mii

joined 9 months ago
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"Sam Altman is one of the dullest, most incurious and least creative people to walk this earth." in c/techtakes@awful.systems
[–] mii@awful.systems 23 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (5 children)

I’m a senior software engineer

Nice, me too, and whenever some tech-brained C-suite bozo tries to mansplain to me why LLMs will make me more efficient, I smile, nod politely, and move on, because at this point I don't think I can make the case that pasting AI slop into prod is objectively a worse idea than pasting Stack Overflow answers into prod.

At the end of the day, if I want to insert a snippet (which I don't have to double-check, mind you), auto-format my code, or organize my imports, which are all things I might use ChatGPT for if I didn't mind all the other baggage that comes along with it, Emacs (or Vim, if you swing that way) does this just fine and has done so for over 20 years.

I empirically work quicker with it than without and the engineers I know who are still avoiding it work noticeably slower.

If LOC/min or a similar metric is used to measure efficiency at your company, I am genuinely sorry.

"Sam Altman is one of the dullest, most incurious and least creative people to walk this earth." in c/techtakes@awful.systems
[–] mii@awful.systems 29 points 1 day ago (53 children)

Let's be real here: when people hear the word AI or LLM they don't think of any of the applications of ML that you might slap the label "potentially useful" on (notwithstanding the fact that many of them also are in a all-that-glitters-is-not-gold--kinda situation). The first thing that comes to mind for almost everyone is shitty autoplag like ChatGPT which is also what the author explicitly mentions.

Rationalism meets iNaturalist: ficus all in c/sneerclub@awful.systems
[–] mii@awful.systems 14 points 1 day ago

You lost, buddy? Points at the sidebar.

Never Forgive Them in c/techtakes@awful.systems
[–] mii@awful.systems 8 points 2 days ago

That's gotta be one of my favorite Zitron piece to date. Ed managed to articulate some points which have been floating around in my mind for a while which I did not have the words to explain. Especially how using any form of out-of-the-box computer these days is just a completely user-hostile pile of steaming horseshit, and why I am anal-retentive about what software gets installed on my devices and how exactly my window manager has to work, &c.

I mean, it's probably because I'm an obsessive nerd, but the fact that it makes me feel in control when I can rip shit of the source code that bugs me (or put shit in that I miss) is a major factor, too.

Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 15th December 2024 in c/techtakes@awful.systems
[–] mii@awful.systems 7 points 5 days ago

Jfc, when I saw the headline I thought this would be a case of the city being too cheap to hire an actual artist and instead use autoplag, but no. And the guy they commissioned isn't even some tech-brain LARP'ing as an artist, he has 20+ years of experience and a pretty huge portfolio, which somehow makes this worse on so many levels.

In which some researchers draw a spooky picture and spook themselves in c/sneerclub@awful.systems
[–] mii@awful.systems 10 points 1 week ago

[...] placed in environments that incentivize scheming.

If this turns out to be another case of "research" where they told the model exactly what to do beforehand and then go all surprised Pikachu when it does, I'm gonna be shocked ...

... because it's been a while since they've tried that.

Advent of Code 2024 - Historian goes looking for history in all the wrong places in c/notawfultech@awful.systems
[–] mii@awful.systems 1 points 1 week ago

Yay, day 3 with Regexp magic.

Day 3

open(FH, '<', $ARGV[0]) or die $!;
my $sum = 0;
my $sum2 = 0;

my $enabled = 1;

while (<FH>) {
    while ($_ =~ /(?:mul\((\d{1,3}),(\d{1,3})\)|(do)\(\)|(don\'t)\(\))/g) {
        $enabled = 1 if $3;
        $enabled = 0 if $4;
        $sum += $1 * $2 if $1 && $2;
        $sum2 += $1 * $2 if $enabled && $1 && $2;
    }
}

close(FH);

print "Part 1: $sum\n";
print "Part 2: $sum2\n";

Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 15th December 2024 in c/techtakes@awful.systems
[–] mii@awful.systems 15 points 1 week ago

That conversation reads like from a variation of Mafia/Werewolf where you have to figure out who in your circle of rationalists is secretly e/acc and wants to build the torment nexus.

Moderators Across Social Media Struggle to Contain Celebrations of UnitedHealthcare CEO’s Assassination in c/notawfultech@awful.systems
[–] mii@awful.systems 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

1 day old and over 1000 kudos. Holy shit.

No beta we die like Brian Thompson.

Advent of Code 2024 - Historian goes looking for history in all the wrong places in c/notawfultech@awful.systems
[–] mii@awful.systems 1 points 2 weeks ago

Day 2, Part 1

use strict;
use List::Util qw( min max );

open(FH, '<', $ARGV[0]) or die $!;
my @lines;
while (<FH>) {
	my @report = split /\s/, $_;
	push @lines, \@report;
}

close FH;

sub in_range {
	my $diff = max($_[0], $_[1]) - min($_[0], $_[1]);
	return $diff >= 1 && $diff <= 3;
}

sub is_safe {
	my $prev = @$_[0];
	my $dir = 0;

	for (my $i = 1; $i < scalar @$_; ++$i) {
		my $el = @$_[$i];
		if ($el > $prev) {
			return 0 unless $dir >= 0;
			$dir = 1;
		} elsif ($el < $prev) {
			return 0 unless $dir <= 0;
			$dir = -1;
		}

		return 0 unless in_range $prev, $el;
		$prev = $el;
	}

	return 1;
}

sub part1 {
	my $safe_reports = 0;

	foreach (@_) {
		$safe_reports++ if is_safe @$_;
	}

	return $safe_reports;
}

print 'Part 1: ', part1(@lines), "\n";
My part 2 solution didn't work with the real input but worked with all the test cases I threw at it, so I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it and I'm too lazy to debug any more right now.
Advent of Code 2024 - Historian goes looking for history in all the wrong places in c/notawfultech@awful.systems
[–] mii@awful.systems 3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Advent of Code is one of these things I wanna do every year and then I end up in fucking end-of-the-year crunch time every December and work for 10-12 hours and really don't wanna code after work anymore.

But hey, here's a quick solution for day 1. Let's see how far I make it.

Day 1

use strict;
use List::Util qw( min max );

open(FH, '<', $ARGV[0]) or die $!;

my @left;
my @right;

while (<FH>) {
	my @nums = split /\s+/, $_;
	push(@left, $nums[0]);
	push(@right, $nums[1]);
}

@left = sort { $b <=> $a } @left;
@right = sort { $b <=> $a } @right;

my $dist = 0;
my $sim = 0;
my $i = 0;

foreach my $lnum (@left) {
	$sim += $lnum * grep { $_ == $lnum } @right;

	my $rnum = $right[$i++];
	$dist += max($lnum, $rnum) - min($lnum, $rnum);
}

print 'Part 1: ', $dist, "\n";
print 'Part 2: ', $sim, "\n";

close(FH);

Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 1st December 2024 in c/techtakes@awful.systems
[–] mii@awful.systems 14 points 2 weeks ago

Promptfondlers too lazy to even fondle prompts anymore. I’m sure this is the prime target demographic for Elon’s brain chips.

183
Sam Altman is full of shit (and totally has a thing for Scarlett Johansson) (www.wheresyoured.at)
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by mii@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
46 comments fedilink
 

Wake up honey, new Zitron just dropped.

Looks like Sammy boy has a crush on Scarlett Johansson and wanted to model his sexy chatbot after her role in the movie Her. The damage control is actually hilarious.

Altman subsequently claimed that the actress for Sky was cast before the company reached out to Johansson.

“Yeah, I don’t want to go out with you anyway. Also, I already have a girlfriend but she goes to a different school, so you wouldn’t know her. And no, I won’t tell you who it is!”

I mean, we all knew that OpenAI is a fucking clown show of a company run by wannabe nerd frat boys with way too much money, but I didn’t think we’d get high school level relationship drama this season.

36
Tired of just generating anime girls? How about letting roided Clippy play CSI? (gizmodo.com)
 

It was honestly only a matter of time before someone thought we could try that thing where they identify a license plate from a reflection in some dude’s pupil for realsies.

Puloka’s lawyers reportedly used an “expert” in creative video production who’d never worked on a criminal case before to “enhance” the video. The AI tool this unnamed expert used was developed by Texas-based Topaz Labs, which is available to anyone with an internet connection.

You wouldn’t know this expert though. He goes to a different school.

Large language models like ChatGPT have convinced otherwise intelligent people that these chatbots are capable of complex reasoning when that’s simply not what’s happening under the hood.

And at least the judge here had more than five brain cells and shut that circus down. Let’s hope this sets a precedent.

87
When your big tech brain completely fails to read the room. (variety.com)
 

It seems like in the proceeds of building their alleged Star Trek utopia with robots and holodecks, tech bros have discovered that they’d rather be the Borg than Starfleet and have begun shilling the pros of getting yourself assimilated at SXSW of all places.

“I actually think that AI fundamentally makes us more human.”

I think it makes us more brain damaged, with this guy being exhibit A, but I guess you could argue that’s a fundamental human property (unless you count hallucinating LLMs).

Those folks sure seem bullish on artificial intelligence, and the audiences at the Paramount — many of whom are likely writers and actors who just spent much of 2023 on the picket line trying to reign in the potentially destructive power of AI — decided to boo the video. Loudly. And frequently.

Stop resisting the tech utopia they’re trying to build for you, or you’re literally doomers. Never mind that the people building said tech utopia are also doomers, but that’s different, because they worry about the real dangers like acausal robot basilisks torturing them for all eternity and not about petty shit like unemployment and poverty.

Speaking of stopping resisting, another, more critical article about this conference has some real bangers they left out in the other one -- I wonder why. It has some sneers, too.

[…] tech journo Kara Swisher—saying stuff like “you need to stop resisting and starting learning” about AI […].

Yep, that's an actual quote. I'm filing that one under examples of being completely tone-deaf alongside "Do you guys not have phones?".

[…] every company will use AI to “figure out how” to become “more efficient.”

I’m sure the toxic productivity community on YouTube will gobble that shit up. It reminds me of that clown who made a video on how to consume media more efficiently by watching anime on 2x speed and skipping the "boring parts". I guess when we eliminate all human value from entertainment products, that might become a valid strategy.

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