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1. Embed this notice
   Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Dec-2024 19:09:40 JST Charlie Stross

   Boycott Artisan (sales and workflow software). If we don't make the price of this sort of bullshit glaringly obvious by driving them into bankruptcy, they'll destroy your job—or at least your work-life balance.
   https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/113630479231455042

   • Embed this notice
     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Dec-2024 21:07:28 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Javielico 🌖

     @javielico I imagine it would look like a meeting of the tax collectors in the Belgian Congo … (if you don't know what I'm talking about, DON'T google it, sheer nightmare fuel)

   • Embed this notice
     Javielico 🌖 (javielico@social.coop)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Dec-2024 21:07:29 JST Javielico 🌖

     in reply to

     @cstross i would not want to imagine what an all hands meeting looks like at that company.

   • Embed this notice
     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Dec-2024 21:38:14 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • ejim

     @ejim

     What do we want: Fully automated luxury gay space communism!

     When do we want it: Now!

   • Embed this notice
     ejim (ejim@muenster.im)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Dec-2024 21:38:16 JST ejim

     in reply to

     @cstross destroy capitalism!
     We need automation, we don't need bullshit jobs!
     We just need a good live for everybody.

   • Embed this notice
     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Dec-2024 22:57:37 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • dstu

     @trurl it's not real AI though, it's just spicy autocomplete and a huge investment bubble being inflated by the usual grifters.

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     dstu (trurl@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Dec-2024 22:57:38 JST dstu

     in reply to

     @cstross oh, right. Just clicked in a new way for me. You can imagine an AI future where artificial agents supplant humans because they're more efficient, better at tasks, etc. Fine, I was a SF nerd, I can imagine.

     But there's a shortcut. AI-assisted marketing just has to get good enough to convince decision-makers that "AI" is better, screw the actual performance on novel inputs.

     And, uh, oops our economy is structured to enable that?

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     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 12-Dec-2024 01:55:16 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Charles J Gervasi ⚡🛡️🥥

     @cgervasi No it's not: this is a bunch of grifters trying to pick VC firms' pockets (I repeat: today's AI is 98% pure fraud by volume of hot air) and a bunch of corporate sociopaths trying to drive down labour costs by threatening mass redundancy. It's a scam from both ends and can't deliver on the promises.

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     Charles J Gervasi ⚡🛡️🥥 (cgervasi@fosstodon.org)'s status on Thursday, 12-Dec-2024 01:55:17 JST Charles J Gervasi ⚡🛡️🥥

     in reply to

     @cstross This is the history of human progress though, creating machines to do tasks people want done but don't want to do themselves.

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     Charles J Gervasi ⚡🛡️🥥 (cgervasi@fosstodon.org)'s status on Thursday, 12-Dec-2024 18:56:13 JST Charles J Gervasi ⚡🛡️🥥

     in reply to

     @cstross I'm optimistic about #AI and certainly don't begrudge people who take a chance on it. If it turns out not to be useful, it won't shake up the labor market. If it does lead to tools that multiply human effort, that will be a good thing.
     Do any of your books touch on these issues? Which one would you recommend I read first?

   • Embed this notice
     Charlie Stross (cstross@wandering.shop)'s status on Thursday, 12-Dec-2024 18:56:13 JST Charlie Stross

     in reply to

     • Charles J Gervasi ⚡🛡️🥥

     @cgervasi Try "Rule 34". (Note that it predates the current boom in LLMs by a couple of years.)