Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Mar 7
The first ten minutes I spent on social media this morning made me feel all kinds of things. Why is it that people who routinely use LLMs are so loud and brash and proud, making these tools appear as essential and inevitable?

A post by a dev whose app I use said something along the lines of: "no use exercising your coding skills, AI is too good now, you can't compete with it anyway".

Another post by a user on an instance I try to engage with wrote - literally: "tired of overthinking every decision?" and then disclosed he had created an AI that will "run a weighted decision matrix so you don't have to." In all seriousness.

What is this dystopian world where human qualities are devalued, critical thinking is discarded and surveillance capitalism is ignored at the altar of AI worship?

If they are loud and proud, maybe so I can be too... but in the opposite direction.

This weekend I will start the MIT's Missing Semester class (the 2020 Lectures, so pre-AI) because in this brave new world hyping up techno-fascist LLMs, knowing the basics of code are essential IMHO.

So my March "project" will be a deep dive in MIT's Missing Semester and my April project will be off-grid mesh radio communication.

What about you, what are you doing to resist?

Special props to @emilymbender @cwebber and @tante for being outspoken on these issues... you're my beacons of hope

#NoAI
Show threadbitzero
@elena
I’m doing my best to ignore genai coding hype, it’s background noise at this point. Slop machine believers can’t be saved, so well, whatever. It’s not my game.

I spent some time studying and testing LLMs, also implementing them locally. So now I have a clear idea of what they can do for me: almost nothing in general and surely nothing to increase my fun level. I also wanted to spread some little knowledge about “remotely sustainable ways to use small AI”, but it’s a waste of time. People are simply not interested.

I decided not to support projects “proudly AI powered” and I’m hiding in my own niche of coding craftsmanship, learning new things the hard way because this is where the fun is.

I know this stance means leaving behind many interesting pieces of software. Maybe even mainstream Linux, since there are too many hyped techbros and aspiring AI sycophants in its circles. But still. I love tech and I want it to always be fun for me.

The good part: there are gazillions of things to do and play with, while blissfully ignoring the nasty stuff happening around us. We’re not forced to be mainstream.
Mar 7 at 9:23amWeb
Show threadElena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Mar 7
@bitzero thank you for everything about this. We need more people like you in this world ❤️​

I also enjoy learning things the hard way... it's so satisfactory
Show threadbitzeroMar 7
@elena
Naaah. I’m just the average digital guy trying to have fun. Ignoring AI costs nothing to me.

If I were a professional coder, I’d probably be much less heroic. Being able to ignore hype is, partly, a privilege. We must be honest about it.