Author | Lightnews

Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · 1d

yeah

Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · 1d

I don't ask ChatGPT to solve my life problems for me, I ask it to write code. It's a good and reasonable use case for it, it's not stealing anyone's soul. I asked people to help me and they didn't. It's not a big ask.

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · 1d

Probably should, if it's a UK number.

Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · 1d

Yes! (Sorry, I don't check in here much rn.) I use Ubuntu 24.05 on a convertible Dell laptop/tablet and Raspberry Pi OS on a couple of different Pis, all with customized interfaces because I'm a big nerd. My daily driver is a MacBook Pro, though.

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · 1d

Remember, I literally uploaded a zip of my entire API routes folder like two hours before I started catching on to all this. I then went to the local cafe to get coffee and read for an hour and a half, came back, and it had no memory of this.

That's bizarre, right? It's not just me, right?

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · 1d

And just in case you think my expectations are unreasonable: when you do the paid subscription you get access to "Projects" where you can "add files" and such. It even says on my Kowloon Project in the ChatGPT app that I have "1 file attached".

Then look at my last interaction with the AI itself.

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · 1d

So if anyone can explain to me why I shouldn't be very angry about this waste of time and money or why I shouldn't cancel my subscription right now and delete the app and just resign myself to spending months more than I'd thought on my project, please, I am all fucking ears.

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · 1d

As it says: this is a deliberate choice on the part of its owners, as is the choice to not make their customers aware of this beyond the "hahaha, this thing makes shit up, don't trust it" disclaimer.

But it's not making up bullshit, it's getting its hippocampus wiped every few minutes.

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · 1d

Again: I don't anthropomorphize AI and I don't use it to be my pal or my therapist. I have one thing I mostly use it for that is supposed to be the one thing it's better at than anything else, except bullshitting. And it turns out it can't even do that.

But it's not a technical limitation, is it?

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · 1d

I don't think it was unreasonable of me to assume that if I'm paying for a tool and it allows me to upload files to a "project" folder, that it would not forget that information as soon as I went to take an extra long piss or get coffee.

Computers usually, and let me be clear, DON'T FORGET SHIT.

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · 1d

I am trying to imagine what it would be like to collaborate with an experienced dev with Guy Pearce/Memento style short term amnesia, and... yep, it would be like this. And I'm paying for this. (Though not for much longer.)

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · 1d

And it has no self-awareness so it can't even *tell* me, which is like weaponized pathos. It just happily agrees with anything I say even though it literally has no memory of what the topic of conversation is.

This is not very good when you're using it as a development partner/tool.

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · 1d

If I close a chat window, or go away from the chat for an unknown amount of time, or if OpenAI runs a load balancing switch, or for no apparent reason at all, it instantly forgets *everything I've told it* except for basic preferences. It forgets what I wrote, what it wrote, the code I gave it....

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · 1d

But this week it started acting exactly like people I've known with dementia -- forgetting stuff we'd literally talked about a half hour earlier, forgetting its own code, imagining we'd used libraries I'd never even heard of, contradicting itself. I couldn't figure it out.

Then I asked outright.

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · 1d

I do not think ChatGPT is sentient and I understand it's a Markov chain on bathtub crank, but I thought that was sufficient to be able to help me write code for my open source project that I think has a lot of social value. That's why I pay for it. I don't need a buddy or a sexting partner.

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · 1d

I just discovered that I'm paying a monthly subscription to @openaidevs.bsky.social for a coding assistant with enforced dementia. I'm not exaggerating. ChatGPT's short term memory gets dumped randomly every few... minutes? Hours?

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · 18d

Never let it be said that Americans can't figure out a way to turn lemons into lemonade.

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · Sep 17

Man, if you think we're disrespectful about Charlie Kirk's death, you got no idea how offended you're gonna be when It Finally Happens. 😂😂😂

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · Sep 15

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · Sep 15

Some people think I'm too long-winded. Fair enough.

If you don't think pedophilia is a debatable idea but ethnic supremacy or homophobia are, you're a bigoted piece of shit human being. Period.

Is that succinct enough, or do you require an explanation?

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · Sep 14

When it comes to racists and bigots, I do not play: I consider them to be my inferiors and myself their better, as well as anyone who defends their hatred as just another ware in the marketplace of ideas.

I'm quite serious. They're not as good as I am, period. And I treat them that way.

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Reposted by Joshua Ellis

James Van Fleevil Dead @horrorfilms101.bsky.social · Sep 13

Horror movie where the Child-Eating Cyclops Monster eats children every week, but because he wears a clean suit and tie and frames his desire to eat children as an academic thought experiment, the authorities allow the Cyclops to continue for the sake of civility.

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · Sep 12

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · Sep 12

Y'all gonna make me lose my mind up in here, up in here

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Joshua Ellis @jzellis.bsky.social · Sep 12

If you look carefully at Trump today, the sagging right side of his face actually reads "transgender ideology"

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