The promptfondlers did it, they made a computer which doesn't do what you tell it to do
Starting this Stubsack off with one programmer's testimony on the effects of the LLM rot:
For the record, I work at a software company that employs ~10k developers.
Before LLMs, I'd encounter [software engineers that seem completely useless or lacking in basic knowledge] a couple of times a month, but I interact with a lot of engineers, specifically the ones that need help or are new at the company or industry at large, so it's a selected sample. Even the most inexperienced ones are willing and able to learn with some guidance.
After LLMs, there's been a significant uptick, and these new ones are grossly incompetent, incurious, impatient, and behave like addicts if their supply of tokens is at all interrupted. If they run out of prompt credits, its an emergency because they claim they can't do any work at all. They can't even explain the architecture of what they are making anymore, and can't even file tickets or send emails without an LLM writing it for them, and they certainly lack in any kind of reading comprehension.
It's bleak and depressing, and makes me want to quit the industry altogether.
Quick update: The post's popped off in the Fediverse, and Doctorow's actively posting through it in the replies.
EDIT: Tante's also written a follow-up post, trying to convince people to tone down their vitriol against Cory.
edit: I mean, he tried transformer powered voice-to-text and liked it, and now he’s all in on the LLMs are a rigorous and accurate tool actually bandwagon?
This is probably just me, but that doesn't seem particularly shocking. If this AI bubble's taught me anything, its that tech culture (if not tech as a whole) was deeply, deeply vulnerable to the LLM rot from the start.
OT: Declan Chidlow ran across product activation codes for some old Adobe products.
The only useful one's for Flash MX 2004 IMO, but its still cool to have them.
New and nicely made sneer caught my attention: Rely On AI And Get Left Behind
The kind of person who cannot tell the difference between blindly guessing words and conscious thought.
Quick TL;DR of my Discord Age Verification Experience™:
Using my face multiple times didn't work due to the AV shitting itself inside out, but setting my DOB via Family Center somehow did it
Absolute fucking clown fiesta, Jesus Christ
WD and Seagate confirm: Hard drives for 2026 sold out (because the AI datacentres have stolen them all)
idk if the bubble will pop or slowly deflate, but im certain that in 10 years we'll look back at 2020s as the decade where tech stopped progressing in the way we know it - since we're diverting all our resources to ai, there's no longer any room left for anything else to grow
the 2010s crypto gpu shortage was the warning siren for this. it really hampered the growth of gpus because they permanently became so much more expensive - now the same is happening to memory, storage, and...well, gpus again! we've reached the point of reverse progress
Not only that, she introduced mass surveillance to Bluesky and is brainstorming further methods of such in response to getting clowned on so hard.
I've already seen people go absolutely fucking crazy with this - from people posting trans-supportive Muskrat pictures to people making fucked-up images with Nintendo/Disney characters, the utter lack of guardrails has led to predictable chaos.
Between the cost of running an LLM and the potential lawsuits this can unleash, part of me suspects this might end up being what ultimately does in Twitter.
Not the first time the US gov's pulled that shit, and it sure as hell won't be the last.
File this shit next to the SIG M18 and the XM7 in its list of grade-A blunders.