During a conversation with my sister about going back to school to finish her electrical engineering degree she basically said this:

As an older student. What /I/ see is a bunch of students who don’t really know how the workforce works, but who HAVE grasped these facts:

1. The school wants you to have a social life. That’s why there’s all these events, and they cancel class for games and stuff sometimes. So you SHOULD be doing social stuff.

2. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, and the only way to get ahead is to use every tool at your disposal, including and especially GenAI.

3. Everybody is doing it, especially the smart people, including the grad students, AND sometimes even the teachers. Even the professionals are like “this is how you can use ChatGPT!”

4. So, to get everything done and have A Good College Experience, obviously you just use ChatGPT! Why spend hours in the library like all those losers???

And, then, on the other hand, I see:

A bunch of very tired, overworked, overwhelmed teachers who are doing their damndest with students who can’t do even half of the bare minimum that was expected when they went through college.

Bending over backwards and then back upwards to pass these kids, by hook or by crook.

Like, people giving 100s of points of extra credit.

People putting together a whole website of specific terms for each unit AND the slide shows from the classes, quizzes that are pass/fail - as in, you get the credit if you take the quiz on time, period, regardless of what you get, so you can use it to review, AND the weekly essays are either:

1. 750 word summary of the reading + answer 4 questions (no word limit) + pose two questions about the text, no specifc formatting required.

OR

2. 250 word reflection: how does what we learned apply to your life? No specific format required.

I was writing 5 page research papers for classes my first year of college. What the fuck. What the fuck.

(She went back to school to finish her degree)

You’re telling me you can’t write a 750 word SUMMARY that doesn’t need to be formatted beyond “put your name on it and use punctuation”???

The classes themselves are not hard. IF you have a good grounding in logic and math and writing. Which these people DO NOT.

They have a good grounding in letting ChatGPT do the work for them and letting the teacher tell them how to do everything.

And goddamn I might get 77s because I can’t do algebra and I can’t do math fast enough to finish a test.

But at least I’m not failing because I can’t THINK.

She also mentioned that a lot of professors are kind of trying to walk the thin line between failing students (who will then go to places like "ratemyprofessor.com and leave what essentially amount to bad reviews which can threaten their employment), and passing students who aren’t actually grasping the basics and I think social media is just compounding the problem because of that.

Imagine working in fast food and already getting complaints all the time and then having to worry about someone putting you on a rate my server website where they trash talk you and you have no recourse to have that information taken down.

At least with yelp it’s not first and last names and it’s the business that takes the flak.

Is there something like this for older hardware?

I think the simple fact is that some of the people in this thread don’t understand is that the people they’re asking to vet the code don’t know how.

They may mean that the people who can vet code should do so before making a fuss about the AI written portions of it, but I don’t know that most of the people in opposition to their comments understand that context.

I haven’t coded anything since the 90’s. I know HTML and basic CSS and that’s it. I wouldn’t have known where to start without guides to explain what commands in Linux do and how they work together. Growing up with various versions of Windows and DOS, I’d still consider myself a novice computer user. I absolutely do know how to go into command line and make things happen. But I wouldn’t know where to start to make a program. It’s not part of my skill set.

Most users are like that. They engage with only parts of a thing. It’s why so many people these days are computer illiterate due to the rise of smartphone usage and apps for everything.

It’d be like me asking a frequent flyer to inspect a plane engine for damage or figure out why the landing gear doesn’t retract. A lot of people wouldn’t know where to start.

I fully agree that other coders on the internet who frequent places like GitHub and make it a point to vet the code of other devs who provide their code for free probably should vet the code before they make assumptions about its quality. And I fully agree that deliberately stirring shit without actually contributing anything meaningful to the community or the project is really just messed up behavior.

But the way I see it there’s two different groups and they have very different views of this situation.

The people who can’t code are consumers. Their contribution is to use the software if they want, and if it works for them to spread by word of mouth what they like about it. Maybe to donate if they can and the dev accepts donations.

If those people choose to boycott, it’ll be on the basis of their moral feelings about the use of AI or at the recommendation of the second group due to quality.

The second group are the peer reviewers so to speak and they can and should both vet the code and sound the alarm if there’s something wrong.

I suppose there’s a third subset of people in the case of FOSS work who can and often do help with projects and I wonder if that is better or worse for the reasons listed in the thread like poorly human written code and simple mistakes.

Humans certainly aren’t infallible. But at least they can tell you how they got the output they got or the reason why they did x. You can have a rational conversation with a human being and for the most part they aren’t going to make something up unless they have an ulterior motive.

Perhaps breaking things down into tiny chunks makes AI better or it’s outputs more usable. Maybe there’s a 'sweet spot".

But I think people also get worried that what happens a lot is people who use AI often start to offload their own thinking onto it and that’s dangerous for many reasons.

This person also admits to having depression. Depression can affect how you respond to information, how well you actually understand the information in front of you. It can make you forget things you know, or make things that much harder to recall.

I know that from experience. So in this case does the AI have more potential to help or do harm?

There’s a lot to this. I have not personally used Lutris, but before this happened I wouldn’t have thought twice about saying that I’ve heard good things about it if someone asked me for a Heroic launcher style software for Linux.

But just like the Ladybird fork of Firefox I don’t know that I feel comfortable suggesting it if this is the state of things. For the same reason I don’t currently feel comfortable recommending Windows 11 or Chrome.

There are so many sensitive things that OS’s, and web browsers handle that people take for granted. If nobody was sounding the alarm about those, I feel like nothing would get better. By contrast, Lutris isn’t swimming in a big pond of sensitive information but it is running on people’s hardware and they should have both the right to be informed and the right to choose.

There’s a problem with that. The vast majority of Linux users are probably more tech savvy than average but I’d wager not all of them or even the vast majority have the skills to vet the code.

Lots of the people in the gaming space who are having Lutris suggested/recommended to them are not going in to check that code for problems. They install the flatpak on move on with their lives.

It appears (from what I’ve read which isn’t necessarily the end all be all) that the people taking exception to the use of AI to code Lutris are doing so because they do decompile and vet code.

My understanding is that it’s harder to get AI code in general because when it hallucinates it may do so in ways that appear correct on the surface, and or do so in ways that don’t even give a significant indication of what that code is attempting to do. This is the problem with vibe coding in general from my understanding and it becomes harder and harder even for senior code engineers to check the output because of the lack of a frame of reference.

You’re asking people who don’t have the skills to ignore people who do have the skills who are sounding the alarm.

I get that this person is a single person writing code and disseminating it for free. I get that we should be thankful for free and open software. I fully understand why this person might use AI to help with coding.

I understand that they are upset about the backlash. But that was a very much foreseeable consequence of the credits they gave the AI (a choice they made), and honestly the use of AI (which might have been called out later on if they hadn’t credited it).

They shot themselves in the foot with the part of their response that was flippant and a “fuck you” to anyone who might find the use of AI concerning.

There’s also the fact that AI is something that a lot of people in the Linux community at large seem to already be boycotting and boycotting derivatives of it make sense.

Just because you create something for free doesn’t mean people have to use it. Or that people aren’t free to boycott it.

What part of “I don’t approve” do you not fucking understand?

The fact that I “think it’s interesting” that the bots brought attention to the fact that the amendments were not included in the legislation that passed is not a statement of approval.

Do you need help with the English language?

Edit: Looking at this person’s comments they seem like a troll.

I don’t approve of using bots or AI to make complaints or sign petitions or any of that, but I also think that highlighting a problem I didn’t know about is an interesting consequence of their use.

I literally said that. You clearly didn’t read what you think you read.

Do better.

I generally do actually. But bots have been used to cheat since before AI so that’s not really new.

I said as much in the first comment. Did you not read?

I mean. Ford’s blue cruise isn’t supposed to marketed as self driving and it gives active warnings, including when you take your hands off the wheel to prevent you from trying to use them as a self driving equivalent where you aren’t paying attention.

I agree that these features that are ostensibly to make driving safer are invasive and that they are being abused by people who do not take the warnings into affect or use them the way they are intended to be used, and I personally hate blue cruise.

I also agree that blue cruise enabled vehicles also have some pretty significant distractions included like giant touch screens and so on.

But I don’t think it’s fair to lable them as self driving when the company doesn’t do that (looking at you Tesla who has repeatedly had to walk back such marketing claims).

Do I think blue cruise is a good product? No. Do I think it makes driving safer? Debatable as I’m sure that in some cases it can do that. Do I think it’s a self driving system? No because it’s not. It’s basically just intelligent cruise control and lane keeping assist.

I don’t like that they didn’t include the amendments to prevent raising the rate while lowering the tax bracket affected. This seems dangerous.

To be clear I’m not against taxing the rich. I just question why those amendments weren’t included.

And if the complaints were AI generated (or even just bot generated), that still doesn’t change the fact that those amendments weren’t included.

I don’t approve of using bots or AI to make complaints or sign petitions or any of that, but I also think that highlighting a problem I didn’t know about is an interesting consequence of their use.

Because to be clear I was not even aware that this was on the table without those amendments.

The people who insist on conflating permanent DST (where we switch once and never switch back) with permanently keeping the current model with all the health detriments involved is wild.

Because of the backlash from gamers/consumer/the general public, or because it was detrimental to the production of their product?

I’m with you so far, but I question how that’s still not the publisher’s fault and their liability.

The main reason is because it seems that when the publisher puts the game up for sale on steam, that entity chooses whether or not to add game play data including music and trailers. So they are choosing to give that information to Valve and giving Valve permission to use it. Which means they are the ones who don’t have the legal ability per their license to do so but did so anyway.

The best I could say for this lawsuit with those facts is that Valve is guilty of taking their word for it that they were legally allowed to use the posted video or audio in that way.

If I license something and my license includes certain provisions for distribution but not other provisions for sale or advertisment, then I choose to advertise, then I should be liable for that breach not the venue that I used as the mode for advertisement.

This is like suing a billboard company for posting an ad with artwork I didn’t properly license for the advertisment space.

Privacy ≠ Anonymity.

They are not the same thing, and proton are very transparent about what they will and won’t do in this regard.

Could you link to an article or a write up on the stuff you’re referencing so I can look into it more, please?

I think there are a lot of factors.

1. Wealthy Americans often already have access to or utilize services that would help someone with ADHD manage their symptoms regardless of whether they get a diagnosis or not.

2. There are so few affluent Americans left that it’s a significantly small percentage of the population already, meaning though they are more likely to have a diagnosis available to them, they make up a small percentage of people who actually have ADHD.

3. Poor people have less overall knowledge about learning disabilities and Neurodivergences on the whole. They assume that because they also have the same symptoms (which they don’t recognize as symptoms), it’s a matter of laziness, a moral failing, or a lack of work ethic/ability to buckle down).

Also If you’re poor, it’s likely that you may not be evaluated at all (which is part of the reason so many adults are now being evaluated and the percentage of adults who have ADHD has gone up rather steeply).

Also also if you’re poor (especially if you’re a minority) you may not get a diagnosis because there’s a stigma attached to it (nobody want to admit there’s “something wrong” with their kid developmentally).

4. When I was a kid, there was also a lot of assumptions about who could have ADHD (girls “didn’t” get ADHD, it was a boys disease). And ADD was considered a separate thing. If my mother hadn’t worked in the education system it’s likely I and my siblings never would have been tested at all.

5. Support systems in schools are lacking, underfunded, understaffed, and unsupported. Lots of kids fall through the cracks, even when they aren’t neurodivergent.

6. Even less people have access to mental healthcare and for those that do it’s still exorbitantly expensive even with insurance.

7. Without healthcare it’s unlikely that you can get access to medication. ADHD meds are considered narcotics /schedule 2 drugs. Can’t get them without a prescription.

8. Some doctors have a propensity to treat people looking for a diagnosis as addicts looking for a fix. It’s not just doctors (looking at you pharmacists).

Edit:

9. The symptoms a lot of us share are at odds with the way the medical system works, meaning we’re likely to have trouble getting the will to talk to the doctor, have trouble keeping up with appointments and doing tasks that might be required. I was diagnosed as a kid and I still haven’t talked to my doctor about getting further help when I already have a diagnosis.

To be clear, doctors who specialize in this often have a more streamlined process with our symptoms taken into account but just getting to that point where their system can take effect is daunting. The medical care system in this country as a whole works against us.

I’ve never thought of Roblox as being bad. I think it as being dangerous (for the reasons you state), but I also think of it as a “for us by us” kind of deal. Meaning it’s a place and a game(s) for kids.

My son isn’t allowed to play it in our house (if he goes to visit family or friends I don’t make restrictions on that), and I have the same rule for pretty much all online games including things like Fortnite. This is mostly because of voice chat.

I do think the benefits you list are an important part of the conversation that don’t get brought up much.

I don’t like people but I like them more than I like AI.

I also grew up in the 80’s when you’d ask an older sibling to beat the boss for you.

I would rather pay another human being to TeamViewer in and beat the boss.

Good Lord.

It’s likely that Apple already has age data on you because they collect all kinds of data including payment details from you. If you use any paid apple service (pay for apps on the app store, pay for music, or cloud services, use the air tags etc), it’s likely they already know your age.

The reason to be worried about this isn’t because now apple has this information, but because of the progression of this information being demanded, shared, and hoarded by less secure age verification services.

Anyone hoarding personal identifying information is a target for criminal enterprises that want that information.

Apple can be hacked, but you have to evaluate your threat model and what information you’ve already given them, as well as what information is already out there on the internet about you.

https://www.explore.com/1694862/unexpected-reasons-why-airlines-hate-use-airtags-luggage/

They weren’t the only airline to give pushback against the use of air tags, but they seem to be the only one being accused of attempting an outright ban.