Here's a unified theory of Generative AI, that combines what I'm working on, what's great about using AI as a coding assistant, and all the other societal issues with generative AI and coding agents.

It can be summed up in a single sentence rule :

If a task can be done by Generative AI, it didn't need doing in the first place.

Unfortunately, this rant / manifesto got waaaay too long for Masto.

So I had to post it here : https://neh-thalggu.beehiiv.com/p/the-good-the-bad-and-the-sloppy.

@dabeaz @monkey1 For some time I had a "Racket machine": you inserted the floppy and booted the desktop (this was ~1998) and it booted right into the Racket REPL.

Even better, htdp.org was served off that machine! I felt that if we weren't willing to put our reputation on the line that way, we shouldn't be writing books telling other people how to program.

It worked great for a long time. (Now the site is just cloud-hosted, because we have families and lives.)

@shriramk @monkey1 I still think of my visit to Thinking Machines around 1994 where all the Sun workstations on-site simply booted directly into emacs. A simpler time.

China remained the world’s biggest emitter, accounting for almost a third of global carbon emissions, and generating 60% of its electricity from coal. However, it was also responsible for more than 60% of global wind and solar installations last year and is now home to almost 50% of the world’s total wind and solar capacity “China is both the world’s biggest driver of clean energy growth and its largest source of emissions. Its trajectory will have an outsized impact on the global energy future”

American oil production hit a new record high last year, exceeding 20 million barrels a day for the first time to almost equal the *combined* output of Saudi Arabia and Russia.

We need more depictions of ICE as an enemy force like this in popular culture to enable its speedy eradication. I hope the agency will become a shameful part of our past within my lifetime, but I'm not yet confident that will happen.

This is not a Pentagon briefing. It is a table read for a really terrible propaganda movie.

So we went from refusing very skilled and competent devs for niche questions to let the very bad intern monkey code for us and trust it?

Oh, you mean we still doing rejections for stupid reasons anyway?

I didn't wait for AI to come to realize it, but maybe you needed to. This is were the masks unveils: it was never about skills. (6/6)

"AI slop means faster and cheaper content creation."

If you think what you are doing is content creation you have already lost, AI or no AI.

Realizing how badly the last couple years of job searching burned me. Can't even convincingly say "hey take a chance on me."

*That* is why I'm not working in tech right now. Not tech burnout, given how I still fill every free hour with code puttering. Ethics and lack of interest in LLMs play a part, but not that big.

The biggest part is I got so traumatized by the process I couldn't even apply anymore.

@anildash there are only 2 kinds of internet users:

1. I will type my credit card information into any box that asks for it

2. if you ask me to press a button I will hate you forever

Gonna start a winger movement to boycott and protest McDonalds because there's trans fat in Big Macs.

"...and that's why Grimace is actually a carefully crafted plot to make you want a cooter; I mean just look at him..."

I have no idea whether Mamdani will make a good mayor, which is a significant improvement over his rivals.

Looking forward to the SWAT team that breaks down my door and murders my dogs, all to try and recover a signal message shopping list wherein my partner said not to get the Sabra hummus.

So this book is the deadline: https://www.amazon.com/War-Science-Thirty-Nine-Scientists-Scientific/dp/B0DWLP2VTZ/ref=pd_lpo_d_sccl_1/130-5078624-6238217

I will either finally have a locked book contract, or I will self-publish Did The Science Wars Take Place at the same time in order to put a bullet in these bastards (and not let them claim the anti-postmodernist mantle).

"Using Signal is bad because it makes the Left paranoid and not in sync with the working class" is some classic tankie-brained nonsense. True 1990s vibes. Go on a rant about how antifa are the real fascists. Tell me that the black bloc is COINTELPRO. Try to sell me a newspaper. Complain about the gays.

God, this bubble burst is going to be so brutal

The shrugging. The pulling the guy up by his collar after learning they fucked up. The masks and anonymity ensuring they’ll never be held accountable (not that it was likely, anyway). We are turning into a “papers, please” country. And it’s the banality and nonchalance that’s most terrifying.

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:a4e6j62mtcn65xmd7tnnc6ea/post/3ls4rulh4v22j

Giant liberal demonstrations continue their impressive record at stopping US presidents from starting wars.