Also there already is a bsky user with the username leoxiv, who makes from what I can tell final fantasy poses, some nsfw. Lol.

Being a bit more specific, its Final Fantasy XIV, which you've probably heard about from people using its free trial as meme material. Its also a better example of the metaverse than any actual metaverse out there, but that's a given for literally any MMO that has popped up for the last twenty fucking years.

Also:

Here's my first shot at it:

"Imagine if the stereotypical high-school nerd became a supervillain."

I'd bet good money they vibe-coded the whole thing. Its AI, the whole point is to enable laziness, grifts and laziness in grifts.

Update on the Vibe Coder Catastrophe^tm^: he's killed his current app and seems intent to vibe code again:

Personally, I expect this case won't be the last "vibe coded" app/website/fuck-knows-what to get hacked to death - security is virtually nonexistent, and the business/techbros who'd be attracted to it are unlikely to learn from their mistakes.

Somehow, Ross Ulbricht returned

ZITRON DROPPED (his last post for the year)

New post from Brian Merchant: No thanks to generative AI, which is about AI-run publisher Spines and their attempt to enshittify the literature world. Pulling a paragraph near the end here:

For another, the needle can move here; if the noise is loud enough, AI publishing can get slapped with a stigma that can at least help slow the erosion of the industry. Public shame can be a powerful tool, when warranted! So yeah: This is why I’m thankful that we’re building this community, and that there are people out there willing to go to the mat to oppose things like the AI-enabled automation of book production. (I fully resent that ‘AI enabled automation of book production’ is a phrase I had to write in 2024.)

Giving my thoughts, I feel Merchant and co. have a headstart when it comes to moving the needle here, for two main reasons:

• AI has been thoroughly stripped of whatever "wow factor" - showing off that your gen-AI system can make books isn't gonna impress Joe Public the way it would've back in '22 or '23.

• The one-two punch of the slop-nami and the plagiarism lawsuits have indelibly associated "AI" as a concept with "zero effort garbage made of stolen shit" - as a consequence, using or supporting it will immediately disgust a good portion of the crowd right out of the gate

GO TO AUDIBLE.COM/REPENTHARLEQUIN TO ENTER A COMA AND ESCAPE THIS MADNESS

If we're lucky, it'll cut off promptfondlers' supply of silicon and help bring this entire bubble crashing down.

It'll probably also cause major shockwaves for the tech industry at large, but by this point I hold nothing but unfiltered hate for everyone and everything in Silicon Valley, so fuck them.

I vaguely remember mentioning this AI doomer before, but I ended up seeing him openly stating his support for SB 1047 whilst quote-tweeting a guy talking about OpenAI's current shitshow:

I've had this take multiple times before, but now I feel pretty convinced the "AI doom/AI safety" criti-hype is going to end up being a major double-edged sword for the AI industry.

The industry's publicly and repeatedly hyped up this idea that they're developing something so advanced/so intelligent that it could potentially cause humanity to get turned into paperclips if something went wrong. Whilst they've succeeded in getting a lot of people to buy this idea, they're now facing the problem that people don't trust them to use their supposedly world-ending tech responsibly.

It'd be the sole silver lining of this entire two-year bubble.

Reject search engines, return to webrings/directories