The SFWA have put up a survey asking everyone, writers and readers of Science and Speculative Fiction for their views on Large Language Models usage by writers. Along with the multiple choice questions it has two spots for longer form replies. Here are mine: https://kevinmarks.com/sfwasurvey
Key findings:
45% of all AI answers had at least one significant issue.
31% of responses showed serious sourcing problems – missing, misleading, or incorrect attributions.
20% contained major accuracy issues, including hallucinated details and outdated information.
Gemini performed worst with significant issues in 76% of responses, more than double the other assistants, largely due to its poor sourcing performance.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2025/new-ebu-research-ai-assistants-news-content
“We've normalized software catastrophes to the point where a Calculator leaking 32GB of RAM barely makes the news. This isn't about AI. The quality crisis started years before ChatGPT existed. AI just weaponized existing incompetence.
[…]
We've created a perfect storm: tools that amplify incompetence, used by developers who can't evaluate the output, reviewed by managers who trust the machine more than their people.”
https://techtrenches.substack.com/p/the-great-software-quality-collapse
The new case for the British Banger, a sausage containing around 30% rusk and Black Pudding that is mostly barley or oats and onions, with blood and fat.
https://mastodon.social/@CelloMomOnCars/114624705725392906
Jeff Veen: I still feel like literally anybody with an idea can start hacking on the web or making apps or things like that. That’s all still there. I think the nucleus of what we started back then still exists on the web, and it still makes me really, really happy. https://www.wired.com/story/we-were-wrong-oral-history-hotwired/ #indieweb
“I believe — though I would be happy to be proved wrong on this — that current generative AI systems represent a dead end, where exponential increases of training data and effort will give us modest increases in impressive plausibility but no foundational increase in reliability. I would love to see compositional approaches to neural networks, hard as it appears.” https://www.bcs.org/articles-opinion-and-research/does-current-ai-represent-a-dead-end/
TIL that Google disabled AppEngine billing limits 2 years ago, and one of my side projects generated $900 of billing last month rather than the usual $100 or so. They didn't notify me of this in any way I just saw the credit card bill
So, if you were using svgshare.com, sorry it's gone as Google is taking the piss.
“In fact, most of the things you love about your smartphone started as accessibility features”
How to flub (and not flub) group decision-making on technical teams
– Chelsea Troy https://chelseatroy.com/2024/10/22/how-to-flub-and-not-flub-group-decision-making-on-technical-teams/
Threads engineering design question:
The tracking thingies like ?xmt=AQGz3EK36L60Fm0pQ1-NjnvPGGLnVZDsgzx0R8xTQuEP_g have 46 base64 chars, which at 6 bits/char is 2^276 bits which is about 10^83.
There are about 10^80 atoms in the universe. Why do you need 1000 times as much uniqueness as the universe to track Threads posts?
Maybe Google shouldn't strip non-ascii characters when training AI
“Some of this is an inevitable correction. The JS npm ecosystem, for example, is almost certainly unsustainable in its current form and has coasted on years of overinvestment in useless startups and Microsoft’s blatant attempts to own the entirety of software development.
But a “correction” is still destructive if you are unknowingly relying on an unsustainable system.” https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2024/the-slow-evaporation-of-the-foss-surplus/
“I’m seeing a revival now,” said Levels, regarding PHP. “People are getting sick of frameworks. All the JavaScript frameworks are so… what do you call it, like [un]wieldy. It takes so much work to just maintain this code, and then it updates to a new version, you need to change everything. PHP just stays the same and works.” https://thenewstack.io/developers-rail-against-javascript-merchants-of-complexity/
After the riots, Keir Starmer should tell us the truth about our country. This is why he won’t | Nesrine Malik | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/19/riots-keir-starmer-racist-anti-immigration-narratives-truth
The British Medical Association just came out against the Cass Review and in favour of comprehensive trans care in the UK https://www.bma.org.uk/bma-media-centre/bma-to-undertake-an-evaluation-of-the-cass-review-on-gender-identity-services-for-children-and-young-people
The reason calling MAGA weirdos weird works is Wilhoit's law:
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
If you tell them they're the out-group their entire worldview collapses and they imagine what it would be like if they were on receiving end of habitual cruelty.
Reporting of the latest UBI test programme is ignoring the key finding, obvious to anyone who knows low income people, that their first impulse was to spread the wealth to others.
This thinking is so alien to economists and financial types that they barely discuss it. https://www.openresearchlab.org/findings/key-findings-spending
“At rehearsals there have been cultural differences – for example, the LSO understood the word “glock” to mean the percussion instrument the glockenspiel, rather than a gun.” https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/jul/10/hip-hop-band-cypress-hill-makes-1996-simpsons-joke-come-true-london-symphony-orchestra
I voted, but the UK doesn't give you "I voted" stickers (apparently it was proposed in 2013 and only 1 person voted for it) so I made my own.
If you voted, post it too
Accidentally made my dinner with birdseye chillis instead of serrano chillis. Currently eating all the yogurt.
