Proton’s AI manifesto for software engineering | Proton
proton.me
How will Proton navigate the AI transition? Read the internal memo by Proton CTO Bart Butler.

In an effort to stem the bleeding from the backlash about their AI usage and their CEO’s meltdown, they decide to do the exact opposite and go all in.

…I’m tired, boss.

  • Gravitywell.xYz@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    8 days ago

    People who care about this stuff really need to Stop looking to rent seeking corps and start using and funding collective run services with real standards instead or you’re just gonna end up repeatedly having to switch providers everytime a CEO or founder gets exposed.

    Here are some examples:

    Email with open signup

    VPNs (free/pay what you can)

    application/vetting or invite needed

    I’ve been using and donating to riseup.net for 15 years and have yet to be disappointed by anything they’ve done or statements made by any members. It might take a few weeks to get an account approved but it’s well worth it.

    • trojanbark@lemmy.world
      0·
      9 days ago

      I’ve used riseup in the past and agree with their worldview (for the most part) and they run the service well, but I had to leave them when I became more privacy conscious as they are headquartered in the United States. They could get a national security letter and I could be getting spied on and never know it. The NSL could direct them not to take down their warrant canary, too.

  • Nonstop Nut November@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    9 days ago

    Currently on day four of clearing out my Proton inbox. Moved my files off of Proton Drive, and cancelled my subscription. Next will be changing to a new email alias provider since SimpleLogin is a product of Proton.

    Fuck em.

        • Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          0·
          8 days ago

          Isn’t… that a reasonable use of the tool? Freeing up people’s time from drone work to do more meaningful stuff?

          • Scott🇨🇦🏴‍☠️ @lemmy.ca
            0·
            7 days ago

            So you feel I should have not said anything?

            Someone leaving Proton because of LLM/AI should be informed Tuta has plans on increasing their usage of LLM/AI.

          • Turbidity Von Advection Fog@pawb.socialEnglish
            0·
            8 days ago

            Handwritten automation is possible with code, all they’d have to do is actually do the work to identify the repetitive tasks and write the code for future edit + reuse. They just want an excuse to get high on AI, to throw away their expertise. To risk the privacy of others to that end.

            That’s why I switched to Posteo from Tuta, as they are desperate to be like every corpo scum and use AI. I also left a detailed message as to why I left, it was scathing.

            • Kangae_Hishiryo@scribe.disroot.orgEnglish
              0·
              7 days ago

              Yeah, they sold themselves to the Big Tech interests and they don’t respect their users (nor their employees) anymore, if they did so in the past to start with. Just as Linus and its 90 billion from IBM (which received them from AI companies and it’s part of the AI bubble’s hype too)

              • Turbidity Von Advection Fog@pawb.socialEnglish
                0·
                7 days ago

                I noticed Linus’s heel maneuver because…Of fucking course it is always the old men who sell out future generations for snake oil and bad corporate schemes. At least we have microkernels to microdose on to isolate the damage that can by a deranged group of open source idiots that soul their soul to corpo beasts.

          • Omnipitaph@reddthat.com
            0·
            8 days ago

            Yes, but also that’s what regular programs are for. If it is a repetitive task that does not require any creative input, a program can achieve it, and a programmer can be paid for it. There are few tasks that can’t be automated using logic parameters.

            I do agree with you that that is what AI should be used for, but I’d only support it if the AI was run locally. Commercial AI should not be centralized.

            • Omnipitaph@reddthat.com
              0·
              8 days ago

              Absolutes and sweeping statements are rarely true. I can’t think of a fault for using local AI for scientific pursuits, nor using local AI for recreational pursuits.

              • Kangae_Hishiryo@scribe.disroot.org
                0·
                7 days ago

                This isn’t any of them: this is a production context with real data of real users and the privacy and security of these at stake. This is one of those rare cases where they’re true, in fact.

                But even in scientific or recreational contexts, it’s still bad by itself. First of all, it deskills you. Second of all, it still sums to the enviromental and energetic effects of AI. Third of all, “AI” is NOT reliable at all, as it’s inherently chaotic, stochastic and indeterminist. Fourth of all, “AI” is tainted and blood-stained chain of origin, encompassing the datasets used for training and the methods by which they are acquired, the materials and processes employed to manufacture and maintain the hardware and software involved, as well as the procedures used to categorize and clean the training data (that’s underpaid exploitative labor done by people of the Global South). Sixth of all, it perpetuates and amplifies biases by presenting itself as an objective, impartial, and detached entity to be trusted blindly—a dynamic that makes fake news more destructive than ever. Seventh, it is built upon the theft of works by millions of artists (of all kinds—not just painters and illustrators), scientists, philosophers, thinkers, and countless others, all without their consent, proper attribution, or fair compensation, thereby amplifying the phenomenon of enclosure. Eighth, it facilitates license laundering. Ninth, it has inextricable ties to both fascism and authoritarian tankie movements, as well as to war, numerous massacres, unjust imprisonments, and the intelligence and psychological or information warfare operations of governments worldwide.

                Elaboration and sources are here.

                Edit: Forgot to add that the “AI” that everyone talks about is not the actual AI that scientists use. They don’t use ChatGPT, StableDiffusion or anything like that to do research. They use purpose-specific machine learning models, created by them for their particular context and use case.

      • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        0·
        8 days ago

        I’m on Mailbox.org to avoid being locked into a single email client. Apparently Tuta only works with their app, so no using Thunderbird or Outlook.

        Also, Tuta’s E2EE only works when emailing other Tuta users due to them using proprietary encryption methods. But Mailbox.org, ProtonMail, and others use more common encryption standards

      • neo2478@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        9 days ago

        Yes. They are collaborating with Israeli military and criminally prosecuting students protesting against the genocide of Palestinians.

        • robear@lemmy.zip
          0·
          9 days ago

          The Swiss are famously always on the wrong side of history.

          Neutrality only favours evil.

  • Clambake0351@piefed.zipEnglish
    0·
    8 days ago

    The first is a change in engineering culture and engineer mentality. Your job has fundamentally changed. It is no longer to write code, and LLMs are not here to help you write better code faster. Your job is to help the LLM write better code faster.

    Emphasis theirs 🤮

    • boraginoru@lemmy.zip
      0·
      8 days ago

      The dumb thing about that quote is that it doesn’t have to be an either/or situation. Engineers want to solve these problems by nature; if there were no voices from the top, we’d be getting AI to help us write better code, and trying to make AI write better code fast. For whatever reason the C-suites can’t just let things follow their natural course which would already result in wins for them, they have to spew the narrative that our jobs are completely changing so they can justify getting rid of them

  • nightlily@leminal.spaceEnglish
    0·
    9 days ago

    This reads like every bad programmer/manager on Lemmy/Reddit that calls me a Luddite every time I push back on their wild assertions about LLMs and code. Absolute clownery.

    • jj4211@lemmy.world
      0·
      8 days ago

      Indeed, a healthy message could be: “We are making these novel tools available to our software experts and trusting their expertise to make the most of them”.

      However they can’t resist deciding that all of a sudden they, despite not actually knowing the space at all, know better than the people actually in the space. Lot’s of people who might not even know what a job even is about becoming ‘experts’ who want to backseat drive how you do things. They read an article asserting that git isn’t “AI appropriate” and tell you that you should be switching to an “AI appropriate” thing, despite not having ever touched software development at all, or even knowing what sort of software you produce let alone using it.

      I really can’t wait for the bubble to pop and these types to get bored of trying to pretend they can lead through micromanagement in a domain they don’t actually understand.

  • LilyVess@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    0·
    7 days ago

    This is not the death of expertise. The LLM is fast. You are slow, but you carry with you a lifetime of experience, judgment calls, and understanding. You are also (hopefully) much less prone to hallucination and being mislead by bad or malicious inputs, and are accountable to yourself, your teammates, and to Proton in a way a model can never be. Together you can do far more, far faster than either can do alone.

    Just one teeny tiny question, sir. Who tf is going to train your “IA” if no one learns to code because “IA” does “everything by itself”?

    Fine, you want to go only by seniors who already knows how to write good code, cut the juniors. Then what? Just hope that “IA” is smart enough (spoiler: it won’t) to never need any kind of correction or fixing? And just for what? Going “faster”?

    You can always go fast, but you really shouldn’t. Unless you want to crash faster I guess.

    • Oberon@lemmy.zip
      0·
      9 days ago

      Sadly, PIA is owned by Kape technologies, which has significant ties to the IDF. I went from PIA to proton a few years ago for that reason but I have no idea where to abandon ship to now for my VPN

    • Shayeta@feddit.orgEnglish
      0·
      9 days ago

      Buy a domain, have your email address be tied to that domain and set it so the DNS record redirects to the email provider of your choice.

      You can now swap email providers without having to change your email address.

  • Shifty Eyes@leminal.spaceEnglish
    0·
    9 days ago

    What the hell happened at Proton since this announcement in 2024?

    “…community is the most important thing to us, and we want to ensure that Proton continues to faithfully serve the community for the next 10 years and beyond. To achieve this goal, I, as Proton’s founder, joined together by Jason Stockman (Proton’s co-founder) and Dingchao Lu (Proton’s first employee), have jointly endowed the non-profit Proton Foundation through a donation of Proton shares. These transfers and commitments from the foundation founders make the Proton Foundation the primary shareholder of Proton and make irrevocable our wish that Proton remains in perpetuity an organization that places people ahead of profits.”

    • snoons@lemmy.caEnglish
      0·
      9 days ago

      I’m guessing a combination of chatbot psychosis and massive egos from their positions in the company.

    • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
      0·
      9 days ago

      It’s a PR statement. Don’t listen what people say, watch what they do. There were signs of proton not caring about security that much long before 2024.

    • moldy_rice@piefed.keyboardvagabond.comEnglish
      0·
      8 days ago

      That’s what happens when you pay a PR firm to write your blerbs.

      Means nothing at the end of the day. It’s what you do, not what you say, that defines you.

  • Archangel1313@lemmy.ca
    0·
    9 days ago

    …but as it turns out, writing and manipulating code is one of the activities for which AI models are most well-suited.

    Uhhh…wut?

  • GlowingDeer@infosec.pub
    0·
    8 days ago

    I highly suggest Thundermail (tb.pro) if you wanna switch to a libre email provider. Mozilla hosts stalwart and their own libre mail client for you, along with providing 15 mail aliases and 3 custom domains, for a small price. I have been using it as my daily since past few months. I haven’t found any bugs despite it being in beta.

  • Trad Wench@thelemmy.club
    0·
    9 days ago

    This is so frustrating because I started degoogling exactly a year ago, and had finally managed to get completely free of Google mostly thanks to the proton ecosystem… But it took a whole year! I am just settling. I am a mom of two under-10yo boys in my forties. I don’t have time for this shit. I thought I was gonna die a proton user. Fucking hell.

    • yeehaw@lemmy.ca
      0·
      8 days ago

      Enshitification reaches all things. Even self hosted projects which are high quality.

      Goal posts are always moving, incredibly frustrating. In a similar boat and I sympathize with you.

    • mirshafie@europe.pub
      0·
      8 days ago

      Holy shit. I’ve spent more than a year and I’m a fucking nerd with no kids to worry about. Hats off to you lady.

      • Trad Wench@thelemmy.club
        0·
        7 days ago

        Haha thanks, but I am a fucking nerd too and having kids is the biggest motivator for doing all you can for a better future. But yeah the time it takes to be able to go against the big-tech and surveillance state is NOT family friendly at all. Which is ironically why so many people become complicit in the system after having kids. It is by design.

    • pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip
      0·
      8 days ago

      Sorry you’re having to worry about this.

      For what it is worth, I think you’re still better off at Proton (where their AI idiocy could leak your private information) than at Gmail (where their user agreements seem to indicate they proactively sell it.)

      • Trad Wench@thelemmy.club
        0·
        7 days ago

        Yeah, and mine just got renewed for a year a couple of months ago so I’m gonna stick with it for the time being, hoping they listen to their paying customers while exploring the self hosting options but I really am not sure that’s for me. I managed to do a lot of privacy related improvements in my digital life by just following github instructions blindly and such, but I think self hosting for email is the step it really goes above my pay grade. I tried doing jellyfin and high seas to stop paying for ellison’s hbo but it didn’t work out well and I’m back to paying for it begrudgingly. Ugh.

    • mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      8 days ago

      Unfortunately the best practice is likely to not let yourself get pulled into any ecosystem. Avoid having any single provider for multiple services, that way if one goes to shit you don’t have to move everything.

      Another bit is to have things run locally whenever you can. SyncThing works well to syncronize services between multiple devices, especially KeePass (local password manager) and Aegis (local 2FA).

      This doesn’t fix your current situation, but hopefully it helps you put together a new tech stack that’s more resilient

      • Trad Wench@thelemmy.club
        0·
        7 days ago

        I really hate how much I enjoy being in an eco-system. I am a Mac user and it took forever to covince myself to stop using an iPhone and get a pixel with graphene on it. I love the proton email and calendar being in one app on my mac, makes my life so much easier and I mourn the idea of not having that anymore. But I know you get used to the small conveniences eventually so yeah, you’re right. Thanks for the recommendations, SyncThings look like would be very useful to me!