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 - this one was a bit late, I got distracted)

  • flavia@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    14·
    2 months ago

    My organic chemistry professor used ChatGPT to write a lab procedure. My other chemistry professor’s daughter is VP of AI at Microsoft. AAAAA

  • maol@awful.systemsEnglish
    12·
    2 months ago

    Eugenics in action:

    Danish parenting tests under fire after baby removed from Greenlandic mother

    Psychometric tests are widely used in Denmark as part of child protection investigations into new parents, and have long been criticised by human rights bodies as culturally unsuitable for Greenlandic people and other minorities.

    In a 2022 report, the institute said that because the tests were not adapted to take cultural differences into account, Greenlandic parents ran “the risk of obtaining low test scores, so that it is concluded, for example, that they have reduced cognitive abilities, without there being actual evidence for this."

    Psychological assessments of her were made by a Danish-speaking psychologist. Kronvold, whose first language is Kalaallisut (West Greenlandic), is not fluent in Danish.

    • slopjockey@awful.systemsEnglish
      6·
      2 months ago

      Oh man that is so grim

      Kronvold, 38, was given an FKU test in 2014 before the birth of her second child, a boy, and again recently while pregnant with her third child. Speaking through an intermediary, she told the Guardian that on this last occasion she was told it was to see if she was “civilised enough”.

    • V0ldek@awful.systemsEnglish
      9·
      2 months ago

      Software licensing is notoriously labyrinthine, so resources like the site Microsoft will close – Get Licensing Ready – can be very handy. Today, the site offers over 50 training modules plus documentation.

      I’m sorry, mister MSFT, why did you cause there to be more educational content about your stupid licenses than there is for theoretical physics in an undergrad programme, have you ever considered that it’s time to stop? Get some help?

  • Sailor Sega Saturn@awful.systemsEnglish
    8·
    2 months ago

    I woke up and immediately read about something called “Defense Llama”. The horrors are never ceasing: https://theintercept.com/2024/11/24/defense-llama-meta-military/

    Scale AI advertised their chatbot as being able to:

    apply the power of generative AI to their unique use cases, such as planning military or intelligence operations and understanding adversary vulnerabilities

    However their marketing material, as is tradition, include an example of terrible advice. Which is not great given it’s about blowing up a building “while minimizing collateral damage”.

    Scale AI’s response to the news pointing this out – complaining that everyone took their murderbot marketing material seriously:

    The claim that a response from a hypothetical website example represents what actually comes from a deployed, fine-tuned LLM that is trained on relevant materials for an end user is ridiculous.

    • BlueMonday1984@awful.systemsOPEnglish
      7·
      2 months ago

      On the one hand, that spectacular failure could potentially dissuade the military from buying in and prolonging this bubble. On the other hand, having an accountability sink for war crimes would be a tempting offer to your average army.

      • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        I’ve been wondering about this

        One the one hand, military procurement (at least afaik) tends toward complete functional product

        On the other hand, military R&D programs have been among the most spectacularly profligate financial black holes in recent decades

        None of the options involved feel great, even if “it gets shunted from mil procurement and all industry claims get publicly brandished as the bullshit it is” comes to pass (which tbh still feels like an optimistic outcome, with unclear time horizons)

    • skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      6·
      2 months ago

      i’ve been there for few days for conference once and it does look at least like a nice place to visit with no obvious glaring problems to be seen. walkable, organized, you can get around without a car np, doesn’t seem to be extremely expensive but again, i haven’t been there for a long time. it’s like you took nicer parts of Warsaw, slapped a port next to it and cooled down a few degrees

      unless you’re talking about that EA techbro billionaire, then i’ve got no idea

      looking to move?