Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.
Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.
If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
201 Comments
froztbyte@awful.systems · 24 pts · 2y
not only are the DCs burning water and harming ears, we’re on to the stage of taiwan not farming rice in service of making more chips
I’m neither a climate nor agriculture scientist so I can’t guess the longer term impact of this; I immediately wonder whether the soil could get harmed by disuse over years, along with other warming-related problems
I’m too angry to even sneer properly at this. it’s so fucking obviously nuts, but perverse incentives roll right ahead unchecked.
hrrrngh@awful.systems · 22 pts · 2y
I think some people are from hell
Here is the worst thing I didn't have to read today from a transhumanist:
.
Bonus round: ::: spoiler spoiler
V0ldek@awful.systems · 17 pts · 2y
Okay, I mean, there's no indication as to how you'd achieve this, but yes, community help and cheap rent are absolutely a good ideal to aim at...
Aaaand you're a cartoon villain. What the absolute fuck.
froztbyte@awful.systems · 10 pts · 2y
just want to make sure this is on the record
those suggestions (from the deranged OP) are basically segregationist: “you take all the poor, you give them their own little world [and then they’re no longer here, where we have to look at them]”. there’s a long track record of awful enterprises that have been done with that spirit. they carry names like Apartheid, ghetto, etc.
(there are occasionally serious well-meaning suggestions on how to provision for the poor and unfortunate in ways that allow improving lives, but those don’t tend to handwave the details, and never (afaict) involve the “make them go over there” step)
Aoife@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 14 pts · 2y
Holy shit every one of those was like getting ounched in the head from a completely random direction
skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de · 14 pts · 2y
i've seen some of these takes coming from libertarians, but never from a single person
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 12 pts · 2y
This is the kind of take a libertarian makes, and then goes 'well nobody debates me on this so my logic is solid'. While he isn't noticing that people are just avoiding the conversation all together, as nobody wants to roll in that mud with him.
The UR example of these kinds of bad takes is the book "Defending the Undefendable", a dumb book I have ranted about before.
skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de · 13 pts · 2y
::: spoiler certified awful content, don't open if you like dogs
So in addition to normal libertarian drivel like daydreaming about being a slaveowner or such, this reminds me of an incident when certain libertarian org found that they have an actual dogfucker in their ranks (kompromat in polish) https://web.archive.org/web/20161206144701/https://www.wykop.pl/wpis/20957439/mirki-neuropa-moze-was-to-zainteresuje-na-zdjeciu-/
so that "what if dog consents tho" is not exactly a hypothetical question :::
sc_griffith@awful.systems · 10 pts · 2y
robin hanson blogging about his activities on a typical monday
YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems · 20 pts · 2y
Catching up on SMBC and finding a quality sneer I'm a little bit surprised I didn't find here sooner.
Can I get an abot?
dgerard@awful.systems · 19 pts · 2y
https://bsky.app/profile/jonpennington.bsky.social/post/3kxqkmezcwe2o
see also https://www.qbwiki.com/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin
froztbyte@awful.systems · 10 pts · 2y
I'd never looked into how old the clown is, but
wait what? what does he claim? is the indicated year on wikipedia accurate? why the hell?
dgerard@awful.systems · 6 pts · 2y
wikipedia date is 25 June 1973, presumably that's the false one
froztbyte@awful.systems · 6 pts · 2y
huh, just showed year here. did you get that from talk?
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 8 pts · 2y
I also knew somebody who did that, but it was done as a joke, he obv picked an age much much younger and everybody new he was older, it was just a funny joke. (With a small layer of disliking getting older, which is understandable) From the way this is written, it seems to me this isn't like that at all.
froztbyte@awful.systems · 10 pts · 2y
I like answering ludicrously old whenever this stupid shit comes up
or picking timestamps that make devs wonder whether they had a value handling bug (such as 1/1/1970, the asp.net default 0, etc ec)
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 6 pts · 2y
Just be careful you never pick very young. iirc Twitter permbans you if you ever pick a date which means you were under 13 when you registered.
bitofhope@awful.systems · 8 pts · 2y
I'm 12 years old and what is this?
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 13 pts · 2y
Don't worry if you get banned just tell them you were banned for expressing your conservative ideas.
froztbyte@awful.systems · 6 pts · 2y
I've only been on the internet a year, that mistake will happen quite soon ;)
ibt3321@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 2y
A funny coincidence: https://gameshows.fandom.com/wiki/Curtis_Warren Another guy named Curtis that buzzes in early at game shows. And he's from CATHEDRAL City. It's all connected
BigMuffin69@awful.systems · 18 pts · 2y
the wife sent this one to me
sc_griffith@awful.systems · 12 pts · 2y
what can I say he cooked
YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems · 5 pts · 2y
That's how he suckers you in!
skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de · 10 pts · 2y
buddy slept through ww1+2 (it fits because brits called germans huns in their propaganda), also, roughly 5% of world population
maol@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
From a piece by Scott Alexander, I think.
BigMuffin69@awful.systems · 12 pts · 2y
oh no i just learned something new about my wife
o7___o7@awful.systems · 8 pts · 2y
Most women think about steppe nomads at least once a day.
gerikson@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
I'll allow it
self@awful.systems · 18 pts · 2y
so what rhymes with Proton getting into AI grifting? you fucking guessed it
sc_griffith@awful.systems · 18 pts · 2y
further down the page
self@awful.systems · 15 pts · 2y
so I’ve accidentally been paying shitheads who speculate on crypto to speculate on crypto. I’m kinda angry at myself for not catching this.
swlabr@awful.systems · 16 pts · 2y
mlen@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
Thanks, I hate it
mii@awful.systems · 12 pts · 2y
The fuck is happening over there?
I could have “excused” the AI bullshit as “we did it to appease the corporate customers who make us money” but there’s no way you can spin this.
I’m canceling my account. At this point I might just say fuck it and use my Yahoo mail for everything again.
(And this time the Reddit thread is the dumpster fire I’ve been expecting the last one to be lol)
earthquake@lemm.ee · 10 pts · 2y
Can't blame this shit on the survey!
I checked, crypto shit was not in any of the top 8 results (top 5 broken out, and they mentioned 3 more, which are surely #6 through #8).
froztbyte@awful.systems · 8 pts · 2y
I'm sorry, what's a 1-2-punch, idgi 🤔🤔🤔
(big fat fucking /s ofc)
BlueMonday1984@awful.systems · 17 pts · 2y
Study shock! AI hinders productivity and makes working worse [Thomas Claburn, The Register]
Personal opinion: c'mon bubble
ShakingMyHead@awful.systems · 15 pts · 2y
Stop working from home because AI.
dgerard@awful.systems · 16 pts · 2y
the lesswrong to MAGA pipeline
(from twitter)
swlabr@awful.systems · 14 pts · 2y
It’s my strong belief that rats only like analytic philosophy because of the word “analytic” in the title. If there were some other broad category of philosophy with a name more synonymous with “rational” they’d be all over it.
jonhendry@iosdev.space · 12 pts · 2y
@swlabr
“Boolean psychology”
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 5 pts · 2y
"Mathematical psychology"
jonhendry@iosdev.space · 10 pts · 2y
@Soyweiser
I got it.
Bayesian Psychology
o7___o7@awful.systems · 6 pts · 2y
the birth of a cursed phrase
bitofhope@awful.systems · 5 pts · 2y
You would expect some actual bayesian analysis in a stats-heavy field like psych, though.
jonhendry@iosdev.space · 7 pts · 2y
@bitofhope
I assume it would be more vibes-based Bayes.
sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems · 14 pts · 2y
Japan supermarket chain uses AI to gauge staff smiles, speech tones in quality service push (South China Morning Post).
Thanks I hate it
Press release here: https://www.aeonretail.jp/pdf/240701R_1.pdf or here: https://www.instavr.co.jp/news/aeon-retail-smile-2024-07-01/ (Lots of big words so I didn't try to read it)
InstaVR's English website here: https://www.instavr.co/
V0ldek@awful.systems · 16 pts · 2y
Completely normal and chill thing to want
YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems · 16 pts · 2y
What if instead of making robots better we just made interacting with a real person indistinguishable by demanding they conform to arbitrary metrics that the brain-slugs that control our minds think look like genuine human warmth and kindness?
gerikson@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
Previous workplace merged with a US company that among other things offered "sentiment analysis" for call centers - the software was supposed to detect if someone was upset or irate. Could be used to help employees deal with irate customers, but could also detect if an employee was rude or stressed. Same software could be used to ensure employees used certain stock phrases like "welcome to InitTech, how may I help you?"
Point is, tech has been used to enforce conformity since well forever.
maol@awful.systems · 6 pts · 2y
Eurgh!
o7___o7@awful.systems · 5 pts · 2y
@cstross
Looks like someone took the wrong lesson from Quantum of Nightmares!
Edit: Enjoyed the book, btw. Felt weird about shopping for groceries for most of a year afterward. A++
mountainriver@awful.systems · 13 pts · 2y
Crowdstrike offers 10 USD gift cards as apology.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/24/crowdstrike-offers-a-10-apology-gift-card-to-say-sorry-for-outage/
Those that try to use them find out that Crowdstrike can't even buy gift cards at scale.
froztbyte@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
it’s going well:
swlabr@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
Real “Scott’s Tots” energy
froztbyte@awful.systems · 13 pts · 2y
more on the nsfw side but this is a kinda interesting finding/use of existing tech
froztbyte@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
niche because only some types of slop, but still!
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 13 pts · 2y
No idea how true it is but apparently crowdstrike fired some of their QA and replaced it with AI, anybody heard about this? (source bsky) (Also 'AI' is doing a lot of work here, that could be anything)
dgerard@awful.systems · 16 pts · 2y
I am attempting to track down this precise story.
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 10 pts · 2y
iirc Crowdstrike does use regular ML for security, or at least a lot of security companies, I think they might have talked about it on the risky business podcast, so you might want to look at their (many iirc) crowdstrike sponsored parts. No episode directly springs to mind however.
YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems · 14 pts · 2y
This can also be an area where ML is an appropriate and useful tool. You'll see it used to establish a statistical baseline for what traffic should look like and then it can flag when it detects something that doesn't match that as suspicious and worth further investigation. In this space there is actually a lot of value in some of the statistical modeling techniques, though generative AI is obviously a very different and less useful beast.
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
Yes indeed. Which is iirc what people talked about re ML before the current hype cycle started.
saucerwizard@awful.systems · 13 pts · 2y
https://xcancel.com/ESYudkowsky/status/1816925777377788295#m
Yud requires calories for his massive brain.
veganes_hack@feddit.org · 14 pts · 2y
V0ldek@awful.systems · 12 pts · 2y
Don't forget the chaser!
blakestacey@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
Ah, by "chaser", you mean "emetic"
V0ldek@awful.systems · 5 pts · 2y
An olive oil chaser - classic.
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 8 pts · 2y
The reactions to that are also quite something, not only does Musk bring out the worst people (bluechecks, all even less informed than him, or worse just people wanting to spread crypto/insult fat people/took over the weird posting style from Jordan B Peterson (the one with all the linebreaks at strange places, Musk also did it once in the same period he did the interview), but Yudkowsky reacted with a very gentle [citation needed], while we all know the truth.
skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de · 13 pts · 2y
https://xcancel.com/mitchandodger/status/1816936244892565939#m
asking the important questions
V0ldek@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
Unfortunately the Joe Rogan case study shows that the answer is probably quite a bit more.
Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems · 12 pts · 2y
Looks like he's in the process of killing himself
And he insists exercise doesn't help him lose weight which means it doesn't have any benefit.
Poor fuck's going to get done in by vanity.
sc_griffith@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
I can't really feel sorry for him but this is somehow still depressing
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 8 pts · 2y
For the people not in the know 500kcal a day is very unwise. Not only very unhealthy, also a sign of looking for a quick fix mindset, which is not a thing that works well for long term weightloss.
Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems · 10 pts · 2y
Yeah, and he does this one in every two months (+ 1 bonus week of fasting because water weight because the only thing he's interested in is number go down).
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
Mein gott
saucerwizard@awful.systems · 6 pts · 2y
Oh man I need to up my caloric intake (ozempic makes this really hard).
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 6 pts · 2y
Try not to go under 1000kcal (and even that is a bit low and prob unhealthy on the long term, assuming somewhat average male height, a middle age, and computertoucher lifestyle).
maol@awful.systems · 5 pts · 2y
Isn't this what happened to that creepy bloke on Tumblr. Maybe all rationalist-adjacent bloggers eventually shit themselves to death after trying to fix their health problems with punishing exercise regimes and dodgy supplements.
dgerard@awful.systems · 5 pts · 2y
which one?
maol@awful.systems · 4 pts · 2y
kontextmaschine
dgerard@awful.systems · 4 pts · 2y
archive
huh, this was last August
maol@awful.systems · 3 pts · 2y
Yeah, I'd seen one or two of his popular posts but I only became familiar with him and his whole deal after he died.
blakestacey@awful.systems · 8 pts · 2y
... his brain works?
Objection! Facts not in evidence!
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 12 pts · 2y
NASBLOL (I'm not sure this abbreviation will work out): "Investors in anti-Biden cryptocurrencies are getting absolutely destroyed." (Source)
mii@awful.systems · 12 pts · 2y
Reposting this from the last Stubsack here by request.
Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems · 12 pts · 2y
love is love ✌️❤️
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 11 pts · 2y
Amazing how many of them eventually morph into somebody else. Trained on celeb faces, and still cannot keep a consistent facial shape. One more dataset bro.
swlabr@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
One, this looks like absolute dogshit. Two, this looks like an ad campaign for a celebrity cloning service for spare organs. Three, with the music it sounds like a drug ad in the US. It just needs a voiceover telling you the monkey paw side effect you’ll inflict upon yourself in return for eternal youth.
froztbyte@awful.systems · 11 pts · 2y
as I remarked to a friend elsewhere, there's something I've noticed in a couple of these things now, and that's how "cutesy" they're made to be
this one for example: it’s so clearly intended to be as unnatural as possible (based on the pairings presented), while trying to sell it as cozy as possible - all the gestures/poses, the music, the lighting, the clothing, the who's-picked-for-portrayal
obviously there's going to be some kind of observation bias etc involved here (of however many of these things get created, only some with some x property end up crossing my feed/radar somehow) but still. it doesn't even have artistic shock dimensions value - it's just creepycopy.
which has led me to wonder: what is it about genml tech specifically that makes this kind of bullshit the thing produced so frequently?
swlabr@awful.systems · 11 pts · 2y
One answer perhaps would be that anyone who thinks AI art is good probably lacks the taste to appreciate anything beyond the generic, and the discernment to tell that it is submerged in the depths of uncanny valley. So you have a bunch of AI chuds sharing this creep shit without realising it’s creepy and that it looks terrible.
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 8 pts · 2y
You are correct
Lol at trump in golden thigh high shoes btw. Somebody needs to bonk the datasets a bit. (E: Im joking here, nothing wrong with a horny dataset).
swlabr@awful.systems · 8 pts · 2y
Yeah also people that like AI are already willing to overlook its ethical issues, which parlays into obliviousness about why it’s all so fucking creepy. Again, musk.
BlueMonday1984@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
Very true - arguably truer today than it was earlier, if DALL-E's declining quality is any indication.
DALL-E 2 had some degree of artistic talent (in the loosest sense), but because DALL-E was made and run by creatively sterile techbros without a shred of art skill, that talent was drowned very fucking quickly.
carlitoscohones@awful.systems · 12 pts · 2y
Not everyone wants ai for their search tools
flowerysong@awful.systems · 12 pts · 2y
Whatever shambling corpse of Toys "R" Us still exists has released "the first OpenAI SORA generated brand commercial."
It looks absolutely dire, particularly in motion, but posters are still falling over themselves to call it "cool" and "exciting" or claim that people "might not notice" that it's complete and utter arse.
blakestacey@awful.systems · 15 pts · 2y
That picture... Harry Potter and the Hole of Ketamine.
blakestacey@awful.systems · 8 pts · 2y
"Drugs are like that!"
swlabr@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
https://youtu.be/jbC5hpHCCqk?si=uuqwEuRpbgzm_vyS
V0ldek@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
Oh my fucking god I know that video
this is the entire pitch of genAI, this is beat for beat a perfect analysis 4 years before all of this bullshit actually happened
BlueMonday1984@awful.systems · 12 pts · 2y
Nah, they'd be able to immediately tell from just how fucking garbage it is
flowerysong@awful.systems · 11 pts · 2y
It makes me wonder if these people have ever seen a moving picture before, because being caught up in the slack-jawed astonishment of a novel experience seems the only plausible explanation for thinking this looks good.
V0ldek@awful.systems · 12 pts · 2y
Has someone tried generating a train running at the camera and seeing if one of the AI bros dies of a heart attack?
froztbyte@awful.systems · 11 pts · 2y
I see Sora still hasn't cracked the nut of having longer output windows. or at producing things that aren't deathly boring.
and what the fuck is up with that music? it sounds like a medical commercial selling hope
blakestacey@awful.systems · 8 pts · 2y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIxY_Y9TGWI
Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems · 10 pts · 2y
AI or not this is an incredibly depressing advert, what the fuck. They went for whimsy and produced an elegy.
veganes_hack@feddit.org · 9 pts · 2y
the thing is, people are again taking this as direct output of the regurgitating machine. i wouldn't be at all surprised if there was a ton of editing going on to fix all of the most glaring issues, just like when sora was first announced.
Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
Yes you can very clearly see what they've added in, there's tons of matte stuff going on and cliparts of floating toys and whatever
ShakingMyHead@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
If you look at the bottom right that's exactly the case. They didn't just type a prompt in SORA and call it a day.
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 12 pts · 2y
Have not read it yet, but seems relevant to our collective interests. NSFW due to NASB. Accelerationism, amphetamine philosophy, and the Death Trip. (A long post about Nick Land).
vulture_god@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 11 pts · 2y
V0ldek@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
Wait, why is Crowley terrible? Wasn't he basically an overly enthusiastic cosplayer that did all the drugs and all the sex? So basically an occult hippy? Am I just unaware of him abusing people or some other dark shit?
mawhrin@awful.systems · 12 pts · 2y
he was an abusive gobshite, including physically abusive.
mpk@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
Claim to fame! Aleister Crowley was born a short walk from the house where I grew up, although then he was plain old Edward Crowley. My home town isn't that keen to be associated with him, largely because of the above - at a superficial level he was a harmless crank, a rich kid who decided to start his own religion and dress up in robes, but once you dig down into the history he was a pretty unpleasant, exploitative man - a classic cult leader.
Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems · 10 pts · 2y
I mean, I really don't think you can have a sex cult without at the very least some abuse. It's also good practice to treat occultism as weirdo fascism.
dgerard@awful.systems · 8 pts · 2y
the coincidence happening over and over is a tad unfortunate
maol@awful.systems · 6 pts · 2y
I read his Wikipedia recently and he just seemed like a user who was careless with the people in his life. His philosophy was "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law", which is obviously open to abuse and exploitation.
V0ldek@awful.systems · 5 pts · 2y
Ye that's why I'm asking, cause even RationalWiki doesn't have a chapter on abuse or anything.
Amoeba_Girl@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
Here are some bits from Wikipedia:
It's always the same boring old squalid shit with these basic nietzschean bitches. Not many people I have less respect for.
froztbyte@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
you know, I’d wondered previously about the higher-than-average divinity-and-spirits obsession among TPOT. between some of the history of land/ccru there, the other shit previously observed in the stubsack (iirc?) about rightoids and aliens/fairies (and ofc the nazi history of occultism)… what a fucking faith to make
YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems · 10 pts · 2y
Truly the weirdest consequence of crank magnetism and conspiracy syncretism is the kinds of bedfellows you find. UFO cults align with Christian dominionists because the aliens are actually demons (or vice versa - which direction isn't important).
It feels like modern fascism is less driven by orthodoxy (right belief) than they are by orthopraxy (right action) to the degree that as long as they aren't actually in power anyone who hates on the right people and rejects the right facts can join the same club regardless of what they actually think. The weirdo occultism of the Nazis was largely tied to the project of reifying their racial hierarchy in all aspects of society by establishing that the Aryan race had the best religion and the best history in addition to the best genes and the best country. The weirdo occultism of modern fascism doesn't have that kind of thread to it that I can see, and I don't know what that means for ongoing development. Does it turn into a source of internal strife as they get closer to having actual influence? Do they settle into a more specific doctrine and cull the ranks of those who don't adopt it? Or is accepting a consensus reality actually the optional part here as long as the group can broadly agree on what to do?
o7___o7@awful.systems · 10 pts · 2y
Helena Blavatsky and Rudolph Steiner made up much of what went on to constitute esoteric Hilterism ab nihilo.
Blavatsky, in particular, was a prolific bullshitter in the Frankfurtian sense. She invented the notion of the Aryan master race as a thing that exists in the future, which white europeans should strive to bring into the world.
gerikson@awful.systems · 12 pts · 2y
Trump selecting JD Vance has his running mate has led to stuff I know from this venue bleeding into stuff I follow (shamefully) for US politics. Case in point, behold Mencius Moldbug between Richard Hanania and some racist dweeb from Cambridge:
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/07/meet-you-at-the-bottom-if-there-really-is-one
blakestacey@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
Good grief, I know. It was bad enough when SBF hit the headlines, but now, it feels like the next news cycle will involve explaining how Thielbux funded a performance art piece in Dimes Square about Nikolai Fyodorov's Cosmism.
o7___o7@awful.systems · 4 pts · 2y
Hannu Rajaniemi intensifies
maol@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
My other kook-watching sneerhobby is Rod Dreher and there's been bleedthrough from him too! Strange bird, Vance...
gerikson@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
Yeah Dreher used to be a staple at LGM but some time ago I think they decided he was struggling so much with mental health they decided to lay off him.
I hope he accepts he's gay and does some sort of repentance for all the stuff he's said over the years.
BlueMonday1984@awful.systems · 11 pts · 2y
ChatGPT's new search feature hasn't even launched and already its shitting the bed
The sneers are writing themselves
blakestacey@awful.systems · 12 pts · 2y
"The long-term goal is to reinvent the Internet of 25 years ago, but worse."
self@awful.systems · 14 pts · 2y
what do you mean you don’t want a search engine but much less efficient and much, much worse? you don’t like progress?
weirdwriter@tweesecake.social · 8 pts · 2y
skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de · 10 pts · 2y
Military contracting comes with actual requirements and product has to be up to spec, can't have that
BlueMonday1984@awful.systems · 11 pts · 2y
Reid Southern bringing us a good sneer
planettimmy@mastodon.gamedev.place · 12 pts · 2y
@BlueMonday1984 @dgerard The completely open 'I'm scamming the elderly' at the end is kinda chilling
BlueMonday1984@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
Its a surprisingly good complement to OP Chris Paxton's Tweet about "normie opinion on AI", given it shows why said "normie opinion" is so resoundingly negative.
I've made some brief nods to how the AI bubble is rapidly souring public perception of tech (here and here), but it really feels like AI has, to quote @datarama, "made tech synonymous with “monstrous assholes” in a non-trivial chunk of public consciousness".
I feel like I should collect my thoughts on that front - I could probably make an interesting post out of it.
maol@awful.systems · 11 pts · 2y
Just found out from a screenshot in a tweet that Marc Aandreesen considers Nick Land to be some kind of patron saint of "techno-optimism". Setting aside Land's ugly views about everything... I didn't think optimism was what he was known for. More like grasping, desperate, disgusted embrace of the onward march of capital.
V0ldek@awful.systems · 11 pts · 2y
His thing is literally called DARK ENLIGHTENMENT, fucking Final Fantasy villain level of grandiose menacing naming, how on earth would that be "optimism".
Marcee do you even like know who your idols are?
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 10 pts · 2y
"Nothing human makes it out of the near-future." - Nick Land.
o7___o7@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
The Pinhead we have at home.
dgerard@awful.systems · 10 pts · 2y
AP takes down CF Vance apologia, not asserting things that they cannot evidence (that Vance did not have sexual relations with that couch)
before: https://archive.is/fXiMc after: https://archive.is/j3aot
This is the journalistic integrity we expect of AP News
blakestacey@awful.systems · 10 pts · 2y
Regarding that claimed breakthrough about AI winning the International Mathematical Olympiad: a reminder that a proof which hangs together logically is not necessarily a proof that makes sense.
BigMuffin69@awful.systems · 15 pts · 2y
'manual translation' undoubtably doing some heavy lifting here
blakestacey@awful.systems · 13 pts · 2y
Spending an unknown but potentially long amount of time to maybe get a solution of potentially minimal legibility is definitely AI's killer app.
froztbyte@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
movie announcer voice aaaaaand now, from the org structures that brought you Teams Doing Standup Poker, an announcement!
heeeeeeere's Promptfondling!
self@awful.systems · 5 pts · 2y
which must be destroyed. find me who’s responsible for this (it’s the Google OKR people, isn’t it?)
froztbyte@awful.systems · 6 pts · 2y
listen buddy if you're not arguing about the definition of done for design phase and overspending your meeting windows by 2 hours because of points quibbling, are you even SAFe
BigMuffin69@awful.systems · 11 pts · 2y
Also, choice sneer in the comments:
dgerard@awful.systems · 10 pts · 2y
after all this time, TIL that Roko pronounces his name "Rocko" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIwJDnej7pg
Architeuthis@awful.systems · 11 pts · 2y
I'm not a native english speaker, how else was he supposed to pronounce it?
froztbyte@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
I think the most common would be “roh-koh”, I could also see a front-o accentuated form being used
that flat “rocko” as in the vid was one I wouldn’t have thought to hear
Architeuthis@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
That just sounds incredibly British to me.
When I clicked the video I fully expected Rocko with a c to mean Rosko.
YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
Quick, someone file the copyright for "Roko's Postmodern Life"
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
One step closer to Doctor Rockso the clown.
froztbyte@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
it's amazing how he continues to provide fresh reasons to want to boop him on the nose
dgerard@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
man, all these old transhumanist videos https://www.youtube.com/@Transentience/videos you could waste hours of your life on old and pointless bs
froztbyte@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
"Genes vs Memes"
okay, I checked, it's after midday. definitely okay to start drinking.
YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
I'm pretty sure you're only allowed to have that discussion if you're a Metal Gear villain. Which despite his best efforts Roko does not have enough dramatic presence or raw drip for.
dgerard@awful.systems · 8 pts · 2y
drip vs drool
BlueMonday1984@awful.systems · 10 pts · 2y
Not a sneer, but a mildly interesting open letter:
The basic idea is effectively an extension of robots.txt which attempts to resolve the issue by providing a means to politely ask AI crawlers not to scrape your stuff.
Personally, I don't expect this to ever get off the ground or see much usage - this proposal is entirely reliant on trusting that AI bros/companies will respect people's wishes and avoid scraping shit without people's permission.
Between OpenAI publicly wiping their asses with robots.txt, Perplexity lying about user agents to steal people's work, and the fact a lot of people's work got stolen before anyone even had the opportunity to say "no", the trust necessary for this shit to see any public use is entirely gone, and likely has been for a while.
o7___o7@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
OpenAI is creating the trustless economy that makes bitcoin necessary. taps forehead
sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems · 5 pts · 2y
The best proposal I've seen so far
short of destroying all AI scrapers, and essentially what anyone familiar with the specs would come up with.The only thing I'd add is an analogue to
data-nosnippetto exclude only specific sections of the HTML document (w/o needing to reach for an entire iframe); though that's harder to implement on the crawler end so maybe that's for the best.Google uses a second User-Agent directive; while Bing suggests using noarchive. Both of these are pretty hacky and not general, so it'd be good to see the industry standardize on the above proposal.
BlueMonday1984@awful.systems · 10 pts · 2y
The proposal itself does still assume that AI scrapers are being run by decent human beings with functioning moral compasses, which is why I feel its inadequate.
This take might be overly harsh on AI/tech as a whole, but at this point I've run out of patience regarding this bubble and see no reason to believe anyone in the AI space is a decent human being, at least for the time being.
sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems · 4 pts · 2y
News article about how hard it is to block AI scraping: https://www.404media.co/websites-are-blocking-the-wrong-ai-scrapers-because-ai-companies-keep-making-new-ones/
BlueMonday1984@awful.systems · 4 pts · 2y
At this point, I wouldn't fault anyone for blanket-blocking all scrapers/robots - sure, doing that will make you unfindable by search engines, but search is basically useless nowadays for finding anything actually interesting, and trying to play whack-a-mole with AI scrapers just means you're gonna get your shit stolen.
Might as well go back to word-of-mouth.
BlueMonday1984@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
Not a sneer, but still a damn good piece on AI from Brian Merchant:
The great and justified rage over using AI to automate the arts
(Personal sidenote: Tech's public image is almost certainly gonna take a nosedive as a result of this AI bubble. "We made a machine with the express purpose of putting artists out of business" isn't a business case, its the setup for a shitty teen dystopian novel.)
(Fuck, now I wanna try and predict how the AI bubble bursting will play out...)
dgerard@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
Giant Rat Penis part 2
o7___o7@awful.systems · 11 pts · 2y
How do people do this without dying of anxiety?
BTW, that last comment on RetractionWatch was grim:
skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de · 10 pts · 2y
it's easier if you are a shameless fraud without a shred of integrity
This is also probably why MBAs like it
skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de · 9 pts · 2y
ai use case: you can pump out pseudoscience promoting fluff disguised as papers in predatory journals with less effort
blakestacey@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
2 Giant 2 Rat Penis
V0ldek@awful.systems · 8 pts · 2y
Okay but this is about alkaline water so it's garbage even without the genAI imagery.
It's even by Wu et al., come on, low hanging fruit
corbin@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
Let's see how long HN takes to ban yet another literal Nazi.
gerikson@awful.systems · 10 pts · 2y
I'm pretty sure that if the community "takes out the trash" (i.e. downvotes to dead status[1]) the mods won't bother to ban the user.
[1] I happen to believe thta this is not sufficient to get rid of bad actors
dgerard@awful.systems · 8 pts · 2y
new EA hangout found, a snip at £3.5m
sc_griffith@awful.systems · 12 pts · 2y
"sold by the Society of the Precious Blood" paging peter thiel
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 5 pts · 2y
Not stately enough.
o7___o7@awful.systems · 8 pts · 2y
Butters and Trump are ruining my ability to get anything done in town today. Not a big fan of this dumb shit inconveniencing me IRL.
sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems · 11 pts · 2y
Here's a tweet of Winklevoss feeling snubbed by VP Harris (twitter.com)
and another much longer one.
Ooh, Like the internet! I got Bingo!
Bitcoin bros: more of this self-aggrandizing rage please. It's so entertaining to read.
jonhendry@iosdev.space · 12 pts · 2y
@sailor_sega_saturn @techtakes
NO SLURP JUICES FOR KAMALA
sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems · 11 pts · 2y
None of you seem to understand. I’m not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with multiple slurp juices on a single ape!
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 8 pts · 2y
Ow god. This is the acasaul torture simulation!
CautiousCharacter@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
They targeted gamers.
Gamers.
We're a group of people who will sit for hours, days, even weeks on end performing some of the hardest, most mentally demanding tasks. Over, and over, and over all for nothing more than a little digital token saying we did.
We'll punish our selfs doing things others would consider torture, because we think it's fun.
We'll spend most if not all of our free time min maxing the stats of a fictional character all to draw out a single extra point of damage per second.
Many of us have made careers out of doing just these things: slogging through the grind, all day, the same quests over and over, hundreds of times to the point where we know evety little detail such that some have attained such gamer nirvana that they can literally play these games blindfolded.
Do these people have any idea how many controllers have been smashed, systems over heated, disks and carts destroyed 8n frustration? All to latter be referred to as bragging rights?
These people honestly think this is a battle they can win? They take our media? We're already building a new one without them. They take our devs? Gamers aren't shy about throwing their money else where, or even making the games our selves. They think calling us racist, mysoginistic, rape apologists is going to change us? We've been called worse things by prepubescent 10 year olds with a shitty head set. They picked a fight against a group that's already grown desensitized to their strategies and methods. Who enjoy the battle of attrition they've threatened us with. Who take it as a challange when they tell us we no longer matter. Our obsession with proving we can after being told we can't is so deeply ingrained from years of dealing with big brothers/sisters and friends laughing at how pathetic we used to be that proving you people wrong has become a very real need; a honed reflex.
Gamers are competative, hard core, by nature. We love a challange. The worst thing you did in all of this was to challange us. You're not special, you're not original, you're not the first; this is just another boss fight.
BlueMonday1984@awful.systems · 6 pts · 2y
This pasta will never die.
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 6 pts · 2y
Considering the history of legislation and the internet (and the recent KOSA thing) being treated like the internet is the last thing you would want.
gerikson@awful.systems · 8 pts · 2y
Libertarian nerds run straight into actual California, not the AI-generated dreamland they imagine
Mercury news: "Billionaires’ utopia company California Forever scraps plan for ballot initiative in wake of damning report"
https://archive.ph/UbdBw
HN shows what they think of the 3 people with actual thoughts on the issue by downvoting them to death
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41047746
maol@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
Who could have predicted this except for everybody ! There's a reason none of these galt gulches ever get built.
dgerard@awful.systems · 8 pts · 2y
Marc Andreessen and Reid Hoffman, just in case anyone thought there was a difference
jonhendry@iosdev.space · 10 pts · 2y
@dgerard
Was the stumbling point when they explained to the county the part about the perpetually tortured child?
o7___o7@awful.systems · 6 pts · 2y
Turns out that load-bearing children are out of code.
fasterandworse@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
Jeremy Keith on the bullshit "privacy sandbox" in chrome and firefox: https://adactio.com/journal/21285
I like Jeremy because he is an OG, but I think his requirement for proof that targeted advertising "works" before the browsers implement these features is off the mark for me. He's an agency guy, a bit like Andy Budd, so they tend to have these really visceral takes about the state of the web but with this skewed perspective of best interests
sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems · 11 pts · 2y
Google just announced they're not getting rid of third party cookies after all. They announced this in a wordy blog post with so much spin as to be confusing (as is tradition): https://privacysandbox.com/news/privacy-sandbox-update/
fasterandworse@awful.systems · 10 pts · 2y
god, the opening paragraph made my head spin with tech pr copy
self@awful.systems · 11 pts · 2y
could you imagine what web development would be like in a world where browser standards, features, and sandboxes weren’t firmly in the grips of these marketing chucklefucks?
like, I’ve mentioned to coworkers “hey isn’t the browser sandbox kind of bullshit? there’s so many parts of it that don’t do anything for security, but they make things harder for developers and easier for advertisers” and I don’t think a single one knew what I was talking about, because web development as a field has been captured by ad agencies. shit, find me one web development reference that isn’t owned by an ad agency.
and now they’re secure enough in that control that they do this fully mask-off shit, confident they’ll get away with it, cause who’s gonna stop them? bets on Mozilla reversing course on blocking third-party cookies now that google’s gone in this direction
bcdavid@hachyderm.io · 9 pts · 2y
@self @fasterandworse
"And now they’re secure enough in that control that they do this fully mask-off shit ..."
That whole DRM-the-web attestation thing Google proposed last year was eye opening. Sure, they had been evil for a while, but the fact that they knew they could start proposing stuff like that at all is just so bleak. In a sane world, that behaviour would instantly result in serious antitrust lawsuits.
sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
I was a bit surprised when I learned fonts are CORSd at least party as a sort of primitive DRM so that font companies would buy into the webfont spec (that's how I remember it anyway, it's been awhile since I dug up the relevant mailing list messages)
hrrrngh@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
I'm not familiar with Indian politics but I'm curious if anyone understands what this site is or what its politics are https://democracycollective.in (I'm just nosy and curious, I saw this pop up out of nowhere)
Though maybe I already have an idea:
sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems · 7 pts · 2y
You can read a blog post from the dude who started that site here: https://rushabh-mehta.medium.com/starting-a-new-political-party-28a2e70cc8c3 I didn't spot any huge red flags, but I didn't dig too deep (nor do I know the first thing about Indian politics).
Apparently he aims to start an online political party without any leaders or hierarchy where everything gets voted on. Not to be too cynical, but looking at how small it is right now I imagine they won't get far enough to see why that doesn't really work.
swlabr@awful.systems · 6 pts · 2y
Linking without factchecking or any due diligence. This appears to have been making the rounds:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/1ecshvh/elon_tried_to_enter_the_babyfur_community
https://xcancel.com/christiolson/status/1817349838444667034#m
Edit: OT: https://xcancel.com/bnuuyhopper/status/1816574082588246342#m
dgerard@awful.systems · 4 pts · 2y
just changed the litter tray, you may wanna repost in the fresh new stubsack
swlabr@awful.systems · 5 pts · 2y
Done 🫡
dgerard@awful.systems · 6 pts · 2y
pivot-to-ai.com needs a new theme. Blocksy looks really nice - but it doesn't work with WP Dark Mode and caches badly.
Need a 2 column blog theme suiting full short posts on the front page, that plays nice with Dark Mode. Any tips?
slopjockey@awful.systems · 5 pts · 2y
Ayo is this real? It'd be fucking wild if it was real
https://xcancel.com/brndxix/status/1816231803973521728
Soyweiser@awful.systems · 9 pts · 2y
Like the couch story, this is real.
(No but for real, how would we know? Doubt any of us work at twitter and if we did we prob would be in no position to talk, would not be surprised if it was, and considering they are going after the information with a weird agressiveness (I saw the 'stay informed' thing myself). I think this has a high likelihood of not being false.
E: More things I cannot confirm But very much lol if okta accidentally exposed this information (which makes me more doubtful it is true), first crowdstrike now okta jesus. (Don't get me wrong, this should be impossible unless they really fucked up some things, im just lolling on the possibility that it is true, not saying it is)
E2: fake according to a former employee, And a journalist asked Okta, they denied it so yes very fake.