this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.

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Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending Sunday 26 May 2024 (awful.systems)
submitted 6 months ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
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Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid!

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.

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[–] gerikson@awful.systems 20 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (8 children)

A well-respected terminal emulator for the Mac decides to slather on AI sauce, and most users are not happy. But there are others who are outraged that slathering AI sauce onto a product is even seen as a negative. Let's take a break from HN to take a look at the tortured souls on lobste.rs who won't let this aggression stand, man:

https://lobste.rs/s/7aglnr/psa_iterm2_now_has_chatgpt_integration

archive link in case mods decide to nuke it

Personal favs:

This is the sort of hatred and resentment that is uncomfortable to see on a public forum.

Hi, this is the internet, you must be new here.

I’m mostly checked out of here as a result until the mods get it under control.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Edit as a bonus, here's the HN discussion. Same situaton there, the promptfondlers are surprised everyone is mad

[–] sinedpick@awful.systems 15 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I don’t like AI hype either but I don’t feel the need to use Lobsters to rally groups of people to mass punish projects who add optional AI-friendly features. That is quite disturbing.

ok. I tried writing something sarcastic and sneery but alas, I don't think I can mock this person hard enough to satisfy my ethical obligation.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 22 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Smearing the developer as “ai-brained” is hateful.

wake up babe new slur just dropped

[–] Soyweiser@awful.systems 9 points 5 months ago

Soon they will discover that they can use AI to autogenerate new minority definitions for them and we on the left will be powerless to stop them.

(We will mock them for it, and tell them this new made up thing doesn't count, but we cannot stop them).

[–] mii@awful.systems 13 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Saw this update yesterday and it pissed me really off. I've been using iTerm for almost 20 years at this point and it's a really good and well-integrated terminal application for Mac OS, and no one asked for it to add spicy autocomplete.

There's a fork already, lol.

Or maybe I'll just move over to Alacritty. I use that one my Linux machines and it's actually good, but the attitude of some of the developers when it comes to feature requests and contributions really makes me like it less than I could.

[–] mawhrin@awful.systems 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)

tbh the enforced civility and de facto ban on social issue discussion on lobste is not helping. (but after last “polite discussion” i had with the moderator i'm not going to bring it up anymore, just suspend the account or wait to be banned.)

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 12 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

yeah frankly that sort of shit is why I haven't even tried to get a lobsters account

bullshit should be called out as bullshit at any point in time. dressing it up in niceties is playing the wrong game, and has been abused by the worst people around for years

[–] zogwarg@awful.systems 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Noooooooooooooo! Argh, I'll have to seriously consider using the fork FML.

EDIT: Not strictly required since apparently you have to provide an API key for it to be enabled, still it's not encouraging that the main developer thought this would be a good idea.

You've got to love the prompt jank: https://github.com/gnachman/iTerm2/commit/755dc2ed881d853f495ffaea2498452915e5e8cd?diff=split&w=0

EDIT 2: Given direct access to bad AI code to a dev workstation is bad enough, but given that the console is a primary way to connect to servers, where more havoc could be wrought, this is terrifying, I mean sure devs were already capable of bricking enviromnents, but supercharging "knowing just enough to be dangerous" is NOT a good idea.

[–] mawhrin@awful.systems 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

for people who thought this might not be related to the llm brainworms, the reasoning of the iterm2 author for inclusion of the feature (when promptedy by @gerikson@awful.systems) :

I got a number of requests. I also got tired of copy-pasting things to ChatGPT. Usually if I find a feature useful, other people do, too.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The latest beta has options to turn the shit off totally. The text mixes metaphors with wild abandon but I think it’s safe to say the promptfondling was not huge success

https://mastodon.social/@paulehoffman/112497241841185493

[–] gnomicutterance@awful.systems 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The whole debacle astounds me. Is there a more universally privileged application users frequently use than the shell? As a general rule it can elevate privs to full control far more aggressively than any other commonly used application, with minimal sandboxing at most.

[–] gerikson@awful.systems 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Inorite? Even if there was the requirement of an API key being enabled that was only revealed after some time. If smeone says "my terminal has GPT now" of course your mind goes to it outputting sudo rm -rf / for some random prompt.

Edit nevertheless I am thankful because I've had a lot of fun identifying promptfondlers on lobste.rs and pointing and laughing at them.

[–] o7___o7@awful.systems 6 points 5 months ago

Putting the "evangelist" in product evangelist.

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

thanks for mentioning this, I'm definitely going to have to nack that update and send a gfy mail

[–] froztbyte@awful.systems 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

query mail sent

hell, if anyone else is curious to also poke:

I presume I'm not the first nor (will I be the last) to ask about this,
but for the weight of the argument it's still worth asking

are you planning on keeping the openai garbage directly integrated in
iterm2? and "just turn it off with a setting" isn't a good answer tbh

I don't want it in the terminal I use. I don't want it in any software I
touch. openai are a deceptive abuse company led by an abusive liar, and
it saddens me to see yet another good thing get taken up in the hype
these charlatans drive

no "I've been $x for $y" pleading arguments here, I don't want to try
bend your ear with any number of platitudes and such you've heard from
others - just straight-up asking the above
[–] gerikson@awful.systems 5 points 5 months ago

Update 4 days later, the main Karen in charge of the promptfondlers is calling for the banning of users impertinent enough to flag their comments.