riskable
@riskable@programming.dev
- Comment on What steps can be taken to prevent AI training and scraping of my public facing website? 1 day ago:
We learned this lesson in the 90s: If you put something on the (public) Internet, assume it will be scraped (and copied and used in various ways without your consent). If you don’t want that, don’t put it on the Internet.
There’s all sorts of clever things you can do to prevent scraping but none of them are 100% effective and all have negative tradeoffs.
For reference, the big AI players aren’t scraping the Internet to train their LLMs anymore. That creates too many problems, not the least of which is making yourself vulnerable to poisoning. If an AI is scraping your content at this point it’s either amateurs or they’re just indexing it like Google would (or both) so the AI knows where to find it without having to rely on 3rd parties like Google.
Remember: Scraping the Internet is everyone’s right. Trying to stop it is futile and only benefits the biggest of the big search engines/companies.
- Comment on US could ask tourists for five-year social media history before entry 5 days ago:
It depends… What color is your skin?
- Comment on Activist groups urge Congress to pause US datacenter buildouts 6 days ago:
Mandate that data centers self-power via renewable energy already! It’s such a simple fucking solution that solves basically all the problems of data centers.
Relevant note: The research that came out a while back saying that a long conversation with an AI chatbot could use up to half a liter of water included the water use to cool the power plant that’s powering the data center. The same paper spelled out that the actual water use of the data center itself is only 12% of that. So if we force data centers to be powered via renewable energy a long conversation with a chatbot would only use 0.06 liters of water which is basically negligible. Especially when you consider that the 0.5L was a worst-case scenario (older data centers letting all the water evaporate).
- Comment on I need help finishing the SHITPO phonetic alphabet 1 week ago:
D should be Dookie.
- Comment on [Discussion] Which character is the cutest for you? 1 week ago:
The shoulder fairy in Leadale, Kuu:
Fairy Kuu sitting on Caina’s shoulder
She’s not the cutest looking fairy ever but the way she uses body language to mimick/mock Caina’s speech is cute AF. For example, wagging her finger when Caina is lecturing her children who have been behaving badly. Or just generally popping out of Caina’s hair to stick her tongue out at an enemy 😁
- Comment on builder.ai has been tricking customers and investors for eight years – selling an advanced code-writing AI that, it turns out, is actually an Indian software farm employing 700 human developers 1 week ago:
Analog intelligence.
- Comment on Hey look, a giant sign telling you to find a different job 1 week ago:
No, “your sick” makes perfect sense because it will become their sick when that employee brings it into work. Everyone can have the sick that way 👍
- Comment on Trains cancelled over fake bridge collapse image 1 week ago:
It’s not a shame. Have you tried this? Try it now! It only takes a minute.
Test a bunch of images against ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude. Ask it if the image was AI-generated. I think you’ll be surprised.
Gemini is the current king of that sort of image analysis but the others should do well too.
What do you think the experts use? LOL! They’re going to run an image through the same exact process that the chatbots would use plus some additional steps if they didn’t find anything obvious on the first pass.
- Comment on Trains cancelled over fake bridge collapse image 1 week ago:
I don’t think it’s irresponsible to suggest to readers that they can use an AI chatbot to examine any given image to see if it was AI-generated. Even the lowest-performing multi-model chatbots (e.g. Grok and ChatGPT) can do that pretty effectively.
Also: Why stop at one? Try a whole bunch! Especially if you’re a reporter working for the BBC!
It’s not like they give an answer, “yes: Definitely take” or “no: Definitely real.” They will analyze the image and give you some information about it such as tell-tale signs that an image could have been faked.
But why speculate? Try it right fucking now: Ask ChatGPT or Gemini (the current king at such things BTW… For the next month at least hahaha) if any given image is fake. It only takes a minute or two to test it out with a bunch of images!
Then come back and tell us that’s irresponsible with some screenshots demonstrating why.
- Comment on Trains cancelled over fake bridge collapse image 1 week ago:
Or like isn’t the UK the most surveiled country with their camera system?
Ahahah! That’s a good one!
You think all those cameras are accessible to everyone or even the municipal authorities? Think again!
All those cameras are mostly useless—even for law enforcement (the only ones with access). It’s not like anyone is watching them in real time and the recordings—if they even have any—are like any IT request: Open a ticket and wait. How long? I have no idea.
Try it: If you live in the UK, find some camera in a public location and call the police to ask them, “is there an accident at (location camera is directly pointing at)?”
They will ask you all sorts of questions before answering you (just tell them you heard it through the grapevine or something) but ultimately, they will send someone out to investigate because accessing the camera is too much of a pain in the ass.
It’s the same situation here in the US. I know because the UK uses the same damned cameras and recording tech. It sucks! They’re always looking for ways to make it easier to use and every rollout of new software actually makes it harder and more complicated!
How easy is the ticket system at your work? Now throw in dozens of extra government-mandated fields 🤣
Never forget: The UK invented bureaucracy and needles paperwork!
- Comment on Valve dev counters calls to scrap Steam AI disclosures, says it's a "technology relying on cultural laundering, IP infringement, and slopification" 2 weeks ago:
If the cost of using it is lower than the alternative, and the market willing to buy it is the same. If the current cloud hosted tools cease to be massively subsidized, and consumers choose to avoid it, then it’s inevitably a historical footnote, like turbine powered cars, Web 3.0, and laser disk.
There’s another scenario: Turns out that if Big AI doesn’t buy up all the available stock of DRAM and GPUs, running local AI models on your own PC will become more realistic.
I run local AI stuff all the time from image generation to code assistance. My GPU fans spin up for a bit as the power consumed by my PC increases but other than that, it’s not much of an impact on anything.
I believe this is the future: Local AI models will eventually take over just like PCs took over from mainframes. There’s a few thresholds that need to be met for that to happen but it seems inevitable. It’s already happening for image generation where the local AI tools are so vastly superior to the cloud stuff there’s no contest.
- Comment on AI music creates unease as it tops the charts 2 weeks ago:
In other news, turns out pop music is very formulaic and easy for a machine to generate!
The distance between, “all of this was made on a computer with minimal effort” and, “this music was entirely generated by AI” is very short indeed.
- Comment on The Supreme Court Is About to Hear a Case That Could Rewrite Internet Access 2 weeks ago:
I hope the SCOTUS justices aren’t using 3-strikes-you’re-out ISPs! All it would take is three random DMCA takedown notices and they’d lose Internet.
- Comment on Someone At YouTube Needs Glasses: The Prophecy Has Been Fulfilled 2 weeks ago:
You jest, but if conservatives have their way, you’ll soon have to verify your ID by uploading a video every time you visit the site (if not logged in). Even for non-adult content!
Because the reason for the ID isn’t to “protect the children” or anything like that. It’s about control. Conservatives want the power to decide what people get to see and ID verification systems are just a small part of that.
- Comment on How would a feminine Doppelbock be named? 2 weeks ago:
Doppelblume. It means “double blossom”.
Alternatives:
- Domina Doppel
- Endowed Doppel
- Satin/Silk/Velvet Doppel
- Double-D Doppel
- Comment on Standardization rule 2 weeks ago:
It took until 2021 but we can finally say, “we live in a society.”
Because we have standards.
- Comment on Standardization rule 2 weeks ago:
Bunch of asses, that’s why!
- Comment on [NSQ Friday] Are sunchips really from the sun? 3 weeks ago:
No. They’re off the old block.
- Comment on HP and Dell disable HEVC support built into their laptops’ CPUs 3 weeks ago:
What should be illegal is patents like this!
- Comment on Firefox is Getting a New AI Browsing Mode 3 weeks ago:
If you don’t like your current open source AI, just use a different one or an embedding that works around whatever bias you don’t like. Maybe open a ticket?
- Comment on Firefox is Getting a New AI Browsing Mode 3 weeks ago:
The takeaway here is: Open source doesn’t suffer from enshittification.
Learn and contribute to FOSS or stop bitching 🤣
- Comment on Firefox is Getting a New AI Browsing Mode 3 weeks ago:
Yeah… The big commercial models have system prompts that fuck it all up. That’s my hypothesis, anyway.
You have to try it with an open source model. You tell it to turn the titles, URLs, and nothing else. That seems to work fantastic 👍
I’m doing it with Open WebUI and ollama cloud which is open source models that you could run locally—if you have like $5,000 worth of hardware.
- Comment on Firefox is Getting a New AI Browsing Mode 3 weeks ago:
Ok how would that work:
find me some good recipes for hibachi style ginger butterAI model returns 10 links, 4 of which don’t actually exist (because it hallucinated them)? No. If they didn’t exist, it wouldn’t have returned them because it wouldn’t have been able to load those URLs.
It’s possible that it could get it wrong because of some new kind of LLM scamming method but that’s not “making shit up” it’s malicious URLs.
- Comment on Firefox is Getting a New AI Browsing Mode 3 weeks ago:
You’ve obviously never used an open source AI model (running locally on your PC) if you think that’s how it’d go.
- Comment on Firefox is Getting a New AI Browsing Mode 4 weeks ago:
Today, when you search for something you get a handful of ads, SEO-sponsored bullshit, and maybe the 6th link will be what you were actually looking for.
When you tell the AI agent (in your browser) to search for something, not only do you get the most relevant results (because you can make your prompt vastly more specific and detailed), you completely skip all that other stuff that you didn’t want.
I’ve been saying for some time now that AI is going to kill free search engines because it’s such a better way to search for stuff. Free search engines like Google and SEO-optimizing companies are hindrances to efficient browsing and drowning the web in bullshit. Poisoning search results.
An AI agent will skip past all that stuff and give you just what you want; you never see any ads!
- Comment on Why did Montreal need to prove that it's a real place? What happened to the people who called it Montimaginary 4 weeks ago:
Because Montunreal was the little engine that could.
- Comment on Valve announces three new products: the Steam Frame, Steam Machine and Steam Controller 4 weeks ago:
I’ve done a 3-hour session playing Beat Saber multiplayer with a friend. It was the most intense workout I’ve ever experienced.
The only break was in the middle to refill my enormous water bottle and to clean up the huge pool of sweat on the floor that was getting gross (I was wearing socks, LOL).
My arms hurt for like three days straight after that. I still played every night though 😁👍
- Comment on Valve announces three new products: the Steam Frame, Steam Machine and Steam Controller 4 weeks ago:
Just place a fan on the floor in front of you. Bam! No nausea. Because now you body instinctively knows your position and orientation in the space you’re in.
It’s such a simple thing but it really works!
- Comment on A Small Town Is Fighting a $1.2 Billion AI Datacenter for America's Nuclear Weapon Scientists 4 weeks ago:
You know they’re just buildings full of servers, right?
I mean, I’d rather have a data center than some toxic chemical factory or a busy warehouse in my neighborhood. Data centers just… sit there. They use a lot of power and some use a lot of water, but if your region doesn’t have power/water problems it’s not really much of an impact.
A nation’s supercomputing power used to be something people celebrated. Especially one owned and operated by a place like Los Alamos National Laboratory.
- Comment on A brain transplant is one of those rare cases where you’d rather be the donor than the recipient. 4 weeks ago:
[waves hand] It’s fine. Just have to 3D print the new body and a regulation that requires everyone take a body of the opposite sex. That way trans people can get the right body and the rich can gain some empathy for trans people real fast.
