author uses AI to determine the "most typical south american female name," ends up naming his character Latina

So...a yacht named "Bayesian" just sank off the coast of Sicily. It was owned by British billionaire Mike Lynch, former CEO of Autonomy. Lynch just barely managed to stay out of trouble with US authorities over fraud charges and will likely owe HP Enterprise a hefty bag for misrepresentations before their multi-billion dollar acquisition. My heart goes out to the innocents and crew who are lost. (Edit: Lynch appears to still be missing)

Hell of a metaphor, isn't it?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/aug/19/who-is-mike-lynch-tech-boss-missing-yacht-sinking-autonomy

Trust me when I say there’s nothing worth reading in the article beyond the headline:

He would be right if he meant in the sense that Bruce Wayne ineffectively leads a personal crusade motivated by unresolved childhood angst, and that the world would be much better off if his money was just spent on basics needs for the people and he went to therapy.

In other news, Procreate put out a damn good sneer aimed at AI art:

Creativity is made, not generated.

Generative AI is ripping the humanity out of things. Built on a foundation of theft, the technology is steering us toward a barren future. We think machine learning is a compelling technology with a lot of merit, but the path generative AI is on is wrong for us.

We're here for the humans. We're not chasing a technology that is a moral threat to our greatest jewel: human creativity. In this technological rush, this might make us an exception or seem at risk of being left behind. But we see this road less travelled as the more exciting and fruitful one for our community.

Unsurprisingly, they're getting a standing ovation from artists for doing the right thing.

Unforeseen issues with training AIs using the internet: every LLM has been taught to Rickroll

https://x.com/lazerwalker/status/1825782926098968958

https://x.com/Altimor/status/1825659507617460439

In other news, https://creative.ai/ was put up for purchase because the original owner considers AI's reputation a lost cause.

(In other other news, its my 24th birthday.)

Problematic developer with AI crush realizes she's just dust under the wheels of progress

https://justine.lol/history/

You know those polls that say fewer than 20% of Americans trust AI scientists? It shouldn't be the case, because no group is doing more right now to elevate the universe to a higher state of complexity. You know who the public does trust? Open source developers.

Justine, LOL indeed.

Ran across an impressively strong sneer whilst looking through Baldur Bjarnason's link list for the week:

A JUST TRANSITION MEANS RESISTING A.I. (from Scottish Left Review)

Gonna copy-paste the quote Baldur used because god damn:

AI isn’t simply a problematic technology but an apparatus that is shaped by the injustices of our existing social relations and which, in turn, reshapes and intensifies them.

Also got an interesting Tweet from Ed Zitron:

This is entirely my gut instinct, but there is boiling resentment against big tech. Something is shifting, and it's shifting violently, both in the general public and the media. Blood in the water. People are ready for a change.

I've had that same gut instinct before - I've kinda had it since Baldur noted tech's disconnect from the public a month ago. Feels like we're entering an era where working in tech is treated as a red flag, a sign you're a money-hungry asshole willing to hurt innocent people to make a quick buck.

J, K. Rowling, skull enthusiast:

Khelif, who went on to win Olympic gold despite the harassment, reportedly filed a lawsuit alleging cyberbullying against Rowling (Elon Musk is also named in the suit). Shortly after the lawsuit became public on August 13, Rowling went silent on X, leading to speculation from many onlookers that she had pushed her transphobic narrative too far. On August 23, though, she again appeared on the platform, spreading more false and misleading commentary on Khelif. Her first post was a quote from a transphobic hit piece against Khelif by Colin Wright, the former managing editor of the far-right website Quillette.

Not really a sneer but James Gosling (one of the creators of Java) has discovered and enjoys pivot to ai https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/pivot-ai-james-gosling-l06gc

HN shocked and appalled that a "founder" cannot make billions running a largely unmoderated social network without facing a few consequences:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41341353

edit @dgerard already posted this on the top level, I just got triggered by one of the many dupe submissions on HN

highlights include

• standard Signal-bashing
• comparison with other heroes like Kim Dotcom (lol) and Snowden
• outrage that the arrest order was issued while Durov was in the air, so he couldn't evade justice (this is unconfirmed)
• outrage that being a citizen of a country allows that country to enforce its laws against someone

Durov is rich and accused in a country governed by the rule of law (in contrast to the other country which has issued him a passport, the UAE). He can afford the very best lawyers and will have to be content with staying in Paris while this works out, boo-hoo.

The giant bust of Elon Musk towed by a CyberTruck is real after all! https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/large-sculpture-elon-musk-towed-cybertruck-brownsville-texas-elonrwa-nft-1234715157/

The original video I linked to looked possibly CG, because it was short and looked like the uncanny gaze of giant Elon Musk was staring directly into the camera the whole time; but turns out it is real. I'm so "happy".

And surprising exactly no one, it's an advert for an NFT.

RE: the recent discussion about Robert Heinlein and the origins of the word "grok", here's an archive link about him:

TNR: A Famous Science Fiction Writer's Descent Into Libertarian Madness

David may have won the race, but I have the first sneer!

Parents weep because making good products is insufficiently profitable.

YouTube rolled out a new dogshit AI feature and it near-immediately accused someone of being the meme behind the slaughter:

turns out duckduckgo does AI search result summaries too, although at least you can turn the little bastards off

Self-identified emergency dept physician on my local subreddit just believes things that spicy autocorrect tells him about his job.

Dude here claims that Tennessee is ranked #3 for physicians looking for work, but when asked for a source...

Obviously you’ll find various resources. ChatGPT has it as #3 for whatever that’s worth. At least for my specialty Tennessee offered a top salary, moderate tort reform, no income tax, eliminated the professional privilege tax, and more. It’s certainly not a bad place to practice and I’d argue very few physicians are avoiding Tennessee.

https://old.reddit.com/r/nashville/comments/1eweryn/curing_tennessees_doctor_shortage_law_paves_way/liz36dj/

Wish I knew where he worked so that I could avoid it.

One of my kids is a huge Gravity Falls fan and has recently acquired The Book of Bill. For some reason, Bill's anecdote about silly straws reminded me of the grok discourse:

FUN FACT: When you use a silly straw to murder someone, it becomes a serious straw!

Etsy: an artistic one-stop chop shop where slop pops up like catch crops - and that quick shot's no hatchet-job, so keep it from pops 'fore it leaves him in a strop:

(Full disclosure: the opportunity for some quickfire rhymes may have played a role in birthing this sneer.)