A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator

>"((1012.5)) So today we have marketing departments who say things like "we don't need computers, we need... appliances. Make me a computer that doesn't run every program, just a program that does this specialized task, like streaming audio, or routing packets, or playing Xbox games, and make sure it doesn't run programs that I haven't authorized that might undermine our profits". And on the surface, this seems like a reasonable idea -- just a program that does one specialized task -- after all, we can put an electric motor in a blender, and we can install a motor in a dishwasher, and we don't worry if it's still possible to run a dishwashing program in a blender. But that's not what we do when we turn a computer into an appliance. We're not making a computer that runs only the "appliance" app; we're making a computer that can run every program, but which uses some combination of rootkits, spyware, and code-signing to prevent the user from knowing which processes are running, from installing her own software, and from terminating processes that she doesn't want. In other words, an appliance is not a stripped-down computer -- it is a fully functional computer with spyware on it out of the box. (audience applauds loudly) Thanks." Some excellent observations by Cory Doctorow! Related: link "A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator": ▶ this video

The premise LLM are "AI" is false, but are good at problems like context search, and isomorphic plagiarism. Given the liabilities of relying on public and chat users markdown data to sell to other users without compensation raises a number of issues: 1. Copyright: LLM generated content can't be assigned copyright (USA), and thus may contaminate licensing agreements. It is likely public-domain, but also may conflict with GPL/LGPL when stolen IP bleeds through weak obfuscation. The risk has zero precedent cases so far (the Disney case slightly differs), but is likely a legal liability waiting to surface eventually. 2. Workmanship: All software is terrible, but some of it is useful. People that don't care about black-box obfuscated generated content, are also a maintenance and security liability. Seriously, folks should just retire if they can't be arsed to improve readable source tree structure. 3. Repeatability: As the models started consuming other LLM content, the behavioral vectors often also change the content output. Humans know when they don't know something, but an LLM will inject utter random nonsense every time. More importantly, the energy cost to get that error rate lower balloons exponentially. 4. Psychology: People do not think critically when something seems right 80% of the time. The LLM accuracy depends mostly on stealing content, but it stops working when there is nothing left to commit theft of service on. The web is now >53% slop and growing. Only the human user chat data is worth stealing now. 5. Manipulation: The frequency of bad bots AstroTurf forums with poisoned discourse is biasing the delusional. Some react emotionally instead of engaging the community in good faith, or shill hard for their cult of choice. 6. Sustainability: FOSS like all ecosystems is vulnerable to peer review exhaustion like the recent xz CVE fiasco. The LLM hidden hostile agent problem is currently impossible to solve, and thus cannot be trusted in hostile environments. 7. Ethics: Every LLM ruined town economic simulations, nuked humanity 94% of the time in every war game, and encouraged the delusional to kill IRL While I am all for assistive technologies like better voice recognition, TTS, and individuals computer-user interfaces. Most will draw a line at slop code, and branch to a less chaotic source tree to work on. I think it is hilarious some LLM proponents immediately assume everyone also has no clue how these models are implemented. =3 "A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator " ▶ this video

LLM are not real "AI", but are good at some types of problems like context search, and isomorphic plagiarism. Regulatory capture to manufacture a monopolistic position is what many are planning. As gambling with other peoples money still has few fiscal consequences (see 2008), but will hurt Americans when the bubble implodes. Note more cheap energy for home users typically means higher standards of living, and the Westinghouse electric economic cycle from the 1950s is now broken. Data centers are consuming the community infrastructure equity, and it will cost voters sooner or later. Individuals can't stop trends, but one may profit from the predictable nature of both the unscrupulous and hapless. "Bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered" as they say on wall-street. =3 "Memoirs of extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds" (Charles Mackay, 1852) link "A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator " ▶ this video

> We’re always looking for ways to improve our customer service experience. What a joke. Anyway most of us already know to steer well clear of anything HP branded. It’s not the HP we remember from years past. Their junk is unreliable and they apparently have no interest in customer support. I also love it when I spent ten minutes trying to locate the customer support line number (that is usually well hidden) for a recorded voice message reminding me that they have a website with the most generic answers to the most generic problems which I don’t have right now. Do you really think I’d be wasting my time going through your idiotic customer service number if I had found your generic answer in the FAQ helpful? There is a special place in hell for the MBAs imagining new ways to maw everyone’s lives miserable. Reminds me of this Norway govt ad about the job of an enshittifier: ▶ this video