@gabrielesvelto@mas.to

Even talking about "text", in the context of #LLM, is a subtle anthropomorphization.

Text is a sequence of symbols used by human minds to express information that they want to syncronize a little with other human minds (aka communicate).

Such syncronization is always partial and imperfect, since each mind has different experiences and informations that will integrate the new message, but it's good enough to allow humanity to collaborate and to build culture and science.

A statistically programmed software has no mind, so even when it's optimized to produce output that can fool a human and pass the #Turing test, such output hold no meaning, since no human experience or thought is expressed there.

It's just the partial decompression of a lossy compression of a huge amount of text. And if it wasn't enough to show the lack of any meaning, the decompression process includes random input that is there to provide the illusion of autonomy.

So instead of "the AI replied" I'd suggest "the bot computed this output" and instead of "this work is AI-assisted" I'd suggest "this is statistically computed output".

@dazo@infosec.exchange

If you're concerned about the US controlling open source - you can fork it.

This is a naive take: above a certain complexity, hard forks of a software is not licensing issue. So while you can legally fork #Chromium, nobody can really hope of doing so in any meaningful way.

#WHATWG standards are dictated by the most used browsers, that are all US controlled anyway. And that's why it's such a monoculture, with #Firefox there only to provide a little #antitrust warranty to #Google: the standard themselves are designed to work as entry barriers to the browser market.

So again, open standards do not provide #DigitalSovereignty by themselves.

Open source and open standards only work in this regards whene there are several independent implementation from each country, so that there is no way to lock-in users, companies and countries' administrarions.

Without existing, multiple alternative, independent and fully interoperable implementations, open standards just reinforce centralization as Google proved when even #Microsoft abandoned their browser engine.

Then sure, #FreeSoftware helps with Digital #Sovereignty, since (and as long) people's #freedom is its primary concern.

But it's important to not conflate individual freedom and autonomy with digital sovereignty!

If all of your country payments are handled by US corporations, you might well use #GNU/#Hurd on your open hardware, but you are not free and your country has no sovereignty.

If all of your health data are stored by US corporations, they might well only use free software on open hardware located in your neighbourhood, but they are alware at a ssh of distance from #NSA, so you are not free and your country has no sovereignty.

What about your judges or your lawmakers exchanging unencrypted emails over #gmail or #outlook365?
Again, they can use opensource only, but you are not free, your country has no sovereignty and your vote is worth nothing.

So sure, after getting rid of US Tech we might even move to a #FOSS only stack EU-wide.

But first and foremost we need to break free from US control and surveillance.

Some opensource projects may help to ackieve this urgent goal.
Biggest ones won't and we shouldn't naively argue that going full opensource is per se useful or required to gain #DigitalSovereignty.

@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net

@gugurumbe@mastouille.fr

Just a gentle reminder that #Chromium, #Android, #Kubernetes and even Microsoft #DotNet are distributed under #OpenSource licenses.

Good luck at turing their evolution to an "international cooperation".

Unless #NATO is your model of such "cooperation", btw.

@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net

@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net

Unfortunately #OpenSource is #US controlled anyway.

We can hope to sneak some patch in, as with #xzutils, but there's no way to make #Chromium or #Android development "sovereign".
Try hard fork them.

Same for "open standards": what if a standard (#QUIC?) only serves the need of US #BigTech #hyperscalers and surveillance (0-RTT?)

Then sure, while getting rid of US Tech it would be wise to get rid of proprietary software too.

But #DigitalSovereignty is about breaking free of an evil empire.