this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
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TechTakes

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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

This is not debate club. Unless it’s amusing debate.

For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

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Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)

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[–] s3p5r@lemm.ee 11 points 1 week ago (5 children)

So it's not quite a sneer, but i could use some help from the collective sneer brainstrust. If you're willing to indulge me.

I work for one of those horrible places that is mainlining in its own AI koolaid as hard as it can. It has also begun doing layoffs, inspired in part by the "AI can do this now instead!" delusion. Now, I am in no way in love with my job nor the sociopaths I labor for, and it's clear to me the feeling is mutual, but I am cursed with the affliction of needing to eat and pay for housing. I am also at a significant structural disadvantage in the job market compared to others, which makes things more difficult.

In an executive's recent discussions with another company's senior executive, my complicated, unglamorous and hugely underestimated small tech niche was raised as one of the areas they've swapped out for AI "with great success". I happen to know this other company has no dedicated resource for my niche and therefore is unlikely to be verifying their swap actually works, but it will have the superficial appearance of working. I know they have no dedicated resources because they are actively hiring their first staff member for this niche and said so in a recent job advertisement.

Myself and my fellow niche serfs have been asked to put together a list of questions for this other company, and the intent is clearly a thin veil to have us justify our ability to eat. We've been highlighted this time, but it's also clear other areas are receiving similar requests and pressure.

If you were to ask questions of a tech executive from a company which is using AI to pretend to fix a tech niche - but they are likely to believe they are doing so more than superficially and are able to convince other ignorant and gullible executives that they are doing so, what would you ask?

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 7 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Sorry cant really help, but perhaps showing a case where the llms fuck up in a way only expects caught on might be useful. Just mentioning the lawyers getting fucked over in casual conversation might help. For example heard about a contract negotiations case where the other side used a llm, and it had included a clause that was very unfavourable to them, of course the person telling this story was fine with that clause.

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[–] zbyte64@awful.systems 10 points 1 week ago (5 children)
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[–] TinyTimmyTokyo@awful.systems 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Stumbled across a piece from history YTer The Pharaoh Nerd publicly ripping into AI slop, specifically focusing on AI-generated pseudohistory found on YouTube Shorts.

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[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

plex has decided that it is no longer worth maintaining merely partial tax on those who "want more", and has decided to continue on their path to become the bridgetroll:

As of April 29, 2025, we’re changing how remote streaming works for personal media libraries, and it will no longer be a free feature on Plex. Going forward, you’ll need a Plex Pass, or our newest subscription offering, Remote Watch Pass, to stream personal media remotely.

As a server owner, if you elect to upgrade to a Plex Pass, anyone with access to your server can continue streaming your server content remotely as part of your subscription benefits. Not sure which option is best for you? Check out our plans below to learn more.

got your own server and networking and happy to stream from your home setup? no more. the extractivist rentlords are hungry.

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[–] saucerwizard@awful.systems 8 points 1 week ago

OT: does anyone else get David and David Gerrold confused all the time?

Also I’m in Viljandi!

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)
From:  The Sentry Team <noreply@sentry.io>
Subject:	Update to Sentry’s List of Subprocessors
...
 - Google LLC (Google Cloud Services) and OpenAI, L.L.C. are now reflected as subprocessors for all Sentry products, instead of select features only; and
 - Anthropic, PBC is now added as a subprocessor.

sigh

they do still have user-specified controls (and appear to respect them), but... sigh

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