Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending Sunday 26 May 2024 (awful.systems)

submitted 7 months ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems

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Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid!

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.

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[-] self@awful.systems 24 points 7 months ago

the voice for OpenAI’s Sky got taken offline because they tried to copy Scarlett Johansson’s voice for it (she voiced the AI in Her) after she repeatedly told them no (via this mastodon post which links the original NPR article):

[-] dgerard@awful.systems 13 points 7 months ago

HN incorrecting themselves on celebrity personality rights

now you might think this is an issue of settled case law, but the computer brain boys are confident in their version of how things work

[-] V0ldek@awful.systems 12 points 7 months ago

now you might think this is an issue of settled case law, but the computer brain boys are confident in their version of how things work

Are we talking about blockchain crimes again?

[-] dgerard@awful.systems 10 points 7 months ago

yes, that's right

[-] gerikson@awful.systems 10 points 7 months ago

Man I miss n-gate

[-] dgerard@awful.systems 10 points 7 months ago

we're n-gate but nicer

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[-] fiat_lux@kbin.social 20 points 7 months ago

GNU+Linux user just wonders whether medical technology is bad for humanity's long term survival because hereditary diseases can be survived and spread, but wouldn't want anyone to misunderstand.

It's nice to know we have looped back to the point in history where we casually consider which people should have agency over their reproductive rights. Oh wait, no it's not nice at all, but somehow still totally acceptable and commonplace.

[-] earthquake@lemm.ee 15 points 7 months ago

You should watch the movie Idiocraty.

Grim stuff in that thread.

[-] Soyweiser@awful.systems 11 points 7 months ago

Sorry, im a habitual contrarian about this movie (good for that poster that they commit to not do an idiocracy and use tools that helps people, for example searching for the name of a movie), but reminder that that movie is basically utopian as it takes place 500 years in the future, and the American way of life is still going strong, and the problem of the food crisis is basically solved in a week.

[-] earthquake@lemm.ee 12 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I think that the movie is just a shallow criticism of Bush-era conservativism and 90s "trash TV" (that was already in decline by this time). Interrogating the implications of its scifi premise feels like not meeting the movie where it's at, which is an optimism (alien to me) that the USA is fundamentally sound and only needs a nominally reasonable Joe American to keep the levers of power away from Those Guys.

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[-] gerikson@awful.systems 14 points 7 months ago

Also someone bringing up "population collapse" which is a recent(?) right-wing/techbro trope. Everything about everyone expressing worries about "sub replacement birth rates" screams "we must prevent people with wombs from making their own decisions about whether to have kids".

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[-] maol@awful.systems 10 points 7 months ago

I don't know anything about evolution or genetics, and I'm pretty sure this guy doesn't either. Why would everyone become disabled because more disabled people survive and pass on their genes to their kids? We don't stone gingers to death and yet we are not all having red-headed kids.

The repeated use of the word "weak" (as opposed to "sick" or "disabled") seems revealing.

[-] earthquake@lemm.ee 11 points 7 months ago

I can't say for sure that he thinks of genetics as bloodlines, and is concerned about its purity, but I can have my suspicions.

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[-] gerikson@awful.systems 20 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

A well-respected terminal emulator for the Mac decides to slather on AI sauce, and most users are not happy. But there are others who are outraged that slathering AI sauce onto a product is even seen as a negative. Let's take a break from HN to take a look at the tortured souls on lobste.rs who won't let this aggression stand, man:

https://lobste.rs/s/7aglnr/psa_iterm2_now_has_chatgpt_integration

archive link in case mods decide to nuke it

Personal favs:

This is the sort of hatred and resentment that is uncomfortable to see on a public forum.

Hi, this is the internet, you must be new here.

I’m mostly checked out of here as a result until the mods get it under control.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Edit as a bonus, here's the HN discussion. Same situaton there, the promptfondlers are surprised everyone is mad

[-] sinedpick@awful.systems 15 points 7 months ago

I don’t like AI hype either but I don’t feel the need to use Lobsters to rally groups of people to mass punish projects who add optional AI-friendly features. That is quite disturbing.

ok. I tried writing something sarcastic and sneery but alas, I don't think I can mock this person hard enough to satisfy my ethical obligation.

[-] gerikson@awful.systems 22 points 7 months ago

Smearing the developer as “ai-brained” is hateful.

wake up babe new slur just dropped

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[-] mii@awful.systems 13 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Saw this update yesterday and it pissed me really off. I've been using iTerm for almost 20 years at this point and it's a really good and well-integrated terminal application for Mac OS, and no one asked for it to add spicy autocomplete.

There's a fork already, lol.

Or maybe I'll just move over to Alacritty. I use that one my Linux machines and it's actually good, but the attitude of some of the developers when it comes to feature requests and contributions really makes me like it less than I could.

[-] mawhrin@awful.systems 11 points 7 months ago

tbh the enforced civility and de facto ban on social issue discussion on lobste is not helping. (but after last “polite discussion” i had with the moderator i'm not going to bring it up anymore, just suspend the account or wait to be banned.)

[-] froztbyte@awful.systems 12 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

yeah frankly that sort of shit is why I haven't even tried to get a lobsters account

bullshit should be called out as bullshit at any point in time. dressing it up in niceties is playing the wrong game, and has been abused by the worst people around for years

[-] zogwarg@awful.systems 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Noooooooooooooo! Argh, I'll have to seriously consider using the fork FML.

EDIT: Not strictly required since apparently you have to provide an API key for it to be enabled, still it's not encouraging that the main developer thought this would be a good idea.

You've got to love the prompt jank: https://github.com/gnachman/iTerm2/commit/755dc2ed881d853f495ffaea2498452915e5e8cd?diff=split&w=0

EDIT 2: Given direct access to bad AI code to a dev workstation is bad enough, but given that the console is a primary way to connect to servers, where more havoc could be wrought, this is terrifying, I mean sure devs were already capable of bricking enviromnents, but supercharging "knowing just enough to be dangerous" is NOT a good idea.

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[-] gerikson@awful.systems 16 points 7 months ago

Finally the realization that academia is just an industry producing artifacts (published papers) and not anything as abstract as "science" and "knowledge" gets the tool it deserves

Github - data-to-paper: AI-driven scientific research

I'm sure this will be fine and not cause any issues whatsoever.

[-] sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems 13 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I mentioned this in the last weekly thread, but check out the 5th citation in their example paper (the one that says nothing in particular about type 2 diabetes)

T. Schnurr, Hermina Jakupovi, Germn D. Carrasquilla, L. ngquist, N. Grarup, T. Srensen, A. Tjnneland, K. Overvad, O. Pedersen, T. Hansen, and T. Kilpelinen. Obesity, unfavourable lifestyle and genetic risk of type 2 diabetes: a case-cohort study. Diabetologia, 63:1324–1332, 2020.

I left a HN comment that they got the names wrong for Hermina Jakupović, Germán D Carrasquilla, Lars Ängquist, Thorkild Sørensen, Anne Tjønneland, and Tuomas O Kilpeläinen. They thanked me for my "thorough" review (read: I glanced over it for giggles at like 2 AM).

[-] V0ldek@awful.systems 11 points 7 months ago

All of AI is just this. A boring person's idea of creativity. A manager's idea of programming. A stupid person's idea of science.

[-] jax@awful.systems 16 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

reporter: This AI development is a Big Deal™.

me: y tho?

reporter: Oh, I'm so glad you asked! The AI is IN the computer!

me: y tho?

reporter: To win the race to get AI everywhere the fastest!

me: sorry, y tho?

reporter: Oh my, you sure have a lot of questions! Look, let's not try to make any sense of this. After all, only our tech-daddies have the answers!

me: begins weeping

reporter: Don't cry! At least we're all in this together, right???

While AI being "in" a computer might sound as obvious as blue being "in" the sky, this is actually one of those things that is a Big Deal™. AI models are normally either downloaded or used online, but Microsoft has just announced an "AI computer", meaning the technology is in-built. It's the company's latest play in the overheated race to see which tech giant can get the most AI into the most places, fastest.

What does it mean? Hard to say! In case you haven't worked it out yet, this is all one big live experiment, and we're the rats. Perhaps there's some comfort in knowing we'll all find out together.

edit: oh no, this is the same author I sneered at for quirkwashing e/acc. nothing personal, I just die a little inside every time I read something like this, and a little death is always better shared!

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[-] Soyweiser@awful.systems 15 points 7 months ago

Not a sneer, and as such NSFW, but here is a short hbomberguy style video: I Debunked Evolutionary Psychology, featuring friend of the sneer PrimalPoly, by the talented münecat.

[-] carlitoscohones@awful.systems 15 points 7 months ago

Scam investigator Coffeezilla is working on the Rabbit AI guy, and he's off to a good start. Most of the other press is about the device not working, while this focuses more on the scammy NFT / crypto past of the founder.

YouTube link

[-] self@awful.systems 10 points 7 months ago

the follow-up video is fucking scathing, and I’d like to take a moment to remember all the orange site posters who were fucking wrong when they pretended the rabbit leak was fake

[-] jonhendry@awful.systems 14 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

So who is going to be first to set up a grifty EA think tank where the thinking is admittedly all done by LLMs, and why shouldn't it be us.

[-] BurgersMcSlopshot@awful.systems 13 points 7 months ago

Pull a Rabbit AI and use Playwright to operate an Emacs instance running Eliza. Say that buying more infrastructure will yield better results. Pocket the money that was for supposed infrastructure investment. Profit!

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[-] sinedpick@awful.systems 14 points 7 months ago

The lumina saga continues. https://trevorklee.substack.com/p/luminas-legal-threats-and-my-about

TL;DR: Lumina guy sent Trevor a mean letter and Trevor has reworded some things to protect against libel. He still stands by the original blog post.

The orange site has some fairly milquetoast opinions.

[-] gerikson@awful.systems 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Surprise Aella reference in those HN comments! (well, surprise that one commenter noted "the Bay Area's most overrated escort", and a replier directly inferred it was her)

Now I wonder if there's an app rating Bay Area escorts...

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[-] Soyweiser@awful.systems 10 points 7 months ago

Dude, if the product wasn't safe, I wouldn't be using it myself, giving it to my girlfriend, and giving it to my friends.

Love to give off snakeoil salesman vibes in a weird faux friendly legal threat.

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[-] self@awful.systems 13 points 7 months ago

Kevin Beaumont got access to Copilot+ and hoo boy it’s even stupider than it sounds:

I got ahold of the Copilot+ software.

Recall uses a bunch of services themed CAP - Core AI Platform. Enabled by default.

It spits constant screenshots (the product brands then “snapshots”, but they’re hooked screenshots) into the current user’s AppData as part of image storage.

The NPU processes them and extracts text, into a database file.

The database is SQLite, and you can access it as the user including programmatically. It 100% does not need physical access and can be stolen.

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[-] dgerard@awful.systems 12 points 7 months ago

so cultish that even the LW comments worry it's cultish - don't worry about my feet bleeding

[-] zogwarg@awful.systems 15 points 7 months ago

Meanwhile some of the comments are downright terrifying, also the whole "research" output is overly-detailed yet lacking any substance, and deeply deeply in fantasy land, but all the comments a debating in favour of or against what is perceived as "real work", and in terms of presentation "vibes".

I mean my parents always said that fascist/cultish movements have issues distinguishing signified and signifier, but good grief. (Yes too much Lacan in the household)

[-] sinedpick@awful.systems 11 points 7 months ago

I love the guy who goes in and says "but you really should give this guy money! I know he has produced absolutely no research or work worthy of a second glance but he's my friend and I promise he SOUNDS suuuuper smart! btw I read the Sequences once. funding now??"

I wonder what Peter Thiel would think about using disability benefits. Does he fly Ayn Rand style, where it's okay to benefit from it while actively campaigning against it?

[-] earthquake@lemm.ee 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

None of the commenters seem to think keeping a safe work environment is part of work.

EA overdue to all be wiped out from a disease contracted from a dirty telephone.

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[-] sinedpick@awful.systems 10 points 7 months ago

Back when I used reddit, r/badmathematics would feature weirdos that posted REAMS of shit just like that guy's whiteboard pictures. There, we called them cranks.

[-] Soyweiser@awful.systems 10 points 7 months ago

Please hire me for AI safety, I create active work place hazards around me and therefore small children and animals are not safe around me, but I really work hard (unless it is cleaning up).

Wonder if he is single.

This post also reminds me of the story I heard about a brilliant but weird math professor who had a tendency to touch walls when he walked around in the building. Eventually, in supreme cargo cult behavior, students also started to touch walls in an unconscious hope this would improve their math skills. Anyway this guys hopes and dreams to be hired would be shattered if he ever hears the people hiring him are a fan of Taleb.

Good that the communities first reaction is saying this is a mh red flag. (It is also a workplace red flag)