Bryan Cantrill
Co-founder and CTO of Oxide Computer Company. Created DTrace at Sun Microsystems and was CTO of Joyent; blogs about systems software, open source and engineering culture.
Bryan Cantrill did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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Their wordsI remember thinking that a company that has become bored with the mechanics of running a business cannot succeed - no matter how successful its strategy might otherwise be.
- 7 days earlier
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Their wordsI have never seen fear sown so irresponsibly by putative technologists as I have now with respect to AI and the threat of human extinction (!). Amazingly, that is not hyperbole: this week, ex-Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon claimed - and then Anthropic Alignment Science lead Evan Hubinger agreed - that the probability that AI will "kill all humans" is ">10% in the next decade" (!!).
↗The contagion of fearbcantrill.dtrace.org 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsThose who are resolute in their fear like to gloss over these bits ("robots will do this!"), but to do so is to ignore the physical reality that robots cannot do this today - and do not seem to be doing so on a time horizon consistent with these extinction fears.
↗The contagion of fearbcantrill.dtrace.org 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Our reading
AI executes on physical systems that are engineered with human accountability and control.
Their wordsMore generally, to the degree that digital systems have agency in the physical world, it is agency that we - we humans with arms and legs and brains and parents and children - permit: AI executes on physical systems that have been engineered with human accountability and control.
↗The contagion of fearbcantrill.dtrace.org 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 8 days earlier
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Their wordsTo answer the first question, readers can absolutely tell. To those who read broadly, the hand of the LLM is so clear it's as if the writer's intellectual fly is open.
↗The revolt of the readerbcantrill.dtrace.org 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsIf readers choose to ignore you (perhaps forever!), you will have undermined yourself: instead of attracting readers you will be actively repelling them. So other judgement about its use aside, using an LLM will increasingly become simply... ineffective.
↗The revolt of the readerbcantrill.dtrace.org 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 5 months earlier
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Their wordsThe problem is that LLMs inherently lack the virtue of laziness. Work costs nothing to an LLM. LLMs do not feel a need to optimize for their own (or anyone's) future time, and will happily dump more and more onto a layercake of garbage.
↗The peril of laziness lostbcantrill.dtrace.org 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsLeft unchecked, LLMs will make systems larger, not better - appealing to perverse vanity metrics, perhaps, but at the cost of everything that matters.
↗The peril of laziness lostbcantrill.dtrace.org 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsAs I expanded on in my talk The Complexity of Simplicity, this is a significant undertaking - and we cannot expect LLMs that do not operate under constraints of time or load to undertake it of their own volition.
↗The peril of laziness lostbcantrill.dtrace.org 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 3 months earlier
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Their wordsCompanies that have disdain for their own customers will be reviled in return.
↗Love your customersbcantrill.dtrace.org 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsSuch companies may be able to thrive in the short term, but they do not endure in the limit.
↗Love your customersbcantrill.dtrace.org 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsCertainly, these companies not endure as innovators: when coercion is your business model, innovation is not merely unnecessary but actively antithetical.
↗Love your customersbcantrill.dtrace.org 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 4 weeks earlier
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Their wordsBut LLMs are also lousy writers and (most importantly!) they are not you. At best, they will wrap your otherwise real content in constructs that cause people to skim or otherwise stop reading; at worst, they will cause people who see it for what it is to question your authenticity entirely.
- 7 months earlier
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Their wordsin all manners of systems software, the leading edge of innovation is in deployed, production, open source systems.
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Our reading
Computer science erred by insisting on conferences rather than journals as a publishing vehicle.
Their wordsmy keynote, A Wardrobe for the Emperor, outlined my belief that computer science had erred grievously in insisting upon conferences (rather than journals) as a publishing vehicle
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Their wordsit felt like some decline of USENIX's in-person conference model was inevitable.
- 5 months earlier
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Our reading
Intel has a history of fostering innovation outside of its mainstay x86 product and then killing it.
Their wordsIntel has a long, long (long!) track record of fostering innovation outside of its mainstay x86 product - and then killing it.
↗Why Gelsinger was wrong for Intelbcantrill.dtrace.org 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsIntel's strategic mistakes were (in my opinion) symptomatic of an acute cultural problem: the company still carried with it the inherited arrogance from an earlier age.
↗Why Gelsinger was wrong for Intelbcantrill.dtrace.org 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsWhile I think his dichotomy is a bit reductive, Ben Horowitz's nomenclature is useful here: Intel needed a wartime CEO - but in maintaining a dividend that it couldn't afford, Gelsinger was committing the ultimate peacetime act.
↗Why Gelsinger was wrong for Intelbcantrill.dtrace.org 3rd of 3 in this piece