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 youāll 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 cutānāpaste it into its own post ā thereās no quota for posting and the bar really isnāt that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned soo many āesotericā right wing freaks, but thereās no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iām talking redscare-ish, reality challenged āculture criticsā who write about everything but understand nothing. Iām talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyāre inescapable at this point, yet I donāt see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnāt be surgeons because they didnāt believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canāt escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Semi-obligatory thanks to @dgerard for starting this - gonna try posting last weekās thread a different way this time)
Hi, Iām new here. I mean, Iāve been reading but I havenāt commented before.
Iām sure you all know about how cheap labour is used for labelling data for training āAIā systems, but I just came across this video and wanted to share. Apologies if it has already been posted: Training AI takes heavy toll on Kenyans working for $2 an hour.
Welcome! The situation these people find themselves in is dire, since theyāre both literally and emotionally as far as possible from the people making decisions about their labor. The modern economy doesnāt function without exploitation, and generative AI is the latest innovation in expanding that exploitation and pushing it farther away from the people who benefit and who make the decisions that require it. It does to modern knowledge workers what automation and outsourcing did to manufacturing, and the distance is sufficient that I donāt expect to see even the kind of lukewarm pushback that sweatshops got in the 90s actually manifest for them.
In the aftermath of an LGBT hate incident, the then-CEO of cloud computing giant Digital Ocean told upset staff his mentor was a member of the KKK as an attempt to explain why they must bend their values because āwe love the companyā
presented without comment
It somehow gets worse. These people think values are interchangeable with value.
Asking employees to ābendā their perfectly sensible values like āI donāt like homophobesā or āmembers of the KKK suckā is insane to me, but exactly the sort of thing a tech CEO would think would resonate with his workers.
I stay at my job not because I have molded my soul into a perfect vessel for my companies values (which, TBH, kind of suck), but because I have a mortgage payment.
(Also as the header graphic points out, ālove is at our coreā and āinclusive environmentā are apparently some of their values so maybe itās Digital Ocean which needs to bend to Digital Oceanās values).
At least thereās a happy ending:
A month after the all-hands meeting, in August 2023, DigitalOcean announced that it was conducting a search for a new CEO, but did not say why.
My hands are requesting the CEOās home address (in
Minecraftreal life):
Quick bonus I found in the replies:
And a quick sidenote from me:
This is sorta repeating a previous prediction of mine, but I expect this AI bubbleās gonna utterly tank the public image of tech as a whole. When you develop a tech whose primary use case boils down to āmake the world worse so the line can go upā, its gonna be virtually impossible for the public to forgive you.
Being more specific, I expect artists/musicians/creatives in general to be utterly hostile to AI, if not tech as a whole - AI has made their lives significantly harder in a variety of ways, and all signs pointing to the tech industry having done so willingly.
in real life
Careful not to post things that could get you into trouble with a judge without a sense of humor, or just cops/secret service. Wouldnāt be the first time I hear of a home visit because the cops got confused at a joke.
Esp if it turns out the conspiracy theory about the murder being crypto related and they confuse this place for being a pro cryptocurrency place.
E: on topic just not LLMs and artists but also the idea that Musk got Trump elected will cause a backlash. (Which I find dubious, more despite the man, they made the election be about a gay onlyfans support squirrel ffs)
5-10 years ago Iād say OPās comment is definitely protected under the First Amendment (assuming US based) but now who the fuck knows what those turdwagons on the bench will come up with to dismantle it.
Sure, but that step comes after the cops lift you out of your bed. And you get a good lawyer etc etc. Nobody was charged after the home visit but it still was a home visit, granted that was in .nl so less risk of being shot or getting your stuff stolen. And that is assuming the law still works.
Time for another round of Rothschild nutsoās to come around now that ChatGPT canāt say one of their names.
At first I was thinking, you know, if this was because of the GDPRās right to be forgotten laws or something that might be a nice precedent. I would love to see a bunch of people hit AI companies with GDPR complaints and have them actually do something instead of denying their consent-violator-at-scale machine has any PII in it.
But honestly itās probably just because he has money
I think Sam Altmanās sister accused him of doing this to her name awhile ago too (semi-recent example). I donāt think she was on a ādonāt generate these words everā blacklist, but it seemed like she was erased from the training data and would only come up after a web search.
Being erased from the training data is frankly even more galling than the kind of brute force GDPR compliance they seem to have been using. It puts the lie to any claim that theyāre just āmoving fast and breaking thingsā without mind to the consequences, because clearly there was some reason to prune the training data and make sure that the model didnāt have certain information when it was to the companyās (or the founderās) liking.
An update, a user stated, āwith all love and respectā: āpeople will not starting hating Brave but they will start to hate the mod who blocked Braveā.
2 hours later theyād removed their account.
Iām not super familiar with Lobsters but I love how they represent bans: https://lobste.rs/~SuddenBraveblock
- Joined: 5 years ago
- ā§ā* š"āāLeftāā"š¦ā§ļ½„ļ¾: 3 hours ago
@hrrrngh @gerikson Pretty sure thatās that person deleting their account and not a ban, bans look a bit different (e.g. https://lobste.rs//~AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA)
Yes, the person briefly changed their username and then left the site (disowning their comments). There are 2 people with āinactive-userā comments in the thread that simply flounced off to greener pastures.
really into this whole far right coup and far right right hegemony thing a lot of countries are trying out rn. really cool
As resources get scarcer the lurch back to fascism is going to get worse. People always turn to the simple (but categorically wrong) answers when times get hard, and blaming people who come from other places has historically been a winner for simple and wrong answers. Refugees are a symptom but theyāll be targeted as the cause because their numbers will swell with increasing ānaturalā disaster frequency and severity.
And I have no idea what I can do about it that wouldnāt amount to pissing in the wind.
Sometimes I wonder what future generations will think looking back on the content of todayās internet and humanityās total inability to demonstrate the humane.
Looks like SK gave the bastards a hard nope, at least.
this was the most half-assed coup in recent memory, hands down
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hey army do a coup for me
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parliament said no
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ok
no fanatical loyalists in army, no militia or PMC, zero planning at all, even Prigozhin got that sorted out. very similar thing happened just two years ago in Peru, and this year in Bolivia. and same thing will happen this time, impeachment is already written as we speak. army also exactly knew what was going on and didnāt participate for a reason
by the way, south korean presidents donāt have a habit of leaving office peacefully, so it all tracks. itās either impeachment or coup or long prison term just after leaving office
Wonder if he did the rightwing thing and just went āthe silent majority agrees with my statementsā(*) and just assumed the militaries would be all part of the incel crew and fall in line behind him.
*: On that note there was some cringe thanksgiving video of one of those weird Trump aligned culture war freaks (the daily wire perhaps?) where the freak strides into the thanksgiving event and starts slapping everybody around as some sort of victorious conquerer (at least that is what I imagined was the intended feeling. Not the deranged crazy weirdo vibe it gave off). And this video had a scene which baffled some people, there was a normal guy who was given a big cigar or something and some people were confused why that was a thing. I think that was the imagined āānormalā silent majority guys all secretly agree with me but they are ashamed to actā thing.
I really donāt know what was he thinking, looks like army did the bare legal minimum so that they wonāt be prosecuted for refusing orders. Thereās a couple of things that can be done with minimal number of loyalists that would make coup easier that werenāt done, like cutting power to parliament. This makes me guess that military didnāt want a part in this at all
Iāve seen a take that this was an attempt to get entrenched in power before trump admin begins, as in for foreign relations purposes, but like, itās pretty clear that a couple of people from his family and trusted party people were under investigation so him trying to not allow that sounds more likely. Now that wonāt work because as far as i understand by the end of the week there will be impeachment vote
Iāve seen people in the gun nuttier circles saying that the weapons the army had were configured for training rounds, sort of like airsoft rather than live ammo. It sounds like they were thoroughly uninterested in going along with this and were trying to avoid adding a mutiny to the situation? And yes, SK apparently has an explicit law that allows the legislation to overrule a declaration of martial law, which is the kind of law you donāt get unless youāve had several occasions to think about it.
i havenāt seen it but iāve seen it mentioned too. these are training rifles that use ammunition incompatible with normal 5.56 (simunition), they also had no ammo in sidearms and someone spotted blue (training) magazine. This is not something you can do on accident, they must have been specifically ordered so
Such law makes sense considering SK recent-ish history
from what i understand there was only one small unit slightly loyal to president, that one that was sent (+ MP, + regular police), and even they called quits pretty much immediately (and lost NVG, thatās a beating). looks like they did bare minimum so that they canāt be prosecuted and left just after the vote. defense minister was already dismissed so in retrospect they could slack even harder. 707th (that unit) blocked representatives but police let them in
Didnāt they at least try to block parliament with buses or something? (A thing easily circumvented with the parliamentarians going āwhereever enough of us gather is parliament, the building has no magical qualitiesā
idk what exactly they did but they did get inside anyway
Well humans are a liquid, we get into everything.
The entrances were blocked so the members of parliament climbed the fence.
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also, tech billionaires terrified of a peasant uprising can turn their homes into fucking military bases with a home security system named (of course) Sauron
LOTR fans stay losing
Fuckers like Thiel make me want to start stuffing guys who take too much interest in speculative fiction into lockers again, just to be safe. And I was that kid, right down to the STEM focus and disrespect for the liberal arts.
Itās never wrong to gatekeep fascists.
Ah Lyta Gold, one of the enjoyable writers from current affairs before Nathan went all ācall an ambulance! I think Iām having a moment of class consciousness! But just for me!ā Starts firing everybody. And I realized that vague socialist left libertarians suck. (In a just world he would languish alone on his site, with only the email replies he gets from Noam Chomsky to keep him warm. But it isnāt a just world, so he just replaced his writers, like a proper capitalist owner).
But turns out Gold (I had lost sight of her) has a book āDangerous Fictions: The Fear of Fantasy and the Invention of Realityā out which might be relevant to us. And she also blogs on substack, with relevant to out interest posts like āwhat ever happened to right-wing art?ā (Moldbug mentioned, drink!), and a look at conservative masculinity āWhat if we treated men like adults?ā.
pivot to ai has a new beg post, but mostly i wanna show off Sad Robot In Snow:
Older article, but relevant in light of current events:
UnitedHealth uses faulty AI to deny elderly patients medically necessary coverage, lawsuit claims
I wonder if weāll see a new edition of the Shinzo Abe Effect.
Insurance companies have played doctor for far too long in the US. Itās so gross.
I donāt think private insurance should be necessary at all, but given that they exist they should be much more regulated. The doctor, not the insurance, should decide what conditions a patient has and what care is necessary; then if the insurance had said they cover it they should have to pay up without arguing.
Like here in the lawsuit they said an old guy in the last year of his life who had muscle atrophy after breaking a leg, and had just started PT, should go home. Despite the doctor saying āshitās weak and paralyzed yoā:
Defendants explained that there were no acute medical issues because the patient was self-feeding and required minimal help for hygiene and grooming. This determination went against the physical therapistās recommendation and notes describing Mr. Lokken muscle functions as paralyzed and weak.
As if people are just hanging out in hospice care for fun or something! When I was in the hospital with pancreatitis I was about ready to start flipping tables by the end I wanted to go home so bad.
Also:
Mr. Tetzloff contacted Defendants to inquire about the reason for denying his claim. Defendant refused to provide any reason, stating that it is confidential.
wtf?
Sorry about more insta content. Saw this today and it tickled me:
Left: pinker
Right: Yeonmi Park, who is known for defecting from north korea and speaking about it. That should be enough if she just told the truth, but for one reason or another (grifting dosh) she has started just making shit up, which I recommend you research for yourself if you are interested.
Anyway the above picture probably doesnāt come as a surprise when you consider her current tack: saying that āwokeā and ācancel cultureā are the first steps in a country becoming like North Korea. Sheās been on JRE (where she memeably claimed that there is only one train in NK that often requires people to push it). She has a book with her anti-woke thesis with opening shit-volley by old mate JBP.
Man that page has got some really wild sentences.
Parkās claims that human corpses commonly float down North Korean rivers were criticized by Swiss businessman Felix Abt, who lived and worked in the DPRK for seven years.
Now I donāt know if thereās any validity to her claim, but love the expert testimony from Swiss entrepreneur whoās been allowed to tour Pyongyang for a bit.
Itās frustrating because there is plenty of real evidence that North Korea is in a bad way. That satellite image is stark and the volume of reports claiming food shortages and lack of basic services are hard to dispute, as is the sheer obsessive control exercised by the government to avoid the depictions of it. You donāt need to make up stories about using human corpses to fertilize your fields or whatever.
Ah, yes. In case you were wondering about said Swiss businessman and whether or not his actions in the DPRK were morally sound, once again, Wikipedia has something to say.
Dont think that anybody involved in this is going to be a good person. Of all the people mentioned, Pinker is prob the least worse here. And that is saying much.
Somehow not the most horrific thing Swiss did just by trading (that would be war profiteering during Iran-Iraq war, when they sold chemical weapons precursors to one side and gas masks to other)
itās almost as if international trade of weapons creates perverse incentives
Gets easier if you want both sides to lose
Abt deflects questions of human rights by claiming that he is neither a human rights expert nor a politician.
And Iām not a proctologist but I still know an asshole when I see one.
LOL @ North Korea being āwokeā. If they are, why are they assisting Russia, the Rightās Great White Hope, in a war against a country that these people also denigrate as āwokeā? But hey, never let facts or logic get in the way of a good grift.
I mean, with how young she is thereās absolutely no credibility she can offer on how a country becomes like the āDāāPā"R"K. But I can see the superficial similarities between the right-wing griftoverseās depiction of cancel culture and the kind of cultural authority that gets exercised. That Bogeyman is why they use that fanciful description, after all. I can see how easily she could get radicalized from there, not that it justified any of the lies sheās believed and passed on or invented outright.
And right now South Koreaās president has declared martial law and banned all political activity, I guess sheāll be just fine with that.
Martial law and free speech restrictions are only bad if the bad guys do it, also we get to decide who the bad guys are
Yeah, i wonder how laughably terribad takes she will try to spin for her grifting gig out of this situstion
I was curious so looked her up. I discovered that there is no rule of law in Chicago and you can just murder people in the streets. And unrelated she did a colab with Gad Saad about her failing dating in the USA or something. Didnāt watch the vid, just saw she had a few vids with Saad. (Vids from a year ago which almost nobody watched 35k/15k views. Sad!). On her twitter she has said nothing about SK, but apparently is upset about cancel culture and DEI. The grift is strong with this one.
Thatās what she said? Thatās literally so much funnier than any of the memes
Yeah in terms of the meme mutation timeline, I believe the initial use would have been from leftists to mock outrageous/outlandishly false claims, in line with Park saying the trains thing. Since then the format has been mutated to also include āthing that exists in culture that is then exaggerated to be construed as dystopianā (see the example that soyweiser posted) and also āthing that is straight up dystopian but itās something from the westā. So I think the only things that would approach the level of humor/absurdity of the original would have to be something else crazy out of YPās mouth.
Wait is that the woman from that meme? E: Yes she is I didnt know that image was from JRE.
Iām just hoping that i get a plaque or something 1000 years from now in the Harvard meme archaeology department or similar
meme archaeology
Finally a job im qualified for.
i read the title and was like damn weāre dunking on game engines now?
thatās gonna be his new thing. 30 blog posts in a row dunking on godot
Wtf, Unity is right there.
Yeah, but everyone already knows Unity is crap. You canāt move papers that way!
mirror universe ed zitron like
Lol
a good follow on insta if you use it
That guy must be a communist. Cause that is a big red flag.
Alternate punchline: not nearly as much as he would have a few years ago, but still significantly more than is healthy for anyone. Youāll still get stalker vibes but he wonāt care enough to remember your birthday.
for a post from an AI company this is surprisingly honest about the general helplessness in defeating so called hallucinations
https://www.kapa.ai/blog/ai-hallucination
probably a good sign for even boosters to be talking this way
The first half was OK, but then they cited this paper.
LLMs encode much more information about truthfulness than previously recognized. We first discover that the truthfulness information is concentrated in specific tokens, and leveraging this property significantly enhances error detection performance. Yet, we show that such error detectors fail to generalize across datasets, implying thatācontrary to prior claimsātruthfulness encoding is not universal but rather multifaceted.
I havenāt read the paper, and probably wonāt, but what the shit is this?
gave it a quick skim. I lack any relevant background. the bit they push most seems to be that you can improve the performance of error detection tools by determining the most important tokens in an answer and running your tools on the tokens near those. this seems to be in contrast to absurdly naive approaches like averaging the tokens (???) or just looking at the last token of the response (???).
what are the most important tokens? theyāre the ones that change the factuality of the answer if you change them. how do you determine that? you donāt, lmao. you just ask an LLM what the most important words are
what are the error detection tools? you will never guess
It turns out if you can just make the machine know what the truth is and say that you donāt get hallucinations. Unfortunately the truth isnāt emergent from pure language models and expressing Truth through language alone has been something challenging the human race since Krog try to teach Torg how make stick but pointy.
Derrida look intensifies
tired: checking incoming packets for the evil bit
wired: checking LLM outputs for the truthfulness bit
Sundar Pichai says Google Search will āenshittify profoundlyā in 2025 [paraphrasing]
We will say absolutely nothing about what kind of changes we mean, and the reporting of these comments wonāt even speculate, much less ask. But you should definitely buy our stock now in anticipation.
What does Jerry at Android Trends think Pichaiās job is if not making number go up? Trying to act like thereās any substance here is laughable.
SALAMI dorks make the same stupid argument as bitcoin dorks:
- this shit is amazing look
- ok itās not amazing YET but it will be soon
- ok but think about how long it took for [immediately, obviously useful invention] to become [what that invention is today]
- ur a luddite
and yet people are still falling for it a year after SBF, the fucking poster boy for cryptocurrency, was convicted of being a fraudster.
