nfultz

joined 2 years ago
[–] nfultz@awful.systems 14 points 1 month ago (3 children)

AI Shovelware: One Month Later by Mike Judge

The fact that we’re not seeing this gold rush behavior tells you everything. Either the productivity gains aren’t real, or every tech executive in Silicon Valley has suddenly forgotten how capitalism works.

... por que no los dos ...

[–] nfultz@awful.systems 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They banned the guy that wrote the theil antichrist notes.

https://sfstandard.com/2025/09/23/spilled-peter-thiel-s-antichrist-secrets-now-s-banned-lectures/

Stephens and Thiel did not respond to requests for comment. Kulkarni declined to answer questions about the lectures, citing the off-the-record policy.

legal threats?

[–] nfultz@awful.systems 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Just got back from the Ted Chiang talk at the law school, talk was good but all the Q&A was lawyers ask-telling about LLMs. Not a single question for him about his fiction. :(

[–] nfultz@awful.systems 15 points 1 month ago

They put 'environmental impact of AI' on the front of the student newspaper (below the fold, but still), then you flip and see this

kinda feeling two steps forward, three steps back rn on top of all the other drama on campus

[–] nfultz@awful.systems 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

ruby’s had this problem for ~2 decades now. like, the “rockstar dev” archetype literally became big directly because of ruby’s popularity and perception at the time

I had to look it up, the ~~~Rails Conf~~~ Golden Gate Ruby Conf code like a porn star thing was 2009, I didn't hallucinate it. DHH has deleted those tweets.

I feel old now.

[–] nfultz@awful.systems 5 points 1 month ago

Heard about the below last night; apparently survivors are forced into arbitration, so only the dead can sue. IANAL but thats pretty messed up.

https://techjusticelaw.org/2025/08/30/from-homework-help-to-suicide-planning-family-sues-openai-and-samuel-altman-alleging-chatgpt-coached-teen-son-to-suicide/

[–] nfultz@awful.systems 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I got paid $2700 for teaching a semester. Adjuncting sucks. It doesn't get better.

Even if you finished, all the postdocs I know had their NSF starter kit yanked.

[–] nfultz@awful.systems 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

For those of you in the (West) LA area, there's a panel with Brian Merchant happening tomorrow. Probably no food this school year but still looks good.

https://law.ucla.edu/events/democracy-technology-salon

If anyone does turn up, codeword is banana bread, otherwise I'll assume you're a lawyer (not derogatory).

[–] nfultz@awful.systems 7 points 2 months ago

When Prophecy Fails is worth the read just for the narrative, he literally had his grad students join a UFO / Dianetics cult and take notes in the bathroom and kept it going for months. Really impressive amount of shoe leather compared to most modern psych research.

[–] nfultz@awful.systems 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Excerpt from the new Bender / Hanna book, AI Hype Is the Product and Everyone’s Buying It :

OpenAI alums cofounded Anthropic, a company solely focused on creating generative AI tools, and received $580 million in an investment round led by crypto-scammer Sam Bankman-Fried.

Just wondering, but what ever happened to those shares of Anthropic that SBF bought? Was it part of FTX (and the bankruptcy), or did he buy it himself and still holds them in prison? Or have they just been diluted to zero at this point anyway?

EDIT:

Found it; It was owned by FTX and part of the estate bankruptcy; 2/3 went to Abu Dhabi + Jane Street1, and the remainder went at $30 / share to a bunch of VC2.

[–] nfultz@awful.systems 11 points 2 months ago

In April 2021, AI Dungeon implemented a new algorithm for content moderation to prevent instances of text-based simulated child pornography created by users. The moderation process involved a human moderator reading through private stories.[49][41][50][51] The filter frequently flagged false positives due to wording (terms like "eight-year-old laptop" misinterpreted as the age of a child), affecting both pornographic and non-pornographic stories. Controversy and review bombing of AI Dungeon occurred as a result of the moderation system, citing false positives and a lack of communication between Latitude and its user base following the change.[40]

Haha. Good find.

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