Mike Masnick 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (23098)

• On the post: AI Might Be Our Best Shot At Taking Back The Open Web

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2026 @ 09:46pm

  According to no less a source than Harvard Business, the primary effect of the lying engines is to create more work for everyone else — the illusion of productivity it creates is an illusion, because what you’re actually doing is foisting the work on to other people, not removing it.

  I mostly agree with that. But mainly because so many companies are trying to force AI on people or into products where they don't belong. That's never going to work. What I'm talking about is for people who want to take back control of their own systems and tools, that's now possible. And it's a freeing feeling to realize "I wish this writing tool had this feature" and then 30 minutes later, it has it. That's... way different than bosses going around telling people "you must use this AI tool" and everything thinking that the only purpose of AI is to generate crappy content. I get the association. But I'm trying to make clear that it's possible to separate these use cases.

• On the post: AI Might Be Our Best Shot At Taking Back The Open Web

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2026 @ 09:42pm

  But you’re advocating the software equivalent of everyone building their own car.

  I'm not, though. I'm advocating that for people who want tools that they can control, there are now options available to them that weren't there before. And your response is "you're too stupid to use the tools."

• On the post: AI Might Be Our Best Shot At Taking Back The Open Web

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2026 @ 09:41pm

  At this point I’m convinced Masnick is getting a fat paycheck from Altman or something

  I'm not. I won't even use OpenAI's products. And, considering that nearly all the positive feedback I've gotten on the piece, the idea that "no serious tech journalist would write this" seems... silly. The only pushback I've gotten is... here? Almost all of the replies on Bluesky were positive. My email is overflowing with people appreciating the piece. Do you have an actual critique? So far, every single critique seems like "nuh uh stupid." Or just "AI BAD, YOU BAD." It's difficult to take people serious if they don't have a legitimate critique. I agree the tech is oversold. I agree it's bad that it's being shoved into places where it doesn't belong, or being forced upon those who don't want to use it. I agree with the problematic aspect of the data center builds. But, I'm trying to point out that there are aspects that are legitimately useful, and in particular useful in GETTING OUT FROM UNDER big tech. That's the thing, if you kept your critiques to the actual problems, I'd agree with you. But people like you who insist that anyone who does find it useful must be paid off, just make ANY critique of AI seem stupid because you seem unwilling to live in reality and deal with actual nuances and trade offs. So, seriously: go away. This site is for people who can live in the nuances, and you obviously can't.

• On the post: AI Might Be Our Best Shot At Taking Back The Open Web

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2026 @ 05:36pm

  Because you are ignorant. As nicely as I can, you are so ignorant about AI and programming that what you don’t know will hurt you. It’s not an if, it’s a when.

  We shall see.

  In order to control something you have to actually know and understand it. You can’t make changes without AI, and you don’t actually know if what you think it does is what it actually does.

  No offense, but that's the dumbest shit I've heard all day today. There are tons of things we control that we don't fully understand. I control my car, but I have to take it to a mechanic to repair. The nature of innovation is that we often use tools to build things, but we don't always know how they work. You use a computer, but most people don't understand how computer hardware works. Honestly, this "oh you don't understand it so it'll be bad" strikes me as nonsense gatekeeping from programmers.

• On the post: AI Might Be Our Best Shot At Taking Back The Open Web

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2026 @ 05:34pm

  Again, that's wrong on so many levels.

• On the post: AI Might Be Our Best Shot At Taking Back The Open Web

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2026 @ 05:20pm

  One more thing I'll add here: I also hate AI slop. But literally nothing in what I wrote endorsed AI slop. I find it problematic that people automatically lump all AI tools as slop.

• On the post: AI Might Be Our Best Shot At Taking Back The Open Web

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2026 @ 05:19pm

  We shall see. But I think that's not a guaranteed future. And the way to avoid it happening is for more people to realize how they can free themselves RIGHT NOW with the tools available. So much of this is such cynical bullshit about "oh, it'll end bad because everything ends badly so I'm not even going to try." The tools work right now to give you more power. And your response is "don't use them, it'll never last, they won't let us ever have power" and that's just... stupid? I literally cannot understand people who think that way. You're giving up before the bad stuff happens, only making your future more likely. Why? Why give them that? Why not use the powers you have available to you right now to break free from that control?

• On the post: AI Might Be Our Best Shot At Taking Back The Open Web

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2026 @ 05:16pm

  then build near impenetrable walls around the crater and then grant them a perpetual license to retain complete control of every road leading there as well as all the signage and erect tollbooths every 500 meters.

  That would be concerning, but I'm trying to figure out how you think that happens. Literally as explained in this piece, I have total control over the tools I've built, down to the fact that they live on a local machine sitting on a table 5 fee away from me. They have way less control over it than any online tool I've used in 3 decades. It's so weird to see people claim that this is all tollbooths and silos, when my literal experience is the exact opposite. It's so confusing to me. Are there reasons to be concerned that the big AI companies will go down that path? Yeah, sure, absolutely. But that's why it's important to understand the freedom these tools enable RIGHT NOW and to make sure we don't lose that.

• On the post: AI Might Be Our Best Shot At Taking Back The Open Web

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2026 @ 05:13pm

  Not to be a nudge, but Powazek had the copyright to the material, you copied it without his permission, so you broke the law …

  I mean, that's simply not true. Copying the source of web pages was something widely considered to be fair use, and widely done. That's like claiming learning to play a Beatles song to learn to play guitar is copyright infringement. Not how it works.

• On the post: AI Might Be Our Best Shot At Taking Back The Open Web

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 25 Mar, 2026 @ 05:11pm

  I responded to Derek on Bluesky but I'll also respond here. I appreciate his take here and understand where he's coming from. I am sorry that he feels I'm somehow misrepresenting the legacy of the site that he created. But the point here was not to suggest that he or The Fray support AI and I don't think the article suggests that. It was to express the way both things made me feel. There's a similar feeling I got to learning how to build websites from The Fray as I get from building more advanced systems now with agentic tools. I'm not going to lie about the similarity of the feeling or misrepresent it. I still feel that the analogy works for me, and so far many other people I've heard from agree to a similar. Dan Hon even pointed out that a few weeks ago he'd beaten me to the analogy by posting on Bluesky that "agentic coding is view-source for "apps" and if you were around earlier, you know how much of a big fucking deal view-source was for the web and everything that came after" https://bsky.app/profile/danhon.com/post/3mgxsmaghvk2g So clearly some others are feeling that too. I understand that many people just hate the technology altogether, though as I tried to explain in the piece, there are increasingly ethical ways to use the tech. Also, all sorts of stuff we do rely on tech and automation in some forms or another. To me this again is an extension of that. These are tools that allow humans to do stuff, but all internet activities involve technology tools in some form or another. I feel bad that Derek is upset about this because I respect him, but nothing in the piece was designed to suggest endorsement by him. It was designed to reveal the emotional relevance of the moment, and I can't deny the similarity in the feeling.

• On the post: The Trump Admin’s Own Investigators Found No EU Internet Censorship. So They Ignored The Findings.

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 24 Mar, 2026 @ 09:27pm

  Ah, so then you're saying that this administration is incompetent, since they were unable to find these examples you claim happened? It's one or the other. The admin lied about mass censorship or the team they hired to investigate is incompetent and couldn't find any. Which one is it? I know which one I'm betting on. But I'd love to hear your answer.

• On the post: Bernie Sanders “Interviewed” A Chatbot To Expose AI’s Secrets. It Has No Secrets. It Just Agrees With You.

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 23 Mar, 2026 @ 03:41pm

  FWIW, I don't find "chatbots" all that useful and mostly agree with people who think they're overhyped nonsense that people rely too much on. There are some cases where they can be useful (I mostly use them these days for walking through more confusing technical things I'm trying to set up where it can respond to the very specific environment/issues I come across). But LLMs are way more than chatbots. The underlying tech, especially agentic stuff like Claude Code, that can actually do or build stuff, not just talk to you, is way more interesting.

• On the post: Greater Than Zero: The Anti-AI Pushback On Gaming Preservation Efforts Makes No Sense

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 21 Mar, 2026 @ 01:42am

  That’s only because the hallucination rate is, and always will be, 100%.

  And this is why no one takes people like you seriously.

  These word machines literally function by hallucinating, it is the only thing they can do.

  You have no idea what you're talking about and it makes you look very silly. No, that's not how they operate. I get that you're trying to make a point in that they are generating things non-deterministically, which you define as a hallucination, but that's changing definitions to fit your desired claim, not a statement based in reality.

  But the real issue is that they do not and will not provide any kind of equitable value for their costs.

  You can just say "I don't know how to use these systems properly, and therefore I assume no one does" and it's a more accurate statement. The fact that you don't bother to educate yourself is a not a condemnation of the tech. It's a condemnation of your ability to learn and understand.

  The costs are far too high for any kind of output value.

  I mean, this is just provably untrue. I'm running a local model on the machine on a desk in my office. It's not costing me a dime. It provides quite a bit of value. I get it, you hate the tech, refuse to learn how it actually works and so you HAVE to buy into that world that the tech has no value. Good for you. It is true that the tech is overhyped, and many people use it badly and in ways that have serious externalities. But your rush to condemn the whole thing is just silly and it's why no one takes people like you seriously.

• On the post: Greater Than Zero: The Anti-AI Pushback On Gaming Preservation Efforts Makes No Sense

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 20 Mar, 2026 @ 01:48pm

  I'll just point out that your claim of 30% hallucination rate is utter nonsense. First of all, there's no single "hallucination" rate. Because it means all sorts of different things. You can see a more thoughtful discussion than your summary here: https://suprmind.ai/hub/ai-hallucination-rates-and-benchmarks/ It really (again) comes down to what are you using it for, how complex is the task, and how much is a human in the loop (and also what are the downside risks of an error). For many tasks, the tool is extraordinarily useful and accurate. For others it's terrible. Translation is one of those categories where the error rate is extremely low. Claiming there's a 40% hallucination rate in response to an article about a narrow use case such as translation suggests (1) you have no clue what you're talking about (2) you're spewing nonsense because you have an irrational hatred of the tech you don't understand or... both. I know some of you refuse to believe there's a way to have a nuanced conversation about this, but posting nonsense like "oh they get things wrong 40% of the time" is WHY people dismiss some AI haters. It's just so far from the reality of how the tech is used it makes you look stupid.

• On the post: The Jehovah’s Witnesses Are Back Abusing Copyright Law To Unmask Their Critics. Again.

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2026 @ 11:44pm

  Hi Gladis, welcome to Techdirt. An opinion news site. Every article is an opinion. And, we stand by them. Anyway, can you reveal your own interest in this, because it sure sounds personal?

• On the post: Techdirt Podcast Episode 446: Mike & Karl Talk AI

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 18 Mar, 2026 @ 10:47pm

  RAM is effectively a commodity with multiple providers. You can bet that they are ramping up production. We've seen temporary supply shocks in the past on components and they tend not to last. I don't think the supply chain was wrecked at all. It's just that demand outpaced supply. There are solutions to that.

• On the post: DOGE Didn’t Cut Government Waste. It Was Government Waste.

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 17 Mar, 2026 @ 05:08pm

  Bro, the desperation flop sweat you display here to try to come up with some way to justify the unjustifiable is pathetic. Have some self respect.

  They should have cut a LOT more, but this is rich cuz people like YOU got in the way.

  Huh? How did I get in the way? What did I do?!?

  “How dare they look at actual records to find what to cut!”

  This is not just a blatant misrepresentation of the issues, it's a bizarre ignorance of the laws that protect private information.

  “The president doesn’t have authority!” (He literally has ALL the authority)

  So you've never read the Constitution or are a liar. Got it.

  But they still cut a few hundred million. And they cost basically nothing themselves, so they can’t be waste, can they?

  Again, the research shows otherwise. They cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Look, one of these days you're going to wake up and realize that you're like the last man still out here defending this obvious bullshit. It's pathetic.

• On the post: Turns Out The DOGE Bros Who Killed Humanities Grants Are Kinda Sensitive About It

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 16 Mar, 2026 @ 04:01pm

  It was meant to be sarcastic, but I can see now how that could be misread...

• On the post: If You’re Going To Defend AI And Whine About Its Critics, You Should Probably Be Honest About Its Actual Harms

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 14 Mar, 2026 @ 01:38am

  Don't know what to tell you. Every comment that was made on this post remains there today and not a single one was deleted. You can go and look and there are plenty that criticize me. I don't give a shit. What I find funny is that you're so desperate to believe things that aren't true that you just keep lying. What a weird, pathetic existence. Grow the fuck up dipshit.

• On the post: Don’t Ban Kids From Using Chatbots

  

  Mike Masnick ( profile ), 14 Mar, 2026 @ 01:35am

  I mean, look, if you want to appear stupid and ignorant of how things actually work, be my guest. I know you think you look savvy by being a cynical angry guy. But, in reality, you just look stupid and ignorant of how things work. I'm quick to call out actual shilling behavior. This ain't that. When you grow up, maybe you'll learn something.

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