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.
(Semi-obligatory thanks to @dgerard for starting this, and happy new year in advance.)
Techdirt - 2024: AI Panic Flooded The Zone, Leading To A Backlash
oh, typical techdirt eu-bashing, this time again because we have regulations.
(i wouldn’t be surprised if they’re conflating regulations with panic on purpose and packing valid criticism of llms and image plagiarism generators with the ridiculous tescreal screeds just to discredit the former; masnick’s primary stance was always extreme tech libertarianism and american exceptionalism, and the whole publication follows this)
While a good description of how AI Doom has progressed during 2024, I think the connection to regulation (at least the EU regulation, I am not familiar with what was proposed in California) is of the mark.
The EU regulation isn’t aimed at AI Doom, it’s aimed at banning and regulating real world practices. Think personal data, not AI going conscious.
I think that’s something to keep an eye on. The existence of the AI doom cult does not preclude there being good-faith regulations that can significantly reduce these people’s ability and incentives to do harm. Indeed the technology is so expensive and ineffective that if we can find a “reasonable compromise” plan to curb the most blatant kinds of abuse and exploitation we could easily see the whole misbegotten enterprise wither on the vine.