Ed Zitron having a very good day today:

>humanoid robot

They’re called “clankers”

You’re dead right on that.

On a wider front, I expect the bubble’s burst will deal some long-lasting damage to the tech industry, on two major fronts:

1. Evaluations/stock prices will go through the floor, as investor assumptions of Endless Growth^tm are shattered, and the tech industry comes to be seen as “a stable, mature industry whose days of endless growth are behind it” (quoting Baldur Bjarnason), at best and deep in the throes of a serious malaise era at worst. One outcome is obviously better than the other, but both will lead to a lotta pain.

2. The tech industry’s public image, already in the shitter for a litany of reasons, will likely take another significant blow as the industry’s ability to generate hype for AI and/or counteract the boiling resentment towards it completely falls apart.

For the enterprise using it, yes. For the enterprise selling it, probably not so much.

“I should start the Butlerian Jihad”

Solid, high-quality sneer from Adactio - the end is a particular highlight:

The worst of the internet is continuously attacking the best of the internet. This is a distributed denial of service attack on the good parts of the World Wide Web.

If you’re using the products powered by these attacks, you’re part of the problem. Don’t pretend it’s cute to ask ChatGPT for something. Don’t pretend it’s somehow being technologically open-minded to continuously search for nails to hit with the latest “AI” hammers.

Considering PC Gamer bought the AI hype hook, line and sinker a few months ago, I’d say this is a particularly notable sneer.

This is pure gut instinct, but it seems AI bros’ ability to bedazzle the press is fading fast.

TAKE ME BACK

Ran across a BlueSky thread that fits this perfectly - its a social sciences and humanities reading list on AI in education.

If South Park ever does get around to TESCREAL, I imagine Parker and Stone would have a goddamn field day with them.

“i have followed these fucks for 15 years in detail and i still don’t know how to properly explain them to our lovely pivot-to-ai readers”

Personally, focusing on their whacko beliefs around the Impending AI Apocalypse^tm seems like a good place to start.

Brian Merchant’s given his thoughts on the situation, focusing mainly on the situation as a case of Trump’s administration falling for the AGI hype.

You want my off-the-cuff thoughts on these tariffs, I’m putting them down as another nail in the coffin for AI as a concept, and a possible blow to “AI doom” narratives as a whole.

For AI as a concept, this entire debacle is a very public and very high-profile example of AI failing to live up to the “AGI/Superintelligence” hype that OpenAI and pals have been cranking out - and failing in a manner which suggests their AI systems (rightfully so, IMO) to be worse than useless.

For “AI Doom” narratives, whilst this economic clusterfuck is an example of AI dealing a nasty blow to humanity, said blow was dealt through a combo of unambiguous incompetence on the AI’s part, and the Trump administration overestimating the AI’s own competence. No diamonoid bacteria, no Skynet-style Terminator apocalypse, just sheer unfiltered stupidity on a government-wide level.

There’s now a lot of cheap GPU [sic] in China.

Sure doesn’t feel like it, what with graphics cards being ball-bustingly expensive everywhere else :P

New(ish) piece from Gary Marcus: AI has (sort of) passed the Turing Test; here’s why that hardly matters

Ended up reading it a couple times, thinking of turning my thoughts into a full-length post.

Here’s my first shot at it:

“Imagine if the stereotypical high-school nerd became a supervillain.”

New video from Jessie Gender, providing one long sneer at gen-AI: How AI is Destroying our Dreams

An AI faceswapper/nudifier’s database got leaked thanks to its nonexistent security - unsurprisingly, its loaded with explicit images, including massive amounts child porn and almost certainly some revenge porn.

WIRED tried reaching out to the company behind the “imagery”, but they nuked everything and closed their doors in response.

Gamers Nexus put out their April Fool’s joke for this year, and became the first journalistic outlet to break Betteridge’s law of headlines in the process.

Ed Zitron breaking out the anime references for April Fool’s:

This isn’t one of the works of art I expected to so explicitly dunk on these unscrupulous scams, but I welcome it all the more for that.

Crypto is nigh-universally hated outside of the techbrosphere (doubly so for NFTs) - they are synonymous with scams and cringe in the public eye. I’d be more shocked if you found a work which presents crypto without immediately dunking on it.