Brutkey

Martin Seeger
@masek@infosec.exchange

I am working in the IT for nearly 40 years now and most tutorials sound like that for me as well:

https://anniemueller.com/posts/how-i-a-non-developer-read-the-tutorial-you-a-developer-wrote-for-me-a-beginner

Martin Seeger
@masek@infosec.exchange

Dear OSS community on Mastodon,

Every day I scroll through my feed and I see proud announcements like:

“First Alpha Relase of HyperTurboWidget available"

“Version 2.7.1 now with improved glorb handlers!”

“Flux Capacitor version 4.5 is out”

We are proud to announce Flux Capacitor version 4.5 is now avalaible. While it creates a nice wormhole to 1955, it requires an underlying gigawatt stack 1.21 to work reliably.

Martin Seeger
@masek@infosec.exchange

I notice in a lot of discussions that I need to write down how I proceed when something new or revolutionary is announced in the press or the internet. So here it comes....

1/5

Martin Seeger
@masek@infosec.exchange

How do I use AI and handle AI-generated content?


I regularly use AI to discuss the texts I’m writing. For example, I want to see whether the AI understands what I was trying to say and how I played with certain ideas. If it doesn’t get it, maybe I should adapt my phrasing.

Sadly, the AI is often better at recognizing allusions than the average reader.

Sometimes I know an exact quote, but only in a different language from the one I’m writing in. That’s something I can verify with AI far more easily than with a search engine.

I don’t always have the right people around to discuss an idea with. An AI is no substitute for a competent expert on the topic, but it’s still far more useful than just letting the idea bounce around in my head for hours. It’s too crowded in there anyway.

My biggest issue when working with AI is that I’d prefer a grumpy professor over a cheerleader. AI feedback tends to be far too positive, and it doesn’t clearly separate important criticism from minor stylistic notes.

In my experience, AI works best on small text segments and when given plenty of context. Asking it to write long pieces is just asking for it to go off the rails. So I try to discuss it in small pieces.

But most important of all: I take full responsibility for everything that comes out at the end. This goes far beyond avoiding hallucinations, it has to say exactly what I intended to say.

That’s also what I expect from others who use AI. I don’t mind AI artifacts like the “rule of three.”

I’d rather see a mediocre AI-generated picture at the top of a post than an advertisement with 397 tracking cookies attached. But be aware: it still reduces the quality of your statement.

What I can’t stand is text being inflated by AI from a half-statement just to fill a page. And if you use AI, you’re responsible for keeping it on the rails. If the AI spews nonsense under your name, I’ll treat it as if you had written it yourself.

So, in summary: I judge any text primarily by its intrinsic value. Does it provide new information, and is it dense enough? Do I like the style? Is it consistent and coherent?

If yes, I don’t care whether you used a pen or ChatGPT.

If not, any use of an AI was simply a waste of resources.

Martin Seeger
@masek@infosec.exchange

This is a valuable lesson for any manufacturer: never awaken the nerd sleeping inside your customer, because his wrath shall be terrible.

In this case the warning was quite literal.

The company annoyed a buyer enough to push him into full blown nerd mode. He tore the product apart, reverse engineered every part, and then published a step by step guide showing exactly how to disable "kill switch" that prevented the use of the product without the vendor spying on the user.

What started as a minor grievance became a public, technical exposé that left the maker exposed and embarrassed.

Moral of the story: underestimate your users at your own peril.

The Day My Smart Vacuum Turned Against Me

Update: This post seems to have struck a nerve and went very wide. As I will not be able to answer every comment, I want to add a few points:
The linked article was not written by me. It came to me on a different channel (Discord). I only wrote the post on Mastodon.
The top image in the article looks AI generated. It is no a good image, but in my view less irritating than an advertisement (which is far more common).
Some people suggest the article itself is AI generated. I don't think this is the case. I wouldn't rule out he author wrote the text in a different language and used AI for translation assistance.
The claims in the article are not fully backed by the linked repo, but the general statement is correct and IMHO important.

Martin Seeger
@masek@infosec.exchange

Wenn Euer Windows die nächsten Tage einen Bluescreen schmeißt und es danach den Bitlocker-Wiederherstellungsschlüssell will: das sind die Updates von Microsoft.

Martin Seeger
@masek@infosec.exchange

Service-Toot:

Martin Seeger
@masek@infosec.exchange

Deutschland, 10 Uhr: Ich bin verdammt dankbar dafür, im Norden an der Küste zu leben

Martin Seeger
@masek@infosec.exchange

Quelle "live"-Daten: https://www.wetterdienst.de/Deutschlandwetter/Beobachtungen/Temperatur/

Martin Seeger
@masek@infosec.exchange

Deutschland, 10 Uhr: Ich bin verdammt dankbar dafür, im Norden an der Küste zu leben

Martin Seeger
@masek@infosec.exchange

Wenn ich Chrome nicht schon länmgst deinstalliert hätte, spätestens jetzt wird es langsam dringlich:

https://social.heise.de/@heiseonline/115019242592426570

Im Artikel heisst es:

Das Angebot übersteigt zwar den Börsenwert Perplexitys deutlich […]