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PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

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Re: PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

#61

Post by p-e-w »

vouaobrasil wrote: post #45
eugenekolo wrote: post #29

Hobby groups projects like this are less fun for a lot of people who used to enjoy interacting with smart people. It's definitely become a game of just spam claude for answers with zero understanding or care for how anything actually works. That's fine to get things done and fine for a lot of side projects, but it definitely ruins the joy that people have in understanding systems and working with intellectuals.

In general, society is experience a decoupling of fun from work. I can't say I enjoy every aspect of my job, but it's nice to enjoy some of it, and lots of people do find a lot of their job at least somewhat rewarding. People who hate their job of course like to come out of the woodwork and say no one should enjoy it, but isn't it nice to have a society where at least some people can enjoy their work? I used to enjoy…

> but isn't it nice to have a society where at least some people can enjoy their work?

That’s an interesting question. I thought about it for a minute and was surprised that I came to the conclusion that the answer isn’t obviously “yes”.

An analogous question is “isn't it nice to have a society where at least some people are rich?”, and I think that question should make it clearer to many people why that is so.

Re: PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

#62

Post by oridb »

zorkonator wrote: post #42
oridb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, sure, the same way that I can "cook" a three michelin star meal by going out to eat at the French Laundry. It's just boring. And the people that crow about "their" accomplishments are tiresome.

Hypervisor bugs are boring? Maybe to you.

Hiring someone else to find them is boring as hell. If you only care about being spoonfed results, I don't think there's much to talk about.

Re: PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

#63

Post by arnaudsm »

lovich wrote: post #43
arnaudsm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Omitting half of the story is misleading, this isn't a pro/anti LLM story. Vibecoding has been the norm for months, it's the embargo violation today that triggered his resignation.

> …been the norm for months… You know, it’s petty, but I think one of the things I hate the most about AI is that it surpassed front end JavaScript frameworks in terms of changing what the standard is every few years. What’s the point of learning anything if it becomes obsolete faster than the seasons change?

It's the fear of being left behind that fuels both these things.

Re: PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

#64

Post by Den_VR »

deletedie wrote: post #44
sva_ wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The scene used to be a group of highly talented researchers, but now it is just a bunch of noobs using LLMs and writing hacks they don't even understand. Slop kiddies found the only hypervisor bug left, which I had also found a while ago, and decided to report to Sony. Sounds like he is salty that somebody found an exploit using LLM that he found manually (which probably took a significant amount of time.) I can pa…

Rather, he's annoyed because the LLM User submitted the exploit to Sony (to get paid) and killed the only known viable path forward for development.

Any noticing what it paid?

Re: PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

#65

Post by gbil »

sva_ wrote: post #33
arnaudsm wrote: post #12

Misleading title, there's another major reason: it's an embargo agreement violation that jeopardizes Linux support on PS5. https://x.com/theflow0/status/2099987019954831744

> The scene used to be a group of highly talented researchers, but now it is just a bunch of noobs using LLMs and writing hacks they don't even understand. Slop kiddies found the only hypervisor bug left, which I had also found a while ago, and decided to report to Sony. Sounds like he is salty that somebody found an exploit using LLM that he found manually (which probably took a significant amount of time.) I can pa…

>I asked them to at least wait for GTA 6 to come out so that people would have the opportunity to legally purchase the game and also enjoy linux. They agreed to wait, but not a day passed and they decided to waste it instead.

This guy has used on working with people that understand the scene, it seems that they were in contact, they agreed on something and then the next day they did something different.

This is really important in the context of what happened and probably the cherry on top of the current "hacking" cake, with the bar being lowered so much that anybody can jump in with some minor skill and luck and get something just for themselves.

Re: PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

#66

Post by devin »

aeonflux wrote: post #57
eugenekolo wrote: post #29

Hobby groups projects like this are less fun for a lot of people who used to enjoy interacting with smart people. It's definitely become a game of just spam claude for answers with zero understanding or care for how anything actually works. That's fine to get things done and fine for a lot of side projects, but it definitely ruins the joy that people have in understanding systems and working with intellectuals.

> Hobby groups projects like this are less fun for a lot of people who used to enjoy interacting with smart people. Same thing did happen to many work places. People at all levels proxy questions through LLMs and don't even bother to read/trim/edit the response. Funny, how suddenly a tight, 1-2 sentence response on point is a sign of skill.

I think a lot of workplaces would do well to ban LLM-based replies in certain spaces.

Re: PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

#67

Post by freedomben »

> it seems that vibe-coders, or “slop kiddies” as the modder dubbed them, used AI to detect a bug that they were using to crack consoles, and reported it to Sony for a bounty.

That would indeed be incredibly demoralizing, even crushing. Quite a dick move.

Now that said, I imagine it was only a matter of time anyway until Sony found/fixed or someone else did the same thing. It's just a different world now.

As much as I'd love a non locked down PS5, anyone buying one knows what they're getting. If you care about user empowerment, PC (Valve hardware, etc) is the place to put your money and time. Sony is actively hostile toward you and wants you locked down, and trying to fight it with exploits is destined to be a nasty cat and mouse game. Go with a vendor that is more aligned to your values.

Re: PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

#68

Post by IslandRebel »

orangecat wrote: post #55
IslandRebel wrote: post #18

> “Slop kiddies found the only hypervisor bug left, which I had also found a while ago, and decided to report to Sony,” the modder said on social media. “I asked them to at least wait for GTA 6 to come out so that people would have the opportunity to legally purchase the game and also enjoy linux. They agreed to wait, but not a day passed and they decided to waste it instead.” If one user could have found this using…

Then I would imagine anyone else could have found it. Right, including Sony. AI finding security flaws is very good in general, but one downside is that it will become easier to make "secure" devices that are hostile toward their owners.

Sure, but that wasn't what I was getting at. The guy is complaining about the exploit being disclosed to Sony, but anyone who used the same tools could have found it. It's kind of like complaining that someone has spoilt the ending to a film when it been out for over a year.

Re: PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

#69

Post by ssl-3 »

0x69420 wrote: post #26

now imagine how many other devs and maintainers are contemplating this but just haven't been pushed to their personal breaking point yet. or take note of how many, when asked about the spam problem, just nervously go "yeah it's kinda rough haha...". or how many will vent about it on their twitter-like of choice with increasing frequency. remember hacktoberfest 2020? that's just all public-facing source 365 days a yea…

> now imagine how many other devs and maintainers are contemplating this but just haven't been pushed to their personal breaking point yet. or take note of how many, when asked about the spam problem, just nervously go "yeah it's kinda rough haha..."

At first, my brain parsed "spam" as in ye olde email spam. It took a moment for it to sink in that you meant code spam, instead.

But now that the two concepts are linked in my little pea brain: I kind of want to see how a system like SpamAssassin would work when applied to pull requests like it has been applied to email.

It can use reputation, real-time blacklists, triggers for form, and et cetera, with weighted scores for every aspect that are ultimately factored into one final score.

If final score is passing, the PR is presented for a human to review like a PR was (say) 5 years ago. If the final score fails, it goes into the circular file where it will probably die.

Re: PS5 Linux lead quits: "a bunch of noobs using LLMs" that "they don't understand"

#70

Post by kmeisthax »

> “Slop kiddies found the only hypervisor bug left, which I had also found a while ago, and decided to report to Sony,” the modder said on social media. “I asked them to at least wait for GTA 6 to come out so that people would have the opportunity to legally purchase the game and also enjoy linux. They agreed to wait, but not a day passed and they decided to waste it instead.”

Ever since consoles became moving targets there's been deliberate gatekeeping - specifically, drip-feeding of bugs - to maximize the chance someone can actually use them to break DRM and install Linux. This relies on the fact that most people do not want to have to become FreeBSD kernel experts in order to install non-PlayStation software on their PlayStation. But if everyone is vibe-hacking their PS5s then none of this logic applies. Any bug Claude can find is one Sony also knows about and will get patched, possibly before you even release an exploit for it.

How this ultimately plays out depends on if it's even possible to write software without bugs. Maybe this reaches a new equilibrium where people are paying Claude to vibe-code jailbreaks - as I'd initially hoped. But it's equally as likely that this winds up reinforcing DRM rather than weakening it, for a few reasons:

1. Anthropic's AI safetyism culture encourages the prohibition of vibe-coded jailbreaks. The fact that the model runs on a server and people are spying on your chatlogs means Anthropic has actual knowledge of who is actually using their service to find PS5 hypervisor bugs. Letting Claude break DRM is legally risky; DMCA 1201 implies the only lawful way to break DRM is for you to find your own bugs. So it's probably not going to be long until everyone vibe-coding jailbreaks will get banned.

2. Sony will not be getting banned from these services, they will get trusted access as they're big enough for Anthropic to sue if it gets misused.

3. The attack surface of the thing you have to actually compromise to get code execution on any locked-down system is really small. The Xbox 360 had a 15+ year gap[0] of no softmodding because they'd isolated all the memory protection into a hypervisor. Apple learned the same lesson and iPhone jailbreaking went from incredibly commonplace to "if you know how to do it someone at Zerodium will hand you a million dollars to write spyware with it".

[0] AFAIK, the only two actual softmoddable bugs on Xbox 360 were the King Kong hack right at launch, which got patched in like a week, and that BadUpdate thing last year.

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