The Next FLOSS Frontier - Gareth Smith

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Click to Join the Talk (19:00, 4 June 2026)

LLMs are revolutionising coding:

Empowering non-programmers to solve previously intractable problems.
Shovelling toxic agentic asbestos into our digital infrastructure
Making existing professional programmers hundreds of times more productive
Destroying the jobs market and causing layoffs
Finding CVEs and making us more secure
Wasting ecosystem-changing quantities of electricity and water

As a professional programmer and lover of Free and Open Software, should I be embracing GenAI or boycotting it?

Member Gareth Smith is here to give their thoughts, in a talk and Q&A.

Attending

Open to anyone in the city, whether a free software expert or newbie.
Just turn up or join online; no registration required! If you can't make it, we should also record the talk.

As always, our code of conduct applies to all attendees, organisers, and speakers, in-person and online.

Venue

Directions

Make your way to Magdalen College Porters' Lodge on the High Street and follow this map (the event is immediately under the room labelled R). In brief, once you have entered the College from the Lodge, take a sharp right and head under the archway into Chaplain's Quad. The Terry Newport Room is in the building facing the archway, on the ground floor (directly under the Sophia Sheppard Room we have used in the past). There will be someone at the door to let you in at the start of the event; external attendees will also be provided a code by the porters for access to both the building and the room.

Accessibility

There is step-free and wheelchair access into the building and to the room, but not to the Lodge itself --- if you require assistance, please ring the bell outside the Lodge and the porters will be happy to assist! There is an accessible toilet on the ground floor, close to the lift and near the room.

The room is fitted with an induction loop.

More information on accessibility is available on the University Access Guide, and on Magdalen College's website (which unfortunately does not mark headings correctly, assistive technology users). Please note that the information about toilets in the "Access Guide" must be out of date and the information above takes priority.

Sticker Exchange

After the talk, we will be (somewhat unrelatedly) exchanging stickers; I (Oliver) have a lot with the Software Freedom Conservancy's logo.

Attribution

Cover image CC-BY-4.0 Wes Cockx for Google DeepMind.