Here is what I wrote in the instructions for the term-paper project that I will be assigning my quantum-physics students this coming semester:

I can’t very well stop you from using a text-barfing tool. I can, however, point out that the “AI” industry is a disaster for the environment, which is the place that we all have to live in; and that it depends upon datasets made by exploiting and indeed psychologically torturing workers. The point of this project is for you to learn a physics topic and how to write physics, not for you to abase yourself before a blurry average of all the things the Internet says about quantum physics — which, spoiler alert, includes a lot of wrong things. If you are going to spend your time at university not learning physics, there are better ways to do that than making yourself dependent upon a product that is a tech bubble waiting to pop.

So, the Wikipedia article about "prompt engineering" is pretty terrible. First source: OpenAI. Second: a blog. Third: OpenAI. Fourth: OpenAI's blog. ArXiv, arXiv, arXiv... 43 times. Hop on over to the Talk page, and we find this gem:

It is sometimes necessary to make assumptions to write an article (see WP:MNA).

Spoiler alert: that link doesn't justify anything. It basically advises against going off on tangents: There's no need to rehash the fact that evolution is a fact on every damn biology page. It does not say that Wikipedia should have an article on some creationist fantasy, like baraminology or flood geology, based entirely on creationist screeds that all cite each other.

One thing that may not be visible from outside the profession is that there are a lot of steps in between air-hockey tables and the research frontier, especially for the part of the frontier that gets the most press — black holes, Large Hadron Collider stuff, quantum computing, etc. Wanting to understand any of those things at a level better than (bong rip) man, like, quantum mechanics, dude, requires systematic study. Doing that entirely on one's own might not be impossible, but it's damn hard.

"Quinn entered the dark and cold forest. Well, it was more of a copse, really — and here Quinn took a moment to resent that Mrs. Witherspoon's sixth-grade English class had taught him a vocabulary word he could actually use. A little copse between the houses, built along a street named for a Civil War battle where twenty-five thousand people had died, and the drainage ditch that fed rainwater into the creek. But as forests go, it would have to do. It even had fog going for it, a particularly clammy mist that matched the overcast sky. The mud was frozen beneath his sneakers. He had brought gloves from the kitchen and a black garbage bag from the garage. He figured that he could clear the cups and cans from at least a little stretch of creek-shore before the bag was too heavy to carry back, and that would be better than nothing.

"At the house, he knew, his parents were still fighting.

"At least, he thought, they made it to the day after Christmas."

The escape goat is the goat that is released by pressing the ESC key. It solves the problem of a frozen computer by eating the computer.

Here's a link that bypasses the URL shortener.

Also: ew.

Perilous Waif follows the story of its narrator Alice Long, a cybernetically enhanced orphan with a variety of superhuman powers in the 25th century. One of these enhancements causes Alice’s body to grow very fast, giving her the body of a thirteen year old at just age six.

nopetopus

Funniest fuckin' sentence I have read today:

First off, if you've read The Singularity Is Near, which was published 19 years ago in 2005, you should be aware that the sequel book is a lot less technical.

If natively fluent speakers of the English language use beg the question in the "wrong" way time and time again, finding the "incorrect" meaning a natural fit with their understanding of the verb to beg, then the "incorrect" meaning may well be the one we should roll with.

Kludging an "objective reduction" process into the dynamics is throwing out quantum mechanics and replacing it with something else. And because Orch-OR is not quantum mechanics, every observation that a quantum effect might be biologically important somewhere is irrelevant. Orch-OR isn't "quantum biology", it's pixie-dust biology.

Graham takes the nebulous concept of "best" and, at great length and with great effort, fails to bring clarity.

Makery: The bakery ... for straight men! Now with scones in monster truck and shark testosterone flavors! GRAAARRR

These guys use "entropy" the way that people trying to sell you healing crystals use "quantum".