn of enshittification:

us.macmillan.com/books/9781250…

--

My next nonfiction book is "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," out from MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux on October 7:

us.macmillan.com/books/9780374…

11/

Book details - Macmillan Publishers

Enshittification: it’s not just you—the internet sucks now. Here’s why, and here’s how we can disenshittify it.We’re living through the Enshittocen...

^Macmillan

My ebooks and audiobooks (from Tor Books, Head of Zeus, McSweeneys, Beacon, Verso and others) are for sale all over the net, but I sell 'em too, and when you buy 'em from me, I earn twice as much and you get books with no DRM and no license "agreements."

craphound.com/shop/

12/

Upcoming appearances:

* #SanDiego: ACM Collective Intelligence keynote, Aug 5
ci.acm.org/2025/speakers/cory-…

* #Ithaca: AD White keynote (Cornell), Sep 12
deanoffaculty.cornell.edu/even…

* #DC: Enshittification at Politics and Prose, Oct 8
politics-prose.com/cory-doctor…

* #SanFrancisco: Enshittification at Public Works (The Booksmith), Oct 20
app.gopassage.com/events/docto…

* #NewOrleans: DeepSouthCon63, Oct 10-12, 2025
contraflowscifi.org/

13/

Upcoming appearances (cont'd):

* #Miami: Enshittification at Books & Books, Nov 5
eventbrite.com/e/an-evening-wi…

* #SanFrancisco: Enshittification at Public Works (The Booksmith), Oct 20
app.gopassage.com/events/docto…

14/

Recent appearances:

* ORG at 20: In conversation with Maria Farrell
youtube.com/watch?v=M9H2An_D6i…

* Why aren't we controlling our own tech? (Co-Op Congress)
youtube.com/live/GLrDwHgeCy4?s…

* If We Had a Choice, Would We Invent Social Media Again? (The Agenda/TVO)
youtube.com/watch?v=KJw38uIcmE…

15/

You can follow these posts as a daily blog at pluralistic.net: no ads, trackers, or data-collection!

Here's today's edition: pluralistic.net/2025/08/04/bad…

--

If you prefer a newsletter, subscribe to the plura-list, which is ad-/tracker-free, and is utterly unadorned save a single daily emoji. Today's is "🚟". Suggestions solicited for future emojis!

--

You can also get a fulltext RSS feed, licensed CC BY 4.0:

pluralistic.net/feed/

16/

Support me this summer in the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop! This summer, I'm writing "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux that explains how to be an effective AI critic:

clarionwriteathon.com/members/…

eof/

Clarion Write-a-Thon | Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of many books, most recently RADICALIZED and WALKAWAY, science fiction for adults; HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM, nonfiction about monopoly …

^{clarionwriteathon.com}