TechTakes

Amazon used an AI-generated image as a cover for 1922's Nosferatu, and it got publicly torn apart on Twitter:

On a personal note, it feels to me like any use of AI, regardless of context, is gonna be treated as a public slight against artists, if not art as a concept going forward. Arguably, it already has been treated that way for a while.

You want me to point to a high-profile example of this kinda thing, I'd say Eagan Tilghman provided a textbook example a year ago, after his Scooby Doo/FNAF fan crossover (a VA redub came out a year later BTW) accidentally ignited a major controversy over AI and nearly got him blacklisted from animation.

I specifically bring this up because Tilghman wasn't some random CEO or big-name animator - he was just some random college student making a non-profit passion project with basically zero budget or connections. It speaks volumes about how artists view AI that even someone like him got raked over the coals for using it.

in the continuing series of russian bitching over kernel maintainers: Russia says it might build its own Linux community after removal of several kernel maintainers

Robinhood's about to make a whole new generation of apes:

So apparently the US government has been compromised by rustheads

https://thenewstack.io/feds-critical-software-must-drop-c-c-by-2026-or-face-risk/

https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/resources/product-security-bad-practices

Microsoft found a fitting way to punish AI for collaborating with SEO spammers in generating slop: make it use the GitHub code review tools. https://github.blog/changelog/2024-10-29-refine-and-validate-code-review-suggestions-with-copilot-workspace-public-preview/

Going outside awful's wheelhouse for a bit:

Logan Paul doxed and harassed a random employee for posting a sign saying Lunchly was recalled

You want my take, the employee in question (who also got a GoFundMe) should sue Logan for defamation - solid case aside, I wanna see that blonde fucker get humbled for once.

today i found out that openai wanted to make their own chips https://neuters.de/technology/artificial-intelligence/openai-builds-first-chip-with-broadcom-tsmc-scales-back-foundry-ambition-2024-10-29/

can you imagine what kind of disaster would it be

FastCompany: "In Apple’s new ads for AI tools, we’re all total idiots"

It's interesting that not even Apple, with all their marketing knowledge, can come up with anything convincing why users might need "Apple Intelligence"[1]. These new ads are not quite as terrible as that previous "Crush" AI ad, but especially the one with the birthday... I find it just alienating.

Whatever one may think about Apple and their business practices, they are typically very good at marketing. So if even Apple can't find a good consumer pitch for GenAI crap, I don't think anyone can.

[1] I'd like to express support for this post from Jeff Johnson to call it "iSlop"

I know it's Halloween, but this popped up in my feed and was too spooky even for me 😱

As a side note, what are peoples feelings about Wolfram? Smart dude for sho, but some of the shit he says just comes across as straight up pseudoscientific gobbledygook. But can he out guru Big Yud in a 1v1 on Final Destination (fox only, no items) ? 🤔

Got linked to this UFO sightings timeline in Popbitch today. Thought it looked quite interesting and quite fun. Then I realized the information about individual UFO sightings was being supplied by bloody Co-pilot, and therefore was probably even less accurate than the average UFOlogy treatise.

PS: Does anyone know anything about using Arc-GIS to make maps? I have an assignment due tomorrow and I'm bricking it.

The AI lawsuit's going to discovery - I expect things are about to heat up massively for the AI industry:

Is there a group that more consistently makes category errors than computer scientists? Can we mandate Philosophy 101 as a pre-req to shitting out research papers?

Edit: maybe I need to take a break from Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000.

ZITRON DROPPED

https://www.infoworld.com/article/3595687/googles-flutter-framework-has-been-forked.html/

I’m currently using Flutter. It’s good! And useful! Much better than AI. It being mostly developed by Google has been a bit of a worry since Google is known to shoot itself in the foot by killing off its own products.

So while it’s no big deal to have an open source codebase forked, just wanted to highlight this part of the article:

Carroll also claimed that Google’s focus on AI caused the Flutter team to deprioritize desktop platforms, and he stressed the difficulty of working with the current Flutter team

Described as “Flutter+” by Carroll, Flock “will remain constantly up to date with Flutter, he said. Flock will add important bug fixes, and popular community features, which the Flutter team either can’t, or won’t implement.”

I hope this goes well!

google got legally beat down a fair bit in app store area https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/10/court-orders-google-monopolist-knock-it-monopoly-stuff