TechTakes

The finest academic papers money can buy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShXvaJ46hI0&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251103-mit-releases-retracts-nonsense-ai-cybersecurity-paper - podcast

time: 5 min 59 sec

Dunning-Kruger for everyone!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvmlb1S6ogE&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251031-ai-makes-you-think-youre-a-genius-when-youre-an-idiot - podcast

time: 3 min 57 sec

and you thought living near a bitcoin miner was bad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XREXd8V7Fck&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251030-ai-powered-by-old-jet-engines-near-you - podcast

time: 4 min 16 sec

Call and demand a refund and reversion to Classic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8bHlG_NvLU&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251028-australia-sues-microsoft-over-forcing-copilot-ai-onto-office-365-customers - podcast

time: 7 min 08 sec

from non-profit to no-profit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqyWoAjBM44&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251029-openai-goes-for-profit-what-happens-next - podcast

time: 8 min 06 sec

Kushner ‘grew up playing their games,’ it’s fine

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-rq9MOfM5s&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251027-electronic-arts-losing-income-and-crippled-by-debt-more-ai - podcast

time: 7 min 04 sec

Want to wade into the spooky surf of the abyss? 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.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this. Happy Halloween, everyone!)

‘the first browser that actively fights against the web’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jh4sCW4pz4&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251024-scrape-the-web-for-openai-with-the-atlas-browser - podcast

time: 4 min 18 sec

‘The citations are totally misleading’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ0sRcbUlBQ&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251023-anti-renewables-group-uses-ai-in-inquiry-submissions - podcast

time: 6 min 11 sec

we're back baybee

Par for the course of my recent comment regarding theprimeagen.

archive link: https://archive.ph/ONKkm

contextualizes the topic beautifully. you might learn a lot about how american racism relates to capital and art from this article

highlight: most of these guys are into classical art fascism but one of them, a bitcoin guy looking to build a 450 foot tall statue of prometheus, appears to be specifically into italian fascism. his favorite aesthetic is futurism and he hired a futurist sculptor with this "manifesto" on his website:

"Omarchy feels like a project created by a Linux newcomer"

(long post, the author says feel free to skip to the summary)

archive (if yr browser chokes on the katakana URL): https://archive.is/Ks8o5

New fundees include Servo, Let's Encrypt, systemd. Fediverse gets thrown a bone via Fedify.

Want to wade into the sandy surf of the abyss? 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.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)

‘The overall quality was poor, and it was clear it had been hastily put together’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIUUy6pQUJ8&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251019-south-korea-blows-850m-on-failed-ai-school-textbooks - podcast

time: 4 min 36 sec

Hollywood calls the lawyers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By3GRSY2Ptw&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251018-how-openai-dodged-hollywood-on-sora-2 - podcast

time: 4 min 45 sec

hi, I’m Misa! — uh, Ani

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzFVuQl7xp8&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251017-chatgpt-sales-flat-altman-offers-openai-adult-chat - podcast

time: 6 min 03 sec

Found this via a blog post by Cory Doctorow.

Fascinating analysis on market structure, future scenarios and use of what is essentially accounting fraud my major players in the "AI" space.

Reddit versus Sam Altman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYsNrQ1EX7A&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251016-ai-boyfriend-users-radicalise-against-openai-self-host-their-chatbot-companions - podcast

time: 5 min 31 sec

My wife's job is to do data analysis for a truck fleet maintenance company. She gathers statistics about repair location performance, truck age, that sort of stuff. She reports these distilled results to customers, to inform them about the work being done and any trends they need to investigate. It's all pretty straightforward and they use a software package to collate the data and chart it. It works well.

As you would expect, one of their biggest customers has demanded that they "use AI" to give them better "insights" and "optimize what they are spending". How should they "use AI", you may ask? No idea, just do it. Naturally, the software package she uses has a shitty "AI agent" bolted onto it in the last few months, but it's utter garbage and does a worse job.

No matter. She has been tasked to "use AI" and the customer isn't happy that it hasn't happened yet. It's clear that this customer had their CEO/CTO/whatever decree that everybody "use AI" in their work to "improve outcomes".

She's really stressed about this and doesn't know what to do. I told her to say she "optimized the algorithm for data collection and reporting"; after all, "AI" such a nebulous term that normal computer processes can technically be called that. Maybe claim that she used the shitty software package's "AI agent" and not reveal that it's garbage and was discarded. This will tickle their balls until all this bullshit goes away. That day can't come soon enough.

science shows as true what you thought was only 99% true

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVf7VUX_iUk&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251015-ai-is-not-popular-and-ai-users-are-unpleasant-asshats - podcast

time: 5 min 57 sec

‘You won a free $10 Copilot coupon!’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iapCiYBj1bI&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251014-prompt-inject-githubs-ai-copilot-chat - podcast

time: 5 min 32 sec

Get clicking, minion!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_z9_lBxVFI&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251013-microsoft-tracks-copilot-ai-in-its-workplace-spyware - podcast

time: 3 minutes 53 seconds