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 youāll 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 cutānāpaste it into its own post ā thereās no quota for posting and the bar really isnāt that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned soo many āesotericā right wing freaks, but thereās no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iām talking redscare-ish, reality challenged āculture criticsā who write about everything but understand nothing. Iām talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyāre inescapable at this point, yet I donāt see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnāt be surgeons because they didnāt believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canāt escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)
The thing that galls me here even more than other slop is that there isnāt even some kind of horrible capitalist logic underneath it. Like, what value is this supposed to create? Replacing the leads written by actual editors, who work for free? You already have free labor doing a better job than this, why would you compromise the product for the opportunity to spend money on compute for these LLM not-even-actually-summaries? Pure brainrot.
Maybe someone has put into their heads that they have to āgo with the timesā, because AI is āinevitableā and āhere to stayā. And if they donāt adapt, AI would obsolete them. That Wikipedia would become irrelevant because their leadership was hostile to āprogressā and rejected āemerging technologyā, just like Wikipedia obsoleted most of the old print encyclopedia vendors. And one day they would be blamed for it, because they were stuck in the past at a crucial moment. But if they adopt AI now, they might imagine, one day they will be praised as the visionaries who carried Wikipedia over to the next golden age of technology.
Of course all of that is complete bullshit. But instilling those fears (āuse it now, or you will be left behind!ā) is a big part of the AI marketing messaging which is blasted everywhere non-stop. So I wouldnāt be surprised if those are the brainworms in their heads.
Thatās probably true, but it also speaks to Ed Zitronās latest piece about the rise of the Business Idiot. You can explain why Wikipedia disrupted previous encyclopedia providers in very specific terms: crowdsourced production to volunteer editors cuts costs massively and allows the product to be delivered free (which also increases the pool of possible editors and improves quality), and the strict* adherence to community standards and sourcing guidelines prevents the worse loss of truth and credibility that you may expect.
But there is no such story that I can find for how Wikipedia gets disrupted by Gen AI. At worst it becomes a tool in the editorās belt, but the fundamental economics and structure just arenāt impacted. But if youāre a business idiot then you canāt actually explain it either way and so of course it seems plausible
Some AI company waving a big donation outside of the spotlight? Dorks trying to burnish their resumes?
Ya gotta think itās going to lead to a rebellion.