TechTakes

The cost of simply retrieving an answer from the Web is infinitely smaller than the cost of generating a new one.

Great interview with Sasha Luccioni from Huggingface on all the ways that using generative AI for everything is both a) hugely costly compared to existing methods, and b) insane.

Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

Authors have expressed their shock after the news that academic publisher Taylor & Francis, which owns Routledge, had sold access to its authors’ research as part of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) partnership with Microsoft—a deal worth almost £8m ($10m) in its first year.

On top of it all, that is such a low-ball number from Microsoft

The agreement with Microsoft was included in a trading update by the publisher’s parent company in May this year. However, academics published by the group claim they have not been told about the AI deal, were not given the opportunity to opt out and are receiving no extra payment for the use of their research by the tech company.

The machines, now inaccessible, are arguably more secure than before.

we appear to be the first to write up the outrage coherently too. much thanks to the illustrious @self

Seeing a sudden surge in interest in the "Tech Right" as they're being dubbed. Often the focus is on business motivations like tax breaks but I think there's more to it. The narrative that silicon Valley is a bunch of tech hippies was well sown early on, particularly by Stewart Brand and his ilk but throughout that period and prior, the intersection between tech and authoritative politics that favours systems over people is well established.

Hello all,

TLDR: I've written some stuff about tech ideology via the TV show Devs. It's all free, no paid subs etc. Would love it if anyone interested wanted to take a look - link is to my blog.

Longer blurb: Firstly if this is severely poor form please tell me to do one, throw tomatoes etc.

I'm a Sociologist that focuses on tech culture. Particularly elite tech culture and the far right. I started off writing about the piracy cultures of the 2000s and their role in the switch to digital distribution back in 2013. Just by virtue of paying attention to tech ideology I've now ended up also researching far right extremism and radicalisation and do a lot of data analysis with antifacist orgs. I also used to flirt around in the Sneerclub post-rat spaces on reddit and twitter a few years back too.

Anyway, I've been researching NRx and the wider fashy nature of tech since 2016 but because of "issues" I've not yet got much out into the world. I'm working on a book that more closely examines the way that the history and ideologies in tech culture play well to far right extremism and what it might say about the process of radicalisation more generally.

However, because I'm tired of glacial academic publishing timelines I've also started a research blog called Unserious Academic and for my first project I use the Alex Garland TV show Devs to illustrate and explore some of the things I know about tech culture. I've put out three parts so far with a fourth one ready for Monday. I'm not looking for paid subs or anything, all free I just figured some people might be interested.

I also desperately need a place where people know what a neoreactionary is so I can more easily complain about them so I'd like to hang around longer term too. Thanks for your time!

I don’t think I’ve ever experienced before this big of a sentiment gap between tech – web tech especially – and the public sentiment I hear from the people I know and the media I experience.

Most of the time I hear “AI” mentioned on Icelandic mainstream media or from people I know outside of tech, it’s being used as to describe something as a specific kind of bad. “It’s very AI-like” (“mjög gervigreindarlegt” in Icelandic) has become the talk radio short hand for uninventive, clichéd, and formulaic.

babe wake up the butlerian jihad is coming

so Andreessen Horowitz posted another manifesto just over a week ago and it’s the most banal fash shit you can imagine:

Regulatory agencies have been green lit to use brute force investigations, prosecutions, intimidation, and threats to hobble new industries, such as Blockchain.

Regulatory agencies are being green lit in real time to do the same to Artificial Intelligence.

does this shit ever get deeper than Regulation Bad? fuck no it doesn’t. is this Horowitz’s attempt to capitalize on the Supreme Court’s judiciary coup? you fucking bet.

here’s some more banal shit:

We find there are three kinds of politicians:

Those who support Little Tech. We support them.

Those who oppose Little Tech. We oppose them.

Those who are somewhere in the middle – they want to be supportive, but they have concerns. We work with them in good faith.

I find there are three kinds of politicians:

• those who want hamburger. I give them hamburger.
• those who abstain from hamburger. I do not give them hamburger.
• those who have questions about hamburger. I refer them to the shift supervisor in good faith.

Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

This is an essay about 'village' vs 'control' techno-optimism I wrote for a class final in 2016. I was in undergrad etc etc but for 2016 I feel it had a lot of foresight, and there's still some bits here and there I haven't seen anyone else explicate. Thought some of you might be interested

Paris' editors are awesome and made my hesitant rambling sound snappy and lively too. This came out extremely well.

this has been discussed here previously, but we mostly thought you'd enjoy the picture of your friend and mine Sam Altman

whatever you call it he’s going to talk to you in a hundred different languages, he’s going to connect with you, he’s going to fall in love with you