Mastodawn

Derek Pennycuff Mar 7

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂

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

judgyweevil Mar 7

@elena @emilymbender @cwebber @tante They excuse their lack of interest in the ethical ramifications of the technology with the blank statement "We can't stop progress, AI is the future, whether you like it or not"

I'm still translating without any AI or LLM tool. #NoAI

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Mar 7

@gdarellano 👏👏👏👏👏

@gdarellano @elena same. I told one of my agencies I wanted nothing to do with AI/LLMs and they added "No AI or LLM" to my name in their system. It made me laugh.

@gdarellano @elena
Which simple non AI translators can you recommend?

Without paywall, subscription and/or loads of ads,

Hey, I was talking about translation in a professional environment but I still can help you.

Best without any subscription would be LibreTranslate.

If you have more time and language skill in your target language, I would recommend Linguee for very idiomatic expressions and you can see them in context.

I hope it helps :)

Libretranslate looks promising.

Thanks for the hint.

Do you know by chance, which translation machine is embedded in Mastodon/Tusky?

@desatyr I think the default one is LibreTranslate.

Luke Harby Mar 7

@elena @emilymbender @cwebber @tante

Everything possible, engaging with other like-minded individuals helps, but ai feels like a massive landslide to me. Not great.

Janeishly Mar 7

@elena @emilymbender @cwebber @tante Immersing myself in livecoding culture, where despite using code to make music in the nerdiest way possible, most people seem to be heavily anti-AI and pro human interaction. It's bloody lovely! I happened to mention that I'll be in London next week and now a local group have organised a whole event on my free evening and 50 people (at current numbers) are going!

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Mar 7

@janeishly awww this is LOVELY to hear! Thank you for sharing ❤️

@emilymbender @cwebber @tante

Janeishly Mar 7

@elena @emilymbender @cwebber @tante I mean, get a load of this brilliant poster!

https://luma.com/w5c689no?tk=cYCmIt

I made this to resist : https://makertube.net/w/xweXdM8DsjC8h13wKFYQYt

@emilymbender @cwebber @tante

Driven By Desire

PeerTube

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Mar 7

@sknob BRILLIANT! I'm speechless

@emilymbender @cwebber @tante

@elena thank you Elena, really glad you liked it ☺️❤️

@emilymbender @cwebber @tante

@sknob @elena @emilymbender @cwebber @tante Love it!

@krig thank you! ☺️
@elena @emilymbender @cwebber @tante

Polly Kraisus Mar 7

@sknob @elena @emilymbender @cwebber @tante fabulous!

@stragu thank you !!!☺️ @elena @emilymbender @cwebber @tante

ConnectionWithWonder Mar 7

@sknob @elena @emilymbender @cwebber @tante really love this and enjoyed your other music video too

@londondreamtime thank you times two ☺️
@elena

Petra van Cronenburg Mar 7

@sknob Genius! 🤩 And for me as a synesthete, a very special great experience. @elena

@NatureMC oooh, interesting, and thanks! 😊
@elena

@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.

Elena 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

@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.

@elena @emilymbender @cwebber @tante I have committed my team to pledging abstinence from all AI tools for at least a month to go against the tide at my employer

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Mar 7

@sephster amazing!!! @emilymbender @cwebber @tante

llanciawn Mar 7

@elena @emilymbender @cwebber @tante I think actual AI is very rare, if indeed it exists at all.

Rasmus Grouleff (he/him)Mar 7

@elena I’ve built https://slopaganda.dk, where “AI”-slop used in the Danish general election is recorded and exposed, my own website, https://nerdd.dk, includes “100% human made. No AI was used creating Nerdd.dk.” in the footer, and my email-signature includes “Skrevet uden brug af AI / Written without the use of AI”

@emilymbender @cwebber @tante

Slopaganda.dk

Petra van Cronenburg Mar 7

@nerdd I wait for the first LLM output: "100% human-made." 🥶 @elena

Rasmus Grouleff (he/him)Mar 7

@NatureMC Urgh, I’m almost sure it already has happened. 😭

Petra van Cronenburg Mar 7

@nerdd 😭 @elena

degenerating degenerate Mar 7

@elena @emilymbender @[email protected] @tante

There are two wolves inside Mastodon, one is using AI coding assistance minute by minute, and is getting stuff done that was out of reach before, and they are talking about their excitement (at least until their redundancy). "AI" is the coding assistant.

The other wolf doesn't code, they are gregarious and centred around humans. For them, "AI" is an existential nightmare that nullifies everything hopeful in their lives. "AI" is the torment nexus.

@elena @emilymbender @tante @cwebber
I endeavour to make my own tools. Code, write and make graphics/images where I can, regardless of the quality of the result.

Nordnick 🌐Mar 7

I send you this post as answer using my own #ActivityPub based #Fediverse server software, that is totally hand-coded by myself... 😉

@tante @emilymbender @cwebber

Phil Dissonance Mar 7

@elena @emilymbender @cwebber @tante I had this thought the other day: if AI coding is here to stay, being able to actually understand how code works (and not just ask an LLM) will continue to be a valuable skill and will become more rare as people deskill or new people don't learn it in the first place.

So even from that perspective your skills still matter in that world. You might end up being one of the few people in your org who still have them

Firehorseart Lives!Mar 7

I'm keeping up to date with articles and videos on AI slop to understand what the LLM and GenAI weaknesses / strengths are.

At the moment it seems its weak points are all over the place and its strengths are quite limited.

AIs current main strength seems to be as a flashy money making machine for tech bros and scammers with zero empathy.

Also, I'm getting back to drawing and learning how to video it.

@emilymbender @cwebber @tante

Really Lazy Bear

@elena @emilymbender @cwebber @tante It's usually dumb annoying idiots that tend to talk loud and proud about everything. It's no different outside in real life.

Sure they're probably good at programming, they're prolly just "fascinated" at it and they just want other people to know how "awesome" it is, but they're still idiots and they're not worth any kind of attention or time to be thinking about to be honest.

Leave them alone and maybe, eventually, they'll realize how stupid they are.

Elena Rossini on GoToSocial ⁂Mar 7

@reallylazybear @emilymbender @cwebber @tante I personally know CEOs and highly educated people super excited about using LLM tools and agents. Even Cory Doctorow spoke about his use of LLMs in a recent blog post. Our Cory from the EFF and Enshittification fame! He doubled down when he got criticized on here, defending his use

Really Lazy Bear

@elena @emilymbender @cwebber @tante I didn't know it really is that bad. CEO's and highly educated people...

I've been thinking about it for a while now and I honestly don't have words for it. I really don't understand. I just hope it's a temporary fascination and they all snap out of it and realize it's just a fad. It'd really suck if it gets to a point of obsession and overreliance.

Petra van Cronenburg Mar 7

@elena That's sad, so sad. I lose trust in such people and then read texts very differently (or eventually stop reading them at all).

@reallylazybear

@elena @emilymbender @cwebber @tante GenAI should stay away from art & other human expression. It erodes so much.

Lucas Aegis Mar 7

@elena @emilymbender @cwebber @tante

I completely understand your frustration. It’s true that AI has made the sheer act of "writing code" incredibly easy, but those claiming coding is dead are missing the entire point of software engineering. Writing code is merely the most basic layer of any development project.

If you look at how top-tier dev teams (like at Google) operate, the very first thing they do isn't writing code. It's System Architecture Design. How will the system run? How do the components interact to achieve the ultimate goal? They spend massive amounts of time deeply conceptualizing the core workflows.

Once that overarching architecture is established, everything else—regardless of what programming language, algorithm, or AI tool you use—is just flesh serving the skeleton. Code simply executes the workflow that has already been defined.

This is exactly why AI cannot replace human engineers right now. AI generates code based on your instructions. And those instructions are actually the distillation of your core architecture and thought process. The AI is just an executor; it cannot invent a complex workflow from thin air.

The absolute most scarce and valuable skill right now isn't writing syntax; it's the ability to conceptualize a complete project and its entire logical workflow from scratch. That is where the true human value lies, and that is the real core Intellectual Property (IP).

Learning the foundational layers like the MIT Missing Semester is exactly what builds this architectural mindset. Keep pushing!

@LucasAegis @elena @emilymbender @cwebber @tante One of the things top-tier devs at Google are doing *today* is using GenAI to reverse-engineer the design and architecture of legacy systems. Big systems, 100k+ LoC, where the original authors have long ago moved to other teams and the expertise on the internals is missing. GenAI is very helpful in reviewing and synthesizing that legacy code, giving reasonable answers on system components and data flows. It needs to be an iterative process, of course, with a senior engineer really thinking about the hypotheses that the LLM is generating, validating against the code, and steering appropriately. But damn if it isn't effective at helping create real human understanding.

Bodhi 心 Mar 7

Resisting AI feels like resisting gravity at this point, which doesn't leave me feeling hopeless: I'm not a coder, but I am a researcher and a writer, and my agency resides in doubling-down on my own critical-thinking skills, and frequently renewing my commitment to producing high-quality texts that no AI could replicate. Human-created content (code, literature, art, bouncy castles ~ whatever cultural artefact you can imagine) will survive the apocalypse.

SolarMunk Mar 7

@elena The whole push for Ai reminds me of this podcast about how cars were pushed on American cities, and look how that worked out.

Well worth a listen https://thewaroncars.org/2025/11/11/episode-161-the-creation-of-americas-car-culture/

McWabbit 🇺🇦🍋🌻🍉Mar 7

@elena
Senior management encourages us all to explore the usefulness of AI and LLM and find a way to make it applicable in our daily work.
Yeah nah, for the type of job I do, I rather just use my brain. I am not going to hand over my tasks and responsibilities to a LLM.
In my mind it feels like training your own replacement. And the replacement is owned by Big Tech who can then extort the company with all its workers to bankruptcy. I don’t think even the shareholders will be happy, if they were that forward thinking.

Middle management though already found a use to generate cringey slop presentations, in which they don’t even bother to clean up the botched up company logo.
For me who has a basic understanding of graphical design, that is sacrilegious.

- Oops, I realize I went on a tangent. In short: I am trying to make colleagues aware of the dangers, judge the justification of its use and encourage them to use their own brain.

@emilymbender @cwebber @tante

Leo Schuldiner🤘🏼Mar 7

@elena @emilymbender @cwebber @tante that's a great question that we need to make to ourselvea every day.

- Disconnect from all centralized/advertising controlled social networks. (For example, if it has ads, don't register)
- Say no to monthly subscriptions for creative softwares (adobe, for example)
- Absolutely no AI for professional work
- Absolutely no to all AI training jobs
- Discredit AI daily (on your social media, with your family and friends, etc)

Go!

Pierre Pebble Mar 7

@elena I am sometimes reminded of the anti-AI bubble I live in.

As soon as I talk to people, I realise how many just use LLMs routinely without questioning the ethics, energy costs, privacy risks or impact on their capacity to think.

I love solving problems, and I do it with my brain.

Marco Molteni Mar 7

I am a software engineer, so if so-called "AI" is annoying to you, imagine what it is to have programmer coworkers telling you daily: "I asked AI X and he (note the anthropomorphization) told me Y".

The same coworkers have admitted multiple times that AI invented non existing things. Still, they keep using it.

I am so angry I find it difficult to try to explain them why this is so wrong on so many levels (ethically, ecologically, and simply from a pragmatical point of view: their answers are plausible and imprecise and often wrong, and finding this out consumes my time and my brain).

To resist, I collect and share examples of "AI" usage causing damages of any kind.

Jim Jones Mar 7

@pizzaclick @elena like pokemon.

@emilymbender @cwebber @tante @elena my family is now LLM free

marcapitman Mar 7

@elena love the sound of the off the grid mesh radio communication project. My grandfather was a ham radio guy and I’ve been thinking of getting into that space.

Jim Jones Mar 7

@elena I like puzzling over things & noodling on interesting problems. There is no greater high to me than banging my head against a problem, really struggling with it, & then eventually coming up with an answer. It feels so good. It is what I love about my job.

My project for the year is to spend more time completing modules in Try Hack Me, other online security exercises, & CTFs. My focus will be on security fundamentals & hacking AI security, AI prompt injection, & AI data leakage.