AI is primarily, if not exclusively, threatening the jobs people want to do (art, poetry, that sorta shit)

Jobs people want to do, but which also take a lot of effort to learn to do well. I think there exists a certain envy of people who have put in the time and effort to learn something, which motivates the AI hype.

Visual arts, writing, translation, music, video production, programming, sex. The common thread is that these are things most people wish they could be good at, and they're also the most popular uses for generative AI.

First-ever criminal charges against financial services firms for market manipulation and “wash trading” in the cryptocurrency industry

Cryptocurrency is a 15-year old industry built mostly on market manipulation and wash trading and now we're seeing the first charges for it? Man, back in the day they told me doing crime was illegal.

Deflationary

With every transaction supply shrinks by burning a percentage of reflections to the burn wallet

Turns out libertarians actually love taxes, but only if instead of spending the tax money on anything, it's burned to waste.

Yes but I like the "ahh", it makes me imagine people doing a random little moan in the middle of the sentence.

finger curls on the monkey paw

Inspiring! Mom and Pop have started a small business and are now franchisees of Megacorp Robotaxi. After financing and purchasing a fleet of cars, they can enjoy a steady and reliable income while only having to take care of vehicle maintenance, autopilot software license fees, accounting, possible municipal taxi licensing and other legal and clerical duties and liabilities of running a business.

Thanks to Megacorp Robotaxi's excellent reputation and customer loyalty and not at all because Megacorp Robotaxi has a de facto monopoly on taxi business, Mom and Pop are not worried about the competition, save for maybe some friendly and good-natured rivalry with other proud franchisees of the Megacorp Robotaxi family.

Some kind of a community fork might happen, but I wouldn't count on it.

Also, I just now realized that Automattic (business model: Uber for not posting female-presenting nipples) is a pun on this guy's name.

So the guy running WordPress.com (business model: Uber for LAMP stack, not to be confused with WordPress.org, winner of Drupal's Drag Race) is angry that WP Engine (business model: Lyft for LAMP stack, not to be confused with MediaWiki, the engine of WP) offers hosting for the same GPL licensed CMS as they do, am I understanding this correctly?

We have a protocol droid at home, it's called curl.

Maybe one day self-righteous computer crackers will get over the V for Vendetta, apocalypse cult, latin chanting, hooded robes, "we are anonymoos we are a legionella we do not frogger" aesthetic and I can stop cringing about it.

Fucking goofy ahh KKK shit.

I think in this case the crankery is wanting to solve a problem that doesn't even exist, i.e. "how to make sure the machine god is not evil"

Training my militia of revolutionary freedom fighters to attack homeless shelters, soup kitchens, nature preserves, libraries, and children's playgrounds.

I was going to suggest Vitalik Buterin for the Fake Nobel of Economics as a bit, but the coiners already beat me to it.

So my next choices for the award would be SBF or Bored Ape Yacht Club.

You know what's really good for mental health? Work that makes you feel guilty and politics you don't have any influence over.

Welcome to the club. They say a shared suffering is only half the suffering.

This was discussed in last week's Stubsack, but I don't think we mind talking about talking the same thing twice. I, for one, do not look forward to browsing Wikipedia exclusively through pre-2024 archived versions, so I hope (with some pessimism) their disapponintingly milquetoast stance works out.

Reading a bit of the old Reddit sneerclub can help understand some of the Awful vernacular, but otherwise it's as much of a lurkmoar as any other online circlejerk. The old guard keep referencing cringe techbros and TESCREALs I've never heard of while I still can't remember which Scott A we're talking about in which thread.

I'd like to believe some of them have, but it's easier or more productive to keep giving the benefit of the doubt (or at at least pretend to) than argue the point.

Alignment? Well, of course it depends on your organization's style guide but if you're using TensorFlow or PyTorch in Python, I recommend following PEP-8, which specifies four spaces per indent level and…

Wait, you're not working in AI the what are you even asking for?

The AI climate change

Wow. Congratulations to Rosalind Lee for her colleague and husband's nobel. I can only dream of one day having my spouse be recognized with such prestigious accolade for something we have done.

I did not expect to be tricked into reading about the nighttime erections of the man with the most severe midlife crisis in the world.

he has 80% fewer gray hairs, representing a “31-year age reversal”

According to Wikipedia this guy is 47. Sorry about your hair as a teenager I guess? I hope the early graying didn't lead to any long term self-esteem issues.

How do we prevent huge segments of the world from being priced out of access through paywalls?

Based Mozilla. Abolish landlords. Obliterate the commodity form. Full luxury gay communism now.