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 youā€™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 cutā€™nā€™paste it into its own post ā€” thereā€™s no quota for posting and the bar really isnā€™t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many ā€œesotericā€ right wing freaks, but thereā€™s no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iā€™m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged ā€œculture criticsā€ who write about everything but understand nothing. Iā€™m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyā€™re inescapable at this point, yet I donā€™t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnā€™t be surgeons because they didnā€™t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canā€™t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting thisā€¦)

  • BlueMonday1984@awful.systemsOP
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    9 hours ago

    New piece from Tante: These are not the same, arguing that the infrastrucure left after AI bubbleā€™s burst will leave infrastructure which will be actively damaging to a democratic society.

    Its not the first piece Iā€™ve seen about the bubbleā€™s potential aftermath (that goes to MAIHT3K), but it does give another perspective on it.

    • jaschop@awful.systems
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      4 hours ago

      I can see tanteā€™s point. Besides AI datacenters being used for surveillance tech, I can also see LLM tech itself used nefariously post-bubble. Maybe maintaining an up-to-date LLM as a product is not viable, but a custom-trained model to snipe public online discourse around a crucial election could remain affordable for a wealthy fascist.

      On the bright side, I am hoping for a brief period of powerful yet affordable gaming PCs thanks to retrofitted, slightly singed Blackwells.

    • fullsquare@awful.systems
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      8 hours ago

      I mean, what has crypto left over? All of that is only useful for sanctions busting and money laundering

  • gerikson@awful.systems
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    16 hours ago

    LessWronger puts in the work and determines that LLMs canā€™t spacially vizualize for shit, comments are like ā€œwell youā€™re prompting it wrongā€ (paraphrased) as well as ā€œwhy not pay experiences machinists to videotape what theyā€™re doing os their work can be automatedā€

    https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/r3NeiHAEWyToers4F/frontier-ai-models-still-fail-at-basic-physical-tasks-a#comments

    The article itself is worth reading for some insights in the challenges of using current ā€œAIā€ (LLMs) to work in the real world.

    • fullsquare@awful.systems
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      16 hours ago

      ā€œwhy not pay experiences machinists to videotape what theyā€™re doing os their work can be automatedā€

      none of these people had a job in manufacturing, or even possibly any real job, itā€™s called CNC and there are way better tools for making it work than stochastic parrot

      e: ok at least op is a machinist

      Interestingly, many of these models also score at or above the level of some human experts on visual reasoning benchmarks like MMMU. That which is easy to measure often doesnā€™t correlate with real world usefulness.

      benchmarks could be perhaps possibly fucked with? say it aint so!

      My high level impression when reading the response is ā€œsomeone who can parrot textbook knowledge but doesnā€™t know what theyā€™re talking aboutā€.

      with corpus consisting of toy problems only, and with solutions that depending on field can kill whoever uses these

      • gerikson@awful.systems
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        10 hours ago

        The fact this commenter doesnā€™t mention the absolute fuckton of machining videos on Youtube tells me theyā€™re just talking out of their ass.

        (not that forcing those into LLM slop would help but a hypothetical AGI would learn a lot)

        Also

        Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, recently worried about a world where only 30% of jobs become automated, leading to class tensions between the automated and non-automated. Instead, he predicts that nearly all jobs will be automated simultaneously, putting everyone ā€œin the same boat.ā€

        Dario is delusional. We donā€™t even have self driving cars outside of a very small, very expensive demo in SF

    • mountainriver@awful.systems
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      1 hour ago

      It really looks like itā€™s on an awful trajectory.

      In my teens I read about how Leo Szilard took a train out of Germany the day after the Nazis took power. Passed the border before border checks had time to come into force. Seemed obvious then, now I am all to aware of the problems of such a ā€œsimpleā€ plan and the ties that binds you, not least family. And of course not knowing in advance how bad it will be, until after. And not knowing if you jump from the ashes and land in the fire, lots of countries are on the same trajectory but further back. Fascism is yet again the choice, the owners choice in the face of climate change.

      Iā€™m rambling and itā€™s late. Sympathies and solidarity.

    • Soyweiser@awful.systems
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      12 hours ago

      Yeah, it is fucking scary. My sympathies and solidarity. Small thing, perhaps a good reminder for everybody to check their opsec (esp if you are an administrator of things, check which data you do not need, or should not fall into the current (or future) us/other fascist administrations hands. And remember while spying on Americans by the various orgs is illegal, trading for information on them with other countries is not. Donā€™t forget backups). It is horrible that it has come to this. One small point of light is that they are fools and canā€™t shut up or be subtle. At least that has a chance to motivate more people to do something, which if it gets to the worst (and it is getting close) more people will actually resist (sadly a lot of people will have to realize that the point becomes not to win, but to impose costs/friction, and any wins are a bonus, which is a horrible realization in itself). Really hope this doesnā€™t make things worse mentally btw.

    • swlabr@awful.systems
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      16 hours ago

      I can only offer my solidarity and sympathies. If I were still living in the US, Iā€™d probably have started taking firearms training and bought some by now.

    • Sailor Sega Saturn@awful.systems
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      18 hours ago

      I hear you! If like me you have ever worried that you are overreacting; know that you are not. I have no idea how so many of my coworkers can just treat this all as politics as usual.

      My heart breaks for the civilians rounded up and treated as terrorists without due process.

      Being transgender I am acutely aware of how close I am to the top of the US autocracyā€™s public enemy list. This is self serving but since January Iā€™ve been working on getting while the getting is good (plus, I hate that my taxes go to the current federal government).

      Me and my three siblings (a librarian, a researcher, and a med student) are all worried for our futures for different reasons; which is statistically just kind of impressive!

  • maol@awful.systems
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    3 hours ago

    Noted sex pest Andrew Cuomo wants to run for Mayor in New York, and he might actually have a chance given the incumbent Democratic candidate is corruption magnet Eric Adams. Housing is a big issue in New York, so whatā€™s Cuomoā€™s plan? Well, his plan is to use chat gpt to write his plan.

    Angry New York Democrats were using the slogan DREAM meaning Donā€™t Rank Eric Adams for Mayor. It was then amended to Donā€™t Rank Eric or Andrew for Mayor, and amended again to Donā€™t Rank Evil Andrew for Mayor.

  • Architeuthis@awful.systems
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    2 days ago

    Today in relevant skeets:

    transcript

    Skeet: If you can clock who this is meant to be instantly you are on the computer the perfect amount. Youā€™re doing fine donā€™t even worry about it.

    Quoted skeet: ā€˜Why are high fertility people always so weird?ā€™ A weekend with the pronatalists

    Image: Egghead Jr. and Miss Prissy from Looney Tunes Foghorn Leghorn shorts.

    • aninjury2all@awful.systems
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      1 day ago

      Word of advice to the press: Stop šŸ‘ giving šŸ‘ natalists šŸ‘ free šŸ‘ platforms šŸ‘

      • Soyweiser@awful.systems
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        1 day ago

        Every 3 months! Every 3 months fucking hell. (I know because last time they came in the news I opened a tab with them in it, and their faces was the last I saw before my monitor exploded, like literally suddenly I sat in darkness.

        • maol@awful.systems
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          1 day ago

          All Iā€™ve learned from the most recent round of publicity is that herself has a new hat. It looks stupid

          • Soyweiser@awful.systems
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            1 day ago

            A new hat let me check almost clicks wait a minute, I canā€™t afford a new monitor, you are trying to trick me!

            • maol@awful.systems
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              24 hours ago

              Just close your eyes and imagine a mediaeval yokel who has accused her sisterā€™s girlfriend of being a witch so she can take over her turnip patch. No need for a new monitor

  • smiletolerantly@awful.systems
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    2 days ago

    I got a spam message with a phishing linkā€¦ Via Github? Seriously? Are we really doing this?

    Not a completely unusual commentā€¦ From the URL it was very obvious that this was a phishing link though. Curiosity got the better of me. The site shows you a ā€œcloudflareā€ captcha. OK, letā€™s click the checkbox. The usual loading animation starts, then this is shown:

    Yeah ok, rightā€¦

    Iā€™m actually a bit impressed with this, these captchas are so common, I didnā€™t even really think about checking the box. But of course, that interaction means the browser will allow the site to add something to your clipboard.

    But likeā€¦ Why distribute it via Github? I cannot think of a worse audience to try and con into ā€œpaste something random into your windows consoleā€. Am I just being naive here? Is this something common I somehow never experienced before?

    • Soyweiser@awful.systems
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      2 days ago

      Yeah that copy paste commands that give control over your pc shit is pretty nasty. Also over a year old at least. So it isnt specifically an attack at vibe coders. Not sure what the initial targets were but these usually try to target people not that knowledgeable in computer matters so lol that this now includes vibe coders.

      • smiletolerantly@awful.systems
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        2 days ago

        Ah, I had been wondering if this is new, or I had just never noticed it. So itā€™s the latter, good to know.

        Itā€™s kind of genius as wellā€¦ A single comment will get the attention of potentially dozens of people, sent to a valid email address without having to guess/buy lists, and thereā€™s an air of ā€œtrustā€ around the (completely legit) mail you then get from github, containing the link.

        • Soyweiser@awful.systems
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          2 days ago

          I donā€™t know how new it is, but it first dropped on my radar about a year ago due to listening to the Risky Business cybersecurity podcast, not to be confused with the recent (and baffingly named (*)) podcast called ā€˜Risky Business with Nate Silver and Maria Konnikovaā€™ (**) by dweeb Nate Silver. So I donā€™t know how long it was going on the wild, and im talking about the windows button + r attack method and not the github comments, no idea how long they used comments as a vector. And yes that part is also good, like the addition of trust of github + quite an effective attack is clever. Shouldnā€™t work on Real Nerds however.

          *: The name means that at least one of they didnā€™t [know|care|google] about the decades old cybersecurity podcast before naming their podcast that is true. Any of those is odd.

          **: addition to above, the tagline of the podcast is ā€˜a weekly podcast about making better decisionsā€™ Look inwards Nate, look inwards.

    • scruiser@awful.systems
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      1 day ago

      These people need to sit through a college level class on linguistics or something like that. This is a demonstration of why STEM majors need general higher education.

    • YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems
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      2 days ago

      Orange site really is out here reinventing hard behaviorism.

      ā€œWe canā€™t directly observe internal states beyond our own subjectivityā€ -> Letā€™s try to ignore them and see what we get" -> ā€œWeā€™ve developed a model that doesnā€™t feature internal states as a meaningful element of cognitionā€ -> ā€œthere are no internal statesā€ -> ā€œI know Iā€™m a stochastic parrot but what are you?ā€

  • scruiser@awful.systems
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    2 days ago

    Serious question: what are peopleā€™s specific predictions for the coming VC bubble popping/crash/AI winter? (Iā€™ve seen that prediction here before, and overall I agree, but Iā€™m not sure about specificsā€¦)

    For exampleā€¦ Iā€™ve seen speculation that giving up on the massive training runs could free up compute and cause costs to drop which the more streamlined and pragmatic GenAI companies could use to pivot to providing their ā€œservicesā€ at sustainable rates (and the price of GPUs would drop to the relief of gamers everywhere). Alternatively, maybe the bubble bursting screws up the GPU producers and cloud service providers as well and the costs on compute and GPUs donā€™t actually drop that much if any?

    Maybe the bubble bursting makes management stop pushing stuff like vibe codingā€¦ but maybe enough programmers have gotten into the habit of using LLMs for boilerplate that it doesnā€™t go away, and LLM tools and plugins persist to make code shittery.

    • BlueMonday1984@awful.systemsOP
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      2 days ago

      Iā€™ve repeated this prediction a bajillion times, but I suspect this bubbleā€™s discredited the idea of artificial intelligence, and expect it to quickly die once this bubble bursts.

      Between the terabytes upon terabytes of digital mediocrity the slop-namiā€™s given us, LLMsā€™ countless and relentless failures in logic and reason, the large-scale enshittification of daily life their mere existence has enabled, and their power consumption singlehandedly accelerating the climate crisis, I feel that the publicā€™s come to view computers as inherently incapable of humanlike cognition/creativity, no matter how many gigawatts they consume or oceans they boil.

      Expanding on this somewhat, I suspect AI as a concept will likely also come to be seen as an inherently fascist concept.

      With the current bubbleā€™s link to esoteric fascism, the far-rightā€™s open adoration of slop, basically everything about OpenAIā€™s Studio Ghibli slopgen, and God-knows-what-else, the publicā€™s got plenty of reason to treat use or support of AI as a severe indictment of someoneā€™s character in and of itself - a ā€œtech asshole signifierā€, to quote Baldur Bjarnason.

      And, of course, AI as a concept will probably come to be viewed as inherently anti-art/anti-artist as well - considering how badly the AI bubbleā€™s shafted artists, and artists specifically, that kinda goes without saying.

      • scruiser@awful.systems
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        2 days ago

        I think you are much more optimistic than me about the general publicā€™s ability to intellectually understand fascism or think about copyright or give artists their appropriate credit. To most people that know about image gen, itā€™s a fun toy: throw in some words and rapidly get pictures. The most I hope for is that AI image generation becomes unacceptable to use in professional or serious settings and it is relegated to a similar status as clip art.

    • YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems
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      2 days ago

      I think weā€™re going to see an ongoing level of AI-enabled crapification for coding and especially for spam. Iā€™m guessing thereā€™s going to be enough money from the spam markets to support a level of continued development to keep up to date with new languages and whatever paradigms are in vogue, so vibe coding is probably going to stick around on some level, but I doubt weā€™re going to see major pushes.

      One thing that this has shown is how much of internet content ā€œcreationā€ and ā€œcommunicationā€ is done entirely for its own sake or to satisfy some kind of algorithm or metric. If nobody cares whether it actually gets read then it makes economic sense to automate the writing as much as possible, and apparently LLMs represent a ā€œgood enoughā€ ability to do that for plausible deniability and staving off existential dread in the email mines.

      • scruiser@awful.systems
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        2 days ago

        Yeah I also worry the slop and spam is here to stay, itā€™s easy enough to make, of as passable quality for the garbage uses people want from it, and if GPUs/compute go down in price, affordable enough for the spammers and account boosters and karma farmers and such to keep using it.