Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending Sunday 26 May 2024
Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid!
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.
A well-respected terminal emulator for the Mac decides to slather on AI sauce, and most users are not happy. But there are others who are outraged that slathering AI sauce onto a product is even seen as a negative. Let's take a break from HN to take a look at the tortured souls on lobste.rs who won't let this aggression stand, man:
I don’t like AI hype either but I don’t feel the need to use Lobsters to rally groups of people to mass punish projects who add optional AI-friendly features. That is quite disturbing.
ok. I tried writing something sarcastic and sneery but alas, I don't think I can mock this person hard enough to satisfy my ethical obligation.
Saw this update yesterday and it pissed me really off. I've been using iTerm for almost 20 years at this point and it's a really good and well-integrated terminal application for Mac OS, and no one asked for it to add spicy autocomplete.
Or maybe I'll just move over to Alacritty. I use that one my Linux machines and it's actually good, but the attitude of some of the developers when it comes to feature requests and contributions really makes me like it less than I could.
tbh the enforced civility and de facto ban on social issue discussion on lobste is not helping. (but after last “polite discussion” i had with the moderator i'm not going to bring it up anymore, just suspend the account or wait to be banned.)
yeah frankly that sort of shit is why I haven't even tried to get a lobsters account
bullshit should be called out as bullshit at any point in time. dressing it up in niceties is playing the wrong game, and has been abused by the worst people around for years
Noooooooooooooo! Argh, I'll have to seriously consider using the fork FML.
EDIT:
Not strictly required since apparently you have to provide an API key for it to be enabled, still it's not encouraging that the main developer thought this would be a good idea.
EDIT 2:
Given direct access to bad AI code to a dev workstation is bad enough, but given that the console is a primary way to connect to servers, where more havoc could be wrought, this is terrifying, I mean sure devs were already capable of bricking enviromnents, but supercharging "knowing just enough to be dangerous" is NOT a good idea.
for people who thought this might not be related to the llm brainworms, the reasoning of the iterm2 author for inclusion of the feature (when promptedy by @gerikson@awful.systems) :
I got a number of requests. I also got tired of copy-pasting things to ChatGPT. Usually if I find a feature useful, other people do, too.
The latest beta has options to turn the shit off totally. The text mixes metaphors with wild abandon but I think it’s safe to say the promptfondling was not huge success
The whole debacle astounds me. Is there a more universally privileged application users frequently use than the shell? As a general rule it can elevate privs to full control far more aggressively than any other commonly used application, with minimal sandboxing at most.
Inorite? Even if there was the requirement of an API key being enabled that was only revealed after some time. If smeone says "my terminal has GPT now" of course your mind goes to it outputting sudo rm -rf / for some random prompt.
Edit nevertheless I am thankful because I've had a lot of fun identifying promptfondlers on lobste.rs and pointing and laughing at them.
I presume I'm not the first nor (will I be the last) to ask about this,
but for the weight of the argument it's still worth asking
are you planning on keeping the openai garbage directly integrated in
iterm2? and "just turn it off with a setting" isn't a good answer tbh
I don't want it in the terminal I use. I don't want it in any software I
touch. openai are a deceptive abuse company led by an abusive liar, and
it saddens me to see yet another good thing get taken up in the hype
these charlatans drive
no "I've been $x for $y" pleading arguments here, I don't want to try
bend your ear with any number of platitudes and such you've heard from
others - just straight-up asking the above