TechTakes

Promptfans still can't get over the Erdős problems. Thankfully, even r/singularity has somehow become resistant to the most overhyped claims. I don't think I need to comment on this one.

Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1pag5mp/aristotle_from_harmonicmath_just_proved_erdos/

New sneer popped up lamenting AI's intrusion into hacker spaces. Red site is having a normal one about it

Robin Hanson has a sneerworthy level of hubris that has lead to him falling for all sorts of BS over the years (he's long argued that being an economist makes him more rational and better at working out the truth than domain experts at all fields of science, apparently because only economists have heard of incentives) but I was still surprised to learn he's now a UFO conspiracy nut.

Presumably he caught some History channel rerun of Ancient Aliens and was struck by how much more plausible it was than his "Age of Em" theory.

A week-ish ago I said that Mike Masnick is twice as annoying about AI as Dare Obasanjo.

I retract my statement

No idea if it was intentional given how long a series' production cycle can be before it ends up on tv/streaming, but it's hard not to see Vince Gilligan's Pluribus as a weird extended impact-of-chatbots metaphor.

It's also somewhat tedious and seems to be working under the assumption that cool cinematography is a sufficient substitute for character development.

Found a primo sneer aimed at a slop supporter's unofficial manifesto today:

https://chronicles.mad-scientist.club/tales/you-probably-shouldnt-block-ai-bots-from-your-website/

(Don't mind the title, its ironic)

Noted for the amusing headline: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03506-6

Major AI conference flooded with peer reviews written fully by AI Controversy has erupted after 21% of manuscript reviews for an international AI conference were found to be generated by artificial intelligence.

Do note that it appears to be an advert for ai peer review detection services, but I was still tickled by the whole “why are there leopards at our face-eating conference” surprise being expressed.

New Blood in the Machine, about the slop-nami's effects.

"Enjoy" this toxic stew of prediction markets, racism, and the objectifying of women:

https://protos.com/polymarket-criticized-for-racist-post-targeting-fake-baddies/

Robot poop ruins a Nashville tradition:

https://old.reddit.com/r/nashville/comments/1p7e20t/so_zoolumination/

just found out about the incredibly dystopian US prison "ADX"

Inside the federal supermax tucked away in Colorado’s high desert, prisoners spend 22 to 24 hours a day locked alone inside concrete cells that are smaller than a standard parking space. The prison, formally called United States Penitentiary Florence Administrative Maximum Facility but better known as ADX, has earned the nickname “The Alcatraz of the Rockies” because of its harsh conditions.

Contact with others is extremely limited; programming, such as anger management or religious services, is broadcast over televisions in the cells, while psychological evaluations happen through the steel doors. Belongings are also strictly limited and prisoners aren’t allowed to hang photographs or drawings on their walls. Exercise time out the cell happens alone inside large cages called “dog runs”, where prisoners can only walk a few paces each direction. Prisoners are given virtual reality goggles to simulate the outdoors or community. A former warden once called ADX a “clean version of hell,” and said that living there was “far much worse than death.” Olympic Park bomber Eric Robert Rudolph and Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, are both incarcerated at ADX.

https://boltsmag.org/death-row-clemency-adx-supermax/