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.

  • blakestacey@awful.systems
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    4 months ago

    That seems suspiciously soon, but my impression is based on nothing but vibes ā€” a sense that companies are still buying in.

    • YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systems
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      4 months ago

      I think there was a report saying that the most recent quarter still showed a massive infusion of VC cash into the space, but Iā€™m not sure how much of that comes from the fact that a new money sink hasnā€™t yet started trending in the valley. It wouldnā€™t surprise me if the griftier founders were looking to cash out before the bubble properly bursts in order to avoid burning bridges with the investors theyā€™ll need to get the next thing rolling.

    • skillissuer
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      4 months ago

      Ed Zitron says itā€™ll burn by end of the year, but he doesnā€™t list sources either so idk

      • David Gerard@awful.systemsOPM
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        4 months ago

        We were asking around AI industry peons in March and they all guessed around three quarters too. I woulda put it at maybe two years myself, but I was surprised at so many people all arriving at around three quarters. OTOH, I would say that just in the past few months things are really obviously heading for a trauma.

        • jonhendry@awful.systems
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          4 months ago

          Perhaps thatā€™s part of why so many SV types are backing Trump. Grifting off Trump may be their fallback after the AI bubble collapses.

        • froztbyte@awful.systems
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          4 months ago

          Iā€™m severely backlogged on catching up to things but my (total and complete) guess would be something like: all the recent headlines about funding and commitments are almost certainly imprecise in localisation and duration - everyone that ā€œgot moneyā€ didnā€™t necessarily get ā€œmoneyā€ but instead commitments to funding, and ā€œeveryoneā€ is a much smaller set of entities that donā€™t encompass a really wide gallery of entities

          So for all the previously-extant promptfondlers/ model dilettantes/etc out there, the writing may indeed have been (and may still be) on the wall ito runway (ā€œstartup operating capital remaining available and viable to avoid deathā€)

          Based on the kind of headlines seen (and presuming the above supposition for the sake of argument), and the kind of utterly milquetoast garbage all the interceding months have produced, I donā€™t think itā€™s likely that much of the promised money will make it through to this layer/lot either. But thatā€™s entirely a guess at this stage (and I can think of some fairly hefty counter-argument examples that may contribute to countering, not least because of how many people/orgs wouldnā€™t want to be losing face to fucking this up)

          • David Gerard@awful.systemsOPM
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            4 months ago

            cryptoā€™s VC investment fell off a cliff after the crash, and that investment is what we were talking about there

            hence their pivot to AI

            • pyrex@awful.systems
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              4 months ago

              Oh, OK. I think all the VC-adjacent people still really believe in crypto, if it helps. They probably also donā€™t believe in it, depending on the room. I think it will come back.

              • David Gerard@awful.systemsOPM
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                4 months ago

                theyā€™ve stopped putting fresh money in, but they believe fervently in the massive bags theyā€™re holding