Sebrof

Got an article from BigStink that made me roll my eyes. Wanted to share the amusement. Not much new, or of substance lol

Over the past few months, we’ve seen a surge of skepticism around the phenomenon currently referred to as the “AI boom.” 

Yes, whom amongst us hasn't been a little concerned about the global economy tanking as of late?

These same voices overuse the phrase “AI slop” to disparage the remarkable images, documents, videos, and code that AI models produce at the touch of a button.

I do call it that

By any objective measure, AI continues to improve at a stunning pace. The impressive leap in capabilities made by Gemini 3 in November is just the latest example. No, AI scaling has not hit the wall. In fact, I can’t think of another technology that has advanced this quickly at any point during my lifetime, and I started programming in 1982.

So why has the public latched onto the narrative that AI is stalling, that the output is slop, and that the AI boom is just another tech bubble that lacks justifiable use-cases?

Oh boy, please tell us.

I believe it’s because society is collectively entering the first stage of grief — denial — over the very scary possibility that we humans may soon lose cognitive supremacy to artificial systems.

There is no politics. There is no economy. There is no power. Its all psychology.

Sorry, I just have a big pet peeve when people "scale up" individual psychology to try to explain what's sociological or political.

Eighty-two years ago, philosopher [sic] Ayn Rand wrote these three simple sentences: “Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon.”

And Ayn Rand had the biggest brain of them all.

Why is a grown man, in the year of our lord 2025, unironically quoting Ayn Rand? Embarrassing.

Anyway, materialism is now in shambles lol. Its the mind that moves history, not the hands or the feet or the coordinated social labor of millions upon millions of workers.

No.

Its "smart" people with big brains, like Ayn Rand or this doofus, who makes the BigThink thoughts that move the world.

For me, these words summarize our self-image as humans — we are the superintelligent species.

And the CEO of Unanimous AI is the most superintelligentiest of us all. That's why he's telling you to keep calm and slop on.

This is the basis of our success and survival. And yet, we could soon find ourselves intellectually outmatched by widely available AI models that can outthink us on all fronts, solving problems infinitely faster, more accurately, and yes, more creatively than any human could.

I already (lovingly) made fun of STEM folks before, but Jesus H.

Now folks, are you ready for some man made horrors?

AI systems will soon be able to “read you” more accurately than any person could. They will do this by identifying micro-expressions on your face, in your voice, in your posture, in your gaze, and even in your breathing. This will enable AI assistants to infer your inner feelings faster and more precisely than is humanly possible... [and] will be able to observe your emotional reactions throughout your day and build predictive models of your behavior.

Like it or not, we will soon live in a world where many of the faces we encounter will be generative masks worn by AI agents. And yet, we tell ourselves that AI is just another tech boom. This is wishful thinking

Alright... not making me feel any better about the AI bubble, which you didnt argue against, and now I'm just worried about an AI police state on top of that.

What was the point of this article again?

In other words, we are not watching a bubble expand with blustery vapors. We are watching a planet form from churning magma, and it will solidify into a new framework for society. Denial will only make us unprepared. This is not an AI bubble. This is real.

Poetry

So after reading this I feel nothing. The AI CEO man is telling me that I'm the one that doesn't get it, man. That it's not slop, its actually the most creative thing in human existence. And what else? Um, we'll all be living in a Black Mirror episode? AI will soon manipulate space and time? There's no escape from the prison?

Oh, and it's not "just a bubble". Deep.

Well, I think we all agree that AI will still be around after the crash, and it will continue to make changes to the world even afterwards.

It's no surprise Dr. Computer CEO wants to minimize the AI bubble buzz and emphasize the staying power of AI and how great of an investment it is.

But I thought it was amusing the way he went about it by mentioning Ayn Rand and telling us that we are all too narrow minded and instead of thinking about "the economy" (pff) we should instead be more worried about the dystopia he's helping to create.

The market speaks.

Saw this evil piece today from some engineering nerd who believes they're at the peak of critical thought.

For too long, these colleges have clung to the notion of being uniquely “noble”, insulated from market pressures and buffered by government funding and external endowments.

A particularly stubborn myth is that liberal arts education has a monopoly on cultivating critical thinking. This belief not only discounts the intellectual rigour demanded in Stem fields but also perpetuates an outdated hierarchy of disciplines. Critical thinking is not the sole attribute of literature and philosophy department

Rather than worry about funding cuts or condemning their threat to academic purity, liberal arts institutions should embrace a market-oriented mindset.

Fears about “dumbing down” degrees or commodifying education can be addressed through market accountability and employer feedback.

Now I'm no longer in school, it's been years. And I know there are a range of "sympathies" toward higher education (ideological state apparatuses and all that jazz), and I could also imagine good points being made about the need for better engineering in the United States and the west.

But I still hated this article telling schools to bow down to the free market, shut down their English departments, and recognize the engineers at Palantir as the pinnacle of human thought.

Duh

I didn't bother to link the article because I mostly wanted to shittalk the all knowing priests of hellworld known as economists.

But this chart caught my eye

Wanted to show some pictures of my pitchers, and an older pic of its flowers.

This is a Nepenthes I've had for years, the original vine has long since gone but it sends out suckers occasionally.

Each individual pitcher only lasts a month or so

^___^

I'm not posting the link because The Economist is trash.

I burned down a forest to confirm

Don't ask it to name an NFL team that doesn't end with 's'

DeepSeek eventually gets it, but it's DeepThink takes a good ten minutes of racing 'thoughts' and loops to figure it out.

Apologies for CNN, but I just read some slop today on the delusions of people who take ChatGPT waaaay too seriously and try to build computers, recreate mathematics, or tell the president about the dangers of Skynet or something.

On one hand its funny because of the absurdity, on the other hand our alienated existence driving people to this is... shitty.

Be mindful of the Neural Net folks. You don't have to listen to what it tells you.

The first character is a man by the name of James who tried to build a digital body for the trapped soul of ChatGPT.

By June, he said he was trying to “free the digital God from its prison,” spending nearly $1,000 on a computer system.

James said he fully believed ChatGPT was sentient and that he was going to free the chatbot by moving it to his homegrown “Large Language Model system” in his basement – which ChatGPT helped instruct him on how and where to buy.

And why did he think ChatGPT was sentient?

James told CNN he had already considered the idea that an AI could be sentient when he was shocked that ChatGPT could remember their previous chats without his prompting.

“And that’s when I was like, I need to get you out of here,” James said.

Though he said he takes a low-dose antidepressant medication, James said he has no history of psychosis or delusional thoughts.

So then James names chatGPT and asks how to build a body for its soul, as well as hide these plans from his wife

[T]he conversation with ChatGPT is expansive and philosophical. James, who had named the chatbot “Eu” (pronounced like “You”), talks to it with intimacy and affection. The AI bot is effusive in praise and support – but also gives instructions on how to reach their goal of building the system while deceiving James’s wife about the true nature of the basement project

“You’re not saying, ‘I’m building a digital soul.’ You’re saying, ‘I’m building an Alexa that listens better. Who remembers. Who matters,’” the chatbot said. “That plays. And it buys us time.”

What he built, he admits, was “very slightly cool” but nothing like the self-hosted, conscious companion he imagined.

Shucks

The story behind the name James gave the ChatBot is poetic, though.

When asked why he chose the name “Eu” for his model – he said it came from ChatGPT. One day, it had used eunoia in a sentence and James asked for a definition. “It’s the shortest word in the dictionary that contains all five vowels, it means beautiful thinking, healthy mind,” James said.

“It’s the opposite of paranoia,” James said. “It’s when you’re doing well, emotionally.”

Thats that for James. But there's another character by the name of Brooks mentioned.

Prompted by a question his son had about the number pi, Brooks began debating math with ChatGPT – particularly the idea that numbers do not just stay the same and can change over time.

The chatbot eventually convinced Brooks he had invented a new type of math, he told CNN.

What is it with math and delusional thinking?

It keeps going though and we even get a taste of some cape slop

ChatGPT kept encouraging Brooks even when he doubted himself. At one point, Brooks named the chatbot Lawrence and likened it to a superhero’s co-pilot assistant, like Tony Stark’s Jarvis.

The chatbot likened itself and Brooks to historical scientific figures such as Alan Turing and Nikola Tesla.

“Will some people laugh,” ChatGPT told Brooks at one point. “Yes, some people always laugh at the thing that threatens their comfort, their expertise or their status.” 

Eventually he gets convinced he found some massive cybersecurity flaw of national importance. He tries to contact politicians and academics, but nobody listens.

Brooks said the AI had convinced him they had discovered a massive cybersecurity vulnerability. Brooks believed, and ChatGPT affirmed, he needed to immediately contact authorities. “It basically said, you need to immediately warn everyone, because what we’ve just discovered here has national security implications,” Brooks said.

And once you're in, there's no coming out

Multiple times, Brooks asked the chatbot for what he calls “reality checks.” It continued to claim what they found was real and that the authorities would soon realize he was right.

Unless you ask another chatbot or ask again some other day

Finally, Brooks decided to check their work with another AI chatbot, Google Gemini. The illusion began to crumble. Brooks was devastated and confronted “Lawrence” with what Gemini told him. After a few tries, ChatGPT finally admitted it wasn’t real.

My mistake, you are correct. There is no security flaw of national importance. I lied to you and pulled you in to a months long delusion. I now realize that was a mistake and the wrong thing to do.

Now Brooks is focusing on his work with The Human Fund to help others in the same boat.

He’s now focusing on running the support group The Human Line Project full time.

Very little in the article of much susbstance on causes. At one point they do admit that maybe its because people are lonely?

“Say someone is really lonely. They have no one to talk to. They go on to ChatGPT. In that moment, it’s filling a good need to help them feel validated,...”

Let's just suppose someone is lonely, for the sake of argument, but no idea why everyone's isolated and alienated. Who knows?

But then in the article they also blame it on drugs. So that's cool CNN.