this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2026
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Fuck AI

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"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"

A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.

AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.

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[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

No thanks on this fantastical take. This kind of hyperbolic rhetoric is part of the "AI" grift. Indistinguishable from like Peter Thiel and similar.

Technology =/= Sauron. Technology is almost exclusively controlled by evil people because of capitalism, but technology is not the part that's inherently evil.

[–] hector@lemmy.today 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Be more like Tom Bombadil America.

[–] InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

They couldn't have read the book

[–] lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 9 hours ago (1 children)
[–] hector@lemmy.today 4 points 7 hours ago

None of us can afford gucci black leather shoes, but I feel comfortable judging them anyway, as I can see they are pieces of fucking shit.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 42 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Tech bros understand Tolkien as well as they understand cyberpunk and star trek

[–] Gumus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 hours ago

They're big fans. The stories are full of cool names they could use for their companies and projects!

[–] boydster@sh.itjust.works 18 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

It's important to know, I feel like, that the Curtis Yarvin acolytes like Peter Thiel know about Tolkien lore and think he simply took the wrong perspectivein writing his tales. They actually think Sauron was a hero and represented the right side of history. They are that fucked up, morally and ethically.

[–] Mirshe@lemmy.world 6 points 8 hours ago

Exactly this. They're the guys who watched Avengers and thought Loki had the right of it - he just went about it too openly.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 14 points 16 hours ago (1 children)
[–] hector@lemmy.today 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Morgoth is a bitch, we are getting those simarills back one way or another.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

The melody requires some discord, but not that much

[–] hector@lemmy.today 2 points 6 hours ago

Beware any public housing these guys offer, make sure it's not just made out of ice. Not falling for that one again.

[–] Eh_I@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago

Sound familiar?

HBO's Game of Thrones?

[–] arctanthrope@lemmy.world 8 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

"[tech bros] don't have evil in [their] heart" [citation needed]

[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 1 points 4 hours ago

Yep, their whole heart is made of evil.

[–] teolan@lemmy.world 6 points 9 hours ago

Techbros themselves think they don't. Doesn't mean it's true.

[–] ceenote@lemmy.world 81 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Flawed rhetoric. Tech bros read Lord of the Rings and think "Sure, those guys got corrupted by the ring, but I could handle it."

[–] Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 hours ago

The same types who watch It's Always Sunny / Rick and Morty and see only role models and positive character traits.

[–] Master167@lemmy.world 7 points 7 hours ago

Which is the problem with them. They think themselves better and idolize the heroes but don’t look at the why they are heroes. Gandalf could have carried the ring but refused because he knew what corruption would bring. Aragorn is the typical masculine hero stereotype in fighting a war and getting the girl in the end. But even he refused because it wasn’t right for him to carry and all of his efforts were to be a distraction at best.

It was only the continued effort of the smallest people in middle earth that won the day.

[–] KraeuterRoy@feddit.org 23 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

We knows how to handle the precioussssss!

[–] MoffKalast@lemmy.world 34 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

Along a similar line, guy makes a global surveillance company and calls it Palantir, apparently oblivious to how much of a comic book villain he looks like. Thiel looks at Sauron like "that's so meee".

[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 6 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

They’re building Mordor in Gaza

[–] hector@lemmy.today 3 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

Mordor is New Jersey. Gaza idk, gates of cirith ungol maybe? No more like Sauramen's Isengaard.

[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)
[–] hector@lemmy.today 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I am just spitballing here, but Mordor is like the industrial engine of the empire, not the wasteland of their warring. It's where the industry of the dark lord, such as it is, spews toxic ash clouds over the land and blots out the sun that never shines bright overhead to the point the orcs find it rather seasonable (orcs being perhaps a cross between men and elves captured and tormented through generations by Morgoth, Sauron's former boss, the Eldar that went bad, (the other Eldar finally came to Middle Earth and killed/banished Morgoth, but not before the elves warred against him in vain for generations after he stole their prize simaril jewels and murdered some in a betrayal and ran to his middle earth kingdom from valinor.)

So mordor has toxic air, just like New Jersey, in fact endocrinologists have long decreed that New Jersey causes cancer. Their government is corrupt and in league with those polluters in industry that dump their waste under dishonest arguments and pay the politicians to believe it. The D or R next to their names is inconsequential in this regard, they are corrupted by the employers, and are of the party that can win. You don't let someone poison your family if they have one letter next to their name rather than another do you? You shouldn't.

New Jersey is the only state I've been to where you have to pay to leave, as it's all private highways, best money you can spend.

[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 2 points 44 minutes ago* (last edited 41 minutes ago)

Yes, but the eye of Sauron is in Mordor and the plan for Gaza is to build a city run by and ruled by technocrats like Peter Thiel and Larry Ellison who are heading the global mass surveillance systems(eye of Sauron ) This of course will be built on over the blood of the innocent women and children they just slaughtered in a genocide and the project will be policed by the Israeli (orcs) who gleefully engaged in the slaughter of an entire people. I haven’t read the books since I was a teenager but my broad recollection brings me to this conclusion because Mordor is the headquarters of evil and that’s Israel

[–] me_myself_and_I@lemmy.world -2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I have never heard of Tech Bros liking lord of the rings? Unless OP in the meme is generalizing about nerds in general which is weird cause there are lots of different kind of nerds like Star Wars nerds, Harry Potter nerds, etc.

[–] sweemoof@lemmy.world 22 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Likely referencing Peter Thiel and his Palantir nonsense

[–] me_myself_and_I@lemmy.world -4 points 7 hours ago

I don't think so cause that is a big company not a tech bro but maybe you are right

[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 24 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Tolkien predicted the failure of marketed AI? I'm not surprised, it's a product of human industry and progress, something he was critical about.

I say marketed AI as it's not really AGI, even though it's sold that way. The good/bad news is that actual progress in AGI will have worse results, and current AI is just demonstrating the issues that will crop up without the faster pace and worse destruction AGI could possibly bring. (See the AI alignment problem for details)

But hey... we learn lessons from history, right?

Right??

[–] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 12 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

I say marketed AI as it’s not really AGI

"it" - being machine learning - is not even AI. Only dumbfucks believe that garbage marketing BS.

[–] Jesus_666@lemmy.world 8 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

It objectively is, same as OCR and fuzzy logic.

It's just that when people hear "artificial intelligence", they think of Lt. Cmdr. Data and not the actual field of research that machine learning is a legitimate part of.

[–] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

The problem is that the term being used is alike to saying "bread" when referring to pancakes. If this branch of IT was run by sane people, I might not even take such issue with the label. But there's nothing wrong with labeling it machine learning, and all the credible applications do just that, be it for medical analysis or for other targeted applications. The only morons insisting to call machine learning "AI" are the LLM fuckers. And the only thing that is "AI" about LLMs are the input and output filters, which have are coded with actual, deterministic rules (or so I suspect). LLM companies are snake oil vendors, and the users are all helping them ruin the planet, politically and environmentally. And the users need to understand that, or they'll contribute a big part to running us right into the ground. So when someone says "AI", and means machine learning systems, they need to understand there is absolutely nothing "intelligent" about them. Because people are gullible and if the output sounds impressive enough, they - and you can observe that every minute in the real world - they actually believe the software has an understanding of what it is saying. It doesn't. You know that, I know that, but most of the dumb users using LLMs do not. And they need to be reminded every minute until they stop fucking around with it.

[–] Rhoeri@piefed.world 3 points 17 hours ago
[–] yucandu@lemmy.world 8 points 21 hours ago (5 children)

What about the AI that I run on my local GPU that is using a model trained on open source and public works?

[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 10 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (2 children)

It's cool as hell to train models don't get me wrong but if you use them as assistants you will still slowly stop thinking no?

So Nazgûl.

[–] yucandu@lemmy.world -1 points 5 hours ago

Feels like telling me not to use a calculator so I don't forget how to add and subtract.

[–] mattvanlaw@lemmy.world -2 points 8 hours ago

I've settled on a future model where AIs are familiars that level up from their experience more naturally and are less immediately omnipotent

[–] Mesophar@pawb.social 5 points 19 hours ago

Sounds like the rings of the Elves to me

[–] jaredwhite@humansare.social 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

That is slightly less unethical than Claude or whatever, but it is still unethical.

[–] yucandu@lemmy.world 0 points 5 hours ago

Can you elaborate on why this is unethical?

I use 0.2kWh of electricity to spend a day coding with this model:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apertus_(LLM)

[–] amino@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

your local model wouldn't exist without sauron (openai)

[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 6 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

People were making LLMs before openai/chatgpt tbf.

It's the "destroy the environment and economy in an attempt to make something that sucks just enough to justify not paying people fairly so you can advertise to rich assholes gambling their generational wealth" that OpenAI invented for the LLMs.

[–] amino@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 17 hours ago

what are those LLMs you mention that people are still using? never heard of them, sounds like a cop out

[–] mattvanlaw@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

This is very cool. Any advice a simple software engineer (me) could follow to practice the same?

[–] yucandu@lemmy.world 0 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)
  1. Install LM Studio

  2. Tell LM Studio to download the Apertus model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apertus_(LLM)

  3. Bob's ur uncle.

stick to 8B models for video cards with 8GB VRAM.