Sunday, February 22, 2026
Saturday, February 21, 2026
— More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity by Adam Becker
“…It’s true that LLMs have been fed enormous amounts of information from the internet, so the idea that they could replace a search engine seems natural at first. To build ChatGPT, OpenAI started out by doing the same thing that everyone else (Google, Anthropic) does when building an LLM: they obtained a snapshot of much of the text available on the internet at the time. The data used for training GPT-3 (the LLM that powered ChatGPT when it was first launched in late 2022) included all of Wikipedia, many websites sourced from Reddit links, an undisclosed number of books (likely numbering in the hundreds of thousands or more), and a great deal of the news, blogs, recipes, flame wars, and the rest of the mess that makes up the modern internet. But, crucially, that doesn’t mean that ChatGPT or any other LLM actually has all of that information inside itself. Instead, the software engineers training the LLM first break down the text into small chunks called tokens, usually around the size of a single word. Then they feed the tokenized text into the LLM, which analyzes the connections between the tokens. All the LLM knows about are tokens and the connections between them—and all it knows how to do is generate new strings of tokens in response to whatever input is given to it. So in one sense, ChatGPT and other LLMs are text-prediction generators: give ChatGPT text, in the form of a question or conversation, and it will try to respond in a manner similar to the text it was trained on—namely, the entire internet. “Think of ChatGPT as a blurry JPEG of all the text on the Web,” wrote the science fiction author Ted Chiang. “It retains much of the information on the Web, in the same way that a JPEG retains much of the information of a higher-resolution image, but, if you’re looking for an exact sequence of bits, you won’t find it; all you will ever get is an approximation...”
“In other words: ChatGPT is a text generation engine that speaks in the smeared-out voice of the internet as a whole. All it knows how to do is emulate that voice, and all it cares about is getting the voice right. In that sense, it’s not making a mistake when it hallucinates, because all ChatGPT can do is hallucinate. It’s a machine that only does one thing. There is no notion of truth or falsehood at work in its calculations of what to say next. All that’s there is a blurred image of online language usage patterns. It is the internet seen through a glass, darkly.i”
“— More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity by Adam Becker”
Bill Gates FURIOUS As Lenovo DITCHES Windows For Linux - YouTube
Did Lenovo switch from Windows to Linux as it's default operation system?
ChatGPT - Short answer: No — Lenovo has not broadly switched its default operating system from Windows to Linux. Most Lenovo consumer and business laptops and desktops are still sold with Windows as the default.
What is happening instead
- Lenovo has been expanding official Linux support. They now offer a growing number of models available with Linux preinstalled (typically Ubuntu or Fedora) or certified to run certain Linux distributions.
- This is most common on ThinkPad “developer” or business lines and some workstation/enthusiast models. It’s part of partnerships and certification programs with Canonical (Ubuntu), Red Hat, and other Linux vendors.
- Availability varies by model and region; Linux-preinstalled models are a select subset rather than a full product-line switch.
How to tell if a particular Lenovo model ships with Linux
- Check the Lenovo product page/spec sheet — they’ll state “Preloaded OS: Ubuntu/Fedora/Linux” if it ships that way.
- Look for official certification pages (Canonical’s Ubuntu certified hardware list, Red Hat Certified Hardware, etc.).
- Third-party retailers sometimes list “with Ubuntu” or “with Linux” SKUs.
If you have a specific Lenovo model in mind, tell me the model number and I can check whether Lenovo offers it with Linux preinstalled or if it’s certified for a particular distro.
Thursday, February 19, 2026
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
Monday, February 16, 2026
No evidence aliens have made contact, says Obama after podcast comments cause frenzy
No evidence aliens have made contact, says Obama after podcast comments cause frenzy
“Former President Barack Obama clarified that he has not seen evidence of aliens, despite stating on a podcast that “they’re real.” He emphasized the vastness of the universe and the low likelihood of extraterrestrial contact during his presidency.
Former US president clarifies ‘they’re real’ answer that he gave during quick-fire interview round
Hours after Barack Obama caused a frenzy by saying aliens were real on a podcast, the former US president has posted a statement clarifying that he has not seen any evidence of them.
In a conversation with the American podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen over the weekend, Obama appeared to confirm the apparent existence of aliens during a speed round of questioning where the host asks guests quick questions and the guests respond with brief answers.
After he was asked “Are aliens real?”, Obama said: “They’re real but I haven’t seen them.”
He went on: “They’re not being kept at Area 51. There’s no underground facility unless there’s this enormous conspiracy and they hid it from the president of the United States.”
The comment was picked up by media outlets around the world, with headlines such as “Former US president Barack Obama says aliens are real” and “‘They’re real’: Obama’s shock alien claims”. Time Magazine covered the drama, reporting: “Obama says aliens are real, but they aren’t at Area 51”.
However, following the media frenzy, Obama released a statement on Instagram on Sunday evening.
“I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there,” he said. “But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”
There is a long-running conspiracy theory claiming that the US government is hiding extraterrestrials at Area 51, a highly classified air force site in Nevada.
In 2019, after 1.5 million people signed up to “storm” the site, approximately 150 social media influencers gathered around the airstrip but the event ended anticlimactically, with only a few arrests, and ultimately turned into a music festival.
Declassified documents released in 2013 revealed that the secret airstrip was actually used for aerial testing of US government projects including the U-2 and Oxcart aerial surveillance programs.
“High-altitude testing of the U-2 soon led to an unexpected side-effect – a tremendous increase in reports of unidentified flying objects (UFOs),” the documents said.“
Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts
Homeland Security Wants Social Media Sites to Expose Anti-ICE Accounts
“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is expanding its efforts to identify Americans who oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by sending subpoenas to tech companies for information on social media accounts that criticize or track ICE. Companies like Google, Meta, and Reddit have received hundreds of subpoenas, some of which they complied with, while others notified the account holders to challenge the subpoenas in court. The DHS argues it needs this information to protect ICE agents, but critics argue it infringes on free speech and privacy rights.
The department has sent Google, Meta and other companies hundreds of subpoenas for information on accounts that track or comment on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, officials and tech workers said.
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The Department of Homeland Security is expanding its efforts to identify Americans who oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement by sending tech companies legal requests for the names, email addresses, telephone numbers and other identifying data behind social media accounts that track or criticize the agency.
In recent months, Google, Reddit, Discord and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, have received hundreds of administrative subpoenas from the Department of Homeland Security, according to four government officials and tech employees privy to the requests. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Google, Meta and Reddit complied with some of the requests, the government officials said. In the subpoenas, the department asked the companies for identifying details of accounts that do not have a real person’s name attached and that have criticized ICE or pointed to the locations of ICE agents. The New York Times saw two subpoenas that were sent to Meta over the last six months.
The tech companies, which can choose whether or not to provide the information, have said they review government requests before complying. Some of the companies notified the people whom the government had requested data on and gave them 10 to 14 days to fight the subpoena in court.
“The government is taking more liberties than they used to,” said Steve Loney, a senior supervising attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania. “It’s a whole other level of frequency and lack of accountability.” Over the last six months, Mr. Loney has represented people whose social media account information was sought by the Department of Homeland Security.
The department said it had “broad administrative subpoena authority” but did not address questions about its requests. In court, its lawyers have argued that they are seeking information to help keep ICE agents in the field safe.
What you should know. The Times makes a careful decision any time it uses an anonymous source. The information the source supplies must be newsworthy and give readers genuine insight.
Meta, Reddit and Discord declined to comment.
“When we receive a subpoena, our review process is designed to protect user privacy while meeting our legal obligations,” a Google spokeswoman said in a statement. “We inform users when their accounts have been subpoenaed, unless under legal order not to or in an exceptional circumstance. We review every legal demand and push back against those that are overbroad.”
The Trump administration has aggressively tried tamping down criticism of ICE, partly by identifying Americans who have demonstrated against the agency. ICE agents told protesters in Minneapolis and Chicago that they were being recorded and identified with facial recognition technology. Last month, Tom Homan, the White House border czar, also said on Fox News that he was pushing to “create a database” of people who were “arrested for interference, impeding and assault.”
Silicon Valley has long had an uneasy relationship with the federal government and how much user information to provide it. Transparency reports published by tech companies show that the number of requests for user information from different governments around the world has climbed over the years, with the United States and India among those submitting the most.
Some social media companies previously fought government requests for user information. In 2017, Twitter (now X) sued the federal government to stop an administrative subpoena that asked it to unmask an account critical of the first Trump administration. The subpoena was later withdrawn.
Unlike arrest warrants, which require a judge’s approval, administrative subpoenas are issued by the Department of Homeland Security. They were only sparingly used in the past, primarily to uncover the people behind social media accounts engaged in serious crimes such as child trafficking, said tech employees familiar with the legal tool. But last year, the department ramped up its use of the subpoenas to unmask anonymous social media accounts.
In September, for example, it sent Meta administrative subpoenas to identify the people behind Instagram accounts that posted about ICE raids in California, according to the A.C.L.U. The subpoenas were challenged in court, and the Department of Homeland Security withdrew the requests for information before a judge could rule.
Mr. Loney of the A.C.L.U. said avoiding a judge’s ruling was important for the department to keep issuing the subpoenas without a legal order to stop. “The pressure is on the end user, the private individual, to go to court,” he said.
The Department of Homeland Security also sought more information on the Facebook and Instagram accounts dedicated to tracking ICE activity in Montgomery County, Pa., outside Philadelphia. The accounts, called Montco Community Watch, began posting in Spanish and English about ICE sightings in June and, over the next six months, solicited tips from their roughly 10,000 followers to alert people to the locations of agents on specific streets or in front of local landmarks.
On Sept. 11, the Department of Homeland Security sent Meta a request for the name, email address, post code and other identifying information of the person or people behind the accounts. Meta informed the two Instagram and Facebook accounts of the request on Oct. 3.
“We have received legal process from law enforcement seeking information about your Facebook account,” the notification said, according to court records. “If we do not receive a copy of documentation that you have filed in court challenging this legal process within ten (10) days, we will respond to the requesting agency with information.”
The account owner alerted the A.C.L.U., which filed a motion on Oct. 16 to quash the government’s request. In a hearing on Jan. 14 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the A.C.L.U. argued that the government was using administrative subpoenas to target people whose speech it did not agree with.
Sarah Balkissoon, a Department of Justice lawyer representing the government, said the Department of Homeland Security’s position was that it was “within their power to investigate threats to its own officers or impediments to their officers,” according to a court transcript viewed by The Times.
Two days later, the subpoena was withdrawn.
The Montco Community Watch accounts continue to post almost every day. The Times emailed a request for comment to the address associated with the accounts but did not receive a reply.
On Monday, the Instagram account posted an alert for ICE activity in the Eagleville area of Montgomery County. “Montco ICE alert,” the post said. “This is confirmed ICE activity.”
On Friday, the account posted a video of students at Norristown Area High School protesting against ICE. “We stand with you and are proud you made your voices heard!” the post said.
Sheera Frenkel is a reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area, covering the ways technology impacts everyday lives with a focus on social media companies, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Telegram and WhatsApp.
Mike Isaac is The Times’s Silicon Valley correspondent, based in San Francisco. He covers the world’s most consequential tech companies, and how they shape culture both online and offline.“
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