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1. Embed this notice
   elilla&, bara no duelista (elilla@transmom.love)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 04:58:10 JST elilla&, bara no duelista

   so Adafruit proudly posted about using Gemini to design hardware after, by their own admission, "using LLMs for years to do software and firmware assistance".
   https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/14/heres-our-first-gemini-deep-think-llm-assisted-hardware-design/

   when hit with the inevitable backlash you'd expect from anyone with a working moral compass, Mr. Adafruit (Phillip Torrone) blamed (checks notes) the misogyny of Mastodon reply guys, because clearly the backlash is all due to the fact that Limor Fried (his married partner) shared the blog.

   hey watch this, I can weaponise oppression olympics too, I'm a trans woman from the third world: fuck off with profiteering from your selling out to the planet-destroying plagiarism machine that's proudly empowering ICE and the IDF. it's not your country that will pay the price for your meaningless carbon output to generate nonsense until it looks right. and you brag about it. pega teu fascism-assisted hardware design e enfia no cu. happy never to be an adafruit customer again. assholes.

   • Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 23:43:56 JST myrmepropagandist

     in reply to

     @elilla

     I'm an educator in CS and I've spent thousands of dollars with Adafruit. I'm not the only person on here in this category, but this is literally where their customers live online.

     I think I will try calling them today. In the past they have been very good about answering the phone.

     I want this to all be a terrible misunderstanding. They can make a post and explain and we can all learn something together about LLMs, about responsiveness and even about feminism.

     I am hopeful.

   • Embed this notice
     myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 23:44:24 JST myrmepropagandist

     in reply to

     • The Servitor

     @TheServitor

     Were this just "Adafruit might have used some AI for something" I'd be a lot less interested in it.

     It's this "AI empowers women you gatekeeping sexists!" line that I just cannot abide.

     Not so much because of the AI issue, though that is an issue, but because it's a bad faith fake woke argument and we do not have time for this kind of nonsense right now. Not one bit.

     Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     The Servitor (theservitor@sigmoid.social)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 23:44:25 JST The Servitor

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist

     @futurebird

     I wouldn't say so. As a semi-"AI guy" who's followed you for a while, your takes on AI are usually pretty rational and moderate, imo. The good kind of anti-AI pushback.

     Charlie (who I also follow and enjoy as a writer) is more in for the performative, torches and pitchforks stuff.

     The companies behind AI are deep into evil shit. I don't think transferring infinite culpability onto people who use AI is going to work out though. It's a very noisy moral signal for lots of reasons.

     Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 23:44:26 JST myrmepropagandist

     in reply to

     @elilla

     To be fair though. I *am* a mean "mastodon anti-AI reply guy"

     But, I also don't think that is a bad thing to be.

     Is this what they call "Dark Woke"

     Anyhow.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 23:45:39 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • The Servitor

     @futurebird @TheServitor "AI empowers [marginalized grou]", "AI is an accessibility tool for [disability class]", etc. are all *utterly vile* AI propaganda takes.

     Soatok Dreamseeker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 23:45:46 JST myrmepropagandist

     in reply to

     • The Servitor

     @TheServitor

     Anyone who's making "diversity" or "empowerment" pro-AI arguments isn't really serious about diversity It's just a prop to them OR they are deeply uninformed.

     There was a time where I'd try to trust that people were well-meaning but I don't think it's wise to do that anymore. It's silly and it's harmful when there are serious issues of gatekeeping and sexism that are worse than I've ever seen going on right now.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 23:52:04 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • The Servitor

     @futurebird @TheServitor What it says is that these are lower-tier humans who should accept scraps from the slop machine, and all the horribly biased and incorrect bs that comes out of it, in place of opportunities to learn or have their needs met.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 23:57:01 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • The Servitor

     @futurebird @TheServitor Because let's be honest. Nobody is saying "we're going to make sure all the sites work right with screen readers, and fine every business whose site doesn't, and give you 'AI' on top of that to make things easier."

     They're saying "Fuck you, why are you fussing that our site is broken with your backwards-ass screenreader? Just get AI to summarize it for you!"

   • Embed this notice
     myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 23:57:28 JST myrmepropagandist

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     • The Servitor

     @dalias @TheServitor

     There was an online "art" account that was excited about AI because "now we have have more Black representation in fantasy" I was gentle in my initial response. They presented themselves as a young Black person who claimed to do their own drawing too and said "now I can keep up"

     This didn't sit right with me.

     The whole persona turned out to be a lie. Sock puppet. It was not a young person, nor a Black kid from Brooklyn who liked to draw.

     Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Feb-2026 23:58:04 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • The Servitor

     @futurebird @TheServitor Favorite passtime of little nazi channer shits.

   • Embed this notice
     myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)'s status on Wednesday, 18-Feb-2026 00:03:23 JST myrmepropagandist

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     • The Servitor

     @dalias @TheServitor

     But what really put a sour taste in my mouth was the idea that this "young Black artist" would be OK with not developing their own talent or vision. That they'd just give up and turn it all over to the machine and then brag about it. The whole notion just ran counter to the reasons every young (and old) artist I know creates things.

     I've never met any artist who was just satisfied with "output" ... because when you make things you are trying to reach out to other people.

     Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     myrmepropagandist (futurebird@sauropods.win)'s status on Wednesday, 18-Feb-2026 00:06:08 JST myrmepropagandist

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     • The Servitor

     @dalias @TheServitor

     Instead this account would go on and on about how "now because of AI we have representation isn't this wonderful!"

     Unsettling, unnatural. And ... the thing is there are a lot of artists creating work. The problem isn't that the content isn't there. It's just ignored.

     The account was made by some person with zero awareness of the vast sea of incredible diverse art. People tried to introduce them to it? They had zero interest.

     It was all just an AI charm offensive.

   • Embed this notice
     Riff (riff@toot.aquilenet.fr)'s status on Wednesday, 18-Feb-2026 00:07:19 JST Riff

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Rich Felker
     • The Servitor

     @dalias it's funny how "Empowering marginalized groups" is always "making them buy this new tech thing from the richest compagnies in the world" and never "giving ressource, money, time, energy, and collective support to marginalized groups so they can do whatever it is they want to do", huh ?

     @futurebird @TheServitor

   • Embed this notice
     PedestrianError :vbus: :nblvt: (pedestrianerror@towns.gay)'s status on Wednesday, 18-Feb-2026 00:28:09 JST PedestrianError :vbus: :nblvt:

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Rich Felker
     • The Servitor

     @dalias @futurebird @TheServitor Claiming that AI "empowers" some group is saying between the lines that the group in question is naturally disempowered, not by discrimination but by inherent inferiority, and that what they need to compete on an equal playing field is not an end to discrimination but some kind of cheat tool to make work easier for them. Almost any statement involving the word empower is infantilizing bullshit.