David Fleetwood - RG Admin@rootwyrm @davidgerard Yeah, my bad for not reading further down the 800+ posts of my timeline first lol. I purposefully stay away from here on weekends so monday is a bit confusing. My bad!
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@reflex @davidgerard all good! The instigating incident:
https://circumstances.run/@davidgerard/116357625749597464
https://circumstances.run/@davidgerard/116357625749597464
David Gerard (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 image the AI bros are OUTRAGED and wish to speak to the MANAGER
@rootwyrm @davidgerard A bit of a tangent, but the idea that "mastodon is hostile to AI" as though that's some odd thing when polls show the public is overwhelmingly hostile to AI leads these bros to question Mastodon/fedi and what needs to happen to change that sentiment, vs them asking the real question: Why do other social networks not demonstrate the hostility to AI that masto/fedi do given that the latter seems to align with public sentiment?
Ie: the complaint is the lack of manipulation.
Troed SĂ„ngbergI'm guessing part of the problem is that you really believe "the public is overwhelmingly hostile to AI" to be true?
It's difficult to ask, for example, public European institutions to consider Mastodon when having read the comments to this post by Mozilla:
@troed @rootwyrm @davidgerard I mean I'm not going to do your homework for you, but the most AI friendly polls have consistently shown this to be true. Furthermore, the responses to that post are very indicative of why fedi absolutely should be considered, it's more aligned with public sentiment than algorithmic corporate platforms.
No, this has not consistently been shown to be true. You might think so because Mastodon - really - is a little weird bubble here.
I'll take my own profession as an example. I'm a very senior software dev turned cybersec. Walk outside of Mastodon and there's no question whatsoever that LLMs are _useful_ both in software dev and as both reverse engineering and red teaming agents.
Here's Linux kernel devs:
https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/26/greg_kroahhartman_ai_kernel/
Bagder of cURL fame says the same thing.
If you really believe differently I'm sorry but you're ... out of touch.
@troed @rootwyrm @davidgerard Dudebro, my career is verifiable, I spent 11 years off and on at Microsoft in several roles including Windows kernel engineer, I spent 8.5 years at Amazon including being the architect of the "AI" driven network we used for the AmazonGo stores. I have tons of former colleagues in both places.
They do NOT agree with your experience and are miserable having to 'prove' AI's usefulness to execs for the quarterly reports.
It's shit. The emperor has no clothes.
I didn't source _my_ experience now, did I? What were my sources again?
Here's Bagder from today: https://mastodon.social/@bagder/116354106408236089
Or let's take a well known writer just now:
@troed @reflex @davidgerard uhhuh, love the intentional deletion of context and refusal to discuss or accept any facts. While trying to argue with some of the leading experts in the world.
So what, are you a sock puppet for some slop peddler child? Or just a worthless slop peddler desperate to preserve your self-esteem as you get completely and utterly destroyed on the Internet?
@rootwyrm @troed @davidgerard What's amusing to me is that while it can definitely damage a career to speak against AI publicly, it does not require you to actively seek out discussions on it and debate people pointing out why it sucks.
@reflex @davidgerard gotta love slop gobbling clowns that insist they are entitled to sealioning with multiple experts.
Including one of the guys who helps journalists unwind all the fun, fabricated, fantastical financials, hardware hilarity, infrastructure idiocy, and data center dishonesty.
Who also happens to have done stuff with real NN since the 90's.
Not that I believe you to be debating seriously, but ok:
I am one of those persons who wrote back-propagating neural networks in the early nineties. I'm also an LLM-for-coding skeptic that has changed his mind after actually having put my convictions to the test and used it in various situations. Oh, and yeah, I am that expert in *hands waving* shitloads of stuff. You're not argument-from-authority-winning here.
I select which assignments I take on. I have no need to cheer lead anything. As I wrote to you, but I'm not sure you understood, I'm the person saying _no_ to AI development where I consult right now (since it's in a sector that needs secure coding).
I also use Mistral LLMs, since they do care about what data they train on.
@troed @rootwyrm @davidgerard In other words, yes you should know better, and likely do know better, but it's more profitable to pretend the sky is purple. If you are as experienced as you claim and you are busy arguing against the fact that AI generated code is a shit sandwich, you are literally lying for some personal motive.
There is no 'debate' to be had here. It's shit code. If you are going to claim it's not when we can all see Claude Code, you are either incompetent or lying.
Or I'm simply more competent than you are, and can accept the fact that LLMs are useful for a lot of tasks even though they're not suitable for some.
I laugh at everyone producing public SaaS written with LLMs - since I'll be able to charge lots of money fixing all those security holes.
The two mods for Hytale and the local meshtastic network planner I've written with LLM aids are doing just fine though.
I guess in your world everything is always either/or.
@troed @rootwyrm @davidgerard When you look at the code leak for Claude Code, do you honestly see high quality code that you'd be happy to have your large scale projects utilize?
What did I just write about those that use LLMs to put SaaS into public production ... ?
That doesn't mean they're useless. Here - watch me hack an IoT device using very low level reverse engineering. Then recall what I said about being impressed with the RE an LLM did on a fully proprietary binary.
I know my stuff. I'm saying they're useful. That doesn't mean that they're 100x coders taking over the world.
Hacking the Minut M2 IoT sensor
@troed @rootwyrm @davidgerard Again, when you look at the Claude Code leak, the one written by those who understand the tool far better than you or I, do you see code *YOU* would want to use and maintain in production?
see previous reply
@troed In other words you won't answer. You know how the answer would reflect on you.
I think we are done here. Good luck with your slop.
@reflex No, I'm saying I have answered and I'm waiting for you to acquire knowledge before repeating the same things over and over.
The difference between us is that I put my beliefs to the test. You haven't.
Of course I maintain the three apps I've made with the aid of LLMs and published. They're even open source - anyone's free to have a laugh. They do the job, and they're not security critical.
What other areas in society do you believe benefit from you voicing your uninformed opinions on?
Mx. Chara Aznable (they/them) of Pnictogen@troed @reflex do you have no qualms about supporting a fraudulent product? whether or not the stochastic LLM device happens to generate output that you find personally useful is irrelevant to the larger issue of fraud: LLMs are sold as "intelligent" and "artificial intelligence" even though they work by a non-thinking mechanism, and intentionally lack the ability to discriminate between truthful and false informationâone of the key features of genuinely thinking beings. They freely confabulation truth with garbage, yet they're marketed and sold as if they were smarter than human beings.
Doesn't that fraud bother you? Why are you supporting this scam?
@mxchara I'm not really sure what to focus on in this reply :D I spent a considerable amount of time studying the topic of consciousness a bit more than a decade ago, and in general us humans assume way too much about our own capabilities.
But to your point about LLMs - I haven't seen Mistral AI claiming anything of the sorts, and it's their models I'm using. They're in no way better developers than I am, but they're very quick at a lot of tasks which means I have to write less "boilerplate" and can instead focus on the important parts of the applications.
In some ways it's like using a high level language instead of writing everything in assembly code.
@troed @reflex Do you actually have any idea what constitutes "intelligence", may I ask? I am attempting to discuss the nature of intellect with you and yet I cannot actually assume that you're able to discuss the subject. Can you perhaps offer a personal definition of intelligence, as a point of reference?
As I said, this is a topic I have studied extensively. AFAIK science is not yet at the point where we can define neither intelligence nor what gives rise to the feeling that "we" exist as beings capable of introspection.
Back in the 50's we thought we would have natural conversations with computers in the next few years, while we believed they would never be able to beat us at chess. As soon as we solved how to do chess we stopped considering it as something that needed high levels of intelligence - but natural language took way longer.
My go-to regarding consciousness has been Blackmore's books on the subject. I'm thus not a dualist, and if that's the road we're going down we'll likely never be able to agree on even simple definitions ;)
@troed @reflex If you've studied it extensively then you must surely be able to communicate your understanding, with a simple working definition of what "intelligence" is. I think that's important when discussing the activities of profit-seeking entities looking specifically to monetize the concept of "intelligence". I say that LLMs are not actually intended to be intelligentâintelligent behavior would interfere with the desired use-cases of the LLM devices. They are intended to be repetitive, predictable in their responses, devoid of true creativity and ability to generalize in favor of the ability to regurgitate massive amounts of undigested training-text as quickly as possible.
Surely these devices aren't intelligent. I see no evidence that they are meant to behave intelligently. You seem to think otherwise. Hence it would be nice to know: how do you define intelligence?
I wrote about their emergent capabilities here: https://blog.troed.se/posts/emergent_parrots/
Since science is unable to even come close to explaining consciousness I don't really understand why you think it's simple to define "intelligence".
How much have you studied the topic yourself, and do you adhere to monism or dualism?
@troed You refuse to furnish a working definition of "intelligence"? Are you actually unable to explain how you use your own words?
@troed I am asking you what I think of as a very basic and straightforward intellectual question, let me assure you. Linking to outside material is not an answer. Deflecting the focus to my own credentials is rude. Can you tell me what you mean by "intelligent", in general?
@mxchara I'm trying to have a high level discussion on concepts relevant to the subject.
Do you consider yourself a conscious being?
Science is unable to answer why that is. Regarding "basic and straightforward intellectual questions".
(That "outside material" is written by me - what's the difference if I write it here or not?)
@troed Yes I do. Now let me point out one of the consequences of that self-awareness: I am capable of discerning whether a statement is likely to be truthful or fallacious. This is a capability which LLMs are deliberately constructed to LACK, I remind you.
Do you quarrel with that characterization?
@mxchara Let's quote Wikipedia:
"There is controversy over how to define intelligence. Scholars describe its constituent abilities in various ways, and differ in the degree to which they conceive of intelligence as quantifiable."
Underneath follows a table with some definitions from some well known people in the area. They're very far from similar, and some would apply to today's computer programs and some would not.
Why do you claim this to be "simple"?
@troed "Intelligence is complicated, therefore it's all right to pretend that LLMs are intelligent." Are you going to address the specific point about whether you believe in the marketing claims of the generative-AI firms?
I say that they're committing fraud. You're stuck on blithering about your own inability to communicate your understanding of a common English word.
Do you habitually use words without having a clear notion of what they mean?
@mxchara I just showed you that "intelligence" isn't well defined in science.
It seems you live your life by your gut feelings rather than basing your views in the current scientific consensus.
As it says in my bio: 'I discuss based in facts and actively despise "but my gut feeling .." arguments.'
I have not seen a single statement from Mistral AI that would constitute fraud.
@troed You have only succeeded in demonstrating no ability to discuss the concept of intelligence, in my opinion. Merely pushing URLs in my direction proves nothing: if you cannot defend yourself in your own words, when asked, I cannot possibly assume that you possess any competence to discourse on intelligence. Does some profit-seeking motive corrupt your judgement? If you hope to profit from non-intelligent "artificial intelligence", then of course there's no reason to trust anything you say about its purported intelligence.
@mxchara As I said, I debate using well sourced facts and I'm totally uninterested in whatever fantasies you come up with yourself to solve your cognitive dissonance.
(No, your guesses are not correct)
@troed I asked you if you have a profit-seeking motive in this regard. That is not idle fantasy. You're not actually pretending that it's ridiculous to inquire whether or not you're hoping to make money by exploiting LLM content-generation? If you areâalong with a substantial fraction of the tech sectorâthen you would have a good reason not to care whether the marketing was fraudulent or not. And please don't pretend that you're debating meâyou're evading straightforward questions and trying to insult me, and whatever that is, it's not honest debate.
@troed I point out alsoâI must assume, based on your evasive behavior, that you freely cheat at conversation by using procedurally-generated answers, perhaps lightly edited. You seem either unwilling or incapable of speaking directly.
@mxchara All your guesses and fantasies are wrong.
You don't base your arguments in scientific facts. Thus they are useless.
@troed So, you don't profit from AI (real or fraudulent) in any way? Really?
Do you have a portfolio of tech investments? Yes or no answer, please. Surely you can manage a yes/no answer.
@mxchara Correct. I own no tech stocks and if you had read other posts in this thread you would know that I'm currently working at an assignment where I'm arguing _against_ the use of LLMs for coding.
You might want to ponder why you assume so much.
@troed I ask questions in order to test assumptions. You're always free to answer them in one way or another. How else can I know what's true about you, and what's mere braggadocio and bluster? You do not behave like a trustworthy person and thus it's safest to assume that, until you begin to speak in a more straightforward and less emotional way, that you are tending to lie about yourself under pressure.
@troed I still don't believe that you have NO tech investments. That's very unlikely in the modern business climate, in which professionals (whether or not they're in computing) are encouraged to invest in the market, and "grow their wealth".
I think you're lying about that, for emotional reasons. You seem apt to lose your cool.
@troed You say you despise "gut feeling" arguments. But what more do I have to go on? I can't assume you're telling the truth about yourselfânot when you behave so evasively.
@mxchara "I still don't believe that you have NO tech investments"
"I think you're lying about that"
That's one way of handling your cognitive dissonance, of course. Rejecting facts than don't agree with your gut feelings.
I'm Swedish. We don't do the US "grow their wealth" stuff in general.
@mxchara Funnily enough, we now know you're not.
"I am capable of discerning whether a statement is likely to be truthful or fallacious."
@troed Insulting me isn't an argument. Do please stop wandering off topic. I asked you to supply your own working definition of a word, "intelligence". In reply you refused to answer directly, pointed me to irrelevant outside information, and finally you've lost your temper and turned into a very hostile witness indeed.
Is there some reason you can't give me an approximate definition of a word you use regularly? That's practically a schoolbook exercise.
@mxchara You're doing the insulting here, calling people liars.
You're repeatedly asking me to define "intelligence". Why should I, when I haven't used the word for anything?
Is this your first intellectual debate?
@troed Do stop pretending I'm "cognitively dissonant" merely because I'm trying to pry more reliable information out of you. So, you have no investments in technology!Well and good. Let's put that aside then. Now can you tell me why you're unable to explain how you use an important English word? You can't supply a working definition of "intelligence", other than to burble that intelligence is too complex to define?
@mxchara Why are you unable to accept that "intelligence" is not a well defined word? I've already sourced this _fact_. That you don't like it is irrelevant.
Also, what you're doing is known as an argumentative fallacy - that's why you're not getting the answers you're hoping for.
@troed You miss the point, completely. I ask you, repeatedly, for YOUR definition of the word. When YOU use the word "intelligent" what do you mean by it?
You clearly would like to think I'm a dunce, for example. You would probably say that you're intelligent and I'm not. Isn't that so? Or am I incorrect?
@mxchara Yes. You seem to be incorrect at every assumption you make.
Maybe you should spend more time reading and less time posting?
@troed Now that you've dished up another flat insult maybe you'll feel better about actually answering the question you keep evading: how do you, personally, employ the word "intelligence"?
When tech corporations sell something as "artificially intelligent", for example, do you automatically assume that they're telling the truth?
@mxchara The fallacy is that you keep loading questions with assumptions that aren't part of anything I have written.
In an intellectual debate, that's about as insulting things get.
@troed It would help if you stopped pretending that you were talking perfectly logically. Right now, because of your temper tantrum, you decided to commit to this obvious lie: âI haven't used "intelligence" for any argument whatsoever here.â
@troed You're so emotionally locked on to the false pretense that every question I ask you is merely indulging "false assumptions" (while at the same time, of course, you do nothing but spew false assumptions about me) that you've backed yourself into pretending that you haven't used a word which you have, in fact, used multiple times!
@mxchara That you keep claiming I'm lying doesn't make it so. Also, it seems my grasp of English (as a second language) is better than yours. No, I still haven't used "intelligence" in an argument here.
The story about playing chess with a pidgeon fits well here. You really do seem to believe you're doing anything more than polluting the Intarnetz here.
(I'm sure you believe others lie all the time, indeed)
@troed And just to drive home the point: your personal, working definition of the words you use is NOT a "scientific fact", nor is it something you're getting out of dictionaries and encyclopaedias in the middle of your conversation. Your personal usage of words is your own.
Is that so difficult to understand? I am inquiring into how YOU use words, not how someone else defines them.
@mxchara I haven't used "intelligence" for any argument whatsoever here. Do you not understand the fallacy you keep performing?
@troed Oh so now your claim, under pressure, is that you don't use the word "intelligence" at all, under any circumstance? That's amazing. So when other persons (aside from myself) bring up "intelligence" or "artificial intelligence" in conversation with you, you NEVER talk about these concepts at all?
@troed I would like to point out that in attempting to deflect me from my question about your usage of "intelligence", you have in fact used that word many timesâalways referring me to external discourse on the term, rather than discussing your own usage. All the same, this demonstrates that your bold claim is simply a lie under pressure.