Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful youāll near-instantly regret.
Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.
If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cutānāpaste it into its own post ā thereās no quota for posting and the bar really isnāt that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned soo many āesotericā right wing freaks, but thereās no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iām talking redscare-ish, reality challenged āculture criticsā who write about everything but understand nothing. Iām talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyāre inescapable at this point, yet I donāt see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnāt be surgeons because they didnāt believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canāt escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Semi-obligatory thanks to @dgerard for starting this - this one was a bit late, I got distracted)
currently in vc delusion, the public just doesnāt understand how to move about efficiently
the levels of not-even-wrong from these dipshits continue to be astounding
I woke up and immediately read about something called āDefense Llamaā. The horrors are never ceasing: https://theintercept.com/2024/11/24/defense-llama-meta-military/
Scale AI advertised their chatbot as being able to:
apply the power of generative AI to their unique use cases, such as planning military or intelligence operations and understanding adversary vulnerabilities
However their marketing material, as is tradition, include an example of terrible advice. Which is not great given itās about blowing up a building āwhile minimizing collateral damageā.
Scale AIās response to the news pointing this out ā complaining that everyone took their murderbot marketing material seriously:
The claim that a response from a hypothetical website example represents what actually comes from a deployed, fine-tuned LLM that is trained on relevant materials for an end user is ridiculous.
On the one hand, that spectacular failure could potentially dissuade the military from buying in and prolonging this bubble. On the other hand, having an accountability sink for war crimes would be a tempting offer to your average army.
Iāve been wondering about this
One the one hand, military procurement (at least afaik) tends toward complete functional product
On the other hand, military R&D programs have been among the most spectacularly profligate financial black holes in recent decades
None of the options involved feel great, even if āit gets shunted from mil procurement and all industry claims get publicly brandished as the bullshit it isā comes to pass (which tbh still feels like an optimistic outcome, with unclear time horizons)
Eugenics in action:
Danish parenting tests under fire after baby removed from Greenlandic mother
Psychometric tests are widely used in Denmark as part of child protection investigations into new parents, and have long been criticised by human rights bodies as culturally unsuitable for Greenlandic people and other minorities.
In a 2022 report, the institute said that because the tests were not adapted to take cultural differences into account, Greenlandic parents ran āthe risk of obtaining low test scores, so that it is concluded, for example, that they have reduced cognitive abilities, without there being actual evidence for this."
Psychological assessments of her were made by a Danish-speaking psychologist. Kronvold, whose first language is Kalaallisut (West Greenlandic), is not fluent in Danish.
Oh man that is so grim
Kronvold, 38, was given an FKU test in 2014 before the birth of her second child, a boy, and again recently while pregnant with her third child. Speaking through an intermediary, she told the Guardian that on this last occasion she was told it was to see if she was ācivilised enoughā.
billy spears got it right. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark
Software licensing is notoriously labyrinthine, so resources like the site Microsoft will close ā Get Licensing Ready ā can be very handy. Today, the site offers over 50 training modules plus documentation.
Iām sorry, mister MSFT, why did you cause there to be more educational content about your stupid licenses than there is for theoretical physics in an undergrad programme, have you ever considered that itās time to stop? Get some help?
My organic chemistry professor used ChatGPT to write a lab procedure. My other chemistry professorās daughter is VP of AI at Microsoft. AAAAA
do you have it? iām in this field and i wonder how badly it fucked up
there are two incredible footguns in there, both of which can be trivially avoided
Two posts in two weeks about professors using ChatGPT has me questioning my desire to go back to school
OT: is Tallinn nice?
iāve been there for few days for conference once and it does look at least like a nice place to visit with no obvious glaring problems to be seen. walkable, organized, you can get around without a car np, doesnāt seem to be extremely expensive but again, i havenāt been there for a long time. itās like you took nicer parts of Warsaw, slapped a port next to it and cooled down a few degrees
unless youāre talking about that EA techbro billionaire, then iāve got no idea
looking to move?
Starting things off with a fresh post from Brian Merchant: Tech under Trump, part 1
