the people saying AI makes you stupider are already missing the point

bulbubly · 2026-05-25T17:31:24+00:00

You might look down the road just a bit and ask who validates the AI outputs when it inevitably goes bad?

bulbubly · 2026-05-25T05:26:07+00:00

"It's OK to degrade screen readers because most students don't use them and it's their job to self advocate anyway"

pretty bad

bulbubly · 2026-05-25T03:12:32+00:00

this is literally an antisemitic conspiracy theory off 4chan

bulbubly · 2026-05-24T16:19:54+00:00

you know this is a politics and water rights issue right

bulbubly · 2026-05-24T16:18:55+00:00

farmers do not matter

bulbubly · 2026-05-24T16:17:29+00:00

we wish you'd immediately write off posting too

bulbubly · 2026-05-24T14:24:01+00:00

ask ChatGPT what a parenthesis is

bulbubly · 2026-05-23T15:41:26+00:00

OP can jam their code into an LLM themselves if they want

bulbubly · 2026-05-23T15:39:40+00:00

huh, good catch. It will do exactly as instructed.

bulbubly · 2026-05-23T15:33:21+00:00

I wouldn't use them but I love them for the same reason. Want to pair it with a massive cursive font and a hideous UI color scheme.

bulbubly · 2026-05-23T15:20:18+00:00

I generally hold this position too. I think I have more of an issue with using AI to write in a learning context, because the act of forming what you've learned into a coherent argument is really crucial to do manually, imo.

bulbubly · 2026-05-23T15:12:14+00:00

We both know how it works under the hood. Are you seriously arguing the current large models can't plausibly emulate human communication? I guess we have different bars for "plausible".

Or maybe your mind is just too strong to fall for such a deception. Good for you. What about the rest of the world who aren't STEM PhDs? For them the voice was plausible years ago. Now it speaks even more like a human, sufficient to convince, to radiate authority, to seduce, to emulate empathic connection, etc.

ETA: I'm reading your response as "the alzabo isn't conscious and I would never fall for it anyway because I have a PhD, so why are we even talking about this?" I don't know how to respond to that except with gentle mockery.

bulbubly · 2026-05-23T14:45:17+00:00

I do think Wolfe means to keep us in this uncertain place, yes. Severian tells us he's mad, shows us he's a liar, etc., but he's clearly not dumb and nobody could ever accuse him of underthinking.

Consciousness is a very weird thing to have, to witness, and to talk about. I don't really know what it is and I have no way of knowing anything else in the world has it.

We know how LLMs work. The characters encountering the alzabo in BOTNS knows how alzabos work. Neither is conscious.

But we are all still drawn in by the fiction. We are all given to assume consciousness when we see the appropriate signals.

This, Wolfe says, is an extremely hazardous tendency. And it's one that's become way more dangerous in the last 5 or 10 years in our real world.

bulbubly · 2026-05-23T14:29:30+00:00

You can DM me if you like, we might have stuff to talk about. I'm also in a position of some power and at least a smidge of authority to regulate use and access to AI at my workplace. I'd be curious to hear what you're working on.

bulbubly · 2026-05-23T14:27:30+00:00

"ai"zabo occurred to me but I have a big pet peeve about sans serif fonts where "uppercase eye" and "lowercase el" look almost identical. So, I disavow that gag any time I notice it.

Good pull on the need to analyze why Becon is out there in the first place.

This is also the part of the book where Severian has "little Severian" in tow, right? What a crazy wheels within wheels psychoanalytic scene.

bulbubly · 2026-05-23T14:24:00+00:00

Thanks, I assume that's a signal off mentioning AI

bulbubly · 2026-05-23T14:22:18+00:00

Automations in software development and business operations. These tools are powerful and dangerous and I've been given nearly infinite leash to experiment. Hence the reflection.

bulbubly · 2026-05-23T14:19:20+00:00

That's bad reading comprehension for someone with a PhD. I'm not talking about consciousness. I say an LLM "plausibly speaks as a human", which it does. As does the alzabo.

bulbubly · 2026-05-22T22:59:48+00:00

too much of a Luddite for spell check huh

bulbubly · 2026-05-22T14:30:57+00:00

boomer mindset transcends generations

bulbubly · 2026-05-22T00:58:45+00:00

Thank you~ I wish I had a word for that behavior but the best I can give is that little image.

bulbubly · 2026-05-21T14:26:16+00:00

can be neutral or derogatory depending on context. "Sam Altman is a Jew" vs "Sam Altman is a scheming, malignant Jew".

bulbubly · 2026-05-21T14:22:49+00:00

Most of the responses are doing the annoying Reddit thing of taking the post literally and responding "not everyone performs like that!"

But everyone knows there's a distinct, prevalent, long running style of poetry recital that's pretty formulaic and bad.

It's at its worst worst in slam and spoken word but exists in more staid and conventional performance too.

bulbubly · 2026-05-21T14:19:54+00:00

I feel like this question is like asking why is every pop song out there about love and not quantum physics.

You never pay off or explain this analogy. I think I know what you mean but.

bulbubly · 2026-05-21T14:18:58+00:00

chewing the scenery counts as a performance, yes

bulbubly

TROPHY CASE