TechTakes

https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20250726-google-ai-overview-is-just-affiliate-marketing-spam-now -podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWoajgPIOt4&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video

https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20250725-16-of-employees-pretend-to-use-ai-at-work - podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlPhRKLRFmg&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video

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While the thought of lawyers lawyering with AI gives me the icks, I also understand that at a certain point it may play out like the self-driving car argument: once the AI is good enough, it will be better than the average human -- since I think it's obvious to everyone that human lawyers make plenty of mistakes. So if you knew the average lawyer made 3.6 mistakes per case and the AI only made 1.2, it's still a net gain. On the other hand tho, this could lead to complacency that drives even more injustice.

Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)

‘an expensive slot machine that outputs slop 98% of the time’

podcast and blog post tomorrow, i am ill

yes that's a clothes hanger at the back i forgot to put in the hall, we only reveal our clean laundry here

this podcast guy talks like sephiroth but the title is perfect and the content is largely correct

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Alternatively:

Academia and advanced degrees are worthless; you can compress four years of study into a prompt the size of a tweet.

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how could daughters look their engineer-dads in the eyes, no matter the country they're in, the same before? this was our BeforeTimes (ignoring Bill Gates' antitrust). everyone knows this was a chokehold, and you did not all celebrate the "or you're fired" bit, nor did you only see it as "mere play". "americans" are not the only ones to blame. the paternalism ain't paternalizing. discuss.

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Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret.

Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no.

If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

(Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)

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watch the video first, it's the point here

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podcast version tomorrow!

God help us. These workers are employed by a subcontractor, Covalen.

Multiple workers from Covalen’s ‘AI annotation’ service spoke to The Journal Investigates about their roles. Their day-to-day work involves creating prompts that are fed to Meta’s AI platform so the system can be trained according to guidelines.

In order to do this, some workers have spent entire shifts pretending to be paedophiles online seeking child sex abuse related information, or suicidal people looking for details on how to kill or hurt themselves.

Covalen also does moderation for Meta, with workers forced to watch extremely violent and disturbing footage that has been flagged for moderation.

“Sometimes in my dreams I am the victim, but sometimes – and this is far worse – I am the perpetrator,” they said.

One bright spot:

Over 100 Covalen employees have now joined the Communications Workers Union (CWU). The toll that dealing with sensitive content and inconsistencies in wellness break length were extra motivating factors for the move.

They are also asking for a better rate of pay, as they are currently earning an average of €29,700 per year.

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