TechTakes

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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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For actually-good tech, you want our NotAwfulTech community

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dgerard@awful.systems
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1
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Stubsack: Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 13th July 2025 (awful.systems)
submitted 1 day ago by BlueMonday1984@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
20 comments fedilink
 
 

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.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)

2
10
Publishers file competition complaints in UK and EU over Google’s AI Overviews (pivot-to-ai.com)
submitted 8 hours ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
1 comments fedilink
 
 

podcast version
video version

3
25
Venture capital is lending money against video cards (pivot-to-ai.com)
submitted 1 day ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
14 comments fedilink
 
 

podcast version
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4
79
The Force-Feeding of AI on an Unwilling Public (www.honest-broker.com)
submitted 1 day ago by e8d79@discuss.tchncs.de to c/techtakes@awful.systems
6 comments fedilink
5
77
"Asked to think like a paedophile or act suicidal: Workers training Meta's AI in Ireland speak out" (www.thejournal.ie)
submitted 2 days ago by maol@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
2 comments fedilink
 
 

God help us. These workers are employed by a subcontractor, Covalen.

Multiple workers from Covalen’s ‘AI annotation’ service spoke to The Journal Investigates about their roles. Their day-to-day work involves creating prompts that are fed to Meta’s AI platform so the system can be trained according to guidelines.

In order to do this, some workers have spent entire shifts pretending to be paedophiles online seeking child sex abuse related information, or suicidal people looking for details on how to kill or hurt themselves.

Covalen also does moderation for Meta, with workers forced to watch extremely violent and disturbing footage that has been flagged for moderation.

“Sometimes in my dreams I am the victim, but sometimes – and this is far worse – I am the perpetrator,” they said.

One bright spot:

Over 100 Covalen employees have now joined the Communications Workers Union (CWU). The toll that dealing with sensitive content and inconsistencies in wellness break length were extra motivating factors for the move.

They are also asking for a better rate of pay, as they are currently earning an average of €29,700 per year.

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Google Veo 3 fails, week 3 — fail harder with a vengeance (video) (www.youtube.com)
submitted 2 days ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
2 comments fedilink
 
 

watch the video first, it's the point here

text version

podcast version tomorrow!

7
213
Only 3%* of US AI users are willing to pay a penny for it (pivot-to-ai.com)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
93 comments fedilink
 
 

podcast version
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8
63
The rise of Whatever (eev.ee)
submitted 3 days ago by e8d79@discuss.tchncs.de to c/techtakes@awful.systems
10 comments fedilink
9
58
Microsoft lays off the staff who make the money to fund AI that doesn’t (pivot-to-ai.com)
submitted 4 days ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
19 comments fedilink
 
 

podcast version
video version

10
24
How to pass an AI coding benchmark: train on the questions (pivot-to-ai.com)
submitted 5 days ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
9 comments fedilink
 
 

podcast version
video version

11
43
$219 Springer Nature AI textbook was written with a chatbot (pivot-to-ai.com)
submitted 6 days ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
8 comments fedilink
 
 

podcast version
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12
233
‘AI is no longer optional’ — Microsoft admits AI doesn’t help at work (pivot-to-ai.com)
submitted 1 week ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
84 comments fedilink
 
 

video version

13
22
Stubsack: Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 6th July 2025 (awful.systems)
submitted 1 week ago by BlueMonday1984@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
148 comments fedilink
 
 

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.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this. Also, happy 4th July in advance...I guess.)

14
16
Google Veo 3 fails, week 2: fail harder — Shokunin Studio spins the gacha (pivot-to-ai.com)
submitted 1 week ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
10 comments fedilink
 
 

don't just read the text - watch the video, it's the point of the exercise. And I worked all weekend on it. Thank you.

video version

15
109
People Are Being Involuntarily Committed, Jailed After Spiraling Into "ChatGPT Psychosis" (futurism.com)
submitted 1 week ago by irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/techtakes@awful.systems
35 comments fedilink
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Rolling the ladder up behind us - Xe Iaso on the LLM bubble (xeiaso.net)
submitted 1 week ago by BlueMonday1984@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
2 comments fedilink
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14
Pitchbook: AI venture capital resorts to mergers (pivot-to-ai.com)
submitted 1 week ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
0 comments fedilink
 
 

podcast version
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18
21
Coding in a material world | deadSimpleTech (deadsimpletech.com)
submitted 1 week ago by nfultz@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
3 comments fedilink
 
 

Another response to Ptacek.

19
8
Meta beats Kadrey, AI training was fair use — what this means (pivot-to-ai.com)
submitted 1 week ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
5 comments fedilink
 
 

podcast version
video version

20
22
Verizon’s new AI chatbot — customer disservice (pivot-to-ai.com)
submitted 1 week ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
21 comments fedilink
 
 

video version

21
11
Anthropic AI wins broad fair use for training! — but not on pirated books (pivot-to-ai.com)
submitted 1 week ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
5 comments fedilink
 
 

video version

22
21
Google's nihilists destroying open web and its own business chasing AI (www.nakedcapitalism.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by nfultz@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
1 comments fedilink
23
12
Iyo vs. Io — OpenAI and Jony Ive get sued (pivot-to-ai.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
5 comments fedilink
 
 

video version

24
20
Stubsack: Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 29th June 2025 (awful.systems)
submitted 2 weeks ago by BlueMonday1984@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
82 comments fedilink
 
 

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.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)

25
19
Nvidia gets into money-burning AI startups (pivot-to-ai.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems
0 comments fedilink
 
 

video version

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