Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? 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 you’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 cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high.
The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be)
Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.
(Semi-obligatory thanks to @dgerard for starting this)
So the ongoing discourse about AI energy requirements and their impact on the world reminded me about the situation in Texas. It set me thinking about what happens when the bubble pops. In the telecom bubble of the 90s or the British rail bubble of the 1840s, there was a lot of actual physical infrastructure created that outlived the unprofitable and unsustainable companies that had built them. After the bubble this surplus infrastructure helped make the associated goods and services cheaper and more accessible as the market corrected. Investors (and there were a lot of investors) lost their shirts, but ultimately there was some actual value created once we were out of the bezzle.
Obviously the crypto bubble will have no such benefits. It’s not like energy demand was particularly constrained outside of crypto, so any surplus electrical infrastructure will probably be shut back down (and good riddance to dirty energy). The mining hardware itself is all purpose-built ASICs that can’t actually do anything apart from mining, so it’s basically turning directly into scrap as far as I can tell.
But the high-performance GPUs that these AI operations rely on are more general-purpose even if they’re optimized for AI workloads. The bubble is still active enough that there doesn’t appear to be much talk about it, but what kind of use might we see some of these chips and datacenters put to as the bubble burns down?
But the high-performance GPUs that these AI operations rely on are more general-purpose even if they’re optimized for AI workloads. The bubble is still active enough that there doesn’t appear to be much talk about it, but what kind of use might we see some of these chips and datacenters put to as the bubble burns down?
If those GPUs end up being used for Glaze and Nightshade, I’d laugh like a hyena.
Folks, I need some expert advice. Thanks in advance!
Our NSF grant reviews came in (on Saturday), and two of the four reviews (an Excellent AND a Fair, lol) have confabulations and [insert text here brackets like this] that indicate that they are LLM generated by lazy people. Just absolutely gutted. It’s like an alien reviewed a version of our grant application from an parallel dimension.
Who do I need to contact to get eyes on the situation, other than the program director? We get to simmer all day today since it was released on the weekend, so at least I have an excuse to slow down and be thoughtful.
Total amateur here, but from quickly reviewing the process it looks like the program officer would be your primary point of contact within NSF to address this kind of thing? But then I would assume they read the reviews themselves before passing them back to you so I would hope they would notice? The bit of my brain that’s watched too much TV would like to see them answer some questions from an AI skeptic journalist, but that’s not exactly a great avenue for addressing your specific problem.
Mostly commenting to make it easier to keep track of the thread tbh. Thats some kinda nonsense you’re dealing with here.
I haven’t had to report malfeasance like that, but if that happened to me, I would be livid. I’d start by contacting the program officer; I’d also contact the division director above them and the NSF Office of Inspector General. I mean, that level of laziness can’t just have affected one review! And, for good measure, I’d send a tip to 404media, as they have covered this sort of thing. That might well go nowhere, but it can’t hurt to be in their contact list.
I got this AMAZING OPPORTUNITY in my inbox, because once your email appears on a single published paper you’re forever doomed to garbage like this (transcript at the end):
Highlights:
- Addresses me as Dr. I’m not a doctor. I checked, and apparently Dr. Muhhamad Imran Qureshi indeed has a PhD and is a lecturer at Teesside University International Business School (link to profile). His recent papers include a bunch of blockchain bullshit. Tesside University appears to be a legit UK university, although I’m not sure how legit the Business School is (or how legit any Business School can be, really).
- Tells us their research is so shit that using wisdom woodchippers actually increases their accuracy.
- One of the features is “publication support”, so this might be one of those scams where you pay an exorbitant fee to get “published” in some sketchy non-peer-reviewed journal.
- One of the covered AI tools is Microsoft Excel. If you were wondering if “AI” had any meaning.
- Also, by god, are there so many different ChatGPT clones now? I haven’t heard most of those names. I kinda hope they’re as AI as Excel is.
I’m not sure which would be worse, this being a scam, or them legit thinking this brings value to the world and believing they’re helping anyone.
transcript
Email titled Revolutionize Your Research: AI-Powered Systematic Literature Review Master Class
Online course on writing AI-Powered Systematic Literature Review
Register Now:
Dear Dr. [REDACTED],
we’re reaching out because we believe our AI-Powered Systematic Review Masterclass could be a game-changer for your research. As someone who’s passionate about research writing, we know the challenges of conducting thorough and efficient systematic reviews.
Key takeaways:
- AI-powered prompt engineering for targeted literature searches
- Crafting optimal research questions for AI analysis Intelligent data curation to streamline your workflow
- Leveraging AI for literature synthesis and theory development
Join our Batch 4 and discover how AI can help you:
- Save time by automating repetitive tasks
- Improve accuracy with AI-driven analysis
- Gain a competitive edge with innovative research methods
Enrollment is now open! Don’t miss this opportunity to take your systematic review skills to the next level.
Key Course Details: Course Title: AI-Powered Systematic Literature Reviews Master Class Live interaction + recording = Learning that fits your life Dates: October 13, 2024, to November 3, 2024 Live Session Schedule: Every Sunday at 2 PM UK time (session recordings will be accessible). Duration: Four Weeks Platform: Zoom Course Fee: GBP 100 Certification: Yes Trainer: Dr. Muhammad Imran Qureshi
Key features
- Asynchronous learning
- Video tutorials
- Live sessions with access to recordings
- Research paper Templates
- Premade Prompts for Systematic Literature Review
- Exercise Files
- Publication support
The teaching methodology will offer a dynamic learning experience, featuring live sessions every Saturday via Zoom for a duration of four weeks. These sessions will provide an interactive platform for engaging discussions, personalised feedback, and the opportunity to connect with both the course instructor and fellow participants. Moreover, our diverse instructional approach encompasses video tutorials, interactive engagements, and comprehensive feedback loops, ensuring a well-rounded and immersive learning experience.
Certification
Upon successful completion of the course, participants will receive certification from the Association of Professional Researchers and Academicians UK, validating their mastery of AI-enabled methodologies for conducting comprehensive and insightful literature reviews.
AI tools included
- Microsoft Excel
- ChatGPT
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- Powerdrill
- Sciespace
- Jenni
- Gemni
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- SCOPUS
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The Bookseller tried to hawk AI to its readerbase and they are not having it - they’re getting ratioed hard:
Bonus: Tech cultist and disgraced sex pest Robert Scobie jumped in on this, and got sneered pretty hard by Ed-Newton Rex and Gary Marcus:
You know, when Samuel L Jackson decided that the best approach to climate change was to kill billions of poor people rather than ask the rich to give up any privileges in Kingsman it was more blatantly evil but appreciably less dumb than this. Very similar wavelength though.