Notices by Baldur Bjarnason (baldur@toot.cafe)

In the absence of functioning regulation of the tech industry in the US, the only mechanism we have to mitigate the harms of generative models is mass action, which is a blunt instrument that doesn’t allow for nuance

Regulation is how risky products get into wide use. That’s what it’s for. Without regulation, mockery and boycotts are the only mechanism available to us that have any hope of working

It's impossible for me to tell over Gore's Internet whether you, Clever McSmartypants, are genuinely trying to have a nuanced discussion of the pros and cons of the tech or are just a hurt manbaby reacting defensively and since the whiny toddlers outnumber the nuanced thinkers by several orders of magnitude, most people online are going to treat both the same, with good reason

@ErikJonker Not “some”. It’s pretty much all of big tech. And given that only big tech cos have the resources to build and roll out LLM-based products at scale—every small outfit is using a model made by a big tech co under the hood—the distinction is pretty much moot. All of this is only getting funding because they think it can destroy jobs and industries and let them loot the remains.

“Why does everybody get angry at me whenever I defend a new tech that’s purpose-made to destroy industries, misinform, and pollute the environment?”

A mystery for the fucking ages. First help us stop the harm done by these tools (both the makers and what they make) then you can come back and talk all you want about your vague wishy-washy positive use cases that you use to justify your blatant neophilia

Of course, you will have lost interest by then because it won’t be new anymore

Most of the comments I've seen that call for moderation in the discussion of generative models have come from dudes reacting emotionally to hearing criticism of their new favourite toy. They are impossible to reason with because they don't want reason, they want to be flattered for their choices. I don’t have time to flatter somebody that shallow just to find out that they were never going to take the discussion seriously.

“We Now Know How AI ‘Thinks’—and It’s Barely Thinking at All - WSJ”

https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/how-ai-thinks-356969f8?st=JK4ruj&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

> All of this work suggests that under the hood, today’s AIs are overly complicated, patched-together Rube Goldberg machines full of ad-hoc solutions for answering our prompts.

There have been researchers who pointed this out from the very beginning and yet they're only getting airtime now.

@silverwizard @CppGuy Ah, crap. That sounds like a separate issue to the blocklist as well.

I've added the lemon squeezy sales pages including the discount to the original thread since PayHip doesn't seem to be working for everybody

https://toot.cafe/@baldur/114398515623014978

Sorry about all of this.

@CppGuy Well, that sucks.

“Flash Games Were the Internet’s Crayon Box”

https://innerspiral.lol/Blog/flash/flash

I miss seeing the kind of interactive work and experimentation a designer could do on their own with Flash. There isn't really anything like it any more.

"This is what a digital coup looks like"

https://www.ted.com/talks/carole_cadwalladr_this_is_what_a_digital_coup_looks_like

Finally got around to watching this and hoo boy is it timely, accurate, and terrifying

After seeing a few people on social media point it out, I can't unsee the parallels between the efforts of both the US and UK governments to dismantle education, media, research, and knowledge work in favour of "proper" jobs like factory and farm work and the beginning of Mao's cultural revolution

“Facebook Pushes Its Llama 4 AI Model to the Right, Wants to Present “Both Sides””

https://www.404media.co/facebook-pushes-its-llama-4-ai-model-to-the-right-wants-to-present-both-sides/

Remember when I told you that using these LLMs was like giving US tech a bigotry dial for all your writing?

This is an extremely depressing read

"‘An Overwhelmingly Negative And Demoralizing Force’: What It’s Like Working For A Company That’s Forcing AI On Its Developers"

https://aftermath.site/ai-video-game-development-art-vibe-coding-midjourney

I hope everybody who has been involved in making these systems feels proud of the work they're destroying.

“Adactio: Journal—Denial”

https://adactio.com/journal/21831

> The worst of the internet is continuously attacking the best of the internet. This is a distributed denial of service attack on the good parts of the World Wide Web.

Always “fun” to experience a new kind of financial crisis. 80s had the “deregulate until it breaks” crises. Dot-com was the “delusional tech bubble” crisis. 2008 was “deregulation tango part 2” crisis. 2020 was the “wtf pandemics can kill!?” crisis. Now the “deliberately smash everything” crisis

I shouldn’t let it, but it continues to bug me how easy it is for people to position themselves as “AI critics” with small doses of mildly worded criticism while being complete cheerleaders in practice, with the courses or consulting they sell or the software they make.

“Something Bizarre Is Happening to People Who Use ChatGPT a Lot”

https://futurism.com/the-byte/chatgpt-dependence-addiction

> Researchers have found that ChatGPT "power users," or those who use it the most and at the longest durations, are becoming dependent upon — or even addicted to — the chatbot.

Possibly related: what I wrote a couple of years ago on how LLM chatbots function like a mentalist's con

https://softwarecrisis.dev/letters/llmentalist/

Keep hearing reports of guys trusting ChatGPT’s output over experts or even actual documentation. Honestly feels like the AI Bubble’s hold over society has strengthened considerably over the past three months

This also highlights my annoyance with everybody who’s claiming that this tech will be great if every uses it responsibly. Nobody’s using it responsibly. Even the people who think they are, already trust the tech much more than it warrants

“Starship Was Doomed From The Beginning - by Will Lockett”

https://www.planetearthandbeyond.co/p/starship-was-doomed-from-the-beginning

SpaceX's Starship looks like a genuinely flawed design

“Under Trump, AI Scientists Are Told to Remove ‘Ideological Bias’ From Powerful Models | WIRED”

https://www.wired.com/story/ai-safety-institute-new-directive-america-first/

Literally what I and so many others have been warning about. Using LLMs in your work is effectively giving US authorities central control over the bigotry and biases of your writing.