[redstonedust]

for the record im not technially 100% anti-AI, in the sense that its a broad category of tech being lumped under one umbrella term so it feels over-zealous to say i hate all of it all the time forever. but i also think trying to discuss what it actually IS good for is difficult right now when i cant take one step without something trying to convince me to use chatgpt to summarize my life and speed up my hobbies and turn my friends into chatbots and optimize my life into oblivion. i am certain there is nuance to the topic but can we stop cramming the square peg into the round hole before you start trying to sell me on the legitimate benefits of the square peg. please.

[ralfmaximus]

Neural Nets have existed for decades and are genuinely useful. It's a form of AI that recognizes patterns, and can do stuff like identify cancer cells, tell whether an egg is fertilized or not, detect fraud, and optimize routes.

Those are Expert Systems, tuned to do exactly one thing. If you (say) ask a medical expert system a question about financial law, it's useless. The autopilot that flies a 787 has no idea how to drive a truck on the freeway. A Coulter Counter is excellent at identifying lymphocytes in a blood sample but can't predict the next card in a blackjack game.

And so on.

The problem with so-called generalized AI (AGI) is that we don't have that yet. It doesn't exist. It MIGHT some day, but AGI has been "10 years away" since the 1980s. The goals keep moving as we learn more about how people and machines process data.

But the current crop of AI techbros have been selling generative Large Language Model AI (LLM) as AGI because generative systems do a good job of faking it. There's no actual thought going on, merely the illusion of thought via predicting the next word in a sentence accurately.

If you let a human toddler listen to 800 hours of YouTube car influencer videos, that toddler might end up sounding like a car influencer. They'd parrot horsepower numbers and 0 to 60 times, mention EV range and MSRP numbers.

But they wouldn't understand any of it.

That's ChatGPT.

And yeah, it's worse than useless because it doesn't even know when it's lying or hallucinating. It just babbles convincingly until you stop it.

But for techbros to make money selling that as "AI"? It's the perfect scam, especially if you don't understand how it works.

I fucking hate it.

[allthingsgerman]

Just Croatia hanging out :D

[academiaatitsfinest]

The Grass so little has to do-

A Sphere of simple Green -

With only Butterflies to brood

And Bees to entertain-

— Emily Dickinson

[peterfromtexas-deactivated20250]

Reenactor throws a spear at a drone

[supapoopa]

What a time to be alive.

[tenthcorner]

“The medieval warrior, realizing the consequences of his impulsive act, immediately approached the owner of the drone and offered to pay for the damage.

The owner of the drone was so impressed by the brilliant attack that he suggested organizing a competition for bringing down “dragons” with short spears next year.

Drone owners have another year to develop a unique “dragon-like” design for their flying machines.” (x)

[kineticpenguin]

I am 100% cooler with this knowing that the spear-thrower realized “oops maybe I shouldn’t have done that” and tried to make it right, and that the guy who the drone belonged to was cool with it

[brunhiddensmusings]

just so everyone knows, this has already been memorialized in a runestone

[stephendann]

Everything about this post blesses those involved with a +4 on their next Today is Good Day roll

[fromaliminalspace]

a rough translation of inscription on the runestone:

On the seventh day of May in the year of 2016 on hither spot the mighty warrior Ulf hath slain a dragon with his spear.

so yeah, happy birthday to this dragon-slaying event and to it only

[nonlinear-nonsubjective]

Happy Ulf Hath Slain A Dragon With His Spear!

[seraphimsix]

I don’t understand how people aren’t anti-advertising. I’m in my early 20s and I feel like I’ve seen enough ads to last me several life times. It’s fucking everywhere. One my phone and in my books and on the side of the road and in my mailbox and on the side of cars and in my movies and on my food and on the clothes I wear every day and interrupting my music and plastered all over every inch of empty space on any building or bus stop or bench. Trillions of dollars spent by companies every year not on paying their most important and necessary employees even a semblance of a living wage, but instead on forcing their product into the faces of people who already know it exists and wouldn’t buy it anyway. City sponsored street art and murals and any sort of creative expression on a large scale is so rare to see and often outright illegal to make because that space is reserved for advertisements, the most important thing in the world. Bright flashing colors and loud sounds and purposefully catchy jingles for car loans or whatever so they get stuck in your head and you hear them over and over when you try to sleep. The average advertisement is abusive to the consumer. And so many people don’t care. So many people are so used to it they can’t care. It drives me insane. It doesn’t have to be like this. We can live in a world where we have community art instead of insurance ads on public benches. We don’t have to keep dealing with physical junk mail in the mailbox every week. We don’t need to see 3 ads before every video online and we don’t need 30+ minutes of ads before every movie in theaters. It doesn’t have to be like this. Please for the love of god can it not be like this

[mbrainspaz]

idk what neurodivergent young adult needs to hear this but you are NOT supposed to give 100% at your job. I've gotten more promotions and raises since I started giving 40-60%, which my evil CEO uncle informed me is what bosses actually expect when they say 110%. My mental health has improved tremendously. I've spent 2 out of 5 workdays secretly writing my novel for the last 2 years and I've never been more respected and appreciated. Also--when you see glaring wasteful errors in the company's operating systems, say absolutely nothing! Embrace inefficiency. It is your friend in this capitalist hellscape.

[avicecaro]

where’s that "can’t be doing it with sad japanese bloke novels they’re always having a drink and a shag and feeling ennui or some shit" because i’m reading beauty and sadness which is obviously a brilliant book but i keep thinking of that

[m4zzystar-deactivated20260524]

[avicecaro]

ugh thank you exactly

[tvarchive]

ONE PIECE | 2x02: Good Whale Hunting

[damazcuz]

Insane to me that literally preschoolers learn things like "sometimes your experience is different from someone else's experience! Sometimes what you like isn't what your friend likes! Our differences make us all special and colorful and unique!"

And then 20-somethings with an internet connection will willfully unlearn this and post comments like "why is op saying 'everyone enjoy an orange today!'? I'm actually allergic to oranges and I dont like apples or bananas and I dont really want any fruit plus im not hungry right now and I dont have time or money to go buy groceries or transport to get there and the store is closed because its Christmas day plus there's a big hurricane so I dont really understand? Op this doesnt apply to me I dont get it? You need to apologize for trying to hurt me with this. I could have died. Why didn't you say something true about me instead?" and then they expect not to be told to shut the fuck up.

[graffitinight]

When you try to talk about enshittification, it sounds like conspiracy theories. (I'm not crazy)

Amazon made their service worse, to force people to pay for Prime.

Nowadays, if you order from Amazon, there is a week long delay before your package is shipped. (on purpose)

I remember when orders would ship out the same day. (I remember - it was real)

YouTube didn't used to have ads. Now, ads play in the middle of videos. (it's worse than TV ever was)

The best can opener I have owned is over 40 years old. Modern ones just don't hold up as well. (The ones I bought new broke ages ago)

The bread machine my mom got for her wedding lasted 30 years. It's been replaced twice in the last 5 years. (How can you fuck this up?)

The cardboard tubes in the middle of toilet paper rolls have gotten larger. (This too?) Companies increasing the price of the product while selling you less. (REALLY?)

It sounds crazy. (it's the truth) When you talk about it, YOU sound crazy. (it's true)

Even when people believe you (do they really), all they can say is "it sucks". (it's too big) Because the problem is so big, so pervasive, what can we even DO about it???

To get the necessary laws written and passed, we need politicians, to get the politicians elected we need information campaigns, to fund campaigns we need money, and all the money is being hoarded by the people profiting from enshittification. (it sounds so fake)

So I talk about enshittification (it sounds crazy), so people don't forget that things have been made worse on purpose (it's true), even though I sound crazy. (maybe I am)

[dragon-in-a-fez]

I can't remember where I first heard it, but here's a joke that's lived rent free in my head for years:

two friends, a Jew and a Christian, are talking about holiday customs.

the Jew says "on Rosh Hashanah, it's traditional to blow the shofar 30 times"

the Christian looks at him awkwardly and says "wow. all we give our chauffeur on Christmas is a bottle of wine."

[dragon-in-a-fez]

shana tova everyone

[dragon-in-a-fez]

really enjoying the fact that people have said "this too is Torah", "y'all need Jesus", and "by Allah you people are dogs" in the notes. I hit the Abrahamic tumblr trifecta

[transfemininomenon]

today’s date is the 3rd? what’s next, the 4th? the 5th? the minor fall, the major lift? 

[seal-of-unknown]

me, begging, tears in my eyes: please. please just tell me what the book is about. the plot. please

a book annotation on the cover, unfazed: A Subversive Masterpiece. A Deep And Touching Story. The New York Times Bestseller. Go Fuck Yourself

[void-octopus]

“A riveting adventure that kept me on the edge of my seat”

[lesbianshepard]

if I found out I was prophesied to kill my father, fuck my mother, and bring a curse upon my city, I would simply move to a different city and leave my parents behind to avoid it.

[lesbianshepard]

by zeus this can’t be happening

[cheekygeekymonkey]

[biszumletzten]

VAN EYCK

[thestraggletag]

I lost it at the end.

[thestraggletag]

Okay, I had to check out the Van Eyck thing. I was a bit in denial because, come on, every single person can’t look like President Putin!

There are no words to describe how wrong I was.

[memeuplift]

[playwrongs]

In King Ludwig II’s defense, if I had basically infinite discretionary funds, was accountable to absolutely no one, and was king of a country full of picturesque landscapes, you couldn’t stop me from building myself a big gay fairytale castle on a mountaintop either.

[playwrongs]

This post is spreading and I feel bad about it because it contains misinformation, so for the record: Ludwig II did not in fact have infinite discretionary funds. He only acted as if he did. He never dipped into the public coffers for his building projects, but he spent his own fortune extravagantly and borrowed heavily from everyone he could think of. By 1885, the year before his death, he was 14 million marks in debt.

[insomniac-arrest]

~ ✨✨ 14 million marks in debt ✨✨~

[centrally-unplanned]

I always find this inspiring because try to name another prince of a German state. What did the rulers of Hamberg do? The Grand Duchy of Hesse? Gone with the wind, no one knows them anymore. But Mad Lad Ludwig built a top 5 most famous castle in the entire world. Money is fake, castles are real. Go broke and die like a winner.

[the-barefoot-hatter]

EXCUSE ME, this is still wrong. He built 3.

Neuschwanstein, literally the inspo for the castles in Disney's Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella

Hohenschwangau, the practical castle

Linderhof, the final, the smallest, and the MOST fab.

Every room is incredible and the park is beautiful, but shoutout to The Bedroom, the biggest room

The Hall of Mirrors, which he probably wandered by candle light because he was a serious night owl

The Dining Room, with a wishing table that lowers to the kitchen, and rises with a crank, returning magically full of food

The Venus Grotto, constructed for the sole use of Ludwig to larp to his heart's content

A full artificial cave, it features a waterfall, fake stalactites, and a custom-designed swan boat floating on an artificial lake. The first electricity in Bavaria was generated here, to change the colors of the stage lights and to power Ludwig's fountain and wave machine.

Now THAT'S ~ ✨✨ 14 million marks in debt ✨✨~

[marzipanandminutiae]

I love that- and I cannot emphasize this enough -none of this was tax money

the public paid for zero of his fairytale castle hobby

rare European monarch W as far as spending money lavishly goes