Dark Arc

I think your issue should be with Reddit moderators not Ars.

ProPublica happily allows Ars to republish their stories by disclosing the source:

https://www.propublica.org/nerds/happy-birthday-creative-commons

Ars discloses the source compliantly:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/06/doge-used-flawed-ai-tool-to-munch-veterans-affairs-contracts/

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-doge-veterans-affairs-ai-contracts-health-care

ProPublica literally thanks Ars above for spreading their stories.

The Ars headline (with its subheading) also says a lot more. So it’s just … going to get more upvotes, it’s better bait.

As for the second article getting squashed… Again Reddit moderators.

This looks like a nonsensical conspiracy theory … ProPublica was not suppressed or harmed. Ars literally spread their exact story. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if more people read the story because they see “ArsTechnica” and assume good content (because Ars has a super nice website and regularly has really good journalism on it).

Yeah, I think I’m going to stick to my energizers … pretty much everything I use AA batteries for these days is a low draw device (door lock, smoke detector) or something like an emergency flash light, rechargeable batteries don’t make sense for either use case.

I have some old school nice rechargeable batteries as well with an external charger. Those were nice back in 2016 when my bose headphones I was using at the time used AAA batteries, but it’s been a long time since I’ve used those with any frequency.

Yeah, that’s not terrible advice.

I think I’m just a bit … demoralized about that … since I do know a lot of older folks (I literally shoveled the driveways of 4 older neighbors this winter and have various 50+ friends) and no help has come from that direction…

I might give it a shot though, thanks

That is how inflation works… when costs go up prices go up.

Yeah, your computer probably should cost a lot more in “today dollars” but because performance of components gets more efficient over time, you can likely get a better computer for less money.

It’s the same reason you have a computer more powerful than multiple thousands of dollar super computers. The technology has improved enough you don’t have to pay as much.

Do you think prices should just be locked in place for eternity at $60?

I haven’t seen any good hiking groups in my area. The ones that exist on meetup.com are mostly “people with grey hairs” … and there’s nothing wrong with that other than I just turned 30 last month.

It’s been that way throughout my twenties.

I’d joined a “young professionals” group and was starting to meet some people that way but … it ended up dying out over the pandemic.

Sure, but that doesn’t mean the game developers don’t need to be paid. It’s still a bargain for the work that’s being done.

If you look at inflation adjusted pricing, it really is a deal. IIRC we should be at like 90 or 100+ dollar games at this point.

Yeah, it looks like basic reasoning but it isn’t. These things are based on pattern recognition. “Assume all x are y, all z are y, are all z x?” is a known formulation … I’ve seen it a fair number of times in my life.

Recent development has added this whole “make it prompt itself about the question” phase to try and make things more accurate … but that also only works sometimes.

AI in LLM form is just a sick joke. It’s like watching a magic trick where half of people expect the magician to ACTUALLY levitate next year because … “they’re almost there!!”

Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, but I don’t see it…

I don’t buy the “it’s a neural network” argument. We don’t really understand consciousness or thinking … and consciousness is possibly a requirement for actual thinking.

Frankly, I don’t think thinking in humans is based anywhere near statical probabilities.

You can of course apply statistics and observe patterns and mimic them, but coorilation is not causation (and generally speaking, society is far too willing to accept coorilation).

Maybe everything reduces to “neural networks” in the same way LLM AI models them … but that seems like an exceptionally bold claim for humanity to make.

I actually did try rock climbing, my ex and I did it.

I proposed going to first time we dated, she got into it while we were split, I would go a few times a month with her, and then basically haven’t been in a few months since we split.

The climbing gym in my area is on the other side of town and just constantly PACKED and I was also never very good at it … plus I’m colorblind and the routes are color coded which makes it even trickier … so it’s not really my cup of tea.

But yeah, I’ve done it probably 15 times or so and have my own shoes.

I’ll probably give it another shot (this time with friends) once it gets cold again (I’m in NE Ohio).

Yeah … I appreciate the effort but I don’t think that’s a real answer.

I don’t want to date half way across the country or world … or slide into other people’s DMs (which is something girls ALSO complain about dudes doing).

At that point if the answer is “someone’s going to be possibly uncomfortable anyways” I’m better off just doing the cold approach where I can at least read body language.

Not to mention there are a ton of elements of attraction that just don’t work on a forum.

We can offload some basic reasoning tasks to an LLM Agent

No, you can’t. It cannot reason. It’s just been fed so much existing text that it appears like it can in some cases. That’s an extremely dangerous foundation on which to build anything.

I really think we just need to move on from this AI craze.

We don’t have a general intelligence. We may never have a general intelligence.

Keep using AI for what it’s good for: statistics based decision making. Stop trying to use AI for designing solutions; it’s not built for that because that requires reasoning which is something AI cannot do no matter how much snake oil society has been sold.

You want to use it for generating a picture, a poem, or a song … fine, it’s at least good at that because it doesn’t have to solve anything using facts, making stuff up IS the goal.

Honestly my biggest problem is:

• I don’t drink
• I don’t go to church / I’m not religious
• I work from home
• Video games and hiking are my two major “for fun” time expenditures
• I’ve seen too many women complain about dudes approaching them
• I hung out in a local coffee shop and met a couple of people, but no women (half the time if there were any there they seemed either much younger or much older … the other half of the time they’d show up and never come back so a cold approach was the only option)

… what the hell am I supposed to do other than use these apps society?

https://feddit.org/post/12430949

and even those people can’t be replaced.

He actually sounds like that

I’d argue you’re the one that’s committed the nirvana fallacy if anyone.

You want them to take a useful stance but you quit supporting them because it wasn’t enough of a useful stance.

I’m just saying, don’t moralize companies … they’ll let you down every time. It’s not about doing what’s right, it’s about fitting in. Companies are like the virtue signalers in high school, they’ll only do it if it’s cool.

Maybe that’s useful to your cause, maybe it isn’t, maybe you support them maybe you don’t, but I wouldn’t expect a company to do things from a place of morals.

It almost certainly already has replaced several.

Has it actually replaced them?

Sure maybe some people have lost their jobs, but I don’t think they’ve really been replaced.

It’s closer to laying someone off without replacement … because evening I’ve seen has suggested AI not only can’t do the work but it also doesn’t improve the productivity of workers using it in any meaningful way.

Also, AI is not synonymous with LLM.

I’d argue that’s all AI means anymore if it has any meaning left at all.

How is it late?

I mean any and all corporate support of a cause (like LGBTQ) is going to be performative. Don’t expect corporations to take a stand unless their existence is predicated on that cause.