It is actually not so difficult to see this for yourself in a much simplified setting. One can easily build a “Small Language Model” that extracts correlations between only three consecutive words. On the web there’s plenty of short scripts that do this; here and here is one example. The output created by such a SLM can have remarkably long sentences with grammatical meaning (see the examples in the links above); this is remarkable since all it learned was correlations between triplets of words.

Now you can take a large amount of output from such a SLM, and use it to train a second, identical or even better SLM, then check the output generated by this second one. You’ll see that the new output is less coherent than the one from the first SLM. Give the output of the second SLM to a third, and you’ll see even less coherent text coming out. And so on.

They aren’t out of context, and you have just said the same thing. Data processing can help in removing noise, but it can’t help in creating information or extracting information that wasn’t there in the first place. In fact – again as you said – it can end up destroying part of the original information.

LLMs extract word correlations from textual data. Already in this process they are losing information, since they can’t extract correlations beyond a certain (yet large) length, and don’t extract correlations at shorter lengths. And in creating output they insert spurious correlations that replace (destroy) some of the original ones. This output will contain even less information than the original training data. So a new LLM trained with such an output will give back even less.

Yes it does. Indeed it is a mathematical theorem from Information Theory, called the data-processing inequality. Quoting from two good textbooks on Information Theory:

“No clever manipulation of the data can improve the inferences that can be made from the data” (Cover & Thomas, Elements of Information Theory §2.8).

“Data processing can only destroy information” (MacKay, Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms exercise 8.9).

You’ve read the stances of all different people. I agree with most and I’m a bit more conservative: I switch to a LTS (even-numbered) release only when its main non-LTS (odd-numbered) upgrade is out; and skip all non-LTS.

The fundamental problem is that age verification is bullshit. So let’s not normalize it. It must be fought, on all fronts, including the FOSS front.

Possibly. That’s up to your distro. However, consider that EU as well is starting to speak about age verification. It’s quite clear that the whole “West” aspires to be more like Russia and China.

I wish, but I’m not so sure. Look at what happened with the Californian age-verification laws and Systemd for example. Some (arsehole, in my personal opinion) FOSS developers hurried up and bent over backwards to start complying. We’ll probably end up having “Linux” distros that will comply, and Linux distros, probably distributed via secret channels, that won’t.

The crucial point in this new press release is the requirement for “operating system developers like Apple and Google to verify users’ ages when setting up a new device, rather than relying on self-reported ages.”

Very true:

But when technologists tell policymakers this, they tell us that they have every confidence in our ingenuity, and also, they can’t be certain we’re not telling a Zuck-style fable about how the stuff we merely disprefer is actually impossible. They tell us to NERD HARDER!

NERD HARDER! is the answer every time a politician gets a technological idée-fixe about how to solve a social problem by creating a technology that can’t exist.

https://pluralistic.net/2025/08/14/bellovin/#wont-someone-think-of-the-cryptographers

From the press release [my emphasis]:

Require operating system developers like Apple and Google to verify users’ ages when setting up a new device, rather than relying on self-reported ages.

We surely need to send protest emails and letters to legislators and government representatives – as citizens did in EU for the “chat control” proposals – and organize protest marches, strikes, and so on.

But yes, if the regime behaves more and more like a Russian state, rather than a democracy, and doesn’t care about citizens’ protests, then “violent uprising” becomes almost a moral imperative. “Democracy” means “government by the people”, and it’s we people who must make sure no one takes the government out of our hands; nobody else can do that for us.

permanent worldwide injunction

During our in-person visa appointment in Seattle, a shooting involving CBP occurred just a few parking spaces from where we normally park for medical outpatient visits back in Portland. It was covered by the news internationally and you may have read about it. Moments like that have a way of clarifying what matters and how urgently change can feel necessary.

Our visas were approved quickly, which we’re grateful for. We’ll be spending the next year in France, where my wife has other Tibetan family. I’m looking forward to immersing myself in the language and culture and to taking that responsibility seriously. Learning French in mid-life will be humbling, but I’m ready to give it my full focus.

Sounds like a splendid person.

It’s also a smart move considering that, with age-verification laws advancing, it looks like a good part of the Linux world will become with time another instrument of mass surveillance.

entered a permanent worldwide injunction

• Urusei Yatsura (the original one)
• Future Boy Conan
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
• FLCL
• One Punch Man

Filled life with hope or thought or awesomeness!

Still more acceptable, in my opinion, than going from “using” to “leveraging”…

“friendly”? 🤣

💪 🤝

I have only partially until now. But sadly it looks like we’re entering times where choices regarding activism will become more important and inevitable. The pool with get larger. Any kind of support: money, time, developing, participating, promoting, legal…

Yes I don’t support FOSS projects that aren’t willing to engage in activism. But I don’t shame them. That’s exactly the point of my post. Rather than shaming people or projects who’ve made a different choice, I think it’s best to find and focus on those who share one’s choice, for mutual support, discussion, and planning. It’s important to understand that FOSS and activism are two different things.