This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on AI mischief, follow Robert Hart. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.How it startedHacking the first generation of AI chatbots was a laughably simple affair. You didn't need any technical know-how, backdoor access, or even a basic understanding of what a large language model was. You didn't need to code. To get an AI system that had cost billions to build to abandon its safety instructions, sometimes all you had to do was ask.These attacks, known as jailbreaks, had the quality …Read the full story at The Verge.

Windows OS cleaners earned a bad name for themselves when they tried acting like a one-stop shop. The tools tried to remove unused registry entries directly, included deceptive marketing tactics that forced you to install other software for monetary gains, and wandered far away from their core task. CCleaner is a fantastic example of a tool that was very popular but slowly adopted all the above wrong traits, combined with security mishaps, that make it an untrustworthy app today.

One of the coolest ways people use SBCs and microcontrollers is to breathe new life into old technology. We've seen plenty of cases where someone took something outdated (or even broken) and gave it a second life using a modern-day chip. But not all of them are as cool as using a Game Boy Advance as a controller for the Nintendo Switch using the original Link Cable as the cord, which is exactly what one ingenious tinkerer achieved with their own hardware.

LM Studio has been my default runner for as long as I've been running local LLMs, which is more than long enough now to call it part of my daily flow rather than just something I'm experimenting with anymore. The appeal of LM Studio is pretty much that it has a GUI, one-click installs, and no command-line stuff to wade through. Development is not my domain, even using the terminal isn't, so a user-friendly runner was important to me and is what got me comfortable with self-hosting AI in the first place.

If you're on the fence about using an open-source operating system, you can do a lot worse than try out Linux Mint. It's easy to set up, its UI is very familiar to people who are used to Windows, and it runs just fine on older, weaker hardware. And while some people (such as myself) move on to other Linux distros, others find a lifelong home with Mint.

The Lenovo Slim 7x Gen 11 hasn't changed too much since the first one was introduced in 2024 (yes, it's the second Slim 7x but it's called Gen 11 to align with the rest of the Yoga 7 series), but it's a little lighter and a lot better. Critically, it has Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X2 Elite processor under the hood, a massive improvement for the laptop that was among the first devices to launch in May 2024.

I absolutely love working from the Terminal, whether that's for local tasks or for remote work via SSH. I prefer it even when there's a web UI to use, whether it's a remote server, NAS, or an SSH-reachable application; it just feels cleaner to me, and I don't have to interrupt my flow by tabbing to a browser window. Using an SSH key pair makes the remote access part easier, but there is one problem that's always annoyed me.

It's a conflicting time to be a tech enthusiast, or even just to need a new laptop for work. Stratospheric pricing has made it tricky to recommend anything with onboard memory or SSD storage, and terms like "budget" and "good value" all carry caveats about how they relate to the overall market. Until today. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 5x Gen 11 is a fantastic value, with a snappy processor, good screen options and a premium feel.

When I first got my RTX 4090 in 2022, I assumed that my 12-core Ryzen 9 5900X would still be more than enough for gaming. After all, this CPU wasn't even two years old when the 4090 launched. So I saw no reason to rush and get an 8-core CPU like the 5800X3D just because it's faster. And for the first year or so, the assumption felt correct. I was primarily gaming on my 4K/160Hz monitor, while occasionally switching to my 1440p ultrawide OLED to enjoy open-world AAA titles.

Waymo is the undisputed leader in the robotaxi space, operating a fleet of over 3,000 driverless cars in at least 10 cities across the US. A number of companies, including Tesla, Zoox, Avride, and Motional, are racing to catch up with the Alphabet-owned firm. But what if being No. 2 was actually better?Nuro, the delivery robot company created by veterans of Google's self-driving car project, thinks it has a decent shot at occupying the slot. After pivoting from delivery to robotaxis in 2024, Nuro struck a deal with Uber and Lucid to deploy tens of thousands of robotaxis all across the US - netting itself hundreds of millions of dollars in …Read the full story at The Verge.

Ever since DLSS 4.5 became available earlier this year, I've been spending more time experimenting with this feature on my RTX 4090 than I have in years. While that's partly because upscaled footage is almost indistinguishable from the native, it's also because Nvidia has somehow managed to make DLSS more complicated than ever. What was once a simple choice between Quality, Balanced, and Performance modes now comes with two additional model presets that many gamers don't fully understand.

Look at those cute little guys. | Image: Record Club There isn't really a solid equivalent to Goodreads or Letterboxd for music lovers, but Record Club is aiming to change that. Yes, we have Rate Your Music, but its interface is crowded, and it feels more geared towards longer-form reviews than cataloging your listening habits and connecting with other fans. Record Club is clean and modern, with a streamlined interface that's quite similar to Letterboxd. The basic features you'd expect from such a site are all there. You can rate and review records or mark them as listened to. You can also see what your friends are listening to and see what albums are trending with other users. There's a …Read the full story at The Verge.