Notices by JP (jplebreton@mastodon.social)

@emma i don't have a specific link handy but @emilymbender has probably at some point spelled out exactly what "reasoning" means for these systems; my understanding is that it is just a pattern for building successive understanding-free prompts on the basis of an original human prompt, with the main benefit being that there's like a smidge more of a paper trail that humans can scrutinize rather than the complete black box of the classic prompt-response with tiny context window loop.

you also need to reckon with the fact that even if you know exactly how the tech works and clearly understand its limitations, an overwhelming majority of the people making policy decisions that affect millions of other humans do not. they believe all the mystification and lies and consent-manufacture, from the worst most self-interested people, about how the tech works, what it can and can't do, and what its potential is. your being "smart enough to see through the hype" doesn't count for much.

even if you think it's fine to use LLMs for something like coding it's critical you understand how widely the tech is being deployed in human-to-human cases where it's egregiously unfit for purpose, frequently in ways that are outright insulting and disrespectful.
if you find the backlash scary, regressive, or excessive you have not made sufficient effort to understand peoples' very real and legitimate anger, and that is a moral failure on your part.
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/05/01/seattle-worldcon-science-fiction-convention-vets-panelists-with-chatgpt/

cool that any of the monopolies are getting broken up even a wee bit, but it would also be so cool if regulators forced all the big companies with messaging services to move to a secure interoperable open standard. imagine never having to have the "what chat services are you on, oh no i'm only on poob and you're only on peeb" conversation ever again. decades of nonsense they've forced us through for no good reason.

it's infantile and clownish that fosstodon made it to 2025 with a "no politics" policy. everyone has politics bro you're just insisting that yours are the neutral default. it's time to live in society.

@mhoye the early stages of a programming education are to be celebrated and valued, they are important moments of discovery and consciousness-building that reverberate over decades, even if their actual products are rudimentary. vibe coding sucks insofar as it treats this entire period - the very process of learning how to think - as unnecessary/undesirable, an annoyance to skip past, and by extension that the details and deep intentions of a codebase don't matter, are interchangeable.

really good far-ranging conversation on neoliberalism as a kind of counterrevolution: https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/against-the-people

incredible that the "Waymo Democrats" have voluntarily named themselves that: a ludicrously expensive machine that constantly overpromises and underdelivers, in reality has an army of people working behind the scenes attempting with mixed success to correct its constant fuckups, and every time it encounters a real world situation where its capabilities are totally inadequate it just sits there uselessly, causing gridlock and pissing everyone off, claims it's getting better but isn't, and won't.

bumper sticker: "I bought a status symbol without fully understanding the Status"

centrism is a political position whose most fundamental values are the psychological comfort, the public image of reasonableness, of the already-comfortable. and right now one thing you'll notice is that every centrist has at least one fascist in their follows, their contacts, their circle of friends. it is not hard to see through these people.

LB: I don't agree with 100% of the points made in that piece but it's revealing how many peoples' first reaction is to be defensive or claim that none of those things are actually problems. https://v.cx/2025/04/mastodon-exit-interview

when a country creates a gestapo and multiple administrations let it continue existing (because they insist there is some actual legitimate, just use for it) it is inevitably going to start saying this kind of very overt nazi shit

@clarity yeah i'm genuinely concerned that it will put stink on the basic concept of "not constantly sacrificing humans into the maw of capital", which of course is the opposite of their goal.

@clarity exactly yeah, the problem is the lack of context and systems awareness and willingness to engage on that basis.

@clarity right now probably nearly every elected feels like telling people they can't have infinite treats forever is electoral suicide, and an important early step is reminding them what order "think of a better world and how to get there" and "think about what promises will get you elected" are supposed to go in.

Fated by the god Apollo to utter only true prophecy but never to be believed, Cassandra correctly predicted that in the 00s minivans would largely be supplanted in the automotive market by crossover SUVs.

@clarity yeah. and the cults that are centered around Being the Most Intelligent are this massive source of validation telling people their neurodiversity makes them a kind of elite

never forget how this cult, exceptional only in its extremity, embodied the poisonously misguided conventional thinking of our current age, by elevating to godhood a man that many of us already knew was a fraud and a fool, and many more know now. never forget how much people equate wealth with intelligence and worthiness and how deeply that harms our society.
https://web.archive.org/web/20211026235448/https://medium.com/@zoecurzi/my-experience-with-leverage-research-17e96a8e540b

the primary function of state violence is to protect capital

Don't let them have "generative art". People have been writing code to make interesting images for about as long as computers have existed.
To combat the current awfulness, why not reply to this with a project of yours, or one you admire, that uses code to embody a specific creative intention.