Yellow FlagApr 12
Paul Cantrell

Companies are refusing to hire or even laying off plumbers because hucksters backed by massive unicorn-chasing investment money told them they can build plumbing faster and cheaper out of cardboard.

A few years from now, there’s going to be a hell of a market for people who can replace cardboard toilets with real ones.

And also for people who can replace carpets. And walls and floors.

This is a post about LLM-generated code.

Apr 11 at 11:17pmWeb
Show threadPaul CantrellApr 13

“What do you mean by ‘cardboard toilets,’ Paul? What does that look like in practice, really?”

Well:

https://wandering.shop/@janellecshane/114327654973832756

Janelle Shane (@janellecshane@wandering.shop)

“Slopsquatting” in a nutshell: 1. LLM-generated code tries to run code from online software packages. Which is normal but 2. The packages don’t exist. Which would normally cause an error but 3. Nefarious people have made malware under the package names that LLMs make up most often. So 4. Now the LLM code points to malware. https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/12/ai_code_suggestions_sabotage_supply_chain/

The Wandering Shop
Show threadWild Eyed Boy From FreecloudApr 13
@inthehands Heartwarming. Sounds like an opportunity for the the ultimate Rick roll.
Show threadWilliam PietriApr 11
@inthehands For sure. I made good money after the dot-com bubble popped taking a machete to code bases generated by prominent consulting companies who must have used an army of juniors to slap things together while the money was flowing.
Show threadSusanna the Artist 🌻Apr 12
@inthehands I actually enjoy taking poorly-written code & cleaning it up, line by line. It’s satisfying in the same was as weeding, or untangling a necklace.
But I am never again doing it as a job, only for personal satisfaction.
Show threadLeon P SmithApr 12

@superflippy @inthehands it depends on what you are starting from. Sometimes it can be a lot easier to understand the problem that it's trying to solve and approximately how its solving it, and then just rewriting that from scratch.

I'm afraid that AI slop code is going to strongly trend towards this "reverse engineer business requirements, then rewrite" end of the spectrum.

I know the feeling you are talking about: I've cleaned up code both professionally and for personal satisfaction. Unfortunately (unless you have a _very_ understanding client) spending the time to properly disentangle commercial code is often a dicey proposition, it's more like you sneak in obvious improvements when you can, and hopefully things are stable enough over time that things eventually get better. (lol)

But the stuff done for personal satisfaction, those have often been puzzles I've occasionally thought about over years before a way forward occurs to me.

Show threadSusanna the Artist 🌻Apr 12
@leon_p_smith @inthehands I think you’re right. AI slop is probably going to have to be deciphered then rewritten, which is its own kind of satisfying, if you’re allowed to do it.
Show threadNeoNachoApr 12
@inthehands during the first half of the post I was wondering why they didn’t replace the plumbers with AI
Show threadF4GRX SébastienApr 12

@NeoNacho @inthehands there are not enough intertubes for now.

Or

They still need the tubes for datacenter cooling.

Show threadJess👾Apr 12
@inthehands My worry is that after they rip out all the porcelain thrones and put cardboard ones in place, and the cardboard ones fall apart after a few days, they won't reinstall porcelain ones. They'll just make everyone subscribe to a toilet replacement service that replaces your shitty toilet with a new shitty toilet every week forever.
Show threadPaul CantrellApr 12
@JessTheUnstill
Magic of the free market at work babeeeee!!!
Show threadTim LavoieApr 12
@JessTheUnstill @inthehands Vibes of Cory Doctorow's "Unauthorized Bread"
Show threadAlisonW ♿🏳️‍🌈♾️Apr 13
@JessTheUnstill @inthehands
Hmmn, I sense a business opportunity to get in early!
😳
Show threadNire BryceApr 12
@inthehands dont worry about it, the Agents will handle that
Show threadhunderteinsApr 12
@inthehands This stands on the assumption that people care about software quality as much as they care about the quality of physical products. They don't. And they won't even in a few years, cause errors in software aren't a real problem as long you can tell the people suffering from them, the computer says so. And raise your shoulders and say something like: typical computer problem, there is nothing I can do about.
Besides, cardboard is stable, try a house of cards.
Show threadCrazy PonyApr 12

@wegegeld
Ich habe leider nur noch den Eindruck daß Menschen auch kein interesse am Hardware-Qualität mehr haben

Wens jetzt Normalisiert wird ist daß der Wasserkocher kauft nur noch per App bedient werden kann...

@inthehands

Show threadDeadly HeadshotApr 14
@wegegeld
@inthehands
No-one pays attention to the fraud *until* Toby Jones stars in a docudrama about it...
Show threadIanApr 12
@inthehands I joked about this to @nixCraft. They said LLMs are technical debt generating machines. I replied saying that sounded like a lot of job security for human developers.
Show threadCaliCarolApr 12

@inthehands

Clever! You had me going there. It's a great way to communicate the problem to us layfolk. Truly. Cardboard plumbing. Crisp and clear.

Show threadinit6Apr 12
@inthehands even funnier if you know what orangeberg pipe is/was
Show threadKevin Karhan Apr 12

@init6 @inthehands sounds like cardboard insulation that was used in direct burial phone cables in Germany...

Realer Irrsinn: Telefonchaos bei Flensburg | extra 3 | NDR

YouTube
Show threadPaul CantrellApr 12
@init6
TIL
Show threadrezmasonApr 12
@inthehands For a long time afterwards, cardboard plumbing may linger in medical facilities, critical infrastructure, and wherever replacing it is an easy expenditure to delay. Unseen until they're discovered, or they fail.
Show threadToni AittoniemiApr 12
@inthehands Like everything about the postmodern ”liberal” right, this is about looking the part while not being the part.
Show thread_maleficentgirlApr 12

@inthehands

good luck cleaning up the Databases that have been utterly fricked by then. Gonna have flatten everything to restart from 0

Show threadIan K TindaleApr 12
@inthehands I take issue with that, cardboard technogoly is amazing, it's rigid, and flexible, it's cheap, and easy to cut and construct assemblies out of, it can be waterproof, it can be transparent (by cutting holes in), and can be used to prototype all sorts of things, and even make entire television serieses out of – I wouldn't be surprised to suggest that it can be used to make a fully functioning space ship out of, and I'd go further, I'd claim that it can be a manned space ship – yes, even the rocket engine
Show threadPeter Milley 🇨🇦Apr 12
@inthehands it's kind of sad that even if you'd dropped that last line your post would still have been about 75% plausible.
Show threadAlerta! Alerta!Apr 12
@inthehands It's gonna be a shit-job....
Show threadNo Time To PlayApr 12
@inthehands These days it applies to politics, too.
Show threadAngua Apr 12
@inthehands

Capitalism in a nutshell literally.

The scariest thing is that some of these LLMs have managed to pass the Turing test - that would see the real replacement theory.
Show threadPaul CantrellApr 12
@AnguaDelphine
I suspect their passing the Turing Test is temporary: we use heuristics and experience for detecting the deception, and LLMs temporarily broke those heuristics by being new in our experience. But now that we all know what GPT smells like….
Show threadtessaraktApr 13
@inthehands @AnguaDelphine we don't _all_ know ...
Show threadGreg BellApr 12
@inthehands it could also have been about... so much that's timely