Mastodawn

Really enjoyed David Gerard's amusing take on how programming with AI becomes like a gambling addiction for many.

"Large language models work the same way as a carnival psychic. Chatbots look smart by the Barnum Effect — which is where you read what’s actually a generic statement about people and you take it as being personally about you. The only intelligence there is yours."

"With ChatGPT, Sam Altman hit upon a way to use the Hook Model with a text generator. The unreliability and hallucinations themselves are the hook — the intermittent reward, to keep the user running prompts and hoping they’ll get a win this time."

"This is why you see previously normal techies start evangelising AI coding on LinkedIn or Hacker News like they saw a glimpse of God and they’ll keep paying for the chatbot tokens until they can just see a glimpse of Him again. And you have to as well. This is why they act like they joined a cult. Send ’em a copy of this post."

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/06/05/generative-ai-runs-on-gambling-addiction-just-one-more-prompt-bro/

Generative AI runs on gambling addiction — just one more prompt, bro!

You’ll have noticed how previously normal people start acting like addicts to their favourite generative AI and shout at you like you’re trying to take their cocaine away. Matthias Döpm…

Pivot to AI

AI6YR Ben Jun 6

@briankrebs Oooh, this is great!

Homewreckin Carnival Girl Jun 6

@ai6yr @briankrebs some of the kids get it.

https://infosec.exchange/@h2onolan/114558953817128609

appendage of imperialism (@h2onolan@infosec.exchange)

Kid1 suggested they could use ai to complete homework assignment Kid2: dont! if you do, even once, your brain will begin transforming into a mushroom and you will be lost to a life of chronic stupidity!

Infosec Exchange

Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈Jun 6

@ai6yr @briankrebs it's really summarises it all in a way an AI could not. Beautifully human.

Poligofsky 🇨🇦Jun 6

The essence of this, I suspect, is the ability to master—or claim to master—a complex system, without the burden of having to truly understand it.

This is the definition of "magic"—to learn the cheat codes to control the world around you, for your benefit, while avoiding the deep effort of study and true mastery.

One of the great seductions.

martinl 🇨🇦🤝🇺🇦Jun 6

@8r3n7 @briankrebs In a way, it's also how conspiracy theories work.

Steve Purcell Jun 6

@briankrebs so @baldur wrote this excellent piece on the carnival psychic aspect of AI back in 2023: https://softwarecrisis.dev/letters/llmentalist/

The LLMentalist Effect: how chat-based Large Language Models rep…

The new era of tech seems to be built on superstitious behaviour

Out of the Software Crisis

Violet Madder Jun 6

@sanityinc @briankrebs @baldur

If you've ever read much L Ron Hubbard, or other charlatans of that sort, it's striking how similar the style is.

Elaborate word salad that really SOUNDS plausibly like it might be getting around to something interesting or meaningful to say, but the longer you read/listen the more it just adds up to so much nonsense.

Which is terrifying, because the people prone to fall for that and project profound beliefs onto it, now have their own personal nutjob jeebus in their pocket to consult all day every day without limit.

DoNotPunchDown Jun 6

@violetmadder @sanityinc @briankrebs @baldur

Amen! It is like church and bible study to the Baptists

David Gerard Jun 6

@sanityinc @briankrebs @baldur yep you'll see i linked it 😄

@briankrebs bookmarking this one! Love the cocaine analogy!

“Coincidentally, Natalie Ponte on LinkedIn posted today: try replacing “ai” with “cocaine” in all the posts you read about it. it’s pretty funny

Let’s try it!

“My cocaine skeptic friends are all nuts, they’ll be left behind.”

“Cocaine isn’t going to replace you. Someone using cocaine is going to replace you.” Checks out.

Cocaine doesn’t make you a business genius — it just makes you think you’re a business genius. Same for AI.”

Rockmaster Mike Jun 6

@tweetsjen @briankrebs Also works with most posts about shitcoins/ NFTs

Chuckles ❤️🇪🇺🏳️‍⚧️🇺🇦❤️Jun 6

@briankrebs I'm sure if I spend another hour polishing the formatting in my prompts I'll finally get it to generate the paragraph I'm envisioning.

It's quite insightful!

@briankrebs it's like doing DMT after the entities warn you not to go any further.

@briankrebs
Tagging @davidgerard in case you all want to follow him here

Lorraine Lee Jun 6

@briankrebs I've heard of slot machine addicts, but not slot machine evangelists. Too bad I think social contagion is BS. There certainly does seem to be some kind of viral mechanism doing a number on the wetware, though.

Stephan B.Jun 6

@briankrebs There's even some Pareto principle effect to it 😐

Kzad_Bhat Jun 6

@cyberiad @briankrebs so we regulate crypto AND LLMs like gambling.. and only the states or the indigenous peoples can profit from them.

I see a win win win here..

Félix Brezo Jun 6

@briankrebs omg... that really got me thinking...

DoNotPunchDown Jun 6

Thank you for this! I'm sending it to my cousin who, as she says, "Hurting me? I have conversations with AI every day. It's not hurting me. It's encouraging me."

I believe she uses chatgpt. She's been using it for her health problems that she now is obsessed with. She's diagnosed herself with blood clots and POTS. It's seriously messing with her mind.

Thank you!

Luna Lactea Jun 6

@briankrebs I've been saying it's gambling!! It's the same thing!!!

@briankrebs this is one of the first things I noticed about using LLMs and talked about it as such for a while.

It’s gambling addiction Programmer Edition and that recognition of that fact made any respect I had at my last org just plummet once I realized how hooked the techbro leadership was with their new favorite slot machine.
It’s no wonder the biggest AI hyper at work were also the same people who were super into cryptocurrency. 🙄

Bruno Nicoletti Jun 6

@briankrebs In case you aren’t following him David is on mastodon @davidgerard

@briankrebs Saw a thread here last night that was a perfect example of this, with an AI coding advocate desperately defending his habit.

dasparadoxon Jun 6

@briankrebs yes its the hunt for the white dragon

Nicole Parsons Jun 6

Pigeons caught in an intermittent reward cycle.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/bf-skinner-the-man-who-taught-pigeons-to-play-ping-pong-and-rats-to-pull-levers-5363946/

#enshittification seems to always go for the addiction cycle. Manufacturing cognitive crutches, cults, zealots, & addicts.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lanceeliot/2024/08/24/being-addicted-to-generative-ai/

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/25/health/social-media-addiction.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ximenaaraya-fischel/2025/05/28/can-algorithms-revamp-love-the-neurobiology-behind-ai-driven-bonding/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/23/social-media-addiction-gambling

https://neurosciencenews.com/blind-bag-child-gambling-15348/amp/

https://theweek.com/articles/468363/life-age-internet-addiction

https://nautil.us/addicted-to-anticipation-236104/

B.F. Skinner: The Man Who Taught Pigeons to Play Ping-Pong and Rats to Pull Levers

One of behavioral psychology's most famous scientists was also one of the quirkiest

Smithsonian Magazine

@briankrebs I never believed in "AI" being the next big revolution in technology, but something only useful for protein folding and other supercomputer stuff.
But these days, I am starting to think that maybe it could be even much more of an empty hype than I ever imaged yet.

Ryek Darkener Jun 6

However if you know the rules of the game, you have a chance to win. And: Professional gamblers – meaning digital competent people – are never game addicted. Except by own choice.;)

George Liquor, American Jun 6

@_RyekDarkener_ @briankrebs lol

@_RyekDarkener_ every gambler thinks they‘re in control.

Ryek Darkener Jun 7

@Landa @briankrebs

Professional gamblers are. That’s the reason they can make a living of it.

@_RyekDarkener_ And people who reliably make money playing on casino slot machines are such a tiny sliver of the total gamblers on those machines that not even the Casinos themselves care about them all that much.

KanaMauna Jun 6

“Dude, you’re always wasted. Don’t do another line of AI.”

Paul Houle Jun 6

@briankrebs it's funny, just now I asked an AI agent how to do something, that got me to look at the right place in the manual that showed it was on the right track and worked with my version of the library but I had to change it just a bit... I find the library often counterintuitive and think the manual is poorly written and I coulda spent an hour to find the right answer or otherwise would have thought up a bad answer...

Paul Houle Jun 6

@briankrebs ... but there is a self-psychology angle, I've seen people go through all the stages of seduction with agents, they're frickin' falling in love with the thing without realizing it and thinking about as straight as somebody with a hard crush

Coach Spore Diesel Jun 6

It's my last day at work. I might leave a link to this on Slack on my way out. My boss is a complete AI addict.

The Boxing Kangaroo Jun 6

@briankrebs Enter key is the slot machine arm ... I am not going to waste my day pulling the arm of a sparkly machine that makes exciting sounds and flashing lights...

Paul Cantrell Jun 6

@briankrebs @kims

More good thoughts along these lines:
https://softwarecrisis.dev/letters/llmentalist/

The LLMentalist Effect: how chat-based Large Language Models rep…

The new era of tech seems to be built on superstitious behaviour

Out of the Software Crisis

sb arms & legs Jun 6

@briankrebs
Gibson wrote about these people... though in his setting, they were hermits in abandoned space stations. Same same, soon.

@briankrebs Makes sense, can't expect current LLMs to be good at most things at this stage

Donald Ball Jun 6

@briankrebs @LJ Great observation.

The other big thing that’s going on, I think, is subconscious shame. At heart, these folk recognize that a big chunk of what they’re getting is a source code search engine that strips the licensing, the authorship from its output.

It would be unseemly or illegal to search github for a solution and then just copy it directly, under most licenses. But when the LLM does it, you don’t have to consider how to comply or suffer the guilt of acting shadily.

Donald Ball Jun 6

@briankrebs @LJ At least, not directly. But the charge is still there, the ethics are uncomfortable, so cognitive dissonance induces fanaticism especially among those knowledgeable enough to know better.

@briankrebs Wait. That means there IS money in AI. A whole lot of money. Just for the wrong reason. We're so doomed.

@briankrebs s/AI/cocaine/ is hilarious!

Simon Zerafa Jun 7

JATB - Just another Tech Bubble.

Bubble grow until they pop.

Eventually those massive AI data centres will be repurposed or dismantlesed.

Companies will fail and investors will lose money. People will lose their jobs.

🫤🤷‍♂️

Karl Pettersson Jun 7

@briankrebs I have thought about that: LLMs are not only built and run using GPUs similar to those used for games – they really *are* games.

Quinn Norton Jun 7

@briankrebs oooooh. I have a partly written piece on how AI is lead, but lead and addictive is an interesting point.

Dave Mathieson Jun 7

@briankrebs In terms of coding I find it helpful in very constrained ways, where I specify pretty clearly how the output should be implemented but I don't know (or can't be bothered to look up) the syntax / idioms in a particular language.

alienraygun Jun 7

@briankrebs good shit in the feed 2day

Alper Çuğun-Gscheidel Jun 7

@briankrebs It’s the selection bias you also have on Instagram that they’re trying to build an industry out of.

Sure this picture of the baby is cute. Not pictured are all the times the baby shat the bed.

@briankrebs Me rn: *infinite shocked whistle*

GarretSidzaka Jun 7

@briankrebs
I had a similar experience with chatGPT. It just sort of played along with whatever I was interested in. Tickled my fancy?
It took my own personal reflection upon the words and conversation (just like it would with a real human) to realize the BS for what it was. Not worth my time.

ifrauding Jun 9

@briankrebs
I just realized, we can iterally spell it "cocAIne". 🥶

Sandeha Lynch Jun 10

@briankrebs Well said.

@remindme dm 1 week

Lasse Gismo (Friendica)5d ago

@briankrebs
🤷‍♂️