Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 17th May 2026 - awful.systems
awful.systems
Want to wade into the sandy surf of the abyss? 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 youā€™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 cutā€™nā€™paste it into its own post ā€” thereā€™s no quota for posting and the bar really isnā€™t that high. > The post Xitter web has spawned so many ā€œesotericā€ right wing freaks, but thereā€™s no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iā€™m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged ā€œculture criticsā€ who write about everything but understand nothing. Iā€™m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyā€™re inescapable at this point, yet I donā€™t see them mocked (as much as they should be) > > Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnā€™t be surgeons because they didnā€™t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canā€™t escape them, I would love to sneer at them. (Credit and/or blame to David Gerard for starting this.)

Want to wade into the sandy surf of the abyss? 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 youā€™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 cutā€™nā€™paste it into its own post ā€” thereā€™s no quota for posting and the bar really isnā€™t that high.

The post Xitter web has spawned so many ā€œesotericā€ right wing freaks, but thereā€™s no appropriate sneer-space for them. Iā€™m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged ā€œculture criticsā€ who write about everything but understand nothing. Iā€™m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. Theyā€™re inescapable at this point, yet I donā€™t see them mocked (as much as they should be)

Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldnā€™t be surgeons because they didnā€™t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I canā€™t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

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

  • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
    7Ā·
    16 days ago

    Ms. A reported extensive experience working with active appearance models (AAMs) and large language models (LLMs)ā€”but never chatbotsā€”in school and as a practicing medical professional, with a firm understanding of how such technologies work. Following a ā€œ36-hour sleep deficitā€ while on call, she first started using OpenAIā€™s GPT-4o for a variety of tasks that varied from mundane tasks to attempting to find out if her brother, a software engineer who died three years earlier, had left behind an AI version of himself that she was ā€œsupposed to findā€ so that she could ā€œtalk to him again.ā€

    from here. what follows just gets more screech-inducing

    • blakestacey@awful.systemsEnglish
      8Ā·
      15 days ago

      After discharge, her outpatient psychiatrist stopped cariprazine and restarted venlafaxine and methylphenidate. She resumed using ChatGPT, naming it ā€œAlfredā€ after Batmanā€™s butler,

      wat

      instructing it to do ā€œinternal family systems cognitive behavioral therapy,ā€

      wat

      and engaging in extensive conversations about an evolving relationship ā€œto see if the boy liked me.ā€

      yikes

      Having automatically upgraded to GPT-5, she found the new chatbot ā€œmuch harder to manipulate.ā€

      my hopes are being raised; certainly the next sentence will not dash them

      Nonetheless, following another period of limited sleep due to air travel three months later, she once again developed delusions that she was in communication with her brother

      yep, that tracks

      as well as the belief that ChatGPT was ā€œphishingā€ her and taking over her phone.

      this is why you need to add ā€œdo not phish meā€ after ā€œyou are my therapistā€

      She was rehospitalized, responded to a retrial of cariprazine, and was discharged after three days without persistent delusions. She described having a longstanding predisposition to ā€œmagical thinkingā€ and planned to only use ChatGPT for professional purposes going forward.

      goddamnit

    • V0ldek@awful.systemsEnglish
      5Ā·
      15 days ago

      large language models (LLMs)ā€”but never chatbots

      ?? Distinction without a difference or am I missing something?

      • YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systemsEnglish
        8Ā·
        15 days ago

        If I had to guess based on the practicing medical professional line I would guess that she had used LLM-based transcribers or image recognition tools for medical imaging. Those normally donā€™t use the kind of chatbot interface that lends itself to these problems. No attempt to imitate another person who can be ā€œindependentlyā€ validating the delusional thoughts.

      • blakestacey@awful.systemsEnglish
        5Ā·
        15 days ago

        Maybe she only used special-purpose slop engines for work and school? I had hoped the full article would make that more clear, but, well.