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 you’ll 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 cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this. Also, happy April Fool’s in advance.)

  • istewart@awful.systems
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 hour ago

    Just had a video labeled “auto-dubbed” pop up in my YouTube feed for the first time. Not sure if it was chosen by the author or not. Too bad, it looks like a fascinating problem to see explained, but I don’t think I’m going to trust an AI feature that I just saw for the first time to explain it. (And perhaps more crucially, I’m a bit afraid of what anime fans will have to say about this.)

  • corbin@awful.systems
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    11 hours ago

    Today on the orange site, an AI bro is trying to reason through why people think he’s weird for not disclosing his politics to people he’s trying to be friendly with. Previously, he published a short guide on how to talk about politics, which — again, very weird, no possible explanation for this — nobody has adopted. Don’t worry, he’s well-read:

    So far I’ve only read Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality, but can say it is an excellent place to start.

    The thread is mostly centered around one or two pearl-clutching conservatives who don’t want their beliefs examined:

    I find it astonishing that anyone would ask, [“who did you vote for?”] … In my social circle, anyway, the taboo on this question is very strong.

    To which the top reply is my choice sneer:

    In my friend group it’s clear as day: either you voted to kill and deport other people in the friend group or you didn’t. Pretty obvious the group would like to know if you’re secretly interested in their demise.

    • bitofhope@awful.systems
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      edit-2
      9 hours ago

      Wow, farriers are going crazy with these modern horseshoe designs!

      Political propaganda graphic, transcription below

      image transcription

      Above: a single axis scatter plot. The ends of the axis are labeled “Left” and “Right”. Data points are distributed similarly to normal distribution, the center being more concentrated than the extremes. Caption: “What people think the political spectrum is vs What it actually is”.

      Below: A two-dimensional scatter plot. The ends of the horizontal axis are labeled “Left” and “Right” and the vertical axis is labeled “Independent Thought” at the top and “Groupthink” at the bottom. The data points are evenly distributed inside a bell curve shape, with the peak of the hump at Independent Thought and between Left and Right, and the wide bottom of the bell spanning the whole Left-Right axis at maximum Groupthink.

      Data points near the top of the bell (Independent-Center) labeled ‘“Un-intentional moderates” (from Paul Graham’s The Two Kinds of Moderate)’. [Original image uses double quotes around the term Un-intentional moderates and single quotes around the title of Paul Graham’s shitpost.]

      Data points at the bottom center of the bell (Groupthink-Center) labeled “Intentional moderates”.

      In the bottom corner a watermark crediting the image to “@shw1nm”.

      I love the implication that being an independent thinker means agreeing with both the majority and other independent thinkers.

      • swlabr@awful.systems
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        26 minutes ago

        Finally, someone has solved the political compass. No-one will ever come up with a new political spectrum again. Soon we will have world peace

      • flaviat@awful.systems
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        3 hours ago

        So “unintentional moderates” are those that both choose deliberately to believe in centrist political ideology and to participate in groupthink?

      • bitofhope@awful.systems
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        6 hours ago

        Hi, I’m an unimtentional moderate centrist! I don’t have an ideology, only views! My overton window is a peephole! Kamala is a far leftist! Trump is orange! People should stop treating politics like team sports and join the non team sports tribe like me! Political correctness gone mad! Let me tell you about Chesterton’s fence! Everyone’s sheeple except my flock! Say it with me: I’m an independent thinker!

      • Soyweiser@awful.systems
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        edit-2
        6 hours ago

        Did they try to add a bell curve in a place where it shouldn’t be te last image? Im fascinated by how little sense it makes, and by how bad the adding a groupthink axis is.

  • maol@awful.systems
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    16 hours ago

    My University Keeps Sending Me Stupid Emails About AI, a continuing series:

    A poster that reads "This house believes that AI is the future of climate resilient design". There is also a picture of a robot.

    From the email:

    The debate will be chaired by Michael Pike. Speaking for the motion are Prof. Gregory O’Hare (TCD), Maeve Hynes, Prof. Gary Boyd and Chatgpt assisted by Student Curator Ruan McCabe, all UCD. Speaking against the motion are David Capener (UU), Lucy O’Connell, Peter Cody and Meabh O’Leary, all UCD.

    • bitofhope@awful.systems
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      9 hours ago

      Artificial Intelligence is the future of climate resilient design in the same way that asian pseudo-medicinal ED treatments are the future of the white rhinoceros.

    • istewart@awful.systems
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      9 hours ago

      Notwithstanding the subject matter, I feel like I’ve always gotten limited value from these Oxford-style university debates. KQED used to run a series called Intelligence Squared US that crammed it into an hour, and I shudder to think what that’s become in the era of Trump and AI. It seems like a format that was developed to be the intellectual equivalent of intramural sports, complete with a form of scoring. But that contrivance renders it devoid of nuance, and also means it can be used to platform and launder ugly bullshit, since each side has to be strictly pro- or anti-whatever.

      Really, it strikes me as a forerunner of the false certainty and point-scoring inherent in Twitter-style short-form discourse. In some ways, the format was unconsciously pared down and plopped online, without any sort of inquiry into its weaknesses. I’d be interested to know if anyone feels any different.

  • maol@awful.systems
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    16 hours ago

    I would also like to complain that I have finally started getting AI summaries in Google, and I may have to switch to a different search engine. Neither wanted nor needed!

    • Soyweiser@awful.systems
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      14 hours ago

      The url manipulation trick doesnt work for you?

      E: this I mean, somebody even made a site for it. My own setup is weird and I have ancient strange habits so I just added it to my search bookmark.

  • Soyweiser@awful.systems
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    17 hours ago

    Elsevier doing some AI

    "So, [Elsevier] added an AI question and answer to my article in Computer & Education.

    The answers are wrong! They did not ask permission! The answers are WRONG!

    How is this science?!"

  • froztbyte@awful.systems
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    19 hours ago

    AI-Powered Wi-Fi 7 Versatile Outdoor/Indoor Mesh AP

    we’re at the “the washing machine without a dateclock is marked millenium-bug safe in its marketing brochures” level of stupid

    (that might seem like a stupid comparison but it’s one of the things I most viscerally remember seeing from that time (when I was still a youngin who was still largely years away from computertouching))

    • Soyweiser@awful.systems
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      20 hours ago

      Not dating your press releases on your own site is a choice. (Lot more places do this and it is driving me slowly mad) So, did they drop this yday? Some weird schrodingers april fools joke deflection attempt?

    • Mii@awful.systems
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      1 day ago

      I am fairly certain that their stupid AI stance at least played a role. I’m part of a largish writing community, where at least several hundred people did NaNo each year, a good part of them donated too. Last year, no one partook, instead we did our own internal thing.

      If this happened across other communities too, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it did, they must have felt it financially.

      • swlabr@awful.systems
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        1 day ago

        It is a CIA psyop to prevent revolutionary thought from arising in written media, in that it’s a self-inflicted PIP that makes you feel inadequate in your creative writing ability. CIA funding (obviously funneled through NGOs via CIA front USAID) is how it’s survived so long with such a stupid name. Of course, now that government spending on the CIA is going down, so is NaNoWriMo. All that’s left is for it to be supplanted by some benevolent Chinese competitor that people will say steals your data, or something.

        /s /s /s

        • froztbyte@awful.systems
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          19 hours ago

          I demand you prove your assertion! preferably using wallspaghetti and alphabet soup, of course. so’s I know it’s totes legit and original!

          (/s ofc, and link too (incase anyone didn’t see that))

  • David Gerard@awful.systemsM
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    ·
    2 days ago

    tip from a discord:

    I’ve been doing some micro tasking to train LLM’s the last few months to earn some extra cash, the last month it’s all dried up, no tasks available. I can’t help thinking that is a sign of a bubble deflating.

  • Architeuthis@awful.systems
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    SMBC using the ratsphere as comics fodder, part the manyeth:

    transcription

    Retrofuturistic Looking Ghost: SCROOOOOGE! I am the ghost of christmas extreme future! Why! Why did you not find a way to indicate to humans 400 generation from now where toxic waste was storrrrrrrred! Look how Tiny Tim’s cyborg descendant has to make costrly RNA repaaaaaaairs!

    Byline: The Longtermist version of A Christmas Carol is way better.

    bonus

    transcription

    Scrooge: I tried, but no, no, I just don’t give a shit.