Put this up about 20 minutes late, so I’m starting off by saying Honey got exposed

In other news, Character.AI has ended up in the news again for allowing school shooter chatbots to flourish on its platform.

You want my off-the-cuff take, this is definitely gonna fuck c.ai’s image even further, and could potentially leave them wide open to a lawsuit.

On a wider front, this is likely gonna give AI another black eye, and push us one step further to the utter destruction of AI as a concept I predicted a couple months ago.

I’m a senior software engineer

Good. Thanks for telling us your opinion’s worthless.

ZITRON DROPPED

But Apple Intelligence has its good points. “I find the best thing about Apple intelligence is that since I haven’t enabled it, my phone optimized for onboard AI has incredible battery life,” responded another Bluesky user. [Bluesky]

Y’know, if Apple had simply removed the AI altogether and went with that as a marketing point, people would probably buy more iPhones.

At the bare minimum, AI wouldn’t be actively driving people away from buying them.

Baldur Bjarnason just put out his interim notes on tech

Reading through his notes, I get the feeling my off-the-cuff predictions from two months ago are very likely to come true - much more likely than I had anticipated. I’m gonna focus on Predictions 2 and 3:

2. A Decline in Tech/STEM Students/Graduates

Whether or not tech crashes like I expect, AI’s likely did some serious damage to the notion of “tech/STEM = high-paying job” as it sent the job industry into turmoil (with junior positions being particularly affected).

3. Tech/STEM’s Public Image Changes - For The Worse

Whilst my original post focused on AI turning the public against the tech industry, one thing I didn’t account for was the tech industry directly aligning itself with Trump. As such, tech/STEM’s public image is now firmly intertwined with Trump’s public image - with predictable results.

“Legion” for automatic spam posts. Cause that’s not a dogwhistle or anything.

Their name is Legion, for there are too fucking many.

I’ve got some pretty good news for you - Brian Merchant’s been doing plenty of work on rehabilitating the Luddites’ image as well, and in his own words he’s seen plenty of progress on that front.

BOY DO I HAVE THE PERFECT ESSAY TO COMPLEMENT THIS

My hands are requesting the CEO’s home address (in Minecraft real life):

Quick bonus I found in the replies:

And a quick sidenote from me:

This is sorta repeating a previous prediction of mine, but I expect this AI bubble’s gonna utterly tank the public image of tech as a whole. When you develop a tech whose primary use case boils down to “make the world worse so the line can go up”, its gonna be virtually impossible for the public to forgive you.

Being more specific, I expect artists/musicians/creatives in general to be utterly hostile to AI, if not tech as a whole - AI has made their lives significantly harder in a variety of ways, and all signs pointing to the tech industry having done so willingly.

ZITRON DROPPED

Marketing to pre-teen gamers must be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Don’t even need to do much - Stellar Blade threw some fanservice their way and laughed all the way to the bank. Gamers are stupid.

NASB: GamersNexus just put out a lengthy investigation into NZXT and their predatory practices

New post from Brian Merchant: No thanks to generative AI, which is about AI-run publisher Spines and their attempt to enshittify the literature world. Pulling a paragraph near the end here:

For another, the needle can move here; if the noise is loud enough, AI publishing can get slapped with a stigma that can at least help slow the erosion of the industry. Public shame can be a powerful tool, when warranted! So yeah: This is why I’m thankful that we’re building this community, and that there are people out there willing to go to the mat to oppose things like the AI-enabled automation of book production. (I fully resent that ‘AI enabled automation of book production’ is a phrase I had to write in 2024.)

Giving my thoughts, I feel Merchant and co. have a headstart when it comes to moving the needle here, for two main reasons:

• AI has been thoroughly stripped of whatever “wow factor” - showing off that your gen-AI system can make books isn’t gonna impress Joe Public the way it would’ve back in '22 or '23.

• The one-two punch of the slop-nami and the plagiarism lawsuits have indelibly associated “AI” as a concept with “zero effort garbage made of stolen shit” - as a consequence, using or supporting it will immediately disgust a good portion of the crowd right out of the gate

Pulling a random post from Bluesky:

The linked rant is a damn good read, BTW.

NASB: Baldur Bjarnason’s released a second edition of The Intelligence Illusion

It probably is total bullshit

On the one hand, that spectacular failure could potentially dissuade the military from buying in and prolonging this bubble. On the other hand, having an accountability sink for war crimes would be a tempting offer to your average army.

Starting things off with a fresh post from Brian Merchant: Tech under Trump, part 1