if, in order to achieve your out-of-control doomsday robot scenario, a trillion dollars worth of human effort must be expended annually, and if any of it stops for even a moment than the whole thing implodes and grinds to a halt, _you can stop worrying_ that it is "the machines" which dominate us
we are not even remotely close to a single LLM meaningfully constructing even a portion of the pipeline to train another LLM. you can sort of argue around the edges that maybe under certain synthetic conditions this is borderline possible now, but on the "singularity" progress bar, that is 0.5%
in order to be a singularity candidate, an AI would need to achieve vertical integration from silicon fabrication through logistics and integration, into operating systems and applications, with tight whole-system feedback from the robotics to the shipping to the power generation and back
it is so mind-meltingly frustrating to see people think that we are close to a "singularity" with current AI technology. here's a hint about when you could worry about a disruption so big that it might, even momentarily, *appear* to be a singularity:
a single corporation turning a profit even once
resources run out. processes hit bottlenecks. optimizations reach physical limits. perpetual motion machines are impossible for reasons that are pretty well understood
the idea that a "singularity" is possible is just the idea that you can turn "mistaking a sigmoid for an exponential" into a millenarian religion
slightlyoff@toot.cafe ("Alex Russell") wrote:
Heading back to the US from two weeks in Korea, and I'm struck by how rational this policy response is. Western democracies are not showering themselves in glory by comparison:
https://www.korea.net/NewsFocus/policies/view?articleId=290296
jscalzi@threads.net ("John Scalzi") wrote:
I will be here!
jscalzi@threads.net ("John Scalzi") wrote:
Dear the people trying to suggest this is somehow a MAGA conspiracy or otherwise trying to defend Swalwell in the comments here: Go be fucking trash somewhere else, thanks
Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
mcc wrote:
I was using a GUI graphics editor today and thinking about all the ways it could be better. I can think of so many ways the software we use could be different, so many ways our software could be better. Instead of working on that I suspect I'll spend the rest of my autonomous life as a developer desperately bailing out water, trying to create a little pool of programs I can use without having fake "AI" in it
jscalzi@threads.net ("John Scalzi") wrote:
Well? IS the moon haunted?
Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen"):
ljwrites@writeout.ink ("Author-ized L.J.") wrote:
The existence of participants implies the existence of particiskirts
jscalzi@threads.net ("John Scalzi") wrote:
Okay who does not like Dolly Parton and how unhappy would you have to be in life to be that person
https://consequence.net/2026/04/dolly-parton-is-the-most-popular-person-in-america-new-poll-finds/
Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
minterpunct@gamemaking.social ("Sleepius Raccoonus") wrote:
Stop denying the inevitable: AGI will be realized once we have quantum computers, quantum computers will be efficient as soon as we have the fusion reactors to power them, and fusion power will be economically viable as soon as AGI figures out how to do it. All these technologies are at most 10 years away, so just keep giving us money for the next 20 years, and 30 years from now you'll be reaping the rewards
Boosted by cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen"):
lespreuh ("Lëspreüh") wrote:
Little nightmares
soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker") wrote:
The funniest possible outcome is, of course, a three-way tie.
cstanhope@social.coop ("Your weary 'net denizen") wrote:
Wow! This set from YAGODY kicked butt!
https://www.kexp.org/podcasts/live-on-kexp/2026/3/10/yagody/
soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker") wrote:
The Fediverse has the opportunity to do something hilarious here
Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
miketheman@hachyderm.io ("Mike Fiedler, Code Gardener") wrote:
Any time I see something like this in a #Python REPL, I can't help but smile for two reasons:
1. Yes, yes I did forget.
2. I know some of the folks who worked so hard to make that message do exactly what I want it to do. Thanks to Pablo, @ambv, and so many others!
soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker") wrote:
"Hmm, I work in tech. I should answer this like I'm extremely neurotic to score high in Attention To Detail, because that's obviously important to leadership."
a few months pass
Management: "Hey, you thinking of taking any PTO? You've been working a lot and we don't want to burn you out"
Me: "Oops"
soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker") wrote:
The funniest thing to me is when companies bring in these business psychologist types to give everyone personality tests that are unintentionally really obvious how to game to get a result that the company wants
And then they'te all surprised-pikachu.jpg when everyone does that
soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker") wrote:
Do you have impostor syndrome?
Spy vs Spy mofo
Boosted by jwz:
mattedgar@social.coop ("Matt Edgar") wrote:
Fun new game for art gallery visits: find all the portraits that could be valid UK passport photos
Boosted by jwz:
VeroniqueB99 ("Vee") wrote:
Boosted by zkat@toot.cat ("Katerina Marchán"):
yaah@hachyderm.io wrote:
Welp, I got laid off. RIP futurewei OSS rust team.
If you know anyone hiring systems engineers lmk.
Boosted by GuillaumeL@hachyderm.io ("BigSaur G"):
marick@mstdn.social ("Brian Marick") wrote:
“To be oriented toward the writings of intellectuals is to be conscious of the community itself, stretching both backwards and forwards in time” – Collins, /The Sociology of Philosophies/, p. 27
That’s something I realize we in software miss. I remember attending a retirement dinner for a vet school professor. It struck me how much he was knowingly part of a *lineage*.
In software, we have a lineage, but we’re not conscious of it. I’d say that’s, on balance, a problem.
soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker") wrote:
Work Slack notification:
Company-wide shout-out for doing a great job
Me, filling out my self-assessments:
3 out of 5, dead middle of the road
Boosted by soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker"):
nightdragon0@fursuits.online ("Hyshaji Nightdragon") wrote:
So dance comp photos are like photoshoot photos with a moving goalpost right? 😁
📸: direwalf
#fursuit #fursuiting #fursuitfriday
dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:
just remembered i can turn off the computer and go to bed. how freeing is that?
Boosted by jwz:
aesthr@wandering.shop ("Æ.") wrote:
Molotov cocktails are just the technological reality now. You can adapt your workflows to them or get left behind.
At my company every employee has to use at least one per day. It’s a vibrant and competitive field full of potential.









