ReallyActuallyFrankenstein

@ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Delta Air Lines is using AI to set the maximum price you’re willing to pay⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  The article isn’t very clear, but the novelty here is that this is unprecedented hypertargeting to individual users. Instead of the current demographic, website, days-before-flight, and other factors, think Uber’s pricing, where you are quoted $40 for a ride, and the person right next to you is quoted $25 for the exact same ride thanks to their dynamic data-driven (and ethics-free) prcing.

  This opens the possibility that Delta will charge you more solely because the data Delta has been able to acquire for you suggests you’ll pay more. And that black-box AI system could base it on all sorts of nefarious reasons - e.g., your mother is dying in the hospital, increasing your desperation to get a flight to that location, which makes its way into the dynamic “motivation” index in the AI calculus, which doubles the price of your flight.

  We’re not there yet, but when you see the sorts of things Uber does for reference, I feel it’s a clear path to airfare’s little corner of our coming dystopia.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How are you doing fellow kids⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Pretty sure many of them are LLMs by bot factories with an interest in the US tearing itself apart, and the prompt is, “Write a reply to {post}. Agree and amplify what is said, but make more racist and divisive.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How are you doing fellow kids⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The modern fascist terraforming plan is:

  Step 1: Flood the zone.

  Step 2: Population gives up and tunes out.

  Step 3: Remove all remaining checks to power.

  Step 4: Purge all political and social undesirables.

  The funny thing is, Stephen Miller and the rest realized they can do the steps in parallel, each one reinforcing and normalizing the others.

  The most valuable and hardest thing we can do is not give up resisting. But pace yourself, find some good in the world and give it some of your attention every day. They’re relying on wearing us down.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Missouri AG: Any AI That Doesn’t Praise Donald Trump Might Be “Consumer Fraud” (No, Really)⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Hmmm, I have been skeptical of AI, but it looks like it’s getting smarter.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trump delays tariffs as the rest of the world plays hardball⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Ok, yes, sure… but - and stay with me here - what should you do if you’re the single most incompetent and confident person on the planet, surrounded by morons you chose solely because they would agree and amplify everything you say? What then, Mr. Smart G- I mean, Pancake?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨60% of Teachers Used AI This Year and Saved up to 6 Hours of Work a Week⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Thank you for submitting your final exam for AP American History. ChatGPT 5-TeacherEdition graded your Llama 6.3o answers to be 25% incorrect. This determination is only appealable by confirming an error in grading with Gemini X-5-level with a reliability rating of 7.5 or higher, which our system notes from your records is not available to your income tier.

  Your future profession is selected as: Meat packer.

  Have a nice day.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tesla loses $68 billion in value after Elon Musk says he is launching a political party⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, I’ll give my own impression: I was never a fanboy, but I think his PR team did a good job making him seem vaguely non-threatening and focused on bringing the sci-fi ideas into reality. I remember rolling my eyes when he appeared in Iron Man 2, and the “Tony Stark” comparisons always seemed, to be charitable, aspirational. But then he started tweeting about that cave diver being a “pedo guy,” fired his PR people, and it quickly became obvious who he really was.

  Basically standard tech bro protocol. Appear neutral on politics and vaguely altruistic in motive, until they have so much money nobody can stop them from being their worst techno-fascist selves. (Altman seems next in line for this transition.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tailscale addressing concerns over potential enshittification of the platform⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, this post started as a reassurance that Tailscale wouldn’t enshittify. But it turned out to just be an argument about how to avoid enshittification that boiled down to two principles:

  1. You shouldn’t make your product worse because it’ll eventually harm the company; and
  2. Founders are magic and need to never turn over control of the company to others (be it new CEOs or VC) to resist enshittification.

  Both are partially right and partially wrong.

  For #1: Yes, making your product worse eventually harms the company. No, you can’t expect CEOs to accept that as a reason to not make their product worse because even if it harms the company, short-term incentives that lead to enshittification are eventually going to become irresistible. His comment about reaching “zen” with leveled growth and profit will never stop VCs from calling in demands and favors.

  For #2: Yes, founders typically “get it” more than their VC- or failure-initiated replacements. No, that doesn’t mean founders are uniquely resistant to enshittification. This is your point too, and it’s why I don’t believe this person - they lose all credibility here because they doesn’t acknowledge they aren’t special. Every tech bro out there thinks they’ve cracked the code to permanent tech hegemony. That exceptionalist thinking turns into enshittification, since the product-worsening or overcharging is easier to justify as temporary/justified/rationalized (until it isn’t).

  And “all of this” doesn’t explain why Tailscale specifically gets immunity if the principles are true.

  So interesting post, and a lot more self-awareness than most founders which is still a little reassuring, but a lot of warning signs too.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sleeping beauty bitcoin wallets wake up after 14 years to the tune of $2 billion⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s some quality conspiracy thinking!

  But there are too many people who could have been early adopters and have any number of random motives for this to be “likely.”

  Heck, I was watching Bitcoin when it was like $0.002 a coin and someone spent 10,000 (presumably home-CPU-mined) BTC to buy a pizza. There were a ton of people there at the beginning, the barrier to purchasing a ton was very low, and unlike me, a lot of them certainly had $20,000 to spare and believed in it enough to buy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Large Language Model Performance Doubles Every 7 Months⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Is it just me, or is this graph (first graph in the article) completely unintelligible?

  The X-axis being time is self-explanatory, but the Y-axis is somehow exponential time but then also mapping random milestones of performance, meaning those milestones are hard-linked to that time-based Y-axis? Then individual models are mapped onto it, indicating that the Y-axis is some abstract performance metric, but none of it makes sense in relation to the property of time? What?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨32, f. Are there any dating sites that are actually free and don't suddenly force me to pay to actually use the site?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, Match.com isn’t satisfied until everyone is miserable.

  It’s weird to think about how dominantly successful any app that took a principled position and resisted enshittification starting in 2010 would be now.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨32, f. Are there any dating sites that are actually free and don't suddenly force me to pay to actually use the site?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think civilization is probably just ending after these last few generations, frankly.

  Probably for the best…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨So you want to start playing Castlevania games (a giant primer)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks, this was a fun read.

  I do think the GBA and DS Castlevanias (since I’ve been replaying them lately) have distinct/unique gameplay mechanics - the most impactful of which involve collecting souls/etc from enemies to junction in new abilities - but until I replayed them I would have said the same thing. I started my replays of them by picking them at random because I couldn’t remember anything except “that was pretty good!”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hesitating getting a Switch 2 (1st game console in 15 years)...⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m in the same boat. The only reason I’m considering getting a Switch 2 now is because the first gen consoles always end up the easiest to hack.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy devouring the artist⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You raise a good idea - replace this as Trump’s official portrait wherever possible.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Don’t worry, I’m sure the FTC will investigate this obvious and pernicious false labeling bait-and-switch scheme!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Teamviewer Terminates Perpetual Licenses⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I switched to Rust Desk after I got repeatedly flagged for commercial use of Team Viewer and access disabled. I was doing nothing of the sort, but it happened after I accessed my personal computer on my personal phone while at work. They must have IP address checks that are extremely aggressive.

  I followed their process to “verify” I was non-commercial, which was invasive and insulting, and then was flagged again.

  Rust Desk works great, no problems, never using Team Viewer again.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The bizarre, dismal page you see if you open YouTube without an account.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m like, “Is this what normal people in 2025 watch?” I feel like an alien on earth, except the planet changed and not me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The bizarre, dismal page you see if you open YouTube without an account.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Tried this on a private window, and yes, that’s what it looks like. Thought I’d click on Shorts and let the first 3 seconds of the opening auto-play video play. Then back to the home page and wow, full of absolute trash.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How streaming changed the way you watch TV⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  And for retro games, emulators have left even that in the dustbin of time.

  Sick of the last RPG save happening 20 minutes before a boss fight? Save at literally any moment with save states.

  That too much work? You can rewind the entire game.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Study finds persistent spike in hate speech on X⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  All very good points.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Study finds persistent spike in hate speech on X⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  He keeps trying. He seems to think that can be done by just putting his thumb on the system prompt, and then we end up with obvious nonsense like that South African white genocide preoccupation. It’s fortunate the Musk isn’t smart enough to figure out how to do it subtly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My dailies⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I spent months tweaking a retropie image and basically learning all the Linux config file issues and arcane knowledge to adapt retropie’s outdated Emulationstation fork.

  … And then I built the next system with Batocera and wow, night and day. Save state UX and configs that work right out of the box, clean interface theme options, customization galore without needing a keyboard. I just wish Ruckage’s SNES Classic theme worked on it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Systems are crumbling – but daily life continues. The dissonance is real⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Here is the 2016 Adam Curtis documentary referenced in the article, by the same term we use to describe what’s happening: Hypernormalization.

  It was a documentary I’d highly recommend when I saw it in 2017, during Trump’s first term. Now I think it’s required viewing, which is depressing since almost nobody has heard of it, despite living in the exact demoralizing and uncanny reality it describes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Here's your first look at the rebooted Digg | TechCrunch⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The article says an iOS app was released to testers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Classic Gaming: Retro Gaming Growing Up⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Guess I’m an outlier. For me, games were the way to disconnect from the stress of relationships. I’ve been an introvert since the beginning, and so games’ positive associations for me are a safe place away from social pressures.

  I also imagine every “retro” generation thinks its games are the best. Like, there was a meme post about joy at finding a PS2 torrent recently with strong implied nostalgia, and that’s ok. People usually experience video games at an age where the games teach them archetypical feelings of intellectual pleasure, the first time they experienced joy at solving complex problems for example. That becomes a core association through life.

  So I think we’ll all have strong feelings linking the systems we played at our formative years. And again, that’s ok. That we can form such strong associations is an expression of the basic human value of video games, as an art and modern cultural necessity.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨AOSP isn't dead, but Google just landed a huge blow to custom ROM developers⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yup, the entire culture of Google has nearly changed. It used to be coder- and innovation-driven, and open-source was a natural thing to support. Make more money by growing the pie, creating markets with new tech.

  Now it seems it’s middle managers and MBAs calling the shots, and their strategy is generic business zero-sum mindset - lock down, restrict, extract. They still see the PR value in open-source, but that’s it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Party like it's 1999.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Is it powerful enough to use the more complex GB shaders in retropie?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I've hated donald trump since day one but then I saw this and thought....⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The federal agency ICE is completely captured by fascists. They are arbitrarily staging immigration crackdowns using hastily deputized agents who arrest people off the street while hiding their identity. They came to Los Angeles, a fervently anti-fascist area. It triggered massive but mostly peaceful protests. Trump is using the protests as a pretext to mobilize the federal military against citizens.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I've hated donald trump since day one but then I saw this and thought....⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not sure what the hostility is for. The very thing the protesters are standing up for is the correct idea of America. The flag should be for real patriots who believe in the Constitution, not Trump and his insurrectionist ilk.