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jaschop @awful.systems
Posts 5
Comments 19
the tech utopia fantasy is over
  • I don't know shit about these stats, and everything can be debated, but just wanted to say: don't let people get you down.

    Feeling positive/hopeful isn't always appropriate about everything, but people in here are acting like it's a mental illness.

  • How Self-Driving Cars will Destroy Cities (and what to do about it)
  • I'll add that such statistics are very much a moving target, since AVs are still "getting better every day". The software is (and will be) under constant development, and there will likely be tradeoffs between safety for pedestrians and convenience for passagers (e.g. how sensitive is the trigger for an emergency break?)

    Looking at it as an ongoing relationship between AV operators, regulators and people makes a lot of sense to me. I agree with the points of the video, that operators will likely push for a "just safe enough" standard and try to offload responsibilities onto bystanders.

  • your Bayesian yacht is an outlier adn should not be counted
  • His Wikipedia article is quite a ride. Apparently he and a Stephen Chamberlain were recently found innocent for a bunch of fraud charges. They boil down to inflating the value of a SW company he sold to Hewlett-Packart. They died within a day of each other in unrelated accidents. Must be rough.

  • US Copyright Office "frees the McFlurry" - Right to Repair Win

    arstechnica.com US Copyright Office “frees the McFlurry,” allowing repair of ice cream machines

    Soft-serve machines get a not-quite-parfait exemption to DMCA circumvention rule.

    US Copyright Office “frees the McFlurry,” allowing repair of ice cream machines
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    Get your Torment Nexus news from reputable journalistic outlet Know Your Meme (Character.AI Suicide Lawsuit)

    knowyourmeme.com Character.AI Teen Suicide Lawsuit

    Character.AI Teen Suicide Lawsuit refers to a controversy and lawsuit against the user-generated artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot website Character.AI

    Character.AI Teen Suicide Lawsuit

    archive of the mentioned NYT article

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    the wild tale of OpenAI vs. Open AI
  • The countersuit went so far as to ask the court to force Altman to “change its deceptive and misleading name to ClosedAI or a different more appropriate name.”

    top kek

    The guy (pun not intended) seems honestly as decent as you might hope for in a serial entrepreneur. Maybe a bit naive for expecting better from the players involved, but to me he comes off as endearingly earnest.

  • www.techrepublic.com AI-Generated Code is Causing Outages and Security Issues in Businesses

    Businesses using artificial intelligence to generate code are experiencing downtime and security issues, according to Sonar CEO.

    AI-Generated Code is Causing Outages and Security Issues in Businesses

    cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/25239919

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    Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending Sunday 15 September 2024
  • This reminded me of a gag from Pyramids (discworld novel) where quantum accounting is invented to manage a reality-warping pyramid building business. So I was trying to get a quote...

    ...only to discover that Quantum Accounting is an actual grifting term in recent use. Please marvel at this LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/roadmap-quantum-accounting-milestones-evolution-garrett-irmsc

  • Disapproving of automated plagiarism is classist ableism, actually: Nanowrimo
  • I feel like this has to be built on a lack of appreciation for words as a facilitator of human connection. By finding means of expression and being understood we manage to link our brains together on a conceptual level. By building these skills communally we expand the possible bandwidth of connection and even the range and fidelity of our own thoughts.

    This has to be motivated by a view of words as Authoritative Things that sit on shelves and bestseller lists and are authored by Smart And Successful People.

  • Disapproving of automated plagiarism is classist ableism, actually: Nanowrimo
  • Doesn't even mention the one use case I have a moderate amount of respect for, automatically generating image descriptions for blind people.

    And even those should always be labeled, since AI is categorically inferior to intentional communication.

    They seem focused on the use case "I don't have the ability to communicate with intention, but I want to pretend I do."

  • "The concern with slavery is the innocence of victim. When that’s removed, it’s no longer controversial. At least it shouldn’t be."
  • Not sure that any time someone posts cringe on HN counts as a tech take. Maybe we can bring AI into this?

    What about, enslaving prisoners is not controversial if an AI is giving the orders, since it's not a person oppressing another person. I'll take my 500M VC now please.

  • Federated vs Distributed Rant

    So I recently got an excuse rant about my opinions on federated tech. I think it's pretty much the best we can hope for in terms of liberating tech, with very few niches where fully distributed tech is preferable.

    Needing a server places users under the power of the server administrator. Why do we bother? "No gods, no masters, no admins!' I hear you shout. Well, there's a couple reasons...

    Maybe using software is just an intrinsically centralized activity. One or a few people design and code it, and an unlimited number of people can digitally replicate and use it. Sure, it may be free software that everyone can inspect and modify... but how many people will really bother? (Nevermind that most people don't even have the skills necessary.)

    Okay, so we always kind of rely on a central-ish dev team when we use tech. Why rely on admins on top of that? I believe the vast vast majority of people doesn't have the skills and time to operate a truly independent node of a fully distributed tech. Let's take Jami as an example:

    "With the default name server (ns.jami.net), the usernames are registered on an Ethereum blockchain."

    So a feature of Jami is (for most users) implemented as a centralized service. Yikes. You could build and run your own name server (with less embarrassing tech choices hopefully), but who will really bother?

    But say you bothered, wouldn't it be nice if your friends could use that name server too, and gain a little independence? That sounds a lot like decentralized/federated tech.

    Keeping a decent service online is a pain in the butt. Installing SW updates, managing backups, paying for hardware and name services... nevermind just the general bothering to understand all that mess. And moderation, don't forget moderation. I'm saying it's not for everyone (and we should appreciate the fuck out of [local admin]).

    I believe that servers and admins are our best bet for actual non-centralized tech. A tech-literate person tending a service for a small- to medium-size community is much more feasible than every person running their independent node (which will probably still depend on something centralized).

    And maybe that's just the way we bring good ol' division of labour to the Internet. You have your shoemaker, your baker, your social media admin. A respectable and useful position in society. And they lived happily ever after.

    17

    Enforced positivity policy at Humane

    arstechnica.com How to build a DOA product: Humane AI Pin founders banned internal criticism

    Questioning the design and dev progress was apparently "against company policy."

    How to build a DOA product: Humane AI Pin founders banned internal criticism

    Apparently a senior SW engineer got fired for questioning readiness of the product, dude must still be chuckling to himself.

    Found the story here https://hachyderm.io/@wesley83/112572728237770554

    4