TechTakes

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Stubsack: Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 13th July 2025 (awful.systems)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

90 comments fedilink

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.

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

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The idea guy will become the most important role in the coming aeon of AI (news.ycombinator.com)

submitted 2 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

1 comments fedilink

Alternatively:

Academia and advanced degrees are worthless; you can compress four years of study into a prompt the size of a tweet.

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‘AI is here to stay’ — is it, though? What do you mean, ‘stay’? (pivot-to-ai.com)

submitted 18 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

13 comments fedilink

podcast version
video version

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44

Cursor tries setting less money on fire — AI vibe coders outraged (pivot-to-ai.com)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

15 comments fedilink

podcast version
video version

5

4

did Jeff Bezos' API Mandate alienate the world into abandoning take your daughter to work day? (awful.systems)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

6 comments fedilink

how could daughters look their engineer-dads in the eyes, no matter the country they're in, the same before? this was our BeforeTimes (ignoring Bill Gates' antitrust). everyone knows this was a chokehold, and you did not all celebrate the "or you're fired" bit, nor did you only see it as "mere play". "americans" are not the only ones to blame. the paternalism ain't paternalizing. discuss.

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Calling in the AI vibe-writing cleanup crew (pivot-to-ai.com)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

3 comments fedilink

podcast version
video version

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11

Publishers file competition complaints in UK and EU over Google’s AI Overviews (pivot-to-ai.com)

submitted 3 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

1 comments fedilink

podcast version
video version

8

89

The Force-Feeding of AI on an Unwilling Public (www.honest-broker.com)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

6 comments fedilink

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Venture capital is lending money against video cards (pivot-to-ai.com)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

14 comments fedilink

podcast version
video version

10

80

"Asked to think like a paedophile or act suicidal: Workers training Meta's AI in Ireland speak out" (www.thejournal.ie)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

2 comments fedilink

God help us. These workers are employed by a subcontractor, Covalen.

Multiple workers from Covalen’s ‘AI annotation’ service spoke to The Journal Investigates about their roles. Their day-to-day work involves creating prompts that are fed to Meta’s AI platform so the system can be trained according to guidelines.

In order to do this, some workers have spent entire shifts pretending to be paedophiles online seeking child sex abuse related information, or suicidal people looking for details on how to kill or hurt themselves.

Covalen also does moderation for Meta, with workers forced to watch extremely violent and disturbing footage that has been flagged for moderation.

“Sometimes in my dreams I am the victim, but sometimes – and this is far worse – I am the perpetrator,” they said.

One bright spot:

Over 100 Covalen employees have now joined the Communications Workers Union (CWU). The toll that dealing with sensitive content and inconsistencies in wellness break length were extra motivating factors for the move.

They are also asking for a better rate of pay, as they are currently earning an average of €29,700 per year.

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Only 3%* of US AI users are willing to pay a penny for it (pivot-to-ai.com)

submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

104 comments fedilink

podcast version
video version

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Google Veo 3 fails, week 3 — fail harder with a vengeance (video) (www.youtube.com)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

2 comments fedilink

watch the video first, it's the point here

text version

podcast version tomorrow!

13

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The rise of Whatever (eev.ee)

submitted 6 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

14 comments fedilink

14

61

Microsoft lays off the staff who make the money to fund AI that doesn’t (pivot-to-ai.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

20 comments fedilink

podcast version
video version

15

24

How to pass an AI coding benchmark: train on the questions (pivot-to-ai.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

9 comments fedilink

podcast version
video version

16

44

$219 Springer Nature AI textbook was written with a chatbot (pivot-to-ai.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

8 comments fedilink

podcast version
video version

17

247

‘AI is no longer optional’ — Microsoft admits AI doesn’t help at work (pivot-to-ai.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

90 comments fedilink

video version

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22

Stubsack: Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 6th July 2025 (awful.systems)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

148 comments fedilink

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.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this. Also, happy 4th July in advance...I guess.)

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Google Veo 3 fails, week 2: fail harder — Shokunin Studio spins the gacha (pivot-to-ai.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

10 comments fedilink

don't just read the text - watch the video, it's the point of the exercise. And I worked all weekend on it. Thank you.

video version

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People Are Being Involuntarily Committed, Jailed After Spiraling Into "ChatGPT Psychosis" (futurism.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]