It's the least of this thing's problems, but I've had it with the fucking teasers and "coming soon" announcements. You woke me up for this? Shut the fuck up, finish your product and release it and we'll talk (assuming your product isn't inherently a pile of shit like AI to begin with). Teaser more like harasser. Do not waste my time and energy telling me about stuff that doesn't exist and for the love of all that is holy do not try and make it a cute little ARG puzzle.

I was reminded of a particular anecdote I need to get out of my system.

There was a time on a particular fiction series' fan forum's IRC channel when I had to convince a very enthusiastic teenage fan that the instructions they found on 4chan to open a portal to a parallel world of that particular work of fantasy fiction was actually a method for synthesizing and inhaling poison gas.

The weird part was that they admitted they knew it was probably just a cruel prank, but were still willing to try just in case it was real. We had to actually find and link articles where the same reaction was exhibited as an actual documented suicide method, if an unreliable one at that, to convince them not to go for it.

By my estimate that person was about high school age, almost certainly over 13 and probably over 15. Mostly their behavior seemed normal for the age, certainly overenthusiastic about the fandom and with obvious signs of teenage ennui, but both of those are typical for someone in their mid-teens. It was just this strange incident of extreme gullibility and self-destructive devotion to a fandom that really stuck with me.

finger curls on the monkey paw

Inspiring! Mom and Pop have started a small business and are now franchisees of Megacorp Robotaxi. After financing and purchasing a fleet of cars, they can enjoy a steady and reliable income while only having to take care of vehicle maintenance, autopilot software license fees, accounting, possible municipal taxi licensing and other legal and clerical duties and liabilities of running a business.

Thanks to Megacorp Robotaxi's excellent reputation and customer loyalty and not at all because Megacorp Robotaxi has a de facto monopoly on taxi business, Mom and Pop are not worried about the competition, save for maybe some friendly and good-natured rivalry with other proud franchisees of the Megacorp Robotaxi family.

Also, I just now realized that Automattic (business model: Uber for not posting female-presenting nipples) is a pun on this guy's name.

You know what's really good for mental health? Work that makes you feel guilty and politics you don't have any influence over.

Coming soon, my debut light novel I (39M) Was Kicked Out Of My Party And Called A Podcasting Bro Because I Didn't Want To End Homelessness In The United States Fifty Times Over And Still Have More Money Left Than The Entire Continent Of Africa, So Instead I Had Factories Build Me Plagiarism Accelerator Chips So My Company Can Lose Money Even Faster. AITA?

It's an isekai story of a techbro reincarnated in a world that's just like ours except he actually has that much money. Then again, that might become reality sooner than you think. If OpenAI keeps up their pace, they will make that $7,000,000,000,000 in just negative 1400 years!

EDGE (enhanced display for environment)

did not even try

Reading and listening to fans of AI has actually managed to convince me that machine learning algorithms really are better at reasoning than some humans.

Took me like five minutes of reading to realize this was neant to be a hit piece and not praise.

He's a little confused but he's got the spirit!

Here's the pic in its full glory.

Tag yourself, I'm Testtomcels

Look at me, I'm a philantropist! I non-bindingly pledge to probably promise that if possible and convenient, I can be considered to essentially intend to effectively donate up to half of my arguable net worth to a cause one might consider charitable.

Oh and a legal defence fund for unfairly maligned non-sex offender friends of Jeffrey Epstein counts as a charity, by the way.