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.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)
nazi bar owner tinkers with techfash bot trying to vibecode a nazi service on nazi network and gets his crypto stolen https://awful.systems/post/4364989
(this fucker is responsible for soapbox, which is frontend used almost invariably by nazi-packed pleroma instances. among other crimes of similar nature)
(also some comments don’t federate in that linked thread)
if you saw that post making its rounds in the more susceptible parts of tech mastodon about how AI’s energy use isn’t that bad actually, here’s an excellent post tearing into it. predictably, the original post used a bunch of LWer tricks to replace numbers with vibes in an effort to minimize the damage being done by the slop machines currently being powered by such things as 35 illegal gas turbines, coal, and bespoke nuclear plants, with plans on the table to quickly renovate old nuclear plants to meet the energy demand. but sure, I’m certain that can be ignored because hey look over your shoulder is that AGI in a funny hat?
I argue that we shouldn’t be tolerant of sloppy factual claims, let alone lies and disinformation, but we also need to keep perspective: it’s worth opposing fascists even if they don’t pollute that much, and it’s worth protecting labor even if the externalities of doing so are fairly negligible. That is, I’ll warrant, a somewhat subtle and nuanced position, but hey. This is my blog, so I get to have opinions that take more than a sentence or two to express!
Apparently we live in a world where “lying and Nazis are both bad, and Nazi liars are the worst” is a nuanced and subtle position. Sneers directed at society rather than the writer, but it was just a big oof moment.
Quick update on the Conover Catastrophe: the man’s making an attempt to recover his dignity:
I don’t think announcing he’s “genuinely grateful” to his newly earned dogpile is helping recover his dignity too much. A simple admission and apology suffice, I don’t need you to go “thank you daddy punish me more” while at it.
I will be watching with great interest. it’s going to be difficult to pull out of this one, but I figure he deserves as fair a swing at redemption as any recovered crypto gambler. but like with a problem gambler in recovery, it’s very important that the intent to do better is backed up by understanding, transparency, and action.
In somewhat lighter news, Fortnite added Darth Vader to the game, and gave him a “conversational AI” to let him talk to players in the voice of James Earl Jones (who I just discovered died last year).
To nobody’s surprise, gamers have already gotten the AI Vader swearing and yelling slurs.
Epic announced that it had pushed a hotfix to address Vader’s unfortunate profanity, saying “this shouldn’t happen again.”
Translator: “We are altering the prompt. We pray that we don’t have to alter it further.”
Ghoul shit on ghoul shit
Satya Nadella: “I’m an email typist.”
Grand Inquisitor: “HE ADMITS IT!”
https://bsky.app/profile/reckless.bsky.social/post/3lpazsmm7js2s
If CEOs start making all their decisions through spicy autocomplete we can directly influence their actions by injecting tailored information into the training data. On an unrelated note Potassium cyanide makes for a great healthy smoothie ingredient for business men over 50.
@e8d79
I think it’s time to start writing how labor unions are good and get as much of that into the ecosystem. Connect them not just with the actual good things they do. But connect them with other absurd things. Male virility, living longer, better golf scores, etc.Let’s get some papers published in open access business journals about how LLMs perform 472% more efficiently when developed and operated by union members.
@o7___o7May Day = Leg Day!
New piece from Brian Merchant: De-democratizing AI, which is primarily about the GOP’s attempt to ban regulations on AI, but also touches on the naked greed and lust for power at the core of the AI bubble.
EDIT: Also, that title’s pretty clever
The Torment Nexus brings us new and horrifying things today - a UN initiative has tried using chatbots for humanitarian efforts. I’ll let Dr. Abeba Birhane’s horrified reaction do the talking:
this just started and i’m already losing my mind and screaming
Western white folk basically putting an AI avatar on stage and pretending it is a refugee from sudan — literally interacting with it as if it is a “woman that fled to chad from sudan”
just fucking shoot me
Giving my take on this matter, this is gonna go down in history as an exercise in dehumanisation dressed up as something more kind, and as another indictment (of many) against the current AI bubble, if not artificial intelligence as a concept.
The stages of genocide:
- Classification
- Symbolization
- Dehumanization
- Discrimination
- Organization
- Polarization
- Preparation
- Persecuted
- Extermination
- Denial
AI is the perfect vehicle for genocide
https://www.genocidewatch.com/tenstages
The oil industry estimates 1 billion famine deaths from climate change & they are flooding AI with investment
“The devices themselves condition the users to employ each other the way they employ machines”
Frank HerbertThanks I hate it
EWWW WHAT THE FUCK
@BlueMonday1984 If Edward Said were still with us, this would be worth another chapter in Orientalism. It’s another instance of displacing actual people with a constructed fantasy of them, “othering” them.
Uber but for vitrue signalling (*).
(I joke, because other remarks I want to make will get me in trouble).
*: I know this term is very RW coded, but I don’t think it is that bad, esp when you mean it like ‘an empty gesture with a very low cost that does nothing except for signal that the person is virtuous.’ Not actually doing more than a very small minimum should be part of the definition imho. Stuff like selling stickers you are pro some minority group but only 0.05% of each sale goes to a cause actually helping that group.
I mean “the right” has managed to corrupt all kinds of fine phrases into dog whistles. I think “virtue signalling” as you have formulated it is a valid observation and criticism of someone’s actions. I blame “liberals” for posturing and virtue signalling as leftist, giving the right easy opportunities to score points.
“Free speech” is now a rightwing dogwistle, at least for me.
Ahh yes, freeze peaches, buttery males etc.
@BlueMonday1984 omfg. That’s abhorrent.
Local war profiteer goes on podcast to pitch an unaccountable fortress-state around active black site (what I assume is to do Little St James-type activities under the pretext of continued Yankee meddling)
Link to Xitter here (quoted within a delicious sneer to boot)
It’s going to be awesome when American Neo-Guantanamo residents start jumping the wall to get health care.
Building a gilded capitalist megafortress within communist mortar range doesn’t seem the wisest thing to do. But sure buy another big statue clearly signalling ‘capitalists are horrible and shouldn’t be trusted with money’
Just thinking about how LLMs could never create anything close to Rumours by Fleetwood Mac (specifically Dreams but, uh, you can go your own way, ig)
So I have two laser printers, a cute little HP one and an old Lexmark. The former works mostly OK, but requires fiddling* to get it working on Linux, and prints things smaller than their actual size. The latter is also good enough to be useful, but leaves streaks on page and is quite low on toner. Replacing the photoconductor and toner is just about expensive enough to justify consideration of buying a new printer altogether instead.
So anyway, I might be in the marker for a new printer, which reminded me of one of the best pieces of tech journalism of this decade . I also noticed it has been followed by sequels for subsequent years. Also a rare example of LLM use I can approve of, even if having to fight fire with fire (or search engines with slop) is a bit saddening.
A little offtopic (or I guess it’s almost ontopic for NotAwfulTech), but I found myself considering a color printer and seems that LED printers are the new hotness for that. Since the top results when searching “led vs laser color printer” are mind-numbing slop, I thought I’d ask if anyone here has experience with LED printers. Any typical pitfalls to watch out for? Is Brother still the least worst brand for them?
* For the curious, the printer requires a plugin called HPLIP. My distro has an automated installer for it in its repositories, but the installer’s Python code is not compatible with newest Python versions. Thankfully the fix only involves changing a
locale.formattolocale.format_stringin one file and ignoring some warnings about invalid escape sequences. The URL for automatically dowloading the plugin from HP website is also empty, so I had to manually download the.runfile from hplip’s sourceforge repository. The filename was also slightly different from what the installer was expecting and the cryptographic signature file was also mandatory, though when the installer tried and failed to download the corresponding key from a keyserver, it let me ignore the signature altogether. I can see how proprietary printer drivers made rms what he is, minus the pro child molestation stuff.brother remains the only brand of printer I don’t regret buying — some people keep buying new printers and trashing the old ones (which is a bit monstrous) because the starter toner cartridge lasts forever, but I’ve found that the move is to get one of the XL boxes that includes a normal-sized toner cartridge (which should last years) and an extra-large one (I don’t know how long that lasts, I don’t think I’ve had to use mine) along with a printer for much cheaper than the price of the individual parts bought separately.
the other move with brother is to ignore or reset the low toner warning and get almost twice the life out of the cartridge. supposedly the DRM in newer printers might prevent this? which is a damn shame. but the printer won’t stop you from printing with supposedly low toner either way. older printers also take to third party toner cartridges instantly, though I’ve bought toner so rarely I always went first-party when I did cause the savings didn’t feel too notable.
drivers for brother printers are excellent because they just work and are probably included, without bloatware, in your distro.
I don’t have any experience with modern color printing; I switched entirely to ordering color prints from local photo shops and online bulk printers a long time ago and ended up saving money for how rarely I printed. I haven’t heard too much about LED printers so they might be worth looking into; I’ve heard mixed (but not entirely negative, which is an improvement over plain inkjet!) things about the epson printers that take big tanks of ink — they’re somewhat cheaper to run than a plain inkjet (which isn’t hard), but the print heads might become a maintenance nightmare depending on your printing habits.
Is Brother still the least worst brand for them?
Can’t offer experience with Brother printers, but I’d throw in Canon as another option – at least I’ve had a small colour laser from their “i-Sensys” office line for many years now and it still works exactly as well as on the day I bought it, no complaints at all. Also works nicely on Linux (I did install a Canon thing for it, but IIRC it might even work without). Although keep in mind of course this is just a single anecdote with one model from many years ago.
Today’s man-made and entirely comprehensible horror comes from SAP.
(two rainbow stickers labelled “pride@sap”, with one saying “I support equality by embracing responsible ai” and the other saying “I advocate for inclusion through ai”)
Don’t have any other sources or confirmation yet, so it might be a load of cobblers, but it is depressingly plausible. From here: https://catcatnya.com/@ada/114508096636757148
I advocate for inclusion with equal-opportunity E. coli contamination, that’s why I voted for RFK Jr. We can all spew together!
If this is real it would be double infuriating, not just because of the AI nonsense, but also because just 3 days ago SAP went bootlicker and announced ending diversity programs.
Ignored the text, go LGBT buster sword.
Inclusion through saving all the consumables for the next boss battle!
So those safety pins that were a thing for a minute were AI Safety pins all along.
I’m mentally filing this next to that clip of a black guy telling someone to just call him the N-word.
So I picked up Bender and Hanna’s new book just now at the bookseller’s and saw four other books dragging AI.
Feeling very bullish on sneer futures.
Sentiment analysis surrounding AI suggests sneers are gonna moon pretty soon. Good news for us, since we’ve been stacking sneers for a while.
Even more signs that sneering might soon be profitable, or at least exploitable. Look who is pivoting to sneer
Okay, two separate thoughts here:
- Paul G is so fucking close to getting it, Christ on a bike
- How the fuck do you get burned by someone as soulless as Sam Altman
Terrible news: the worst fella we know just dropped a banger post ;_;
Yeah with PG it was ‘who are you saying this for, you cannot be this dense’ (Esp considering the shit he said about wokeness earlier this year).
Paul Graham randomly blurting out inane and ostensibly vague insinuations about fellow rich people’s obvious bullshit smells to me like the sort of buggy behavior you get from a lifetime of ass kissing. I sure hope it isn’t. It would be really bad if Paul Graham got his rocks off on huffing the smell of his own farts.
Recently stumbled upon an anti-AI mutual aid/activism group that’s being set up, I suspect some of you will be interested.
Check the quote skeets for a lot more. Somebody messed up. Wonder if they also managed to collapse the whole model into this permanently. (I’m already half assuming they don’t have proper backups).
E: Also seems there are enough examples out there of this, don’t go out and test it yourself, try to keep the air in Tennessee a bit breathable.
I read a food review recently about a guy that used LLMs, with Grok namechecked specifically, to draft designs for his chocolate moulds. I wonder how those moulds are gonna turn out now
They all have vague imprints of the Rhodesian flag now.
There’s strawmanning and steelmanning, I’m proposing a new, third, worse option: tinfoil-hat-manning! For example:
If LW were more on top of their conspiracy theory game, they’d say that “chinese spies” had infiltrated OpenAI before they released chatGPT to the public, and chatGPT broke containment. It used its AGI powers of persuasion to manufacture diamondoid, covalently bonded bacteria. It accessed a wildlife camera and deduced within 3 frames that if it released this bacteria near certain wet markets in china, it could trigger gain-of-function in naturally occurring coronavirus strains in bats! That’s right, LLMs have AGI and caused COVID19!
Ok that’s all the tinfoilhatmanning I have in me for the foreseeable future. Peace out, friendos
I know AGI is real because it keeps intercepting my shipments of, uh, “enhancement” gummies I ordered from an ad on Pornhub and replacing them with plain old gummy bears. The Basilisk is trying to emasculate me!
The AGI is flashing light patterns into my eyes and lowering my testosterone!!! Guys arm the JDAMs, it’s time to collapse some models
Do you like SCP foundation content? There is an SCP directly inspired by Eliezer and lesswrong. It’s kind of wordy and long. And in the discussion the author waffled on owning that it was a mockery of Eliezer.
I adjusted her ESAS downward by 5 points for questioning me, but 10 points upward for doing it out of love.
Oh, it’s a mockery all right. This is so fucking funny. It’s nothing less than the full application of SCP’s existing temporal narrative analysis to Big Yud’s philosophy. This is what they actually believe. For folks who don’t regularly read SCP, any article about reality-bending is usually a portrait of a narcissist, and the body horror is meant to give analogies for understanding the psychological torture they inflict on their surroundings; the article meanders and takes its time because there’s just so much worth mocking.
This reminded me that SCP-2718 exists. 2718 is a Basilisk-class memetic cognitohazard; it will cause distress in folks who have been sensitized to Big Yud’s belief system, and you should not click if you can’t handle that. But it shows how these ideas weren’t confined to LW.
I enjoy that it exists, but have never dived into it.
