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.)
Quick update on the ongoing copyright suit against OpenAI: The federal judge has publicly sneered at Facebook’s fair use argument:
“You have companies using copyright-protected material to create a product that is capable of producing an infinite number of competing products,” said Chhabria to Meta’s attorneys in a San Francisco court last Thursday.
“You are dramatically changing, you might even say obliterating, the market for that person’s work, and you’re saying that you don’t even have to pay a license to that person… I just don’t understand how that can be fair use.”
The judge itself does seem unconvinced about the material cost of Facebook’s actions, however:
“It seems like you’re asking me to speculate that the market for Sarah Silverman’s memoir will be affected by the billions of things that Llama [Meta’s AI model] will ultimately be capable of producing,” said Chhabria.
Here’s a pretty good sneer at the writing out of LLMs, with a focus on meaning https://www.experimental-history.com/p/28-slightly-rude-notes-on-writing
Maybe that’s my problem with AI-generated prose: it doesn’t mean anything because it didn’t cost the computer anything. When a human produces words, it signifies something. When a computer produces words, it only signifies the content of its training corpus and the tuning of its parameters.
Also, on people:
I see tons of essays called something like “On X” or “In Praise of Y” or “Meditations on Z,” and I always assume they’re under-baked. That’s a topic, not a take.
Warning: you might regret reading this screenshot of elno posting a screenshot. (cw: chatbots in sexual context)
oh noooo no no no
…but that brings me back to questions about “what does interaction with LLM chatbots do to human brains”.
During my expirementation with some of these self hosted llms, I was attempting some jailbreaks and other things and thought would this be any good at ERP?
Only if youve never been with another human being.
I don’t want to see grummz anywhere near AI ERP discourse.
Ah yes, three of the worst people alive today talking about how objects are indistinguishable from women.
An morewronger discusses the “points system” implemented by the Ukrainian armed forces where soldiers can spend points earned by destroying Russian targets on new drone hardware
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/sJpwvYsC5tJis8onw/the-ukraine-war-and-the-kill-market
Lots of wittering about markets and Gotthards law, but what struck me was
Now, this is clearly a repugnant market. Repugnant market is a market where some people would like to engage in it and other people think they shouldn’t. (Think market in human kidneys. Or prostitution. Or the market in abortions. […])
(my emphasis)
What “market in abortion”, motherfucker???
isn’t this the same crowd that like prediction markets and assassination markets
Yeah they are normally all over anything with the word “market” in it, with an almost religious like belief in market’s ability to solve things.
My suspicion is that the writer has picked up some anti-Ukrainian sentiment from the US right wing (which in order to rationalize and justify Trump’s constant sucking up to Putin has looked for any and every angle to tear Ukraine down). And this anti-Ukrainian sentiment has somehow trumped their worship of markets… Checking back through their posting history to try to discern their exact political alignment… it’s hard to say, they’ve got the Scott Alexander thing going on where they use disconnected historical examples crossed with a bad analogies crossed with misappropriated terms from philosophy to make points that you can’t follow unless you already know their real intended context. So idk.
Ah yes the centrist grey/gray tribe. “Prostitution”(ow look a shibboleth, see also “sex work”), and “abortion markets”(??) vs kidney markets.
Im reminded of Jordan Peterson once dropping without a hint of self awareness, that conservatives have a higher disgust response.
Horrible “rubberhosing” of cryptocurrency people continues. Guardian article, content warning, bit extremer than a rubber hose.
The slatestarcodex is discussing the unethical research performed on changemyview. Of course, the most upvoted take is that they don’t see the harm or why it should be deemed unethical. Lots of upvoted complaints about IRBs and such. It’s pretty gross.
First, Chrome won the browser war fair and square by building a better surfboard for the internet. This wasn’t some opportune acquisition. This was the result of grand investments, great technical prowess, and markets doing what they’re supposed to do: rewarding the best.
Lots of credit given to 👼🎺 Free Market Capitalism 👼🎺, zero credit given to open web standards, open source contributions, or the fact that the codebase has a lineage going back to 1997 KDE code.
I am certain that many of those ignorant of the history (or even were there for it, like DHH) would still argue that Google deserves credit because of the V8 JavaScript engine. But I continue to doubt that further promulgating JavaScript was a net positive for the world.
“markets should reward the best” is quite something
If markets really rewarded the best, they would have rewarded Opera way more. (By which I mean the original Opera, up to version 12, and not the terrible chromium-based thing that has its name slapped on it today. Do not use that one, it’s bad.)
Much more important for Chrome’s success than “being the best” (when has that ever been important in the tech industry?), was Google’s massive marketing campaign. Heck, back when Chrome was new, they even had large billboard ads for it around here, i.e. physical billboards in the real world. And “here” is a medium-sized city in Europe, not Silicon Valley or anything… I never saw any other web browser being advertised on freaking billboards.
I think you were trying to reply to this comment
Indeed.
dhh having a normal one
On my first two reads, I thought that it was heavy-handed satire with mediocre word choice. But no, I suppose that he’s being sincere, in which case I’m glad to notify DHH that Apple products are optional and that a technologist can go their entire lives without purchasing a single Apple product.
Google’s incredible work to further the web isn’t an act of charity, it’s of economic self-interest, and that’s why it works.
Same dumb motherfucker who has been pinching pennies due to poor architecture. Does he think public clouds are acts of charity? Or, going the other direction, this is the same entitled prick who has been naysaying universal basic income because he thinks work gives us purpose like a fucking Calvinist. Does he think UBI is an act of charity? No, DHH, you myopic chud, public clouds and UBI are both concepts borne of economic self-interest.
Look, Google’s trillion-dollar business depends on a thriving web that can be searched by Google.com
Someone should probably tell them.
Time saved by AI offset by new work created, study suggests – Ars Technica
So it’s not quite a sneer, but i could use some help from the collective sneer brainstrust. If you’re willing to indulge me.
I work for one of those horrible places that is mainlining in its own AI koolaid as hard as it can. It has also begun doing layoffs, inspired in part by the “AI can do this now instead!” delusion. Now, I am in no way in love with my job nor the sociopaths I labor for, and it’s clear to me the feeling is mutual, but I am cursed with the affliction of needing to eat and pay for housing. I am also at a significant structural disadvantage in the job market compared to others, which makes things more difficult.
In an executive’s recent discussions with another company’s senior executive, my complicated, unglamorous and hugely underestimated small tech niche was raised as one of the areas they’ve swapped out for AI “with great success”. I happen to know this other company has no dedicated resource for my niche and therefore is unlikely to be verifying their swap actually works, but it will have the superficial appearance of working. I know they have no dedicated resources because they are actively hiring their first staff member for this niche and said so in a recent job advertisement.
Myself and my fellow niche serfs have been asked to put together a list of questions for this other company, and the intent is clearly a thin veil to have us justify our ability to eat. We’ve been highlighted this time, but it’s also clear other areas are receiving similar requests and pressure.
If you were to ask questions of a tech executive from a company which is using AI to pretend to fix a tech niche - but they are likely to believe they are doing so more than superficially and are able to convince other ignorant and gullible executives that they are doing so, what would you ask?
Sorry cant really help, but perhaps showing a case where the llms fuck up in a way only expects caught on might be useful. Just mentioning the lawyers getting fucked over in casual conversation might help. For example heard about a contract negotiations case where the other side used a llm, and it had included a clause that was very unfavourable to them, of course the person telling this story was fine with that clause.
On the contrary, you’ve been very helpful, thankyou. I’ve pushed a legal angle for a while for various niche reasons, with moderate success, but you’ve given me new inspiration for how i might be able to use that here. Sadly it’s nothing that can be as easily understood as a badly generated contractual clause, but that might buy me some time.
Thanks!
oof, I’m sorry you’re caught in the middle of this crap; it’s not a great feeling to be put into this kind of situation.
take this with a grain of salt because I’m exhausted from a hell workweek, but this felt like a thread you could pull on:
I know they have no dedicated resources because they are actively hiring their first staff member for this niche and said so in a recent job advertisement.
if their AI horseshit is doing so well in your niche, why are they hiring for it? that’s fucking weird, right? use your best judgement, but be as aggressive with your questions as feels appropriate.
also, and I hope this isn’t too obvious: you’re in the middle of a vapid power game between two sociopaths who lie for a living (and the pilfered livings of many other people). craft your questions and statements with that in mind — you’re there to sell the idea that the opposing executive has done something foolish, so come up with responses to the potential bullshit these professional bullshitters might fling at you (“the new hire is just to train/support/monitor the AI” “oh, but wasn’t it already a success? that doesn’t sound very efficient, can you go into more detail?”). one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in similar situations is to stress absolute truth and precision in conversation — and it’s a trap that a lot of tech people fall into, that the executive class tends to use as a mechanism for control. the truth is on our side but these people don’t give a fuck about that, so sell them a story.
Thanks, I appreciate it. I knew this was likely to happen on the sooner side rather than later. I can’t say that the mediocre exit package they’ve given others is entirely unappealing either. Taking it is possibly a bad move in the longer term, but it’s not like I’d have a choice if I end up there.
The fact they’re hiring was one of the threads I was considering pulling, but the questions my colleagues have asked without knowing that context should already reveal some of the obvious issues with that. I’m unsure if there’s strategic value in showing this card up front instead of as a comment on their PR-manufactured response after they lose the ability to reply. I also wonder if revealing the fact I’ve looked at job listings might hurt my standing.
The aggression in my response (sales pitch, as you’ve rightly pointed out) is something I’ve been weighing up too. I have access to all the expensive blanding/branding AI models so it’s more trivial to conceal my resentment at the whole exercise than it used to be, but whether it’s possible to extract anything from them which I can counter is not something in which I have confidence.
I’m so tired of this world.
Another great piece from Brian Merchant. I’ve been job seeking on network engineering and IT support and had naively assumed that companies would consider the stakes of screwing up infrastructure too high to take risks with the bullshit machine, but it definitely looks like the trend he described of hiring less actual humans is at play here, even as the actual IT infrastructure gets bigger and more complex from people integrating this shit.
Guess we’re doing stupid identity verification orbs now: https://sfstandard.com/2025/05/01/this-is-like-black-mirror-sam-altmans-creepy-eye-scanner-project-launches-in-sf/
Instead of this expensive imitation of a voigt-kampff test I would suggest an alternative method of detecting if a personoid is really a human or an instrument of an evil inhuman intelligence that wishes to consume all of earth: check if their net worth is closer to a billion dollars than it is to being broke.
Also not that this ‘key was generated by a person once’ stuff does not validate personhood, it just means an identifiable person was involved once. So, it can be used to blame somebody, not prove personhood
Pretty sure they’re already doing that for many things.
New piece from Brian Merchant: The AI jobs crisis is here, now
As its title implies, its about the wide-ranging job losses caused by the rise of AI.
New thread from Baldur Bjarnason, taking aim at AI coders and vibe coders alike:
Laughing at “AI” boosters worrying “vibe coding” is becoming synonymous with “AI coding”. Tech is vibes througout[sic]. Vibe management. Vibe strategy. Vibe design. Coding has been a garbage fire for decades and, yeah it’s a vibe-based pop culture from top to bottom and has only been getting worse
Code that does what the end user wants is already the exception. Software is managed on vibes throughout. Anybody who goes huffy because the field OVERWHELMINGLY responds to “vibe coding is using AI to create code that you don’t care about” with “so all coding, gotcha!” has not been paying attention
“Vibe coding is all AI coding” feels true to most because not caring about what happens after it’s pushed to the final victim is already the norm. The only change from adopting “AI” is they now have the freedom to no longer care about what happens BEFORE as well.
“Not everybody in software dev is like that! Some coders genuinely care and put in the work needed to make good software”
True, but I feel confident in saying that next to none of those are leaning hard into “AI coding”
The target market for “AI” is SPECIFICALLY people who don’t care
Giving a personal sidenote, I expect “vibe coding” will stick around as a pejorative after the AI bubble bursts - “AI” has already become synonymous with “zero-effort, low-quality garbage” in the public eye, so re-using “vibe code” to mean “crapping out garbage” isn’t gonna be a difficult task, linguistically speaking.
I’m just going to pretend that vibe coders mean a new VI variant and are using that to code. First VI, then VIM now VIBE? These linux holy wars are getting out of control. (sadly the vibe coder will just go ‘sorry what is leenux?’ and my joke will fall flat.
I agree btw, it will be a big rep damage like how NFTs damaged the idea of cryptocurrencies, and in the same note you saw how a lot of pro-cryptocurrency people disliked NFTs just because they saw this backlash (and the more naked grift of NFTs) coming.
I agree btw, it will be a big rep damage like how NFTs damaged the idea of cryptocurrencies, and in the same note you saw how a lot of pro-cryptocurrency people disliked NFTs just because they saw this backlash (and the more naked grift of NFTs) coming.
That’s for sure. Given the circumstances, I suspect that its gonna damage the overall public image of software development - beyond suggesting software dev to be full of AI bros, the rise of vibe coding has thrown the software industry’s vibes-based management into sharp relief, making its dysfunctions much harder to ignore.
Marc Andreessen claims his own job’s the only one that can’t be replaced by a small shell script.
“A lot of it is psychological analysis, like, ‘Who are these people?’ ‘How do they react under pressure?’ ‘How do you keep them from falling apart?’ ‘How do you keep them from going crazy?’ ‘How do you keep from going crazy yourself?’ You know, you end up being a psychologist half the time.”
How do you keep from going crazy yourself?’
When you start writing manifestos it is prob time to quit.
Hope he remembers this in case some day he is in a nursing home, where all staff has been replaced with Tesla Optimus robots powered by “AI”.
