alt Hacker NewsThe aluminium chassis cannot be used for heat dissipation without risk of harming users. Which is why there is a "macbook air peformance mod" to add thermal-interface-material (instead of thermal insulation) to turn the chassis into a heatsink.
It's not a heatsink by default.
Not really. I did the thermal mod to my previous (M1) MacBook Air and it still didn’t get all that warm.
The Intel MacBook Pro I had before that one got far, far hotter - almost scalding hot if you really pushed it - without any modifications.