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   BrianKrebs (briankrebs@infosec.exchange)'s status on Friday, 22-Aug-2025 03:39:39 JST BrianKrebs

   I'm a little concerned AI chatbots are melting peoples' brains. This is the second time this month I've gotten an email from an otherwise intelligent seeming person who is convinced that there is a persona -- a being -- that exists and persists in the AI chat world, that has persistence of memory, and is somewhat elusive unless you know the magic conjuring spell. Sigh.

   • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
   • Rich Felker repeated this.
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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 22-Aug-2025 03:41:26 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     @briankrebs They are totally a cognitohazard. The people who peddled this shit should be liable for trillions in damages for the psychiatric care and emotional damages to loved ones (especially in the case where it's children) they've recklessly inflicted.

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     Matt Hall (401matthall@mastodon.xyz)'s status on Friday, 22-Aug-2025 04:01:32 JST Matt Hall

     in reply to

     @briankrebs

     If you don't know how _anything_ works _everything_ seems like magic.

     I mean... Most of us don't know how all the technologies work. Like not _really_.

     Yeah, I flip a switch and _LIGHT!_. Power generation, power transmission, stepping up and down of voltage before it enters the consumer location, conversion from AC/DC... Most folks don't know _any_ of that.

     They know they flip the switch. If the lights don't come on... They're stumped.

     All that to say, I get it. <3

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     Nomdeb (nomdeb@mstdn.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Aug-2025 04:01:48 JST Nomdeb

     in reply to

     @briankrebs It's more than a little scary to learn and see how fragile and gullible the human mind can be. :(

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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 22-Aug-2025 04:04:20 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Matt Hall

     @401matthall @briankrebs I'm not sure (good question - anyone have plausible estimates?) what portion of human beings (overall or in particular countries) have basic understandings of how everyday things work. But..

     When you don't understand how something works, there's a duty not to extrapolate assumptions about what it can do from what you've actually seen it consistently do, in a setting where nobody is controlling your perception trying to sell you something.

     Folks don't get a pass for this.

     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 22-Aug-2025 04:05:01 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     @briankrebs There's a reason the kids (who are okay, btw) call it brainrot.

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     🎃🐦‍🔥nemo™🦇 🇺🇦🍉 (nemo@mas.to)'s status on Friday, 22-Aug-2025 04:21:18 JST 🎃🐦‍🔥nemo™🦇 🇺🇦🍉

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker

     @dalias That was also one of the things that I thought the first time: cognito and info hazard manufacturing devices in recursive feedback loops that condition and enforce brain rot 💯. @briankrebs

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     Schools are superspreaders (pixplz@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Aug-2025 04:37:00 JST Schools are superspreaders

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker

     @dalias @briankrebs Many of the kids are not OK. At least 1 in 5 high school students who I work with are using chatbots to cheat on all of their assignments.

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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 22-Aug-2025 04:37:00 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Schools are superspreaders

     @pixplz @briankrebs That doesn't contradict what I said. Using a bullshit machine to satisfy a bullshit assignment designed to waste your time is different from treating it as a source of something of value.

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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 22-Aug-2025 04:47:18 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Schools are superspreaders

     @pixplz Depending on how it's structured it might or might not be bullshit.

     Is the "classic novel" white supremacist canon drivel?

     Are they given adequate time to do it at school, or forced to give up their time out of school (for which there are wide socioeconomic disparities in how much kids have)?

     Is their teacher going to give any meaningful feedback?

     Do they have any reason to believe the activity will better their life?

     What degree of choice & autonomy did they have in getting the assignment?

     Etc.

   • Embed this notice
     Schools are superspreaders (pixplz@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Aug-2025 04:47:19 JST Schools are superspreaders

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker

     @dalias Bullshit assignment? Writing a literary analysis of a classic novel isn't a bullshit assignment designed to waste their time.

     Rich Felker repeated this.
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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 22-Aug-2025 04:55:25 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • ɹ uɐpƎ˥ƎʞS :antifascism:
     • Schools are superspreaders

     @dannotdaniel @pixplz For a majority of US kids in US schools that don't respect them or treat them as actual people, the priority is surviving a system designed to condition and sort you into various pipelines destructive to your future. It's not an environment designed to help you understand the principles and skills to keep yourself & others you care about safe. It's to judge whether you're a suitable white collar drone or belong on the pipeline to debt, homelessness, and/or prison. There is nothing wrong with using a bullshit machine to reduce how much the system can harm you.

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     ɹ uɐpƎ˥ƎʞS :antifascism: (dannotdaniel@hellions.cloud)'s status on Friday, 22-Aug-2025 04:55:26 JST ɹ uɐpƎ˥ƎʞS :antifascism:

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     • Schools are superspreaders

     @pixplz @dalias I was really surprised by this response too

     smh

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     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 22-Aug-2025 08:41:40 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • trisweb
     • Schools are superspreaders

     @trisweb @pixplz That's what I was trying to say before they got all hostile and did some sort of buggy shadow-block thing. 🤷

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     trisweb (trisweb@m.trisweb.com)'s status on Friday, 22-Aug-2025 08:41:42 JST trisweb

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     • Schools are superspreaders

     @pixplz @dalias depends on the teacher.

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     Log 🪵 (log@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Saturday, 23-Aug-2025 00:14:36 JST Log 🪵

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     • Schools are superspreaders

     @pixplz @dalias The reason literary analysis is mostly done on classic literature is because the authors are too dead to say, "I didn't intend anything of the sort. I wrote this for my grocery money and based the main character on people I knew when I was younger."

     All of my literature assignments--from book reports to literary analysis--sucked the joy out of reading the source material. I thought they were bullshit then, and never collected any evidence that would revise that opinion.

     Rich Felker repeated this.
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     Log 🪵 (log@mastodon.sdf.org)'s status on Saturday, 23-Aug-2025 00:15:03 JST Log 🪵

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     • Schools are superspreaders

     @pixplz @dalias The worst part is that they made me think I was bad at language arts, when in reality I was bad at subduing my own will to academic authority enough to complete assignments that I thought were invalid time-wasters at a foundation level. It was years later before I even attempted writing something I would enjoy reading myself.