Anyone: *raises any objections whatsoever to AI*
AI bro: HAVE YOU USED IT IN THE LAST FEW MONTHS ITS WAY BETTER NOW
*a few months pass*
Anyone: nothing has changed about my objections
AI bro: HAVE YOU USED IT IN THE LAST FEW MONTHS ITS WAY BETTER NOW
I keep thinking about black holes. Due to the effects of relativity, an object that's falling into a black hole will appear to outside observers that it is frozen in time, unmoving and unchanging until we can simply no longer observe it. The object, on the other hand, will experience time flowing faster and faster until there appears to be nothing left behind them. That is, if you imagine the object would somehow not be destroyed by falling into a black hole.
Anyway, I continue to deeply resent being dragged into a black hole. And even moreso the implication that I am somehow naive or incompetent for wanting not to do that
To the AI bros reading this: I will give you neither validation nor absolution. I'm not that girl.
Just to save us both some time.
@jenniferplusplus My objections are not even regarding the output quality, it's the very method by which the whole thing comes into being
@ozzelot Having now had quite a lot more close contact with the output than I ever wanted, I can say that nothing about my objections has changed
Aug 31, 2026, 9:54 AMBut don't you see, if we destroy the world to make this deeply disappointing and awful tool that social-engineers its users into thinking it is useful, a lot of rich people will become even more rich.
Surely you can't be opposed to that?
@jenniferplusplus "please use it so my business can prosper!!!! but not too much because using it will cost me money"
@jenniferplusplus he who proompts can bear almost any what the fuck is wrong with you???
Aug 30, 2026, 7:48 PM@jenniferplusplus on each loop, only one of you is more stupid
@jenniferplusplus BUT CAN YOU P R O V E THAT IT ISN'T GOING TO GET BETTER SOME TIME IN THE FUTURE?
@BenAveling @jenniferplusplus Being dragged into a black hole? Or #AI? Asking for a fiend.
People who offload their brain to a statistical model doesn't understand that it's not about the output, or anything technical primarily.
Some of them get low-key violent/abusive even.
I don't understand.
Aug 30, 2026, 11:32 PMI think I do understand.
I have to use #LLMs at work, because (a) they're the front end to some of the systems I have to use to do my job, and (b) I'm assessed on whether I use "AI". Obviously, LLMs have no understanding, no mental model of the problem or its solution, no consciousness and no reasoning ability, and they get things wrong depressingly often. But possibly because they're so fallible, I can see the potential for addiction. Just like the gambling addict pouring a week's wages into a slot machine that keeps nearly paying out the jackpot — one more spin, bro! — it's tempting to keep trying one more prompt in the hope of hitting gold. And it's hard to remember how unreliable these machines are when every answer is delivered with reassuring confidence and a gleaming smile.
I respond by using LLMs as little as possible and never outsourcing my thinking by, for example, letting them design code or write a document.
An LLM may feel like your friend, but it isn't. An LLM is to friendship what icing sugar is to nourishment.
Aug 31, 2026, 9:56 AMAug 31, 2026, 9:58 AMI mean...
points to climate denialism
points to crypto scams
points to anti-woke derangement
It's a cult. Cultists get very defensive about their cult.
Aug 30, 2026, 9:31 PM@jenniferplusplus "What, you're vegan? Have you TRIED the newest butchery tools that came out last week?"
@jenniferplusplus
I think I'm quite pro ai, but I've never met any of those ai bros.
The large majority of people I interact with that are not vehemently opposing ai seem to have a deep understanding of the issues with what we currently call ai, wether these are ecological, ethical or just functional.
On the other side I see more examples of people going quickly beyond all logic to fight for their team whatever that might be.
Maybe it's just my bubble, I don't know.
@Noisecolor
so, those people have a "deep understanding" of all the problems that not only the use, but the creation and very existence of these LLM tools cause, and then they just ignore that and use it anyway?
@Landa
Yes.
Just the same as we do with everything else in our lives.
@jenniferplusplus
Aug 31, 2026, 10:43 AMWhat would it look like, if AI is actually just uniformly worthless, but very good at brainwashing people into thinking it is good?
Then there would be three positions:
1) People who say: "I hate it, it's worthless, why would anyone?!?"
2) People who are circling the drain, going "Yeah, I know there are some problems, but overall I think I am quite pro AI"
and
3) People who already fell down the drain, through the shredder and have become part of the mind pulp in the septic tank.
I think you'll find this is the situation we have today.
The absence of "moderately against" is the key evidence here.
Nobody who understands what it does would want that done to them.
@Noisecolor If you see those same problems and just think they're not cause to reject the entire affair, that's your choice to make. But I'm not going to validate it.
It's not like this is the only time humans chose pragmatism over principles.
That is actually the norm, not the exception.
@Noisecolor @jenniferplusplus but its not a pragmatic choice, its a stupid one.
Aug 31, 2026, 10:47 AMNo, I am pretty sure you're wrong about that.
People don't "choose pragmatism over principles".
People are misled and systematically deprived of better alternatives until doing the bad thing is the only way to live a normal life.
They did this with asbestos, they did this with cigarettes, they did this with fossil fuels, they did this with cars, they did this with leaded gas, they did this with cryptocurrencies, they did this with NFTs, and they are doing this with LLMs.
Blaming the victims for the deliberate actions of the wealthy is fucked up.
@Noisecolor whatever you need to tell yourself
@jenniferplusplus "two weeks" energy
@jenniferplusplus When the end goals remain amorphous and lofty and the pain and hardship of those in the way remain real, I lack both the patience and credulity AI proponents need me to have to get out of their way, and the end result is I remain unconvinced of their use.
Aug 30, 2026, 11:26 PM@jenniferplusplus 'better' meaning more effective at manipulation and mimicking confident presentation/delivery regardless
@jenniferplusplus I heard it compared to a Shepard Tone at one point and I thought the analogy was apt
@jklolling cc @atax1a your theory is catching on
Fwiw, I think that is a significant factor
@jenniferplusplus Lucy always pulls the ball away, Charlie Brown
Aug 31, 2026, 8:51 AM@jenniferplusplus I have had this very argument ad nauseum since LLMbeciles were first unleashed on an unsuspecting public.
It is still trivial to get them generating stupid things. You don't even have to be particularly clever to do so. You just have to take a common thing (like a common puzzle) and twist it slightly (so that the common puzzle has a visibly easy solution, say) to watch them put on clown pants and grease paint.
@jenniferplusplus AI bro: "Th current models are so much better, your opinion is outdated. The models 3 months ago were HORSESHIT."
*3 months pass*
AI bro: "The current models are so much better, your opinion is outdated. The models 3 months ago were HORSESHIT."
Aug 31, 2026, 4:33 PM@jenniferplusplus
"Oh no, it's not shitty like it was one month ago, now it's incredible useful"
Since 2023.
@jenniferplusplus yup. I'd already heard "yeah, AI used to suck, but this new model/tool is honestly impressive!" SO many times by the end of 2023. Every time, I was disappointed. And that was before I fully understood the ethical issues. AI bros conditioned me to think "AI" = unreliable, unethically built gen AI. Now I default to dismissing anything "AI."
Once in a while I'll stop and learn about an "AI" tool. It's usually either (a) what I thought or (b) a normal algorithm rebranded as "AI."