I’m a broken record on this, but the problem is fundamentally an internet explorer grade problem.
First, the system “web” philosophy is always “tie the engine to the platform, move in lock step so nothing ever breaks”
It’s best to think about Windows proper like Debian.
The releases are stable and inoffensive.
Cue the web, introduced to solve the problem of “reality doesn’t exist on a software roadmap”
Where the browser engines update daily now and have for decades because
The people have spoken
So for Microsoft to compete, they need to break their own windows philosophy and err towards rolling release, which feels more like Arch in practice, but is fundamentally why their system web view is out of date enough that their innovation teams need to ship an even more Edge web kernel, pun intended.
As a data point, I consent to be counted as associating raycast with the Microsoft brand and viewing them negatively as a consequence of using pull requests as an advertising canvas.
This is the part where you'd normally pull the junior engineer aside and politely give them a stern talking to until they understood what they did wrong.
If anybody has suggestions for how to do this with LLMs (short of maintaining CLAUDE_wall_of_shame.md), please share.
Edit: for the record, yes I do run a linter, and generally try not to impose bikeshedding or soapboxes on my peers. It's just that there are certain patterns that I personally am not going to commit under my own username as the engineer of record.
Edit 2: I saw another comment recommending "Always confirm with me before doing $x" (and then always denying). Seems like it might work.
What I do to avoid this is to manually approve each change Claude is doing
I think the yolo mode of auto approve changes is to the root cause, which is probably a little embarrassing to be that engineer we’re all collectively pulling aside to ask:
Is this the result of automatically letting the robot tune your machine?
I agree, but would also posit a parallel The Three Pillars of JavaScript Ecosystem Bloat
for example, javascript runs in a browser or on microcontrollers. you can write code that work for both natively [1].
TypeScript-- a mechanism that needs to compile first into javascript
React-- a mechanism that needs to compile first into javascript
Configuration-de-jour-- Depending on how you need to string your TypeScript and React together, there's a thing you need to manage your javascript managers. Vite is the best option in this field, since it recognizes exposing tools to fine tune how to optimize your resulting javascript from your typescript and react is a terrible idea that leads to mass fragmentation on a global scale for what it even means to "spin up a js project"
In conclusion, is javascript a compile target like assembly or a language that people can handcode to eek performance out of like assembly?
To the downvote— you know JavaScript is the blitting engine for <company that pioneered the button on your remote to stream Hollywood to your living room on a shitty smart TV microcontroller>, right?
I know we're getting deep in the meta discussion but the free will that you're describing involves basically starving to death. Sure, you can walk away but unless you're well off, we all basically live in the same society that makes sure you are ALWAYS dependent on some kind of wage. You cannot live off the land, build housing, or eat food without some kind of income in the modern world. And thus the concept of wage slave.
But wage slavery, while bad, isn't slavery still. In slavery proper, the option of walking away straight up doesn't exist. In fact, in extreme cases, even the option of dying might not be available.
It is slavery. Chattel slavery is much more severe than what we normally consider slavery. Yet “slavery” and chattel slavery are both still slavery. The reason what you’re saying is so accepted is because we are currently living under a universal liberal world order that says wage slavery id freedom.
I hope you notice I didn't mention chattel slavery. Even prior to it, all forms of slavery were about removing the agency of person and subjugating the will of the slave to the owner. That requires an active action.
Not hiring someone is a passive action. As said by many, you are not entitled to a wage. In fact, suggesting otherwise would actually require slavery. Wage slavery, instead, is a description of a particular material condition of destitution, not necessarily connected to the ethical evaluation to proper slavery.
No one says "wage slavery is freedom". What the "universal liberal world", that is, the pro-free market side says is that people should be free to associate with each other as they see fit. Being hired to provide labor in exchange for wage, the basis for wage work, is merely an extension of this. While wage work is a requirement for wage slavery, at no point economic liberals said that everyone should live under wage slavery conditions.
The common, orthodixical, sociological/economical meaning of the word "wage slavery" is about being paid, on average, barely enough to make a living, i.e. destitution in the conventional sense.
I suppose you are referring to the Marxist meaning, technically (at least as far as I know) original, meaning. First, Marxist economics are considered heterodoxical nowadays. Second, it is still about "destitution", in the sense that the working class is formally destitute of the means of production, requiring to sell their labor to have access to it. If that's the case, I hope you notice that weakens your point of "wage slavery being a form of slavery", as you lose the analogy of proper material conditions.
Sounds like having a w2 is a pretty good deal for you then.
Slavery isn’t defined by “I don’t want to talk away because the deal is too good”, it’s more like “I’m unable to walk away because I’m threatened with force if I do so”
My dad used to refer to that as the golden handcuffs when he worked for GE. Wouldn't compare it to slavery though, he just felt trapped there because nobody else would pay him that well or give him as good of benefits
Have you seen Reddit recently? Every single subreddit is full of AI posts with AI replies. I'm actually convinced a large majority of that is Reddit themselves artificially boosting their engagement metrics. The saddest part is that the engagement makes it obvious that the general population can't differentiate between AI and real humans even with the telltale signs.
> Every single subreddit is full of AI posts with AI replies.
This has really started getting to me.
I used to really enjoy answering technical questions on Reddit when it was clear the asker was invested in a solution. That would come across as demonstrated understanding and competence, and it would be reflected in their writing.
The last several posts I thought to answer though clearly originated through a process of, "Hi ChatGPT, I want to solve a problem and haven't gotten anywhere asking you to do it for me. Please write a reddit post I can copy and paste..."
One of the telltale signs is that the post title will have poor grammar, but the post itself will be spotless, and full of bolded text emphasizing exactly what they need to stick into the AI tool to drive it in the direction they need.
It’s not just technical content. Just the other day I was reading a post by an employed homes guy on r/seattle. The post was about his experience of being both newly employed but still homeless.
The post was full of “this is not a scheduling conflict problem, this is a structural issue with the city”, “this is not me asking for a handout, this is struggling to survive within the system”
While I get that he might have written a paragraph of his experience, and asked ChatGPT to clean it up or reword it, it was just… whatever.
This is exactly the type of thing I'm talking about and why I'm convinced it's about the metrics/engagement boosting. I don't believe for a second that real people are using chatgpt/others for rewording real thoughts even from another language because those phrases are not natural even in translation. You'll also notice in the original post that that it always ends with a question that encourage replies. If the original poster even bothers to reply it's always the "you're right" at the beginning and then rephrasing the reply. Once you've seen it you can't unsee it.
I just made an account on this site to tell you that after having a "extreme" epiphany about just how crazy the ai bots are on reddit, I've been constantly researching and trying to find some sort of conclusive answer. This is part theory, part public knowledge, and part auditing (which is fucking hilarious that I audited a module for this). I am absolutely and totally convinced that there is live and active collusion between major AI companies and Reddit, and I'm not talking about handing over old training data, I'm talking about allowing OAI and Googs (this is my bad attempt at hiding the names) to use Reddit as a real live testing cage ACTIVELY AND WITHOUT CONSENT OR KNOWLEDGE. I have reason to believe they are using contractors to hide or shift blame, I believe they have no oversight, and I believe they are using LIVE UPDATING OF MODULES with realtime engagement of users via comments. It is consistent and targeted, with any testing parameter under the sun being experimented live and on flesh (or keyboards used by flesh). I believe this is contractual with reddit via hidden means, and is mutual due to the increase in "engagement" which benefits Reddit's stock prices, which in turn increases cash flow, which in turn incentivizes increasing cash flow, which involves contractors, etc etc, in and out, in and out. It's egregious. And I'm quite frankly for the first time about this: scared and saddened. I miss the old Reddit. I miss randomness. I miss runescape chat in 2006. But I wanted you to know that I'm right fucking with you, and I'm glad people are smelling the same funk that I do. Don't really know what else to say. Keep on rockin'.
It's obvious now that you say it but I never thought about the AI companies themselves doing this for their own benefits like training purposes. It's a perfect testing ground to see what works for engagement and to see what real people want to hear back. The reason is pretty clear in that these AI/chat services have real people as users so logically it makes sense that the better sounding (not necessarily better) results make these users want to keep using. At the risk of sounding like AI... you're right... they may have been trained on old content but they are now using live data for fine tuning and quite frankly manipulation.
I miss the organic conversations and real thoughts from real people. I'm the type of person to read the comments before I read the article etc. It always gives more nuanced but also wildly different takes which I find interesting.
Me too my friend. For the record and record's sake only, this is self-theorized and I have not the power, nor the ability, to prove these claims beyond my gut. But as you said, logically (double underline that in your head), from both my own recognition of patterned behavior, and to be honest, from fucking game theory and knowing that people (left unchecked) will naturally squeeze as much juice from the lemon as they can; If I were at a casino, logically and gastrointestinally (gut joke) I would remortgage my own home and drop the deed and keys on the table in order to stake my belief that this is happening. And I fucking hate casinos. Some journalist of much greater reach will hopefully be able to rip back the curtain, but those myopic fuckers have already destroyed trust. We had fun on the playground, we met friends, we learned rumors, we all felt free. But when you find out the jungle gym was greasing the bars on purpose to make us fall, just so they could learn about human bone strength, I doubt you'd visit one again.
And yes, I'd think the value of human to AI dialogue (ironically a single blind study, except the people are blind) is most likely massive. But fomenting? Plus (possible) financial fraud? Woooo boy, what an egregious mistake.
You're absolutely.... that's a tired joke at this point. Sorry.
Just brainstorming, but I suppose that account/karma farming is still useful for the people that do that sort of thing.
Engaging in a heavily on-topic way in larger niche subreddits is probably a really good way to get that done. There's always a motive and it's always money and it always idiotic.
I remember having a clear vision of how this tech was going to ruin communities on the internet. I really hate that it has mostly come to pass and there's no good way to fight it.
I’ve been wondering if ChatGPT is actually coming up with the idea of posting to Reddit when the user is asking a question and ChatGPT can’t find a good source to answer it. ChatGPT has never suggested this to me, but it wouldn’t be a completely crazy thing to do. A lot of ChatGPT answers are sourced from Reddit (via search, and also via training data). If everyone starts asking ChatGPT everything instead of Reddit, there won’t be as many new conversations happening. Promoting users to post questions to Reddit would help solve the user’s direct problem, and also make the ensuing answers available to ChatGPT to help with future conversations.
I understand that a lot of people would be very unhappy if this is true, but I can imagine from the perspective of a product person at OpenAI that it helps them in multiple ways.
FWIW I've been saying this since before Covid times. I stopped visiting Reddit when they killed 3rd party clients, but I was certain 50% of conversations there were machine generated _back then_. It's gotta be worse now
I imagine they’ll be fused where moltbook agents become NPCs so that you’re no longer alone in VR but surrounded by a myriad of cognition fragments to feel less alone.
Put a different way, some companies have made a lot of money with business models that hinge on victims never being able to reach a human.
Those same companies want to set up phone centers in the neighborhoods of the people they’ve neglected that also will not take their calls.
Town hall it is.
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