Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 22nd February 2026

[v0ldek@awful.systems]

Building a compiler that parses C correctly is one thing. Building one that produces fast and efficient machine code is a completely different challenge.

Ye, the former can be done in a month of non-full-time work by an undergrad who took Compilers 101 this semester or in literally a single day by a professional, and the latter is an actual useful product.

So of course AI will excel at doing the first one worse (vibecc doesn’t even reject invalid C) and at an insane resource cost.

[lurker@awful.systems]

holy fuck I actually just burst out laughing at this

[macroplastic@sh.itjust.works]

~(credit)~

[macroplastic@sh.itjust.works]

you can count on microslop to always be behind the curve

[blakestacey@awful.systems]

A longread on AI greenwashing begins thusly:

The expansion of data centres - which is driven in large part by AI growth - is creating a shocking new demand for fossil fuels. The tech companies driving AI expansion try to downplay AI’s proven climate impacts by claiming that AI will eventually help solve climate change. Our analysis of these claims suggests that rather than relying on credible and substantiated data, these companies are writing themselves a blank cheque to pollute on the empty promise of future salvation. While the current negative effects of AI on the climate are clear, proven and growing, the promise of large-scale solutions is often based on wishful thinking, and almost always presented with scant evidence.

(Via.)

[blakestacey@awful.systems]

The phrase “ambient AI listening in our hospital” makes me hear the “Dies Irae” in my head.

[sinedpick@awful.systems]

can all of rationalism be reduced to logorrhea with load-bearing extreme handwaving (in this case, agentic self preservation arises through RL scaling)?

[jackr@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

bluemonday1984@awful.systems update: quokka reached out to me and apparently you had been banned on another instance for report abuse and that ban had synchronised to quokk.au. You should be unbanned now which means the next stubsack should federate again.

E: I do not know how tags work E2: why does that format to a mailto link?

[sc_griffith@awful.systems]

new episode of odium symposium. we look at rousseau’s program for using universal education to turn woman into drones

Just a moment...

(www.patreon.com)

[bluemonday1984@awful.systems]

The phrase “ambient AI listening in our hospital” makes me hear the “Dies Irae” in my head.

I’m personally hearing “Morceaux” myself.

[scruiser@awful.systems]

So they’ve highlighted an interesting pattern to compensation packages, but I find their entire framing of it gross and disgusting, in a capitalist techbro kinda way.

Like the way the describe Part III’s case study:

The uncapped payouts were so large that it fractured the relationship between Capital (Activision) and Labor (Infinity Ward).

Acitivision was trying to cheat its labor after they made them massively successful profits! Describing it as a fracture relationship denies the agency on the Acitivision’s part to choose to be greedy capitalist pigs.

The talent that left formed the core of the team that built Titanfall and Apex Legends, franchises that have since generated billions in revenue, competing directly in the same first-person shooter market as Call of Duty.

Activision could have paid them what they owed them, and kept paying them incentive based payouts, and come out billions of dollars ahead instead of engaging in short-sighted greedy behavior.

I would actually find this article interesting and tolerable if they framed it as “here are the perverse incentives capitalism encourages businesses to create” instead of “here is how to leverage the perverse incentives in your favor by paying your employees just enough, but not enough to actually reward them a fair share” (not that they were honest enough to use those words).

WTF is “even safer” ??? how bout we like just don’t create the torment nexus.

I think the writer isn’t even really evaluating that aspect, just thinking in terms of workers becoming capital owners and how companies should try to prevent that to maximize their profits. The idea that Anthropic employees might care on any level about AI safety (even hypocritically and ineffectually) doesn’t enter into the reasoning.

[fullsquare@awful.systems]

no there’s also racist twitter

[sc_griffith@awful.systems]

need a word for the sort of tech ‘innovation’ that consists of inventing and monetizing new types of externalities which regulators aren’t willing to address. like how bird scooters aren’t a scam, but they profit off of littering sidewalk space so that ppl with disabilities can’t get around

EDIT: a similar, perhaps the same concept is innovation which functions by capturing or monopolizing resources that aren’t as yet understood to be resources. in the bird example, we don’t think of sidewalk space as a capturable resource, and yet

[froztbyte@awful.systems]

parasitech?

[froztbyte@awful.systems]

I guess that doesn’t emphasise the “innovation” aspect much

[froztbyte@awful.systems]

ime much like the SAFe diagrams, this diagram is all over a certain type of “this is how your corporation should be developing software” thotleader posts

(although I imagine the lag 2~3y all those heads have pivoted to promptpraise)

[sc_griffith@awful.systems]

maybe “parasitic innovation”?

[bluemonday1984@awful.systems]

Baldur Bjarnason gives his thoughts on the software job market, predicting a collapse regardless of how AI shakes out:

If you model the impact of working LLM coding tools (big increase in productivity, little downside) where the bottlenecks are largely outside of coding, increases in coding automation mostly just reduce the need for labour. I.e. 10x increase means you need 10x fewer coders, collapsing the job market

If you model the impact of working LLM coding tools with no bottlenecks, then the increase in productivity massively increases the supply of undifferentiated software and the prices you can charge for any software drops through the floor, collapsing the job market

If the models increase output but are flawed, as in they produce too many defects or have major quality issues, Akerlof’s market for lemons kicks in, bad products drive out good, value of software in the market heads south, collapsing the job market

If the model impact is largely fictitious, meaning this is all a scam and the perceived benefit is just a clusterfuck of cognitive hazards, then the financial bubble pop will be devastating, tech as an industry will largely be destroyed, and trust in software will be zero, collapsing the job market

I can only think of a few major offsetting forces:

• If the EU invests in replacing US software, bolstering the EU job market.
• China might have substantial unfulfilled domestic demand for software, propping up their job market
• Companies might find that declining software quality harms their bottom-line, leading to a Y2K-style investment in fixing their software stacks

But those don’t seem likely to do more than partially offset the decline. Kind of hoping I’m missing something

[cinnasverses@awful.systems]

Do we have any idea why some of the Zizians ended up in Vermont? The only thing in their network that comes to mind is the Monastic Academy for the Preservation of Life on Earth (MAPLE, a Buddhist-flavoured CFAR offshoot with the usual Medium post accusing leaders of sexual and psychological abuse)

Vermont and New Hampshire have clusters of generic Libertarians.

[yournetworkishaunted@awful.systems]

In economic terms it’s less rent seeking and more rent creation. Like, taking advantage of public sidewalk space may not be a rent in the strictest sense given that the revenue model is still people paying for the service, but the ability to provide that service is absolutely predicated on taking over and monopolizing this public resource to the maximal degree possible.

By historical allegory, harkening back to the original destruction of the Commons, we’re looking at Enclosure 2: Frisco Drift.

Let’s also not lose sight of the fact that those sidewalks aren’t a natural formation, and that it’s the city government who ultimately takes on the burden of their construction and maintenance. This kind of neo-enclosure of public resources is then another kind of invisible subsidy.