[–] 2 points 1 week ago

I don't think you're wrong on the latter bit - if these were any other shartups (or, at least, pre "AI" shartups), this would be read as a "runway extending move". mild testament to just how much/completely the current crop of con has shifted the focus used in that world

imo all the "rahrah safety!" noises have been a figleaf to obscure that very inconvenient aspect

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  • [–] 10 points 1 week ago

    I don't understand why Bill Gates still feels the need to do marketing work

    because he’s actively doing works to change the world in specific (negative) ways. look into the history of gates-tied funding in nutrition programs, he’s got a bad-shit-for-humanity track record spanning well past a decade. has “just” had a better PR team than the clowns of vogue

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  • [–] 7 points 1 week ago

    I recall seeing bits of this (their racist treatment of black workers in the factories as well as the culture of keeping it going) kick around on twitter as far back as 2019 (iirc), so now I’m wondering - is it not widely known?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago*

    hmm, interesting that that made it as far as a news article - shows the concerns around bubble pop are ... more prevalent than some would like to admit

    I imagine there's more than a few "we've branded ourselves AI because that's where the money is but oh shit it's not such a great look now.." companies out there at the moment who are working on how to update their positioning

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  • [–] 4 points 2 weeks ago

    I’m curious about this one, legal repercussions against the perpetrator seem pretty clearly viable (it would seem to me that Science has a viable fraud case, and Williams for probably a few too). why wouldn’t anyone do that? is that not the done thing in academia?

    the network effects of reputational damage are pretty oof though :|

    this shit should be regulated into the dustbin of history. relatedly, the recent release of unredacted docs from the NYT vs OpenAI case showing the clear knowledge of theft and substitution… it’s all willingly done

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  • [–] 6 points 2 weeks ago

    I don’t know enough about Chinese state security apparatus to comment about that aspect but I’ve seen some mentions of how the state there is also heavily pushing prompts everywhere, and it’s apparently just as shit a failure as it is in the western sphere…so, could be fucked either way

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  •  

    in the spirit of this post, but from the other side

    I have a shitdroid that I can't root because the vendor sucks, but google can go fuck themselves too. combined with that I haven't androided much for about a decade and know nothing about the current ecosystem.. I'm looking for good alternatives to a few things. free/foss preferred but I'm pragmatic over picky - if there's a good paid option I'm willing to consider it

    immediate known requirements include contact sync, calendar (more business than personal but either works if it's good). maybe also other things I should know about?

    judicuous preference to things that support open protocols and self-hosting (i.e. anything that has to use their service to operate - no go)

    tell me about good apps! I know about syncthing and photosync

     

    some of the sub’s friends are holding a conference although they’re still not totally comfortable to go public:

    but buyers are warned that purchases will “require approval”

    aww, the poor babies. even with literal nazis in the whitehouse they still feel uncomfortable to spout their weird shit

    hopefully if this thing happens at all, someone documents the everliving hell out of every attendee

     

    some months ago I mentioned I couldn’t see comments in safari but could in fx (on ios). figured it out now: the 1Blocker “disable comments” filter sweepingly includes lemmy comment field types, but for some reason only on safari and not fx (despite apple forcing engine as they do)

    the fix: add awful.systems as an allowed domain inside 1Blocker config

     

    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.

    Last week's thread

    (Semi-obligatory thanks to @dgerard for starting this)

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