MagicShel

@MagicShel@lemmy.zip

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Generative AI is a societal disaster⁩ ⁨⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  We could eat just fine if almonds were never grown, and save 1000x the water that goes to data centers. That would have a far better conservation effect and hurt absolutely no one.

  Also, we’re getting rid of jobs in the falsified images and videos industry? Must be if that’s what AI is.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Generative AI is a societal disaster⁩ ⁨⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Attacking data centers over water use when it is utterly dwarfed by the almond and dairy industries is weird priorities to me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Generative AI is a societal disaster⁩ ⁨⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Why start with data centers and not almonds or dairy? The difference in water usage is staggering.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨While you were having premarital sex, I was mastering the asymptotic notation⁩ ⁨⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Sure, but what did you do with the other 4 minutes and 30 seconds?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Generative AI is a societal disaster⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Globally, data centers use 18.2 billion liters of water per year. California almond production uses 6-10 trillion liters per year. A little perspective may be in order here.

  (According to the numbers I was able to find in ten minutes of googling trying to reproduce more reliable studies I’ve seen elsewhere. Feel free to correct me if you have better numbers. Truth is more important than being right.)

  Energy usage looks like is projected to be around 3% by 2030, which is more worthy of concern. The water thing, for everything I can see or find, is vastly overblown and there are much lower hanging fruit to pick.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Coastal Peacock Spider: Mating Dance⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Looks pretty ambiguous to me. Eyes seem fem, thighs seem him.

  That thong, though… I could never wear something that made me question whether my asshole was showing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak supports interim ban on AI superintelligence⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  AI superintelligence is:

  • not a thing
  • would have to be a thing in order to get banned
  • if it really was superintelligent they would just ignore the ban — doesn’t apply to “contiguous superpositional vectorized thought-matrix” (or whatever)
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨World would be a better place⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Got a ring, but I don’t even like talking through it. I just look and hope they go away. But sometimes I have to ask.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨World would be a better place⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  If it was ever not about selling (product, religion, candidate) maybe it wouldn’t be so awful to have your door knocked. I don’t mind if it’s about a lost dog or kid, or maybe someone with baked goods saying hi. But no, it’s always someone trying to get you into their pipeline. Someone who doesn’t see you as a person, but only as a lead.

  Fucking people. Get off my porch, lawn—just back all the way out of sight.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bats taxonomy⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  They technically a member of the ambulatory foliage genus, yes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OpenAI allegedly sent police to an AI regulation advocate’s door⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  From that guy’s twitter? The primary source of this article is that guy, who is a lobbyist and lawyer. Someone whose career is based on legalistic wordsmithing to convince people that other people are bad.

  I’ve seen papers served before, both by a cop and a regular dude (going by appearance). The fact that the server was a deputy in this case doesn’t honestly seem relevant at all. Cops are frequently hired because someone in a police uniform knocking on your door is more likely to be answered than someone who looks like a salesman. But jurisdictions are different—I’ve never heard of papers being served by registered mail, for instance.

  That’s why I’d like for the journalist to have brought in some kind of legal analyst to weigh in. They didn’t and what we have is a bunch of quotes from an expert wordsmith and a tech journalist who may not know anything more about the legalities than we do.

  I genuinely appreciate that you took another step to look into this and respond, but hearing more from the guy’s own perspective doesn’t help me feel like I know what’s really going on here.

  I think I’m done with this whole topic until I hear something about it from a better source. If this is never mentioned again, I’ll assume this is just an attempt at manipulating public opinion over a mundane matter that isn’t outrageous at all. If there is something to it, we’ll hear more about it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OpenAI allegedly sent police to an AI regulation advocate’s door⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  He’s not just a random dude, though. His organization is involved in lobbying efforts around OAI. The article claims there’s no connection between the case being subpoenaed for and the stuff he did, and that’s the part that might be abnormal and dirty, but it’s nuanced and the clear bias on display demands their claims be taken with a grain of salt.

  It looks to me like this article is carrying the guy’s PR water for him. But just because the article feels manipulative doesn’t mean there’s necessarily no factual basis for it.

  So I just… don’t feel informed at all.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A tangled web of deals stokes AI bubble fears in Silicon Valley⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  From my experience, OAI may be the public face of AI, but Anthropic is murdering them in coding capability and cost - as in my company pays more in a week for me to use Claude than I would’ve paid in a month to use the top OAI API. (Actually I paid 1/10th that because I couldn’t afford that for what was essentially just a toy for my discord users—I wasn’t using it for development.) It really puts things in perspective when I can see in Cline the running totals for each task.

  Of course, I have no idea what the operating costs are.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OpenAI allegedly sent police to an AI regulation advocate’s door⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This is an inflammatory way of saying the guy got served papers. I’m not in love with OAI, but it rankles me when someone nakedly tries to manipulate the narrative.

  I don’t understand the nuances of whether it’s normal for the guy to be subpoenaed—it could all be as dirty as he says, but the title makes me assume the rest of the article is just as skewed, and I walk away feeling like someone tried to recruit me to a cause rather than inform me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨More than 60% of US game players only buy two games or fewer per year, survey finds | VGC⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I have a console. The games I bought (on sale or no) in reverse order are:

  • expedition 33 (31?)
  • It Takes Two
  • Baldur’s Gate
  • CP2077 (discount)
  • No man’s Sky (discount)
  • Days Gone (discount)
  • Diablo IV
  • Jedi: Outcast
  • Horizon: Forbidden West

  And it came with the latest(?) god of war, but I’ve never played it.

  So if you’re talking about AAA brand new games, my average is under 2 per year. But I have so many hours logged between BG, DG, and NMS it’s ridiculous.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Investment is not inherently a bad thing, but this is certainly the case. When the owners of the company care about increased profit instead of the employees and customers (which would be aligned in a perfect world but they are not necessarily so in this one) enshittification is inevitable.

  As soon as it is more profitable to lobby for legal changes that make more money at the expense odds your customers or employees—or find other ways to use your money to the same ends, you’ve gone to the dark side. I wish it was illegal for organizations (other than non-profits) to be involved in politics, but as a practical matter you can either allow it or accept it will happen out of view and ability to influence, like drug use.

  These issues are why I’m happy being a worker bee than a queen—there’s no solving people’s problems when the problems almost always turn out to be the ability/drive of some of us to adapt to any system for maximum personal gain at the expense of others.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Regulating AI hastens the Antichrist, says Palantir’s Peter Thiel⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Self-importance and loss of connection to reality through both tech and wealth.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can you think of any now?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Fun fact: ever wonder where your weight goes when you lose weight? CO2. You literally breathe most of it out.

  BRB. Hyperventillating to test a theory…

  (Going to assume this just results in a smaller quantity of calories processed per breath before anyone get’s all sciencey on me.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Who the fuck needs an x axis anyway⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I tutored a young autistic man in college and he was almost non-verbal. He could communicate through speech, but only with great difficulty and stuttering. That was the only definition of autism I understood at that time, and he was considered better off than many.

  A few years later when I learned about Asperger’s because my sister got diagnosed with it, I went to get evaluated myself and after sitting down with me once, they said I’m not autistic.

  I’m about 99% sure I would be placed on the autism spectrum today.

  I don’t know whether it’s good or bad that the diagnostics / definition of autism seem to be broadening — that’s above my pay grade. But you can’t deny people who weren’t considered autistic 30 years ago are today, and so to compare autism rates which measure clearly different levels of capability is pretty useless.

  In order to compare rates, we would need a consistent set of diagnostic criteria.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Artists are losing work, wages, and hope as bosses and clients embrace AI⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Alright I’ve rethought about my earlier response. It’s true, but also irrelevant. So let me try that again without taking your comment personally.

  The question is will regular people be able to tell. I think over time, even if they can’t put their finger on exactly why they don’t like something, people will demonstrate a preference for human-created art.

  That’s not the end of the story — AI generated is faster and cheaper and economics will play a role — but that was my point.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Artists are losing work, wages, and hope as bosses and clients embrace AI⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Not sure who you’re used to dealing with, but I use AI all the time — damn near every day — and have done for 6 years. I’ve written a discord AI dungeon master. I’ve written hundreds perhaps over a thousand short stories often starting from a scenario I’ve written and watched them all play out time and again. I know LLMs inside and out. I’ve jailbroken them to see how far they can be pushed in terms of violence, evil, and intimacy.

  I’m no professional author to be sure, but because I lack the knack for storytelling, not because I don’t understand the craft. So I understand the tools pretty well, and I can tell when they are poorly employed.

  And I’m irritated because I 100% can tell, and I wish you were right.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Artists are losing work, wages, and hope as bosses and clients embrace AI⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah the problem is pretty much everything AI does requires collaboration with an actual human expert. But we’ve got people who think it can be a therapist without an actual therapist, artist without collaborating with an artist, coder, author, marketing strategist, lawyer, doctor…

  This isn’t me belittling AI, I think it can do some really incredible things, but the way I see it, everything it does requires actual cognitive ability and domain knowledge.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Artists are losing work, wages, and hope as bosses and clients embrace AI⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I remain hopeful that interest will drop in AI generated products because the quality just isn’t there. You can tell the voices aren’t right, the pictures are soulless, the prose is stilled and often self-contradictory. I think people will respond negatively to that.

  But how long it will take for that to be clear to CEOs and CFOs, I don’t know, and lives are being destroyed in the meanwhile. I think AI is a good tool, but I don’t know how to keep it as a tool but prevent amateurs from thinking the output is professional level when any professional wills tell you it isn’t.

  I’ve generated a lot of text — mostly code and fiction. I’ve seen AI write some really good phrases I’d never have thought of. But I’ve never seen it generate so much as half a page before it writes something that requires editing. If you don’t write like 90% of a thing, its voice takes over and everything sounds terrible and flat even if you keep it from making factual errors.

  And even the great bits require context or it won’t have any impact. AI is god awful at artistry. Sometimes I’ll ask it to analyze something I’ve written and it always wants to rewrite the bits that have style or panache and replace them with the most generic crap. I’m a terrible visual artist but I’m going to assume it does the same thing with image generation.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'Borderlands 4 is a premium game made for premium gamers' is Randy Pitchford's tone deaf retort to the performance backlash⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Not me, then. Cool. Thanks for letting me know.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Comcast Executives Warn Workers To Not Say The Wrong Thing About Charlie Kirk | 404 Media⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I hope everyone publicly expresses support for the kids shot in Evergreen on the same day while pointedly ignoring Kirk’s death. I think that sends a clear message without having to mention Kirk at all.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Who is the enemy?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Bill Clinton would be unsurprising. He might be just a run of the mill philanderer, though. I haven’t seen any legitimate reason to suspect Biden. Of course I spent 20 years thinking Michael Jackson was just a weird dude with a Peter Pan complex and might legitimately not have been a pedo, so maybe I just don’t have a very good pedodar.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tesla said it didn’t have key data in a fatal crash. Then a hacker found it.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Insurance dropping coverage is going to eliminate them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Who is the enemy?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, there’s idiots and there’s idiots, you know? Yeah those classes should never have existed and maybe that’s evidence enough of idiocy, but there is an abundance of folks smarter than me. Surely they could hire one of them…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Who is the enemy?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The complicated thing here is there are so many layers of abstraction to make things easier to use and understand that if you didn’t age with the tech, it’s really hard to fully understand. That’s everything. I see Angular and React developers who don’t understand CSS.

  My last position, we had classes that set sizes for everything in multiples of 4 pixels. So size-1 is 4 pixels, size-2 is 8 pixels, etc. And everything was sized with those classes. Which means if you ever wanted to resize anything, you have to go to every element and change the class instead of you know, having input controls have distinct classes.

  People are layering on abstraction without understanding why and throwing away all the benefits, time to invent another abstraction layer! I had my tech lead argue with me that this was a better system because “standards”. I’m going to assume the standard was poorly understood because I can’t imagine a multi-billion dollar company hires idiots to set standards.

  I got started learning transistors and Boolean algebra and programming an 8088(?) in college. Had computers for a few years before that. It’s surprising how conditionals I see that can be simplified by Boolean algebra.

  I don’t actually hate computers, and I try to give IT workers some grace because I’m not always proud of the work I do when I have to finish 3 months of work in two weeks. But I’ve worked with a lot of folks who aren’t curious or looking to learn and improve, and I have to wonder why they ever got into IT in the first place.

  For me the worst part of IT is the god damned management. Any possible productivity gains from agile are undercut at every turn by management who has to have a concrete promise of a delivery date before they even understand the ask.

  Anyway, sorry for the rant. Started my long weekend early and starting a new job next week, so I have a lot of pent up rants from my last company.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Who is the enemy?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  IT people hate computers.

  IT people hate users. IT people hate other IT people. We’re just a surly lot.