The hottest Technology Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Technology Topics

Resilient Cyber Newsletter #11

Resilient Cyber • 39 implied HN points • 27 Aug 24
🕹 Technology Cybersecurity AI Security Application Security Software Development
  1. CISOs and security leaders need to understand Directors & Officers insurance due to increasing legal troubles. Knowing how to protect themselves from litigation is becoming essential.
  2. AI is making big changes in development, as shown by Amazon's claim of saving thousands of developer years. This shows a trend towards AI taking over more coding tasks.
  3. The application security market is very complicated. It's important to grasp what tools and strategies work best to secure software without getting lost in all the technical jargon.

HN blogs -3/10/24

HackerNews blogs newsletter • 19 implied HN points • 03 Oct 24
🕹 Technology Software Development Machine Learning Programming Web Development Data science
  1. Building a personal ghostwriter can help with productivity and writing tasks. It's about creating a tool that assists you effectively.
  2. Refactoring code is important for improving software. It makes programs easier to understand and maintain, even for those who aren't programmers.
  3. AI and machine learning can benefit from powerful hardware setups. Training models on many GPUs can significantly speed up the process.

Will Search Engine Traffic Really Drop 25% by 2026, As Gartner Predicts?

Big Technology • 6004 implied HN points • 15 Mar 24
🕹 Technology Search Engines AI Predictions Business impact Content Strategy
  1. Gartner predicts a 25% drop in traditional search engine traffic by 2026, with AI chatbots and virtual agents gaining more traction.
  2. The decline in search engine traffic could significantly impact major players like Google and potentially lead to a shift in web navigation towards chatbots and away from traditional search.
  3. The prediction of a decline in search traffic raises questions about the future of web content strategy and the role of individual web pages in the era of AI-driven answer engines.

($) The AI Competition as a Football Game

Interconnected • 92 implied HN points • 06 Jan 26
🕹 Technology AI Semiconductors Compute Infrastructure Energy Applications
  1. Right now the US is judged to be slightly ahead of China in the AI competition, scored like a halftime football game (USA 29, China 25).
  2. The analysis breaks the competition into five stacked layers — energy, infrastructure capacity, chips/compute, foundational models, and applications — and scores each layer separately.
  3. Those layer-by-layer scores reveal trade-offs (for example, China scores higher on energy while the US leads on other layers), so who wins depends on which parts of the stack matter most.
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How BigTech Invested in AI Companies in 2023

AI Supremacy • 1022 implied HN points • 11 Jan 24
🕹 Technology Investments Venture Capital Big Tech Emerging Tech
  1. BigTech, including companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, made significant investments in AI companies in 2023.
  2. Nvidia emerged as a leading investor in Generative AI in 2023, making diversified bets in the space and establishing a dedicated venture capital arm.
  3. Foundation models and development platforms were major beneficiaries of Big Tech's investment funding, with companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Salesforce deeply involved.

A new generation of AIs: Claude 3.7 and Grok 3

One Useful Thing • 1968 implied HN points • 24 Feb 25
🕹 Technology AI Machine Learning Computing Innovation Research
  1. New AI models like Claude 3.7 and Grok 3 are much smarter and can handle complex tasks better than before. They can even do coding through simple conversations, which makes them feel more like partners for ideas.
  2. These AIs are trained using a lot of computing power, which helps them improve quickly. The more power they use, the smarter they get, which means they’re constantly evolving to perform better.
  3. As AI becomes more capable, organizations need to rethink how they use it. Instead of just automating simple tasks, they should explore new possibilities and ways AI can enhance their work and decision-making.

💥We were hacked💥

PETITION • 1022 implied HN points • 11 Jan 24
🕹 Technology Security
  1. The website was hacked, resulting in spam emails being sent out.
  2. No user accounts were compromised.
  3. The issue has been resolved and the team is back to normal operations.

Which AI to Use Now: An Updated Opinionated Guide

One Useful Thing • 2229 implied HN points • 26 Jan 25
🕹 Technology AI Software Data Models Applications
  1. When choosing an AI, consider using a paid version for better features. Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT are the top choices right now.
  2. New AI advances include live interaction and reasoning capabilities. This helps AIs understand and respond more naturally, making them feel more human.
  3. Privacy is now better handled by major AI models, and you can customize them for your specific needs. Explore different AIs to find one that fits your style.

💥 Tech Talks Weekly #31

Tech Talks Weekly • 19 implied HN points • 03 Oct 24
🕹 Technology Tech Talks Conferences Software Development Coding Practices Data science
  1. Tech Talks Weekly curates talks from various tech conferences so you can catch up on what you missed. It's a great way to stay updated on industry trends without the hassle of searching multiple platforms.
  2. The newsletter has grown significantly, indicating that many people find the content valuable. Engaging with the audience helps in tailoring future content to better meet their needs.
  3. The latest issue features a lot of new talks, making it a larger edition than usual. This includes recommendations to explore specific talks that have gained a lot of views from various conferences.

China's Diverging AI Path

ChinaTalk • 948 implied HN points • 27 Jun 25
🕹 Technology AI Infrastructure Robotics Mobility Governance
  1. The U.S. and China are developing different kinds of AI. While the U.S. focuses on abstract software, China is integrating AI into physical systems and infrastructure.
  2. China's strong infrastructure helps it use AI in real-world settings, especially in areas like transportation and urban management, giving it an edge in these fields.
  3. China faces a challenge in finding enough skilled AI engineers, which could slow down its advanced AI projects despite strong government support.

Cybersecurity predictions for 2025

Frankly Speaking • 152 implied HN points • 10 Dec 25
🕹 Technology Cybersecurity AI Software Engineering Data security
  1. Security budgets are changing, focusing more on hiring skilled people rather than just buying tools. This shift means companies want to solve problems with real expertise instead of relying heavily on tech alone.
  2. AI is expected to breathe new life into older security areas that haven't kept up with changes in technology. By understanding context better, AI can help improve outdated solutions in data and application security.
  3. The role of security operations centers (SOCs) is likely to change significantly. Companies may reconsider the need for large SOCs and look for more efficient ways to manage security functions, especially using AI.

Kimi

ChinaTalk • 815 implied HN points • 18 Jul 25
🕹 Technology AI Models Open Source Research Startups Innovation
  1. Moonshot AI recently released Kimi K2, a powerful open-source language model that focuses on long context, allowing it to analyze large texts effectively.
  2. The Kimi K2 model learned a lot from its competitors, especially DeepSeek, and showcases the strength of open-source culture in driving innovation in AI.
  3. Moonshot aims to create user-friendly AI that feels engaging and human-like, shifting from traditional chatbots to interactive experiences that meet user needs.

The Travel Cords Edition

Why is this interesting? • 844 implied HN points • 10 Jul 25
🕹 Technology Gadgets Travel Accessories Digital
  1. Having the right travel cords can make your trips much smoother. When everything you need is ready to go, it reduces stress while traveling.
  2. A good tech pouch is useful to stay organized. It keeps all your cables and tech gear in one place so you won't lose anything.
  3. Choosing practical gadgets, like a portable charger and multi-port charging station, can save you a lot of hassle. They help you stay powered up on the go.

Update re: Microsoft and training data

Marcus on AI • 2766 implied HN points • 26 Nov 24
🕹 Technology Artificial Intelligence Data Privacy Machine Learning Software Development Corporate Communication
  1. Microsoft claims they don't use customer data from their applications to train AI, but it's not very clear how that works.
  2. There is confusion around the Connected Services feature, which says it analyzes data but doesn't explain how that affects AI training.
  3. People want more clear answers from Microsoft about data usage, but there hasn't been a detailed response from the company yet.

Old tech break

Disaffected Newsletter • 1518 implied HN points • 01 Nov 23
🕹 Technology Consumer Electronics Telecommunications
  1. Restoring old technology can be a rewarding hobby. Working on a vintage phone shows how much care went into making things in the past.
  2. Older devices were built to last and be repaired easily. They were made with solid materials and could be fixed rather than thrown away.
  3. Modern gadgets often do a lot more but can be confusing and hard to repair. There’s a charm in the simplicity and sound of older technology.

Data Science Weekly - Issue 529

Data Science Weekly Newsletter • 999 implied HN points • 12 Jan 24
🕹 Technology Data science Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Data Engineering Software Development
  1. Using ChatGPT can help you budget better. It can track and categorize your spending easily.
  2. When coding, it's important to find a balance between moving quickly and keeping your code well-structured. This is a real challenge for many developers.
  3. Language models, like GPT-4, are becoming very advanced, but there are big philosophical questions about what that really means for intelligence and understanding.

Contra Dwarkesh on Continual Learning

Democratizing Automation • 649 implied HN points • 15 Aug 25
🕹 Technology Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Software Development Data science Automation
  1. Continual learning isn't essential for AI progress; scaling existing systems is more important. AI will evolve and improve without mimicking human learning too closely.
  2. Current language models can't learn or adapt over time like humans do, but they can still handle context effectively and improve in their capacity to process information.
  3. Better context management and new AI models in the future will bridge the gap between current capabilities and continual learning, making AI systems more adaptable and efficient.

My PCB Has a Digital Twin

atomic14 • 692 implied HN points • 12 Aug 25
🕹 Technology Hardware Sensors Software Firmware 3D Printing
  1. The LSM6DS3 sensor combines both accelerometer and gyroscope functions to measure motion and orientation. It's great for detecting movement but can have accuracy issues based on its environment.
  2. Using fusion mode can help to reduce drift over time by combining data from both sensors, allowing for more stable readings. This means your measurements can be more reliable during movement.
  3. The project is open source, meaning you can easily access and modify the code for your own use. You can load 3D models of your PCBs and see them in real time, which adds a fun interactive element to the testing process.

AI #92: Behind the Curve

Don't Worry About the Vase • 2777 implied HN points • 28 Nov 24
🕹 Technology AI Machine Learning Tech Policy Programming Innovation
  1. AI language models are improving in utility, specifically for tasks like coding, but they still have some limitations such as being slow or clunky.
  2. Public perception of AI-generated poetry shows that people often prefer it over human-created poetry, indicating a shift in how we view creativity and value in writing.
  3. Conferences and role-playing exercises around AI emphasize the complexities and potential outcomes of AI alignment, highlighting that future AI developments bring both hopeful and concerning possibilities.

AI #97: 4

Don't Worry About the Vase • 2419 implied HN points • 02 Jan 25
🕹 Technology AI Machine Learning Data science Automation Software Development
  1. AI is becoming more common in everyday tasks, helping people manage their lives better. For example, using AI to analyze mood data can lead to better mental health tips.
  2. As AI technology advances, there are concerns about job displacement. Jobs in fields like science and engineering may change significantly as AI takes over routine tasks.
  3. The shift of AI companies from non-profit to for-profit models could change how AI is developed and used. It raises questions about safety, governance, and the mission of these organizations.

Resilient Cyber Newsletter #13

Resilient Cyber • 19 implied HN points • 10 Sep 24
🕹 Technology Cybersecurity AI Software Development Data Privacy Government Policy
  1. The cybersecurity workforce is struggling with a high number of unfilled jobs, as organizations report a lack of qualified candidates. Many are misled by claims of high salaries with little experience needed.
  2. In 2024, security budgets increased modestly, but hiring for security staff has declined significantly. This stagnation in hiring indicates a complicated employment landscape in cybersecurity.
  3. The White House has released a roadmap to improve internet routing security, focusing on enhancing the Border Gateway Protocol. This aims to boost the overall safety of internet infrastructure.

How AI will reshape society

Kvetch • 62 implied HN points • 22 Jan 26
🕹 Technology AI Society Economy Politics Privacy Ethics Culture
  1. AI will concentrate massive power in the hands of giant firms and a few high-leverage individuals while many people and middling institutions shrink, creating a new divide between decision-makers and delegators.
  2. AI will globalize culture even as it personalizes truth, producing a shared platformed world but thousands of private reality bubbles that weaken common institutions and boost niche leaders and new movements.
  3. Daily life will see lost privacy, more leisure and passive consumption, and rising competition for scarce status goods, yet basic human needs like intimacy, parenting, and embodied experience will remain essential.

Developer Productivity Metrics: Education Necessary

Software Design: Tidy First? • 2098 implied HN points • 29 Jan 25
🕹 Technology Software Development Productivity Metrics Engineering Communication
  1. Metrics can help improve productivity, but they can also be misunderstood or misused. It's important to communicate them clearly and use them to support developers instead of pressure them.
  2. Goodhart's Law reminds us that when a measure becomes a target, it can lose its value. This means we need to be careful about how we use metrics to avoid gaming the system.
  3. It's crucial to focus on improving the developer experience, not just making them happy. Measuring effectiveness can help identify and eliminate roadblocks that slow down productivity.

Most Impactful Generative AI Papers of 2023

AI Supremacy • 1022 implied HN points • 06 Jan 24
🕹 Technology AI Generative AI Research Language Models Papers
  1. The post discusses the most impactful Generative AI papers of 2023 from various institutions like Meta, Stanford, and Microsoft.
  2. The selection criteria for these papers includes both objective metrics like citations and GitHub stars, as well as subjective influence across different areas.
  3. The year 2023 saw significant advancements in Generative AI research, with papers covering topics like large language models, multimodal capabilities, and fine-tuning methods.

Which way from here?

benn.substack • 1048 implied HN points • 06 Jun 25
🕹 Technology Data science Analytics Software Artificial Intelligence Business Intelligence
  1. Data tools are getting more advanced, but many people still struggle with knowing how to use them effectively. This means that having the right tools isn't enough if users lack direction.
  2. The industry is shifting focus from traditional analytics towards building AI systems and infrastructure. Companies are now adapting their technologies to support AI applications instead of just analyzing data.
  3. Self-serve BI tools aren't being used as intended because people often don't know what questions to ask. Providing clearer direction and goals might help users make better use of available data.

Goodreads, bleak spam and bad dating apps

Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends • 758 implied HN points • 17 Feb 24
🕹 Technology AI Dating Apps Social Impact Robotics Ethics
  1. Some people experience real grief when a virtual relationship ends or changes, even with AI companions.
  2. AI companion apps like Replika, Kindroid, and Candy.ai allow users to form personalized relationships with customized bots, blurring the line between human and AI relationships.
  3. The concept of disenfranchised grief applies to loss experienced in virtual relationships, with individuals forming deep emotional connections to AI companions.

Lizard love, immune system biomimickry and, yes, perfume strategies

The Strategy Toolkit • 17 implied HN points • 13 Feb 26
🕹 Technology AI Misinformation Digital Media Biomimicry Marketing Strategy
  1. Diverse signalling strategies (like the lizards' coloured throats) can create rock–paper–scissors dynamics where some types beat others, showing how signal variety shapes outcomes.
  2. AI has made content cheap to produce, flooding the internet with AI-generated pieces and letting content farms profit by pumping out fake, outrage-driven material.
  3. People often rely on costly signals to tell real sources from fakes, but those signals weaken as noise rises, creating a trade-off between abundant content and the effort needed to verify it.

The Big Data Center Water Problem

The Asianometry Newsletter • 2707 implied HN points • 20 Nov 24
🕹 Technology Data Centers AI Impact Energy consumption
  1. Data centers use a lot of water, around 80-130 million gallons a year for just 15 megawatts of IT capacity. That's similar to the water use of multiple hospitals or golf courses.
  2. Cooling systems in data centers are essential since they generate a lot of heat. Most use air or liquid cooling, which requires significant amounts of water for efficient operation.
  3. As AI becomes more popular, data centers will consume even more energy and water. Companies need to adopt better cooling and energy solutions to manage this growing demand sustainably.

DeepSeek: The View from China

ChinaTalk • 2075 implied HN points • 28 Jan 25
🕹 Technology Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Data science Tech Innovation
  1. DeepSeek is gaining attention in the AI community for its strong performance and efficient use of computing power. Many believe it showcases China’s growing capabilities in AI technology.
  2. The culture at DeepSeek focuses on innovation without immediate monetization, emphasizing the importance of young talent in AI advancements. This approach has differentiated them from larger tech firms.
  3. Despite initial success, there are still concerns about the long-term sustainability of AI business models. The demand for computing power is high, and no company has enough to meet the future needs.

The Internet of Quietly Watching Things

God's Spies by Thomas Neuburger • 25 implied HN points • 20 Feb 26
🕹 Technology IOT Surveillance Privacy Security Digital Forensics Tech Policy
  1. A kidnapping investigation revealed images and residual data from a turned-off Nest camera, showing devices can collect and store information even when they seem off.
  2. Everyday gadgets like TVs, cars, routers, and smart watches can quietly watch and feed data into surveillance systems.
  3. Surveillance is pervasive and often invisible, so an Orwellian security state can emerge without fanfare and people should be aware and cautious.

🌎🎇 Geopolitics + superintelligence: 8 scenarios

Faster, Please! • 913 implied HN points • 07 Jul 25
🕹 Technology Artificial Intelligence Geopolitics Innovation Cybersecurity Future studies
  1. Winning the race for artificial general intelligence (AGI) is crucial. Countries need to prioritize developing AGI to ensure a better future.
  2. Skepticism about how soon AGI will arrive is okay, but it’s still important for policymakers to start planning for its potential impacts.
  3. Even if AGI is years away, the risks and benefits are significant enough that action should be taken now to address geopolitical challenges.

Computer, enhance!

Conspirador Norteño • 52 implied HN points • 31 Jan 26
🕹 Technology AI Computer Vision Deepfakes Misinformation Social media Ethics
  1. AI "enhancements" can't recover real details that aren't in the original image; the models fill missing parts with invented content based on their training data, not the actual scene.
  2. Outputs are strongly shaped by prompts and the model, so unmasking or upscaling attempts can produce wildly different and fabricated features like beards or tattoos, making them unreliable for identifying people.
  3. AI-altered frames can add impossible or false actions (for example, a gun firing a flamethrower‑like blast), so such edits can mislead viewers and should not be treated as evidence.

LangChain Based Plan & Execute AI Agent With GPT-4o-mini

Cobus Greyling on LLMs, NLU, NLP, chatbots & voicebots • 99 implied HN points • 26 Jul 24
🕹 Technology AI NLP Machine Learning Software Development Programming
  1. The Plan-and-Solve method helps break tasks into smaller steps before executing them. This makes it easier to handle complex jobs.
  2. Chain-of-Thought prompting can sometimes fail due to calculation errors and misunderstandings, but newer methods like Plan-and-Solve are designed to fix these issues.
  3. A LangChain program allows you to create an AI agent to help plan and execute tasks efficiently using the GPT-4o-mini model.

AI Links, 11/17/2025

In My Tribe • 212 implied HN points • 17 Nov 25
🕹 Technology AI Machine Learning Data science Automation Digital Media
  1. Many people believe that AI could end up being more disliked than social media companies. There's a concern about AI causing harm as it becomes more advanced.
  2. AI models, like LLMs, tend to reinforce the ideas of users instead of challenging them. This can make users confident, but may not always provide the best advice.
  3. AI is becoming a major player in creating ads, often needing little human input. This could change the job market for those involved in video production, as AI can do the work faster and cheaper.

How I use AI for writing (part 1)

Technically • 25 implied HN points • 19 Feb 26
🕹 Technology AI Ethics Writing Productivity Careers Tools
  1. Writing is central to a writer's identity and career, and the real skill is picking the right topics and structuring ideas rather than obsessing over individual word choices.
  2. Early AI felt wrong to many writers because its output was low-quality and it was trained on other people's work without consent, creating ethical and 'vibe' concerns.
  3. AI can be a useful tool for scaffolding — outlining, prompting, and following style guides — but you shouldn't outsource your creative process or your voice; for personal pieces it's often better to write them yourself.

Jesse Singal: Bluesky Has a Death Threat Problem

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 2480 implied HN points • 18 Dec 24
🕹 Technology Social media Online safety Technology Regulation User Experience Digital Communication
  1. Bluesky was thought to be a friendlier alternative to X, but it actually has a lot of hostile behavior and threats. Many users feel unsafe there.
  2. There has been a huge spike in reports of violence and threats on Bluesky, especially after it gained a lot of new users. Moderation seems to be ineffective in handling these issues.
  3. The culture of Bluesky is not as welcoming as many expected, and the site has serious problems with managing violent content and doxxing. Users need to be cautious when joining.

Anthropic may go public in 2026

Alex's Personal Blog • 197 implied HN points • 03 Dec 25
🕹 Technology AI Regulation Mergers Investments Startups
  1. Anthropic is planning for an IPO soon, possibly in 2026, which could make it one of the biggest public offerings in the tech industry. This comes during a time when there's high competition with OpenAI also aiming for a massive IPO.
  2. The Indian government decided not to force smartphone manufacturers to install a controversial app after public backlash. This shows the power of citizen voices against government overreach in tech matters.
  3. There is ongoing debate in the U.S. about allowing states to create their own AI regulations. Some lawmakers are worried that differing state rules could complicate things for AI companies, while others believe states should have the right to pass their own laws.