LukeZaz

@LukeZaz@beehaw.org

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨SHL0MS(famous prankster on X/Twitter) baited AI haters by posting a real painting by Monet, claiming it was AI generated. The post got viral(>6M views) as art critics started deleting their replies⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s worth clarifying that when I say “as good as human art,” I am not speaking to a purely material perspective. Broadly speaking, AI bros don’t care for that human context, so to them those theoretically-surpassable errors are all that’s left to solve for. In there lies the idiocy.

  At any rate though, I agree, and I appreciate the thoughtful comment!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨SHL0MS(famous prankster on X/Twitter) baited AI haters by posting a real painting by Monet, claiming it was AI generated. The post got viral(>6M views) as art critics started deleting their replies⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The title and much of the way this is written suggests contempt for people who hate AI. Which leaves me wondering what this post is doing here, on a site that has a lot of people who hate AI? If I’m supposed to think it’s funny – or for that matter, meaningful – I don’t. This is a cheap gotcha used periodically by pro-AI types, who then pretend that GenAI output is somehow as good as human art just because people can’t instinctively recognize it on sight.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The AI Backlash Could Get Very Ugly⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Eh, “anti-AI” isn’t that. Bannon’s doing a different tactic here: Pretending you believe in something good so that people are more likely to listen your batshit insanity at other times.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The AI Backlash Could Get Very Ugly⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  AI has mostly been a financial boon for the country, buoying the stock market and driving growth.

  Gosh, speak for the billionaires, why don’t you? My finances, and the finances of everyone I know, have most certainly not seen any improvement. If anything, it’s getting actively worse, in ways that this very article acknowledges. All for a technology none of us want. And yet the writer still feels the need to pretend things are good because the S&P 500’s doing well, as if that means shit fuck all for the rest of us. Go figure that as usual “the economy is doing great” is shorthand for “wealth inequality is going up.”

  I’m sick and tired of hearing this misleading concept, I’m going to vent for a second: Most people do not have large stock market investments! They are too busy paying rent! What’s good for the rich isn’t what’s good for me, and I do not fucking care about the goddamn NASDAQ!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Civilization VII Update Will Finally Let Players Stay as One Civ Through All Ages, as Take-Two Boss Admits: 'We Got It Wrong'⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I haven’t played Civ 7, but it’s mostly for lack of money, because honestly? In no world can I call this change “wrong.” This is experimentation to me. I like experimentation. And for that matter, I like the concept too. Civilizations change throughout history, that’s how that works! And it can introduce opportunities to fix the issue I usually have with Civ games where I run out of things to do (like exploring) and get bored before the game’s over.

  Now, I have no idea if it actually pulled that off; maybe they fucked it up bad. But most of the complaints I’m seeing are from folks who really mostly just seem like they didn’t want their cheese moved. And while that’s understandable, I think we’ve got enough Civ games that do the usual Civ stuff by now. If you want that, why not just play 5 or 6?

  I really, really hope this doesn’t prevent future Civ games from trying new stuff out. Triple-A games take few enough risks as it is.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Introducing Google Cloud Fraud Defense, the next evolution of reCAPTCHA | Google Cloud Blog⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There are no doubt countless programs to scan QR codes on a desktop computer, and I know similar exists for phones. A camera is not needed.

  At the same time though, that begs the question of what, exactly, is going to prevent an AI from doing the same goddamn thing? So it’s still shit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Anthropic’s new AI tool has implications for us all – whether we want it or not⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  “This technology is the most dangerous and powerful thing in the world, and everyone should be paying attention to it,” says company directly profiting off adoption of said technology. Quelle surprise! Surely they can be trusted to be telling the unvarnished truth!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Age checks creep into Linux as systemd gets a DOB field⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  passed in California, where Democrats control the entire legislative process.

  I think that’s the “with the help of tech bros” part. Rather high population of those in California, and boy do they have lobbying money.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jeff Kaplan is sick of hearing you demonize games you weren't going to play anyway: 'Shut the f**k up. No one cares. We don't need to hear that you weren't into it'⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Wasn’t Kaplan doing pretty well with regards to Overwatch? My understanding of that was that it got turned to shit despite him, not because of him.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jeff Kaplan is sick of hearing you demonize games you weren't going to play anyway: 'Shut the f**k up. No one cares. We don't need to hear that you weren't into it'⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I wouldn’t know. But I know there’s already a lot of open world multiplayer survival games competing for this space, and so it being in a different setting isn’t going to do it a lot of good. For that matter, neither will it being pretty, since that describes loads of games these days, and gameplay is almost always more important.

  But personally, I only care about this sort of thing when it starts getting treated as the metaphorical golden goose egg, which this isn’t. I wouldn’t bother to comment on the game if not for Kaplan complaining about negativity that, in my eyes at least, should’ve been expected.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jeff Kaplan is sick of hearing you demonize games you weren't going to play anyway: 'Shut the f**k up. No one cares. We don't need to hear that you weren't into it'⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Were it that Kaplan’s comments had not happened, this is likely exactly what I would have done. Not really a concept deserving of a lot of attention, if you ask me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jeff Kaplan is sick of hearing you demonize games you weren't going to play anyway: 'Shut the f**k up. No one cares. We don't need to hear that you weren't into it'⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh Lord, and he thinks it’s unreasonable for people to complain about this?

  Look, he’s not really wrong per se. The internet does run disproportionately on outrage, and plenty of people judge shit that they’ve got no right to be judging because they don’t actually spend time thinking about what makes good art. But another multiplayer open world survival game? Really?

  For all that internet jackasses love to shit on anything and everything, you really shouldn’t be surprised after giving them such an easy target, Jeff.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Jeff Kaplan is sick of hearing you demonize games you weren't going to play anyway: 'Shut the f**k up. No one cares. We don't need to hear that you weren't into it'⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Last I checked, Jeff Kaplan – a game designer – doesn’t really represent the tech industry? So this comment kinda comes off as an unhinged non-sequitur.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Just to clarify, we’re only talking about mainstream social media here, right?

  Yes, most discussions of infinite scroll center around this use, and it’s what the topic’s on. I’m aware that other uses exist, but frankly I’m not terribly worried about that. Pagination is a perfectly viable alternative for most every case that infinite scroll is used in, especially when paired with a half-decent search system, so even if a clumsy blanket ban were applied I think we’d be fine.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Drink Whole Milk, Eat Red Meat, and Use ChatGPT⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean hey, by some definitions it’ll work! “I didn’t check/care that the AI output bullshit” is technically different!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Were it only that we didn’t need to put carets on both sides of every word for one, haha! Alas, Lemmy issue. C’est la vie.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So, sans much context (short of a quick read on Wikipedia on the Telecommunications Act of 1996), this honestly looks like naive libertarianism, and reads like an obnoxious manifesto. Feels appropriate for the attitude of the 90s, I suppose – from what I know, there was a lot more belief in the internet as a frontier of freedom and justice, then – but it’s not so fitting these days. Many of the internet’s ills have spawned from an environment of shockingly little regulation, and I’d argue the all-too-common “move fast and break things” paradigm devolved into existence from that, too.

  Which isn’t to say that a low-regulation environment can’t work. But it needs specific alternatives; you can’t just not fix something. And infinite scroll is definitely a something, here. It absolutely contributes to creating an addictive environment while adding almost no good whatsoever. Personally, even if this letter had aged well, I don’t think this would be an appropriate time to reference it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The EU moves to kill infinite scrolling⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s still a separate issue. Infinite scroll is scarcely ever used in a good way, and is almost always used to encourage addictive behavior; something which affects adults just as much as children. It’s a nasty dark-pattern and little else.

  As far as I’m concerned, banning infinite scroll could easily be a very good thing, and I’m in favor.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ChatGPT wrote “Goodnight Moon” suicide lullaby for man who later killed himself⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  which OpenAI designed to feel like a user’s closest confidant.

  “AI safety,” they cry, as they design some of the most preposterous and dangerously stupid things imaginable. I swear, Silicon Valley only uses creativity when they want to invent a new kind of Torment Nexus to use as a goal for Q4.

  Making something like this should be a crime. LLMs are not a replacement for therapy and should never be treated like one.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ChatGPT wrote “Goodnight Moon” suicide lullaby for man who later killed himself⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Hard disagree. This is overdone tripe, which is what AI is best at. Hell, it’s definitionally overdone — need a large dataset to regurgitate this stuff, after all.

  At any rate, this text got a man killed, so probably best not to praise it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YouTube's long unskippable ads may have finally met their match⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  or Brave

  Uuhhh, yeah, no. Don’t do this. Librewolf – or really any Firefox browser – is going to be a lot better choice than the homophobia-and-crypto Chromium browser.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'Friendslop' dominated 2025 by proving time and time again that graphics are overrated⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I agree that calling these low-poly multiplayer games “slop” is terrible, because there is clearly a ton of love and effort poured into them.

  Depends on the game. Lethal Company? I wouldn’t call that slop at all. Content Warning? Yeah, no, that’s slop. It was a fun little jaunt to try it out for free, but that game felt so shallow and burned out on me so incredibly fast that if I had paid anything for it I’d probably have felt ripped off.

  To me, “friendslop” doesn’t necessarily mean the game isn’t fun, it instead means that it 1) relies heavily on friends to be fun and 2) has some element of feeling like a cash-in. I don’t count Lethal Company because it doesn’t have either issue for me. Content Warning, meanwhile, was worthless to me in singleplayer and relied so thoroughly on the camera as a gimmick that it feels like the epitome of the term.

  R.E.P.O., however – which you didn’t mention but which I still have thoughts on – I’m torn on. On one hand, the gameplay is a more detailed and engaging form of what Lethal Company has, and it can easily be fun alone. On the other, the way semiwork interacts with their community in their news videos feels like Youtube engagement rot so strongly that it taints the game for me by extension; it (and their emoji abuse) makes me feel like the game has the “love and passion” of a dorm room dildo prank, even though it’s well-put-together enough that there’s no way that’s the case.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 loses a GOTY award over use of gen AI⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So, from the way you talk about it, it seems you’re describing your feelings about the game moreso than an attempt at an objective take. Which is good, because there is no such thing as an objective take, and I definitely understand the perspective of not liking something that you feel is inexplicably ultra-popular.

  That said, I do wonder how much you’ve seen of the game? Because I haven’t played it either, but everything I’ve seen strongly suggests that it is a genuine work of art that people put effort and passion into. Which – since you brought it up – is not a description I’d apply to Battlefield 6. So I’m kinda left wondering what specifically about it might put you off enough to want to slag it off like this.

  If you’re upset at it for winning a billion awards, that’s fair. Most awards shows are always very silly and this one game getting practically showered honestly highlights that a lot — even a really good game like this probably didn’t deserve quite this many accolades. Still though, it might be worth giving the game itself a second look? Even if unlikely, pleasant surprises are nice!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 loses a GOTY award over use of gen AI⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This is most of it, but it is worth remembering that using GenAI/LLMs for placeholders is still bad. It’s strictly unnecessary, has dubious efficiency gains at best, and you’re still using tech that is provably hurting people and the environment en masse.

  I’m not going to hate Sandfall forever for this – it’s not original sin – but it’s still a very real error they should not repeat.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Don't call it a Substack⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It is a blogging site, but it’s also notable for being in favor of free-speech absolutism, to the point of allowing Nazis on the platform. From Wikipedia:

  In January 2022, the Center for Countering Digital Hate accused Substack of allowing content that could be dangerous to public health. The Center estimated that the company earned $2.5 million per year from the top five anti-vaccine authors alone. The three founders responded via blog post affirming their commitment to minimal censorship.

  Substack faced further criticism in November 2023 for allowing its platform to be used by white nationalists, Nazis, and antisemites. In an open letter, more than 100 Substack creators threatened to leave the platform and implored Substack’s leadership to stop giving bigotry a platform. In response, Substack CEO Hamish McKenzie said the company would continue to allow the publication of extremist views because attempting to censor them would make the problem worse. Creators like Casey Newton, Molly White, and Ryan Broderick left the platform as a result.

• Don't call it a Substackwww.anildash.com ↗
  Submitted ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨technology@beehaw.org⁩ | ⁨7⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'Architects of AI' named Time Magazine's Person of the Year⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Doesn’t really matter if they say it’s praise or not. The reality is that it’s free press, and hardly could be said to be negative. It benefits them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Grok Says It Would Kill Every Jewish Person on the Planet to Save Elon Musk⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If I’m being honest, I don’t think Grok posts deserve attention here. This isn’t news; we already know Grok is shit because LLMs are shit and Elon is extremely shit. We don’t need reminders.

  All this does is draw people’s attention to more slop and hate, same as they’ve been seeing all year. That’s not just unimportant, it’s unhealthy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  FUD

  What is this, a crypto forum? You make it sound like they’re trying to single-handedly tear down GrapheneOS or something.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Thank Mozilla for Killing Localization on Support Mozilla (And Replacing Human Contributions With AI Bots)⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  As time goes ever onward, I find myself increasingly in the position of using Firefox solely because it isn’t Chromium, rather than because of any inherent good quality.

  Which is not to say that Firefox isn’t still at least fine as a browser. But this is what Mozilla is now, and if there’s anything the leaders of that organization are doing, it is that they are committing corporate suicide because none of those idiots know what the hell they are doing. Firefox can’t stay decent with people like them at the helm.

  I swear, getting a business major should be considered self-harm.