Nina KalininaFeb 8
We have reached a new era of civil engineering; now we can build bridges by simply dumping truckloads of shit into the river until the shit mountains are tall enough that some people and maybe cars can cross the river. Truly, it is a revolutionary technology that democraticizes access to bridges; now everyone can dump a truckload of shit over small rivers here and there and cross the rivers instead of asking an engineer to build the bridge for them. This approach completely removes all the bottlenecks in engineering, too: no need to navigate difficult legal or ethical frameworks. The biggest players on the market are staring to replace their bridges with shit mountains, you'd better be catching up and learning how to use this new groundbreaking technology. Some of you have ethical concerns, but this is beyond of the scope of my post. I also recognise that some might notice fish in the rivers dying, or simply slip on the shit; just you wait, I bet it'll be fixed in ~6 months
jmsfbsFeb 8
Show threadNina Kalinina

Look, there are lots of skeptics out there, but the shit mountains are becoming really useful these days. With just a shit mountain or two you could reach places that previously required a ladder or a bridge or a vehicle. The vehicle part is still out of reach, but in the future we can make shit mountains placed in such a way that, when we pour some shit between them, would allow us to reach the destination almost as fast as cars and boats. And it runs on shit, and as you know, shit is virtually free, you can literally go to a number of websites and get the shit for free. You can even get open-sourced shit these days, and pour it locally. Open source shit mountains are not as good as the commercial ones yet, but we're getting there.

Anyway, the bottom line, shit mountains are here to stay. Learn how to live with them.

Feb 8 at 3:20pmWeb
Show threadJimmy JimFeb 8
@nina_kali_nina it's inevitable! we can't put the genie back in the bottle so I will keep wishmaxxing! We have no agency in this matter at all, so I will continue to boost it
Show threadcopharynx (was qoph@octodon)Feb 8

@starchturrets @nina_kali_nina People told me yesterday "I hear people saying they won't upgrade their phones cuz the upgrades come with AI. I wanna tell them, 'That horse has left the barn. All we can do is push for the data centers to be renewable energy.' "

As if renewable energy doesn't have its own foundations in Green Colonialism. ... I keep thinking about other shit systems that powerful people forced down the throats of people who were just minding their own business (colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, racism etc). They are not inevitable or eternal. People built them in the first place. People can unmake them.

Show threadnachFeb 8
@nina_kali_nina people worry that frontier models have hit a fecal maxima but oh buddy there's so much more shit where this all came from, infini-
Show threadNina KalininaFeb 8
@nach I need a "vomiting rainbow" emoji, why there's no such emoji on my home server, lool
Show threadhkzFeb 8
@nina_kali_nina but but but... You're doing the shit dirty with your posts comparing it to genai 😢
Shit is actually useful when I tend the fields in my farm...
Show threadNina KalininaFeb 8

@hkz shit is pretty great; many AI applications are great too! Computer vision was done in ethical and safe ways for decades. :3 shit should be where it belongs.

Incidentally, shit can be and is a construction material. My parents' place used a mixture of clay and horse manure for its building blocks, iirc. But it isn't the same as dumping a mountain of shit in a house-shaped way, or asking an agent of chaos to keep dumping mountains of shit on top of each other until they start to shape into a house

Show threadrfnixFeb 8
@nina_kali_nina me and my local neighborhood agree with you, I just walked on the street past an ad for what's probably AI shit (haven't looked at what it is and the ad doesn't explain it either but it sure has that distinct visual fragrance of arrogance) and it was defaced to hell with countless tags saying "IA = caca" meaning "AI = shit" but in beautiful French it rhymes
Show threadGhadeer Abou-SalehFeb 8

@nina_kali_nina

I feel at times that AI advocates have the kind of attitude that says that innovation and creativity has been saturated and that there is nothing else left to innovate or create. That we just have to train models on the current heritage for the sake of maximum "perceived" efficiency.

Thanks to your post, now every time someone says "AI is the future" I will hear "shit mountains are the future" 😅

Show threadNina KalininaFeb 8

@gee8sh which is frankly an absurd position, considering how much innovation is happening around, and how much we need more of diverse thinking...

You know, I'm really dreading that the future is indeed going to be full of shit mountains. That'd be really bleak.

Show threadGhadeer Abou-SalehFeb 8

@nina_kali_nina

Agree. I am afraid the real impact will be realized in a couple of generations, and by then it would be rather late.

Show threadfredy cosmoline Feb 8
@nina_kali_nina we just have to brand the shit mountains as Teleportation and use the word Teleportation so much that people believe the shit mountains can instantly beam them anywhere
Show threadBen RamseyFeb 8
@nina_kali_nina We got here because software engineering has never required licenses or guardrails like other engineering professions.
Show threadWolf480plFeb 8
@ramsey
is software industry at the stage where chemical industry was in Alfred Nobel's era?
@nina_kali_nina
Show threadMatt PalmerFeb 8
@ramsey I don't think licensure would have saved us, given the number of lawyers who have been caught pulling their motions out of the shit mountain.
Show threadBen RamseyFeb 8
@womble I meant if our industry had a history of licensure and safety regulations like other engineering professions do.
Show threadMatt PalmerFeb 8
@ramsey having done a Real Engineering degree, I have significant exposure to the "professional engineering" mindset, and have Complicated Thoughts about this. I don't think that licences and regulations drive the safety and efficacy of professional engineering as much as industry culture and societal norms. Again, lawyers are licensed and regulated to heck and back, yet they're neck deep in the shit mountain.
Show threadBen AvelingFeb 9
Look, OK, it doesn't work now, but if can just add enough shit, it will surely become sentient, and that's why we're scraping everyone's toilet 24*7.
@nina_kali_nina
Show threadBakunin BoysFeb 11
@nina_kali_nina legit question: how did civil engineers do it? Capital wise they have the same incentives, why do buildings not fall over all the time?
Show threadNina KalininaFeb 11
@bakuninboys civil engineering is a profession with thousands of years of history. The first known regulations for it were introduced about 3700 years ago, apparently, and since then it evolved into a highly regulated area that requires practicioners to have mandatory certifications and follow the laws. It seems the laws were added or improved due to large-scale disasters caused by engineers (building or bridges collapsing, fires spreading faster than they could be put off). Software engineering could have leveraged existing engineering practices, but lack of regulation and rapid development of the profession mean that finding creative ways to bypass law is still more profitable than doing things the right way. Civil engineers still do that every now and then; in this aspect, comparison to asbestos usage might be relevant.
Show threadBakunin BoysFeb 11
@nina_kali_nina so I guess pushing for better regulation and actual responsibility for harm would improve things? Like most software limits liability as much as possible right?
Show threadNina KalininaFeb 11
@bakuninboys probably, but that doesn't come naturally, unfortunately
Show threadmatthewcroughanFeb 11
I think it makes anything with a high quality density stand out even more. Anything properly made now stands out amongst the pile of shit.