Didn't care when the arts and humanities were being scraped dry, but suddenly they're all coming out against it now that they're going after the sciences
OpenAI stole research out from under mathematicians' noses and now suddenly all the STEM bros are very hot and bothered
123 Comments
Endmaker@ani.social · 128 pts · 1d
Simply not true.
Exhibit A: I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub · 42 pts · 1d
Holy shit this article is fucking gold. Everyone should read it.
Almacca@aussie.zone · 31 pts · 1d
I balked at the length of it, but then I started reading, and holy shit, you're right. Such prose! The finale slew me.
rainwall@piefed.social · 4 pts · 12h
Same guy who wrote the "I saved half a million dollar with a few button presses and it made my life hell" articles years back. Also a great one.
His blog is gold. He struck out on his own with 5 friends a few years back and is doing great apparently.
Almacca@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 9h
Yeah, I'm definitely checking out more of his work.
StillAlive@piefed.world · 15 pts · 1d
He appeared on a podcast last month:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GOGGzTp3MA
bad1080@piefed.social · 4 pts · 1d
great watch, thanks!
dumnezero@piefed.social · 8 pts · 1d
It's a classic.
MigratingApe@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 16 pts · 1d
I guess anyone who likes the article is going to love the podcast, then.
the_wonderfool@piefed.social · 3 pts · 22h
Thank you for sharing this wall of pure poetry.
MrOtingocni@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 22h
That was awesome
Cass@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 10h
Very much not the average stem BRO, at least the people around me are exactly as OP says
Eggymatrix@sh.itjust.works · -5 pts · 1d
I understand and do agree with the technical points made in the article. I do find the use of gratoutious violence kinda offputting, ngl
WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 1d
It's called satire
Neocorporation@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
Tissue?
Almacca@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 9h
Let's get you back to bed, Grandma.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 94 pts · 1d
Nerds ≠ techbros.
One has been publishing research about environmental impact of generative AI datacenters since 2019.
The other has been going on twitter talking about how "chatgpt will replace the artists."
One invents math that can recognize cancer cells.
The other applies it to security cameras for the surveilance state.
In general, the people most critical of AI have been those that trained their own one at home for fun, and knew from beginning how fucking overhyped it is.
balasted@slrpnk.net · 10 pts · 1d
Cal Newport does a great job illuminating the distinction between the marketing hype and the technical reality. I'm sure most here are familiar with his views, but if not: https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=jxM35ij5VGg
phx@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 18h
Yeah, I can also see how somebody who might see a use for AI in their own field isn't exactly for up it stealing work in theirs or others.
There's a difference between "hey, we can train/build this tool to be useful to us" versus "we're cool with it ingesting everything and barfing out cat pictures"
Damarus@feddit.org · 81 pts · 1d
You're committing the blunder of alienating your allies. Complaining, that "the STEM bros" didn't push back against AI earlier, is just gatekeeping.
deliriousdreams@fedia.io · 6 pts · 1d
This is kind of a case of individuals from specific industries or mediums of study championing AI while other individuals from those same industries or mediums of study denounce it and speak against it.
I don't think we should pretend that the two groups are mutually inclusive. But at the same time, there's definitely people working in STEM who were very happy to champion AI and use it. The scientists in the article are an example of people who may have only used AI and not championed it, but the fact that they did use the AI LLM is not in doubt. This result is of their own making given that all of the warning signs have been there for a couple of years now at least.
We can't pretend that all of STEM emphatically denounced AI. But we shouldn't pretend that All of STEM championed it either.
queermunist@lemmy.ml · -17 pts · 1d
They alienated us first, can we acknowledge that?
FooBarrington@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 1d
For specific individuals who personally alienated us, yeah, sure. But if you generalize and broadly accuse all tech bros, there will be people who think you're targeting them, even though they've never actively alienated us.
Let's not let ourselves be divided unnecessarily.
queermunist@lemmy.ml · -14 pts · 1d
Should I suck their dicks too?
AVincentInSpace@pawb.social · 12 pts · 1d
Where did you get the idea that that was what the parent commenter meant?
Look, you're an .ml user, so I'll make this simple to understand. If you take the stance that "most" is close enough to "all" as makes no difference, then people who are part of the all but not part of the most will realize that taking a stance against the most gets them punished both by the most and by the people who hate the most. Pretty soon, "most" will become "all", and really, who can blame them?
And personally, I'm not convinced that most scientists were singing the praises of AI before it came for their field. You're tarring an awfully large community based on the actions of a tiny few.
destructdisc@lemmy.world · -51 pts · 1d
It was "STEM bros" that continued to champion generative AI and make it possible for it to become the planet-sized threat it has turned into now. It was "STEM bros" that consistently belittled the concerns of those in the arts and the humanities when they were warning against what their creations were doing. It was "STEM bros" that kept telling everyone they were making a big deal out of nothing, that the environmental effects were overblown, that it's a whole lot of fearmongering.
They are not allies to those of us, in STEM and in other disciplines alike, that have been trying to hold the line against generative AI from the start. For them to turn against it now that it's suddenly infringing on their careers is self-serving and while I do not begrudge their support I will sure as hell not genuflect and thank them for it.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub · 45 pts · 1d
You're over-generalizing and it's leading you to bad conclusions, which is why people are downvoting you.
decolo@piefed.social · 22 pts · 1d
Goomba fallacy
edit: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Goomba_fallacy
T156@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 18h
People are also allowed to have contradicting opinions. People aren't perfectly ordered logical reasoning machines.
decolo@piefed.social · 3 pts · 17h
Agreed. I just wanted to push back on the idea that 'stem bros' are a pro-ai monolith
a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 1d
No we fucking didn't. Lol. Those are tech bros. Myself in the vast majority of my colleagues would never advocate for releasing products that were dangerous and half cocked. This is from somebody who spent his entire career studying artificial intelligence amongst other things.
Natanael@infosec.pub · 16 pts · 1d
Us security nerds are right in the center of STEM and we have been vocal the whole time
YeahToast@aussie.zone · 3 pts · 1d
It's called STEAM now to include art.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STEAM_education
sanpo@sopuli.xyz · 70 pts · 1d
"STEM" bros? What the fuck are you smoking, OP?
Being against LLMs should mean being against science somehow?
Murse@slrpnk.net · 8 pts · 1d
Edit - I just stole math's valor. Don't post before caffeinating, kids... You'll look like an idiot in front of the entire Internet.
'M' checking in. Our orthopedics subset are definitely 'bros'.Do S, T, and E have a 'bro' subset, too?protist@retrofed.com · 17 pts · 1d
Do...do you think the "M" stands for "Medicine?"
Murse@slrpnk.net · 17 pts · 1d
I knew better than that. This is what happens when I start posting the second I wake up.
I'm gonna go find a corner to hide in and suck down some coffee while I contemplate my shame.
AeonFelis@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3h
"M" is for "Magic". Also - "S" is for "Strength", "T" is for "Technique", and "E" is for "Endurance".
Randelung@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
M is math. STEM bros used to be called nerds, but that's a reclaimed positive term now I guess?
Murse@slrpnk.net · 8 pts · 1d
...I shouldn't post this early in the morning.
My brain will turn on soon, promise.
Randelung@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1d
I thought it was funny. Something something doctors and their egos, but in an innocent way. :D
Murse@slrpnk.net · 7 pts · 1d
Dude I thought I was being completely unironic. Like, my sleep deprived brain saw that M and it was like a drunken stupor "my career field starts with an M!!" ...and that's the extent of the thought that went into it.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
dude, you're not in STEM under M for Medicine, you're under S for Sleepy. keep up.
Murse@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 14h
It's honestly getting kinda bad. It's like my body forgot how to actually fall asleep. Room conditions are good, am tired, not fucking around on screens or anything, mind not wandering... just laying there, eyes closed, but very much awake. For like hours, before finally actually falling asleep.
So I'm just perpetually tired, but mornings are like actual zombie mode.
Appointment is made though... will probably be on drugs soon.
Janx@piefed.social · 2 pts · 1d
Healthcare is part of Science, right?
Murse@slrpnk.net · 6 pts · 1d
There was no rationale that went into that comment - posting while coming to grips with waking up is a horrible idea.
Janx@piefed.social · 6 pts · 1d
Oh, whatever. You're too hard on yourself!
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
i'm gonna have to tag you as [needs twice as much caffeine as he thinks. like me]
Jankatarch@lemmy.world · -6 pts · 1d
Good 70% of stem majors write webnovels and do blender art etc as a second hobby.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world · 68 pts · 1d
"STEM bros"? I didn't know being introverted physics dept guys made you a "bro". I missed out on all of those frat parties I guess.
Djehngo@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 19h
Bro is just a generic perjorarive term for any vaguely male coded association now.
Frat bro Passport bro Tech bro Finance bro Stem bro Etc.
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 13h
pejorative
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 15h
So its sexist now?
NEZ27@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 4h
I don't even think the 'male' part is essential. I generally associate with groups who just yolo/no life something to an extreme, usually with little to no critical thought or concern for consequences for themselves or others. NFT bros are my favorite example because they just super pumped a tech they knew little about and got took over and over. AI bros are almost there.
Just my 2 cents on the X-bros topic.
prime_number_314159@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 5h
One time the physics, engineering, and math students in my dorm all finished our homework assignments at roughly the same time (~2:30), so we all went over to the other building and made brownies to celebrate. We had some wild parties, as you can tell.
mastod0n@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 20h
We clearly went to different universities.
Avicenna@programming.dev · 50 pts · 1d
There is no such concept as STEM bros. Science community has its own problems but being generally anologous to tech bros or fintech bros is not it. Being very strongly curiousity driven, they may indeed be oblivious to how something fucks up other parts of the society but that is very far removed from trying to abuse technology to gain billions. Not that there isn't an intersection, there is, but not big enough to warrant a generalization. In any case if the issue is billionaires fucking up research for money, they will more often be on your side against the billionaires then not (open science movement was one such reaction). But they would rather free AI from billionaire domination then reject it out right.
blackbirdbiryani@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 1d
Yea I work in science and there absolutely are STEM bros that are only interested in tricking funding bodies and making up stuff for grants and have zero interest in actually producing good research.
sukhmel@programming.dev · 1 pts · 7h
I feel those to be usually non-monolitic enough to warrant being called bros, the latter in my eyes being when people scam at scale and try to represent themselves as a single mass.
But that's just how I see it
kestrel7_7@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
What does the T in STEM stand for
Avicenna@programming.dev · 6 pts · 23h
what does the S, E, M in STEM stand for?
i_love_FFT@jlai.lu · 4 pts · 14h
Sexology, education, and music?
T would be for Theremin, a subset of music that is so prominent it requires its own letter.
ElDuderino@lemmus.org · 2 pts · 14h
The T is for THC when I stem.
NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world · 46 pts · 1d
Wtf is a STEM bro? That's not something I've ever heard of until this post.
davetortoise@reddthat.com · 52 pts · 21h
Something made-up by people who think significant numbers of people in science & engineering hate artists. People in science & engineering do not hate artists and, for the most part, loathe the effect AI is having on suppressing human creativity. The bastards are, and have always been, the people who claim to love tech despite being tech-illiterate.
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 7h
The term "STEM-bro" predates the genAI boom, at least it begun rising in popularity during the Gamergate controversy.
STEM-bros lack the vision of their peers, they mainly see their field as a 9-to-5, as something that pleases their parents more than a trade school. They were those, who pioneered using fandoms and other nerd-groups as a tool to exclude others, usually through utter toxicity. Then the nerds slowly learned from them, who now think they served the purpose of making sure "the thing they're fans of never changes" rather than to protect the status of some bro, who were into some more obscure stuff.
Sure, many jock-types are nice. There's even a stereotype, that gym-bros are the nicest people. However, VeganGains is a well known counterexample of that. Competitive sports are a lot worse than your average bro pumping iron in the gym. And don't get me started on the "failed jocks", especially those who also frequented fandom circles.
(Please do note, that the whole nerd-jock dichotomy is false, one can be both or neither.)
davetortoise@reddthat.com · 4 pts · 7h
I'm sorry but I'm completely unconvinced that the toxic-STEM-loremaster-gymbro people you're describing exist in any significant numbers
Airfried@piefed.social · 35 pts · 1d
AI divided us like few things before. Musicians cry out because AI steals their music while using AI generated backdrop animations on their tours and academics use ChatGPT to summarize things but become outraged when their work is fed into the machine. Lets hope tech bro audacity will unite us against them the same way they divided us.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 1d
basically everyone thinks their work doesn't deserve to be done shittily by llms but doesn't mind doing someone else's that way.
bilb@lemmy.ml · 7 pts · 20h
Except a large number of coders. I worked as a software engineer for a while and I can see how. It wasn't long before I no longer took any pride in the boring software I wrote for the company whose mission meant nothing to me. I would absolutely be using AI if I was still there. The code I write now is for personal satisfaction and enrichment though, so I do it myself.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 15h
I mean there's plenty of people with absolutely no professionalism or pride in their work in every industry
bilb@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 13h
Yes, of course! Software engineers are not broadly unique. They(we) might be uniquely interacted with genai, though.
grrgyle@slrpnk.net · 3 pts · 19h
Yeah I tried coding with ai assistance and it just made me mad. I spent all my time reading and correcting shitty code, which is literally the worst part of the job.
spartanatreyu@programming.dev · 2 pts · 15h
Excuse me, the boss says he wants you to make the button blue.
Can you do it?
Oh, and remember to "embrace AI" while you do it.
i_love_FFT@jlai.lu · 1 pts · 15h
Oh, then you must not have used the most recent model... Or you might have prompted it wrong... Or you should have created your own agent so it follows your style...
/s... But I've heard these things at work
uuj8za@piefed.social · 6 pts · 1d
100000% yes.
Airfried@piefed.social · 2 pts · 1d
Sadly that seems to be the case but maybe they'll come around and work together in their shared hatred for big tech eventually. Maybe this lesson can teach us to be more considerate towards each other as a society.
godsammitdam@lemmy.zip · 22 pts · 1d
Capitalism destroying community and embracing individuality which is the antithesis of human evolution.
Who woulda thunk?
Zephorah@discuss.online · 21 pts · 1d
Gamers Nexus is posting their data but poisoning it for AI.
bad1080@piefed.social · 8 pts · 1d
and i think them announcing it was a bad idea (while doing it is good) because now they now it is poisoned and can look for it and then train their model on it
gothic_lemons@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 1d
Easy solution. Everyone and every site say that their data is poisoned for AI. They don't even need to poison the data. Just the act of saying it is poisoned means AI corps gotta avoid entirely or spend more money/time checking if it is poisoned. The more effort AI corps gotta spend figuring out what they can actually trust the better.
This commented is poisoned for AI. Don't microwave your phone to charge it wirelessly. Everything on the internet is true and trustworthy.
Zephorah@discuss.online · 4 pts · 1d
I remember reading the iphone microwaving troll. Charge your battery without a charging cable! Just be sure the microwave is set to low. Isn’t that ~10-15 years old now?
zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 1d
No way, that happened only a few years ago... right? ...right? :(
Zephorah@discuss.online · 1 pts · 16h
Maybe, if it’s still going. This was pre ars technica, or however it’s spelled, Facebook. It was all over FB. And I believe I saw it on Reddit as well.
zod000@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 4h
I think you didn't catch that I was joking, it was definitely many years ago. It was a 4chan prank that went viral.
veryblandusername@fedinsfw.app · 13 pts · 1d
Announcing it was the entire point, it gets more people thinking about poisoning their datasets too. You're concerned about a dollar when we're positioned to make thousands.
bad1080@piefed.social · 19 pts · 1d
remember: the cloud is just somebody else's computer
eah@programming.dev · 12 pts · 14h
I'm just gonna drop these links here.
https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2026/06/leiden-declaration-warns-ai-is-challenging-the-core-values-of-mathematics
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2608.02859
Sure, let's just ruin the most challenging and fun pursuit humans have ever engaged in by turning it into a competition of who can find the right prompt and throw the most money at the AI companies.
AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml · -10 pts · 14h
If it dies it dies.
Opisek@piefed.blahaj.zone · 12 pts · 1d
Well it's been like that already—probably not to the same extent—but you'd still preferably wait until publication before sharing anything beyond your abstract.
fullsquare@awful.systems · 6 pts · 1d
"sharing" also explicitly includes any chatbot interaction, i wonder what consequences this will have
aesthelete@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 10h
No not my IP!!!!!
(This is basically a leopards eating face concern.)
halfapage@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 1d
who could have predicted such tragedy
good thing that we are not universally identified and wiretapped and that such secrets are not guaranteed to be found out by the fair use of everything corporations
MousePotatoDoesStuff@piefed.social · 9 pts · 1d
Can we keep the well-deserved took-you-long-enoughs for AFTER we deal with the crisis at hand, though?
We need all the help we can get.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org · 2 pts · 1d
No, we cannot.
MousePotatoDoesStuff@piefed.social · 3 pts · 1d
Understandable, have a nice day
uuj8za@piefed.social · 6 pts · 1d
What's happening here? I'm out of the loop... Who is Terry Tao? Who didn't care about arts and humanities? Who is destructdisc?
save_the_humans@leminal.space · 22 pts · 1d
He's considered one of the greatest mathematicians alive, if not the best. Youngest to compete in the international math olympiad, bronze at age 10 in 1986, silver in 87, and gold in 88. Got his phd at 20, became the youngest full professor at 24 at UCLA, and was the youngest to earn the fields medal at 31.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
Math prodigy that was taking university level classes at age 9. At some point said AI is like slightly-worse-than-decent math graduate.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org · 4 pts · 1d
Live by the slop, die by the slop. Zero sympathies.
Wirlocke@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 43m
From destroying open source to now open science, god dammit.
flandish@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 23h
this has been a thing well before “ai” - search for a domain in arin or internic or others back in the day, pass on it, and tomorrow hrm it’s no longer available.
urthoughtsrbad@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 23h
Smaile@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 1d
You know for a bunch of highly educated people, it's quite dumb of them to not realize this was going to happen.
Endmaker@ani.social · 22 pts · 1d
Except that they did.
Exhibit B: Weapons of Math Destruction (published in 2016)
lambisio@feddit.cl · 1 pts · 13h
Then why did they upload their drafts to Codex?
FTP and Owncloud have existed for a good while.
Smaile@lemmy.ca · -12 pts · 1d
Then why they only complaining now?
Bluegrass_Addict@lemmy.ca · 30 pts · 1d
you're only hearing their voice now..
Smaile@lemmy.ca · -12 pts · 1d
It looks like they ignored their own voice and went along with it anyways.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 1d
Because same field of math research gave us cancer prediction. It was the billionaires that chose which usage to fund.
Also see: Artists still using windows and adobe to draw harry potter fanart, which they post on twitter and instagram.
Endmaker@ani.social · 20 pts · 1d
But... they did complain before
Smaile@lemmy.ca · -14 pts · 1d
And went along with it anyways, your point actually makes them seem dumber then I'd stated. especicly since the impact of this was brought up before.
_stranger_@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 1d
Fun fact, Upton Sinclair published The Jungle over 100 years ago and people are still dying from contaminated food.
Smaile@lemmy.ca · -1 pts · 1d
:(
save_the_humans@leminal.space · 1 pts · 13h
Probably thought they were safe until chatbots started making progress towards the Riemann hypothesis and the openai claim they've resolved navier-stokes. As well as a number of other open questions solved by ai. They all kind of sucked at high level math until recently.
NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io · -3 pts · 1d
That's definitely... an interpretation of things.
For the curious, the problem seems to be that the AI the mathematicians in question were using used their chat logs as training data, and therefore took the same approach they did when confronted with a similar problem.
NaibofTabr@infosec.pub · 29 pts · 1d
Bluntly, the burden of proof is on the purveyors of the mass plagiarism machine to demonstrate that their mass plagiarism machine did not commit plagiarism, which will be difficult because the only thing the mass plagiarism machine is capable of is massive amounts of plagiarism.
NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io · 11 pts · 1d
This isn't meant as a defense of OpenAI, just giving context because OP doesn't. For what it's worth I believe training AI on chat logs should be opt in rather than opt out, so OpenAI is clearly at fault here.
couldhavebeenyou@lemmy.zip · -5 pts · 1d
Mathbro can't take the heat
Awooooooga@lemmy.world · -21 pts · 21h
What a weird read of the situation. The existence of AI does not threaten the artistic process. Whereas this directly threatens the way science works.
OriginalTangle@feddit.org · 13 pts · 20h
The artistic process doesn't exist as a standalone thing. It's how artists work, it exists through them. When AI steals their content and removes their revenue streams it kills the process and the artists stop making art. We're all worse off as a result.
threadcounter@feddit.org · 9 pts · 20h
Artists already get their work flashed as AI just because some models copied and popularized their style.
And people use this tools to copy and even imitate original artist creating huge losses.
lambisio@feddit.cl · 3 pts · 13h
Remind me again how does Facebook feed its machine?