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#genai

78 posts65 participants8 posts today
juliette

First day back at work from holiday. A colleague reaches out to check something reported about my company that is new to us. I find the subject matter expert and ask her - she says it's made up. I re-read the article and realise the whole thing is AI slop.
Now a media specialist has to reach out to the outlet to have the article corrected before it gets any further. 5 different people have wasted time on this.
How exactly is Gen AI saving time and money?
#AI #GenAI #AIslop

Reilly Spitzfaden (they/them)

“Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.”

One of those studies where the result seems self-evident, but it's nice to have research demonstrating it for when people try to argue that AI Is Great Actually.

arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872

Definitely going in my regularly-updated list of AI-critical writing and research: reillyspitzfaden.com/wiki/read

arXiv logo
arXiv.orgYour Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing TaskThis study explores the neural and behavioral consequences of LLM-assisted essay writing. Participants were divided into three groups: LLM, Search Engine, and Brain-only (no tools). Each completed three sessions under the same condition. In a fourth session, LLM users were reassigned to Brain-only group (LLM-to-Brain), and Brain-only users were reassigned to LLM condition (Brain-to-LLM). A total of 54 participants took part in Sessions 1-3, with 18 completing session 4. We used electroencephalography (EEG) to assess cognitive load during essay writing, and analyzed essays using NLP, as well as scoring essays with the help from human teachers and an AI judge. Across groups, NERs, n-gram patterns, and topic ontology showed within-group homogeneity. EEG revealed significant differences in brain connectivity: Brain-only participants exhibited the strongest, most distributed networks; Search Engine users showed moderate engagement; and LLM users displayed the weakest connectivity. Cognitive activity scaled down in relation to external tool use. In session 4, LLM-to-Brain participants showed reduced alpha and beta connectivity, indicating under-engagement. Brain-to-LLM users exhibited higher memory recall and activation of occipito-parietal and prefrontal areas, similar to Search Engine users. Self-reported ownership of essays was the lowest in the LLM group and the highest in the Brain-only group. LLM users also struggled to accurately quote their own work. While LLMs offer immediate convenience, our findings highlight potential cognitive costs. Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels. These results raise concerns about the long-term educational implications of LLM reliance and underscore the need for deeper inquiry into AI's role in learning.
#AI#GenAI#LLM
Replied in thread
Wulfy

@piku @johncarlosbaez

That depens what you need the map for...
Just because you open a can of beans, doesnt mean you cant pour the contents into a bowl and sprinke them with oregano and grated cheese.

...or you can add to the prompt "... name the states after their signature dish after a fictional civil war, split into three factions" (as you can see, the 1st cut results need a couple of corrective prompts...but you can surely see the fun.

#imagination#ai#maps
El Duvelle

This is not a joke... A press release from the UK government about a meeting of the "national drought group", in order to "save water at home", suggests to:

"Delete old emails and pictures as data centres require vast amounts of water to cool their systems"

... while the government also pushes for full-blown investments in, and adoption of, "genAI" (e.g. here ) with absolutely no mention of the environmental costs.. which are surely orders of magnitude worse than whatever a server uses to store old pictures, and for what?! 🤦🤦🤦

GOV.UK · National Drought Group meets to address “nationally significant” water shortfallBy Environment Agency
#GenAI#SavingThePlanet
Continued thread
Eric Maugendre

"In a sense, there is a massive private sector stimulus program underway in the U.S.. There is an AI datacenter spending program, one that is reallocating gobs of spending, as well as injecting even more.
[…]
"AI capex was likely the early-2025 difference between a mild contraction and a deep one, helping mask underlying economic weakness"
paulkedrosky.com/honey-ai-cape

Paul Kedrosky · Honey, AI Capex is Eating the EconomyAI capex is so big that it's affecting economic statistics, boosting the economy, and beginning to approach the railroad boom
#moneyCreation#bubble#finance
Daniel Schildt

“The Read the Docs project reported that blocking AI crawlers immediately decreased their traffic by 75 percent, going from 800GB per day to 200GB per day. This change saved the project approximately $1,500 per month in bandwidth costs”
arstechnica.com/ai/2025/03/dev

man sitting in sofa in a flooded living room, feets in water, writing on a laptop
Ars Technica · Open source devs say AI crawlers dominate traffic, forcing blocks on entire countriesBy Benj Edwards
#GenAI#infosec
Bill

Here's an interesting side effect of AI's intrusion in human resources. Everyone who reads this knows I'm an independent contractor, and working with HR has always been a struggle. Every company works differently. One thing I've noticed, is that now rather than directly contacting me, HR will reach out to executive management personally who will reach out to a direct report who will reach out to a direct report who will reach out to me. If there's a problem we scroll all the way back up that list and all the way back down every time.

I won't lie - it's a screaming pain in the ass. But, I understand the problem they're trying to solve. I also don't have a better solution for that problem.

#genai#hr
𝕂𝚞𝚋𝚒𝚔ℙ𝚒𝚡𝚎𝚕

Deren ihre Befürchtungen sind mMn sehr wohl berechtigt.

»Gesundheitswesen setzt auf GenAI – trotz Datenschutzbedenken:
Obwohl über 80 Prozent der Organisationen im Gesundheitswesen eine GenAI-Strategie verfolgen, mangelt es drei Vierteln an den nötigen Fachkräften. Die meisten Führungskräfte im Gesundheitswesen befürchten Datenschutzverletzungen und den Missbrauch von Gesundheitsdaten.«

🏥 netzwoche.ch/news/2025-08-12/g

www.netzwoche.chGesundheitswesen setzt auf GenAI – trotz DatenschutzbedenkenObwohl über 80 Prozent der Organisationen im Gesundheitswesen eine GenAI-Strategie verfolgen, mangelt es drei Vierteln an den nötigen Fachkräften. Die meisten Führungskräfte im Gesundheitswesen befürchten Datenschutzverletzungen und den Missbrauch von Gesundheitsdaten.
#schweiz#gesundheit#ki
Ian Campbell

This is some really smart digging: realizing that Claude Code does not require user interaction for certain bash commands, they discovered that DNS lookups were specifically allowlisted, clearing a trivial path for well-known DNS exfiltration methods.

So when I say “all these implementations are ignoring years and decades of lessons learned the hard way” it’s not hyperbole. Anthropic 100% cleared the path for DNS exfil here.

h/t to @cR0w - thank you!

#infosec #genai

embracethered.com/blog/posts/2

Embrace The RedClaude Code: Data Exfiltration with DNS · Embrace The Red
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