Post Awms0FJoetzVNZgkro by vt52@ioc.exchange
(DIR) More posts by vt52@ioc.exchange
(DIR) Post #AwjPx8jpHv5TuWhnO4 by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2025-08-01T16:37:26Z
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A good friend of mine, who's been wanting to learn to code small scale stuff for their semi-robotic-like sculptures, is suddenly enamored with liz the developer. I go to liz's website and it's dripping with AI fandom.I find the whole thing hard to take.I keep intending to read some of it, to actually assess it, and can't seem to actually, you know, do it.(Some of the pages at least, eg multiverse school, has a "text only" link lower right. It helps.)One is labelled:"7 Modern Languages in 7 WeeksBy community builderA GPT Tutor Friend that takes you through 7 modern languages in 7 weeks + interview prep materials at the end, inspired by Bruce Tate's book 7 Languages in 7 Weeks"Gotta sign up, etc, can't read anything there.WTF does one do with this shit, and friends entangled with it?
(DIR) Post #AwjQmDCKSz4KVkOGMi by vga256@dialup.cafe
2025-08-01T16:46:27Z
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@tomjennings i really enjoyed browsing that site, thank you. it had all the linguistic trappings of a pyramid scheme/religious cultno saving people from rolling around in their own make
(DIR) Post #AwkWiyqMAnD00Qunei by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2025-08-02T05:28:01Z
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@vga256 Yeah, it's very bothersome. My friend has long leaned towards the new age side... safely away of the anti science stuff, but tl;dr 2025 is making everyone a bit unhinged, and that liz stuff sets me off. The sheer volume of that particular breathless tone, the claims of AI skepticism but crazy "learn 7 languages..." and agents doing things for new folks and all the get (rich, skilled, results, . . ) quick are all flags to me. They're on the fedi but essentially inactive; I don't think that stuff would survive here but honestly I'd like some other takes.Ddg is useless to find any critique, of this or anything lately, just Instagram links.My friends partner is really into "the market will correct itself" a bit too broadly, and thinks I'm overly cynical about the a and the I stuf. (( LOL I've applied draconian filtering to my fedi feed, blocking any mention of the artificial idiocy two popular acronyms. So do use them if you reply! Lol))Our friendship is in trouble for other reasons, tangentially related. This is not helping.
(DIR) Post #AwmENuAYwjkmZN5SNM by vga256@dialup.cafe
2025-08-03T01:11:42Z
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@tomjennings it’s funny how all of that stuff tends to arrive in a personality package - openness to crystal healing and then alien abduction, and then 30 years down the road they’re convinced an L L M is sprouting consciousness. i think anyone could objectively look at that site and recognize it as pure self-marketing sophistry. she calls herself a “professor of A I” ffs 🤣i’ve started to see some friends and family dig in their heels with a i promissory notes. my brother in law is convinced that it’ll do wonders for cancer detection.the thing they all fail to understand is that this isn’t how you construct better human beings. oncologists learn their art from other oncologists making judgments and educated guesses. an image recognition model can’t produce a theory or description of what it sees, so it’s utterly useless for training people. i want better doctors, better coders, better painters. all things only learnable by the bitter joy of experience. it’s painful running into these moments where your values begin to diverge from friends’ values. hard to keep friendships alive when you’re not even in the same ballpark anymore.
(DIR) Post #AwmWdHhXXI414SzkqO by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2025-08-03T04:36:24Z
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@vga256 Indeed, it is really like that. Art Bell in the 90s, etc. Cold war to Little Alle'Inn, UFOlogy, Los Alamos, the desert, goofing on Roswell, we've shared a lot. I'm gonna make one attempt at replying with suggestions on how to actually accomplish the goal (which we've discussed before; more or less, arduino type programming, small scale robotics). they;re extremely skilled, I mean top notch and one of the most-skilled people I know,We've been friends for many decades.I'''m hoping when I write them it will be enough to break the spell .I hope I'm needlessly worried.
(DIR) Post #AwmYgKYhZIMyi6RQAa by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2025-08-03T04:59:22Z
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@vga256 Oh my friend is not tech culture, at all.
(DIR) Post #Awms0FJoetzVNZgkro by vt52@ioc.exchange
2025-08-03T08:35:49Z
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@tomjennings @vga256 it's quite a trap - I'm sure it still happens these days, but coming up there were always local biz folks with a "great software idea" that just needed a developer to make it. for every reasonable idea (hey, what if you could book an appointment on a website?) there were ten bad ones (had someone try to pitch me on software to recognize clothing and consumer goods on TV shows and let you find them to buy online - this was in the late 90s).the promise of cutting out the unhelpful non-visionary dev (how hard could the software part be?) and replacing them with A I is unfortunately too hard for some folks to pass up - finally! someone who won't just say "implementing your idea is effectively NP Hard, and we currently have no way to solve it in the amount of time left in the universe as we understand it"
(DIR) Post #AwnwKjQuzslFXnziCW by vga256@dialup.cafe
2025-08-03T20:41:43Z
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@tomjennings oh man, there's so much to unpack there 😆 i know of few things as entertaining as listening to art bell on AM radio on a trip through the US in the mid-2000s. i gave this situation some more thought overnight, and i hope that friendships are designed to transcend (deep) disagreements like these.ultimately, if my friends are using l l m's to write e-mails to their bosses and forge university homework or cheat on exams, they're still my friends.. they're now "my friends doing shitty things". i've done a lot of shitty things in my life, and the good friendships i've had let those mistakes slide by uncommented, and let me correct the mistakes on my own.there's no protecting someone from making an error of judgment. my only job is to patiently let them make it, and then be willing to help if they ask for help out of the mess later.it sure sucks to have to watch it happen though.
(DIR) Post #Awo28RB5dxYfB06yp6 by tomjennings@tldr.nettime.org
2025-08-03T22:04:06Z
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@vga256 Oh I don't care if I agree w/friend; but there's more going on in a bad way than just "poor taste" lol.Art Bell: It was fun, the Area 51 conspiracy stuff, etc, but he kept having creepier and creepier guests, when they became christian identity and race folk I dropped him and realized he'd been heading that way for a while.