Posts by spacecadet66

AI is actually bad at math, ORCA shows

So you're saying that the system that's meant to predict a series of tokens isn't good at the completely different task of doing logic and arithmetic? Weird!

ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok make very squishy jury members

Re: Freedoms

> It’s evolving at lightning speed.

It's not, though. It seems more like it's hit the upper plateau of the S-curve.

Microsoft's lack of quality control is out of control

Re: Program / Programme

Although to be fair, you should also occasionally clean the surfaces of your devices, a dry microfiber cloth is good for this.

Benioff backs off: Salesforce chief says sorry for Trump troop talk

OK, fair enough, people will still be telling John McAfee stories long after Benioff's forgotten.

Re: His legacy is ...

It's hard to believe today, but San Francisco used to be a fun and interesting city. Then Big Tech happened. Maybe we'll get lucky and the AI crash will send most of the little yuppie shitbags back to live with their parents, and SF will turn weird again.

> In addition, she said his apology suggests he might be "afraid he's going to lose his legacy."

...What fucking legacy? He thinks that 20 years after he dies, anyone will remember who he was? You run a large, mediocre SaaS company, dude. Not something that anyone outside of a small contingent of Silicon Valley and Wall Street dipshits cares about.

Microsoft 365 business customers are running out of places to hide from Copilot

Re: STOP using Microsoft Products - NOW.

I remember how back in my first programming job--ever--I thought I was classy because I had an Indigo as my workstation.

I just realized how long ago that was. If anyone wants me I'll be drinking whiskey out of the bottle alone in a dark room.

> Just when you thought Microsoft had run out of Windows apps to stuff with Copilot, it's cramming the AI into your taskbar companions

I can definitely think of one place Microsoft can stuff and/or cram Copilot, and since I'm in a good mood, I'll even say they're allowed to use lube.

Dame Emma Thompson gives the 'AI revolution' both barrels

Re: re: 'Would you like me to rewrite that for you?'"

> The plaintiff would have to provide evidence showing that their work was used, which work, etc.

Yes they would. I agree it would be pointless to make a case based on similarities between extruded text and the originals that allegedly went into it. You'd need to convince a judge and/or jury, based on evidence such as logs, email, whatever, that the works in question went into the sausage grinder. I don't think that's impossible: plenty of companies have data breaches or whistleblowers.

Re: re: 'Would you like me to rewrite that for you?'"

In recently published books I've started seeing some text on the copyright page to the effect of "no part of this work may be used to train AI". Doesn't mean the mongers of slop will comply, but at least it's something to point to in court.

Re: Not saying it's a red flag but...

And also tragic because it's true.

Re: Sorry, Jim. You don't get two up-votes by posting duplicates.

The good news, or so I've heard, is that carmakers have finally tumbled to this and are starting to use physical, tactile controls again.

Claude code will send your data to crims ... if they ask it nicely

> monitor Claude while using the feature and stop it if you see it using or accessing data unexpectedly

In other words: we can't fix it and don't care.

There's mushroom for improvement in fungal computing

Looking forward to the first major outage caused by someone wanting to make risotto.

OpenAI tells Trump to build more power plants or China wins the AI arms race

> the US has a history of "thinking big, acting big, and building big."

Just, you know, not since landing on the moon. Close to sixty years ago. As Frank Sobatka put it, "We used to build things in this country. Now we just put our hands in the next guy's pocket."

Amazon's AI specs aim to stop delivery drivers getting lost between van and porch

Re: They'd be better off improving their delivery routing

I think you left out the part that closes the loop: van has to go back to the local Ford dealer, local Ford dealer gives local vandals their cut of the proceeds.

AI eats leisure time, makes employees work more, study finds

Re: You need to consider who the users are

It's like the old saying, that the key to being a 10X programmer is having nine 1X programmers on the team to clean up the messes you make.

> "I don't think there's much controversy to say that AI brings productivity gains"

Wrong!

Re: Someone

> Doesn't anyone actually spend time just thinking about what they are trying to achieve before plunging half arsed into the fray ?

In this economy?

Cisco: Most companies don't know what they're doing with AI

"According to Cisco, part of that reality is the need to invest in new hardware, particularly networking gear."

Someone refresh my memory, what is it exactly that Cisco sells again?

Benioff retreats from idea of sending troops in to clean up San Francisco

Re: Benioff is wrong.

Just a couple of clarifying questions:

1. What riots?

2. What antifa?

3. What Soros funding?

Re: AI plod?

AI is for the marks, it's not what he's going to use to further his own interests.

Re: Benioff is wrong.

So we're just asking rhetorical questions now?

Also what do you mean "return" to racist white police officers? Did they go away at some point when I wasn't paying attention?

Re: Benioff is wrong.

...which was in response to events that were actually happening in the real non-made-up world.

Managers are throwing entry-level workers under the bus in race to adopt AI

You've got a good point, but this is a problem that won't impact them this quarter, or (for the long-term thinkers) next quarter, so they don't care.

AI: The ultimate slacker's dream come true

> No-one is going to respect you as a golfer if you step onto a green with a 9 iron.

...unless you actually manage to get the ball in the hole with it. (Or however an actual golfist, i.e. not me, would phrase that.)

Texas man accidentally shoots cable, brings internet down

Re: what goes up must come down

"Oh does it? Show me where it says that in the Bible."

On average? No. If you have a gun in your house, you are far more likely to die by that gun than to use it to prevent violence.

> The majority of gun owners in the Land of the Free are responsible shooters who recognize it's a tool, not a toy

Speaking as an American: [citation needed]. The majority of gun owners in this country own one because it makes them feel big and strong and less afraid of the world.

Forget vibe coding - Microsoft wants to make vibe working the new hotness

Re: "and produce somewhat accurate results."

The trick is, adopt number of tickets closed as your key metric. Then make sure every single bug gets a ticket. Then vibe fix the vibe coded bugs. Productivity is through the roof! Never mind the collapsing tower of code your product now is, that's unimportant.

If you can't use AI then it's bye bye, Accenture tells staff

Re: My interpretation is...

In job boards more generally, I'm seeing some of this but not an overwhelming amount. But then, LinkedIn is a cesspool.

For a big consultancy, workslop has always been the product.

SIM city: Feds say 100,000-card farms could have killed cell towers in NYC

And since presumably the FBI wouldn't bust a US operation, the list is even smaller.

Moody's raises Big Red flag over Oracle's AI datacenter buildout blueprint

If the burst of the AI bubble takes Oracle with it, at least some good will have come of it.

OpenAI says models are programmed to make stuff up instead of admitting ignorance

Tomorrow's headline: water wet, Pope Catholic, bears shit in woods.

AI can't be woke and regulators should be asleep, Senator Cruz says

Re: you poor bastards.

I'm not sure I'd pick the word "contribute".

Everyone needs an AI phone. No, don't hang up, it's true

Re: Every iPhone since 2017

> Linking the presence of an NPU to buyers "wanting AI" is a massive stretch!

...which, I suspect, is exactly why they do it. It makes number go up, and other numbers go up, and somewhere down the line one number that go up is the C-suite's bonuses.

Use it or lose it: AI may cause you to forget some skills

Re: Misunderstanding the intent...

> Once AI works sufficiently well

...definitely hold your breath waiting for this.

It's AI all the way down as Google's AI cites web pages written by AI

Bring the model collapse, let's get this idiotic phase of technology history done with. It'll probably take my 401k with it, but that's a price I'm willing to pay.

All IT work to involve AI by 2030, says Gartner, but jobs are safe

Re: Be fun to look back

Oh hell yes.

What are the odds that, in 2030, anyone will remember what Gartner predicted in 2025?

Investors throw another $13B on the Anthropic cash bonfire

Re: Conflation of value

> Note, too, that these investors aren't collectively crazy.

There's also the fact that it's possible to know something is a bubble and make money off of it anyway--if your timing is right and you get out before the burst. Of course, this is easier said than done, but also of course, most professional moneyfondlers have an unjustifiably high opinion of their own intelligence.

I seem to remember the common wisdom was, by the time your company got to a Series C or D, it was time to shit or get off the pot.

Salesforce sacrifices 4,000 support jobs on the altar of AI

Re: So disgusting... (that's one way to look at it)

"May"?

Re: So disgusting...

I see what you're saying, but it's quite possible we may want to scale the process up rapidly, and there's also the symbolism to consider.

Then he could sell it for a handsome price, as it's never been used.

Re: Tell tale

This is Salesforce, though, there's just not that much lower for them to go.

AI web crawlers are destroying websites in their never-ending hunger for any and all content

Re: Cloudflare FTW

But simple Markov-chain based "Disassociated Press" style generators should be pretty cheap to run, while looking like legitimate content to crawlers and poisoning their weights.

Older developers are down with the vibe coding vibe

Re: But...isn't it all just bollocks?

The pattern I've noticed is that the actual articles have a healthy skepticism about all this. It's the ads (sorry, I mean "sponsored content") and the other ads (sorry, "newsletters") that are gushing over slop machines.

I'm not wild about that, but I suppose the Reg has to pay its bills somehow.

The air is hissing out of the overinflated AI balloon

Re: The horror ...

Come on man, some of us just had lunch.