Want to wade into the rainbow-ridden surf of the abyss? 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 youāll 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 cutānāpaste it into its own post ā thereās no quota for posting and the bar really isnāt that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned so many āesotericā right wing freaks, but thereās no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iām talking redscare-ish, reality challenged āculture criticsā who write about everything but understand nothing. Iām talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyāre inescapable at this point, yet I donāt see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnāt be surgeons because they didnāt believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canāt escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)
New drama just dropped: The US government has forced Anthropic to block access to Fable and Mythic for non-US nationals, so theyāve blocked it for everyone.
Theyāre claiming they believe itās because someone has managed to find a āminorā vulnerability, but if that were the case, the directive specified non-US restrictions, which makes little sense for an actual security exploit.
My assumption is this is part of the hasty xenophobic and protectionist policy the US is particularly fond of right now, but the government has failed to account for the multinational nature of the companies using them. I anticipate this restriction will be partly amended to accommodate that issue after they try to extract a pound of flesh from Anthropic.
I question how robust Anthropicās geoblocking and data residency infrastructure even is. Their data residency info is littered with caveats that would make an EU market regulator shudder.
The move to block it for everyone does conveniently feed into Anthropicās āitās too powerfulā narrative, but Anthropic is keen to demonstrate in this case that the issue they believe has been raised also applies to OpenAI, so I donāt think this was part of their original marketing strategy - even if it can easily be folded into it.
I think itās more likely Altman is behind this as part of their IPO strategy. There was other murmuring this weekend about OpenAI considering drastic price cuts to compete. Itās an IPO race to the bottom.
It looks like AI use is quickly becoming what I assumed it would be, a weapon of the rich. The question for me is whether that weapon is a footgun, or has a much larger blast radius.
Yall sneer, but I made a couple of thousand bucks this saturday standing on a dark street corner selling illegal Fable and Mythic linkups. Gave the first question free to any boomers that came asking, to get them hooked.
Now seeing one-shotted Europeans calling for the development of AI/LLMs at home - āMistralā is not adequate
Literally just started a discussion on European booster fanfic hype a few days ago: https://awful.systems/post/8591627/11736760
I wonder if Europe 2031 will get a boost out of this, it is really perfect timing for them, they can even claim an early prediction success on the US cutting Europe off! (But as with AI 2027, Europe 2031 assumes a much more competent US that can implement strategies like that in a competent fashion instead of some disorganized demands after 5pm on a Friday).
Iāve already seen āEurope 2031 was right. Shortest time between a work of science fiction and science factā on LinkedInā¦ ššš
It also saves them on the cost of actually serving the model, and stalls the cycle of people gradually realizing the new model isnāt much better than the previous one.
Very fair point. Iām still inclined to think this wasnāt primarily a marketing decision, because I donāt think they would point the finger so directly at the government if that were the case. Perhaps the directive was a blessing in disguise for them though.
Either way, I think this is pretty telling for what we can expect over the next couple of months before we see any public SEC docs from either OpenAI or Anthropic. If it werenāt for the immense damage it will cause for innocent people, I might have broken out some popcorn. Popcorn might be my staple food for financial reasons soon anyway.