Hacker News with Generative AI: Criticism

There Is No AI Revolution by Ed Zitron (wheresyoured.at)
Last week, I spent a great deal of time and words framing the generative AI industry as a cynical con where OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei have used a compliant media and braindead investors to frame unprofitable, unsustainable, environmentally-damaging and mediocre cloud software as some sort of powerful, futuristic automation.

Generative AI, Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Cloud Computing, Criticism

34 points by enpera 10 days ago | 14 comments

Elon Musk Biographer: No Evidence Billionaire Has Any Intellectual Achievements (thewrap.com)
Attorney, journalist, and Elon Musk biographer Seth Abramson eviscerated both Elon Musk and his “fanboys” who have attempted to use the billionaire’s IQ as an indication of his intellectual prowess in a series of messages shared on X Thursday evening and into Friday.

Elon Musk, Biographies, Criticism, Intellectual Property

51 points by axiologist 12 days ago | 29 comments

Wikipedia's Co-Founder Is Wikipedia's Most Outspoken Critic (vice.com)
In Słubice, Poland, there’s a monument to Wikipedia, the inscription on which reads: “Wikipedia [is] the greatest project co-created by people regardless of political, religious, or cultural borders.”

Wikipedia, Criticism, Culture

13 points by lmaoguy 16 days ago | 2 comments

Statement or eyesore? Japan's divisive brutalist buildings – in pictures (theguardian.com)

Architecture, Japan, Art, Criticism

79 points by PaulHoule 19 days ago | 37 comments

Laid-off Meta employees blast Zuckerberg: the 'cruelest tech company out there' (fortune.com)
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg issued layoffs in the name of low-performance that workers deemed callous.

Meta, Layoffs, Tech Industry, Business, Criticism

28 points by mgh2 21 days ago | 13 comments

I Tried to Fix Government Tech for Years. I'm Fed Up (reason.com)
When I helped create the United States Digital Service (USDS), it was not on my bingo board that it would become the U.S. DOGE Service a mere decade later.

Government, Technology, Criticism, Public Service

28 points by frankish 22 days ago | 35 comments

Google Maps blocks Gulf of America reviews after rename criticism (bbc.com)
Google Maps has blocked reviews for the Gulf of Mexico, after criticism of its decision to label it "Gulf of America" for users in the US.

Google Maps, Geopolitics, Cartography, User Experience, Criticism

8 points by andsoitis 22 days ago | 9 comments

Could Amadeus be the most misunderstood Oscar winner? (bbc.com)
Released 40 years ago this month, Miloš Forman's best picture-winning Amadeus is often accused of historical inaccuracies – but the film's critics could be missing the point.

Movies, History, Criticism, Awards

4 points by Tomte 24 days ago | 2 comments

Gartner's Grift Is About to Unravel (dx.tips)
Gartner's Grift Is About To Unravel

Business, Technology, Analysis, Criticism

6 points by swyx 27 days ago | 0 comments

As Internet enshittification marches on, here are some of the worst offenders (arstechnica.com)
Two years ago, a Canadian writer named Cory Doctorow coined the phrase "enshittification" to describe the decay of online platforms.

Internet Culture, Technology, Criticism, Social Media

11 points by rbanffy 27 days ago | 0 comments

As Internet enshittification marches on, here are some of the worst offenders (arstechnica.com)
Two years ago, a Canadian writer named Cory Doctorow coined the phrase "enshittification" to describe the decay of online platforms.

Internet Culture, Online Platforms, Technology, Criticism

12 points by stalfosknight 28 days ago | 1 comments

As Internet enshittification marches on, here are some of the worst offenders (arstechnica.com)
Two years ago, a Canadian writer named Cory Doctorow coined the phrase "enshittification" to describe the decay of online platforms.

Internet Culture, Online Platforms, Technology, Criticism

12 points by pseudolus 29 days ago | 1 comments

As Internet enshittification marches on, here are some of the worst offenders (arstechnica.com)
Two years ago, a Canadian writer named Cory Doctorow coined the phrase "enshittification" to describe the decay of online platforms.

Internet Culture, Online Platforms, Criticism, Technology, Social Media

12 points by CharlesW 29 days ago | 8 comments

Why Children's Books? (lrb.co.uk)
In 1803, Samuel Taylor Coleridge sat in his astronomer’s study in Keswick, and wrote in his notebook his central Principle of Criticism:

Literature, Criticism, Children's Literature

92 points by ferman 35 days ago | 70 comments

AI is failing the Indoor Plumbing Test (freddiedeboer.substack.com)
The AI conversation remains absurd, hype-ridden, and utterly out of touch with actual material reality.

Artificial Intelligence, Technology, Criticism

16 points by ForHackernews 39 days ago | 0 comments

The real motivation behind systemd (2018) (unixdigest.com)
Personally I didn't have a problem with systemd in the beginning, when it was just a new init system. However, my problem with systemd today is that it has turned into a kind of Trojan horse. It is an attempt by Red Hat (IBM) to change the world of Linux in order to better serve their corporate interests.

Operating Systems, Linux, Open Source, Software, Criticism

47 points by sharpshadow 46 days ago | 51 comments

Rust's Downfall: From Rising Star to Rejected by Major Projects (medium.com)
Rust, once celebrated as a game-changer in systems programming, has found itself facing a wave of criticism following a string of high-profile setbacks.

Rust, Programming Languages, Software Development, Criticism

9 points by ThatGuyRaion 48 days ago | 1 comments

The Trouble with Elon (samharris.substack.com)
I didn’t set out to become an enemy of the world’s richest man, but I seem to have managed it all the same.

Elon Musk, Sam Harris, Criticism, Public Figures, Social Media

89 points by pulisse 50 days ago | 66 comments

How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love Lynn's National IQ Estimates (astralcodexten.com)
Richard Lynn was a scientist who infamously tried to estimate the average IQ of every country. Typical of his results is this paper, which ranged from 60 (Malawi) to 108 (Singapore).

Intelligence, Psychology, Sociology, Research, Criticism

10 points by tontonius 50 days ago | 2 comments

WordPress Is in Trouble (anderegg.ca)
Since I last wrote about WordPress, things have gone off the rails. This after a brief period when things were blissfully quiet.

WordPress, Web Development, Technology, Criticism

631 points by ulrischa 52 days ago | 434 comments

Literate programming: Knuth is doing it wrong (2014) (akkartik.name)
Literate programming advocates this: Order your code for others to read, not for the compiler. Beautifully typeset your code so one can curl up in bed to read it like a novel. Keep documentation in sync with code. What's not to like about this vision? I have two beefs with it: the ends are insufficiently ambitious by focusing on a passive representation; and the means were insufficiently polished, by over-emphasizing typesetting at the cost of prose quality.

Programming, Software Development, Criticism, Literature

132 points by surprisetalk 53 days ago | 134 comments

The Cravenness of Mark Zuckerberg (ft.com)
The cravenness of Mark Zuckerberg

Social Media, Mark Zuckerberg, Criticism

7 points by this_weekend 53 days ago | 4 comments

Apple squandered the Holy Grail (xeiaso.net)
Why Apple Intelligence failed even though everything it's built upon is nearly perfect

Apple, Business, Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Criticism

423 points by caust1c 60 days ago | 556 comments

Why the U.S. Patent System is SCAM [video] (youtube.com)

Criticism, Law, Video

4 points by fezz 61 days ago | 2 comments

Mufasa's 'Bye Bye' shows how Disney villain songs went wrong (polygon.com)
Every day, Disney strays further from the wishing star’s light. And there’s one big reason for that: a staggering lack of animated villains. The studio has only produced a handful of movies with actual villains over the last 15 years, and as Disney fans frequently note, that means we’ve lost a glorious entertainment staple in the Disney villain song.

Disney, Animation, Music, Criticism

31 points by hyperific 66 days ago | 30 comments

The Nintendo Switch EShop Is a Bigger Slop Factory Than (kotaku.com)
If you’ve recently loaded up the Nintendo Switch’s eShop to buy something or search for a specific game, you’ve likely noticed that the digital store is filled with a lot of garbage that was likely made quickly and is only there to cash in on a trend or holiday.

Gaming, Nintendo, E-commerce, Criticism

5 points by PaulHoule 68 days ago | 0 comments

Google's Results Are Infested, Open AI Is Using Their Playbook from the 2000s (chuckwnelson.com)
You know when you go on a picnic, sometimes there's a fly that decides to join you.

Google, OpenAI, Search Engines, Artificial Intelligence, Criticism

470 points by chuckwnelson 68 days ago | 485 comments

LLMs are everything that it wrong in computing (crys.site)
For decades corporations have been doing anything in their power to make computers worse.

Computing, Criticism

62 points by lr0 69 days ago | 57 comments

Something is wrong on the Internet (lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com)
I just read two long diatribes on the Internet about what’s wrong with . . . well pretty much everything.

Internet Culture, Criticism, Opinion

74 points by toss1 74 days ago | 101 comments

Spotify's Plot Against Musicians (harpers.org)
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Music Industry, Spotify, Criticism

13 points by gennarro 76 days ago | 8 comments