Paul Rietschka
prietschka.bsky.social
Paul Rietschka
@prietschka.bsky.social
Data science/machine learning in the Pacific Northwest. In Minneapolis through mid-2026.

Claude Code has not, in any way, blown my mind.
When they imagine a future, you’re not in it.
These guys just Say Things, but I think it's worth just taking them at their word that they want to decimate labor so that profit can be an automated process where the only people making money are each other.
Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman says most white-collar work "will be fully automated by an AI within the next 12 to 18 months.”

If that’s true, it’s an economic earthquake.

We need a moratorium on new AI data centers to make sure AI works for workers, not just billionaires.
February 17, 2026 at 10:22 PM
Jfc, it must dystopian to be a college student today. This sounds utterly awful.
Panos Ipeirotis (NYU): "How I started using exit tickets (short feedback surveys after every class) and processing them through NotebookLM to generate follow-up materials before the next session. The feedback loop went from one semester to a few hours." www.behind-the-enemy-lines.com/2026/02/list...
Listening to My Students at Scale: Exit Tickets, NotebookLM, and the Tightest Feedback Loop I've Ever Built
It started at a teaching workshop, last semester: Craig Kapp and Rob Egan presented a seminar at the NYU Center for Teaching and Learning ...
www.behind-the-enemy-lines.com
February 17, 2026 at 7:36 PM
I'm sick with what I think is Covid, though may just be a bad cold, and I'd definitely be the grown man in a comforter sleeping on the floor amongst a sea of pugs in this situation.
The Potato Patch is full today.
February 17, 2026 at 7:21 PM
What "advances?"

I see a bunch of animatronic dolls at trade shows. I see pathetic, curated displays with no real commercial applications in sight.

So...where are these advances?
DECADE OF THE ROBOT: AI ROBOTICS MARKET COULD HIT $1 TRILLION Barclays says AI-powered robots and autonomous machines could create a $1 trillion market by 2035, led by autonomous vehicles, drones, and humanoid robots. Advances in AI “brains,” hardware, and batteries are driving
February 17, 2026 at 7:16 PM
I hate these scummy little fucks so, so much.
This tweet appeared under this Techmeme headline:

Zak Kukoff / @zck:

Anthropic is one of those companies where the product is so good that I don't care how much they lib out. Banning them from DOW would be a massively self inflicted error
February 17, 2026 at 7:13 PM
I hate these scummy little shits so, so much.
This tweet appeared under this Techmeme headline:

Claire Vo / @clairevo:

Is Sonnet 4.6 like my girl Opus, but with less expensive tastes? Sign me up.
February 17, 2026 at 6:35 PM
Bjarnason gets it wrong in that all research to date shows productivity decreasing with LLM codegen use, but the thrust here is broadly right.

tl;dr: software as a profession is utterly, completely fucked; the future is much, much less employment in tech.
Getting a bit depressed as, no matter how I slice it, basic economics would seem to indicate that the software developer job market is largely fucked no matter what happens now. No matter whether the LLM tools work or not and no matter what happens to the bubble

(short thread)
February 17, 2026 at 6:04 PM
Lol, the race is over, Jan. And you lost.
February 17, 2026 at 5:26 PM
I'm shocked!
Ben Goertzel, popularizer of the term AGI and creator of the Sophia robot, congratulating Jeffrey Epstein the day after Epstein was released from prison.

Goertzel is mentioned in the files nearly 800 times, including well after the Miami Herald investigation in 2018.
February 17, 2026 at 5:20 PM
The idea SAAS is dead on account of unreliable "agents," a nonfunctional garbage technology, is insane.

Proof of how detached from reality AI discourse has become.

"Agents" don't work. "Agents" can't work. The underlying LLMs just lack the needed capacities.

AI in 2026 is like living in Bedlam.
This tweet appeared under this Techmeme headline:

John Held / @john_a_held:

One of the better analysis of how AI is impacting SaaS, specifically vertical software companies.
February 17, 2026 at 12:30 PM
The way Facebook moved from a simple social network to rolling out products everyone wants is a story for the ages.

Truly something that should be taught in business schools everywhere.
Meta has patented AI that can run a dead person's account, continuing to post and chat on their behalf

It can message and video call by replicating a user's online behavior using their past data
February 17, 2026 at 12:00 PM
This is so perfect. I have no words.
They released this like this

Why would anyone ever drive a car by people who do not Look At MEASUREMENTS
February 17, 2026 at 11:42 AM
I'm increasingly concerned about the ways discourse in tech has moved into the realm of pure artifice.

These people have no real connection with reality, and exist in a world of fantasy. It's quite mentally ill. x.com/nicbstme/sta...
x.com
February 17, 2026 at 11:40 AM
The idea the executive class has some sort of talent which entitles them to insane pay packages should be sufficient to expose economics for what it is: not a discipline, more a prostitute serving power.

It’s unbelievable such idiocy is taken seriously in an era defined by the likes of Elon Musk.
“A common objection to lavish pay is that good CEOs should be intrinsically motivated,” explains Alex Edmans. “Relying on professional pride sounds appealing, but it is unrealistic,” he argues
Dizzyingly high CEO pay is fine. It just needs to be earned
What’s changed is not the level of talent but its importance, writes Alex Edmans
econ.st
February 17, 2026 at 11:01 AM
OpenClaw, or whatever it’s called now, is a security nightmare with no future and one of the dumbest things to come on the scene in ages.

Its creator is a fool who vibe coded this monstrosity into existence.

It’s so, so clear the leading lights of tech are just a gaggle of nitwits.
'Eccentric but brilliant': OpenClaw's creator got feedback from Mark Zuckerberg
OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger joined OpenAI after fielding offers from both the company and Meta, where Zuckerberg personally tested the viral AI agent.
www.businessinsider.com
February 17, 2026 at 6:21 AM
We have a special, late night entry into "Blogging Culture is the STI of Tech."

Allow Mr Gannon to infect you with antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea this Monday eve. Enjoy the burning, the itching, the discharge, and the certitude your doctor is working to find a treatment regimen that works:
February 17, 2026 at 4:42 AM
"I built my own Zig, without actually knowing Zig, because...I had Claude do all the work for me and then I pretended it was my work product!"

"I see nothing at all wrong with this and believe every business should embrace making software in this way!"
February 17, 2026 at 2:38 AM
Another big release week for agents!

Manus continuing the trend of giving agents long-term memory and tools!

Whatever that means! I've no fucking idea!

I don't even really know what an agent is, because I've never seen a **single** good implementation, anywhere!

And never a Manus agent!
This tweet appeared under this Techmeme headline:

Andrew Curran / @andrewcurran_:

News thread for Feb 16th. The start of yet another big release week. Manus continuing the trend here of giving agents long-term memory and tools. [image]
February 16, 2026 at 11:25 PM
Lol.

I love this so much:
February 16, 2026 at 11:10 PM
Peter Steinberger is on Alexei Fedotov's podcast and I...part of me wants engage in self-harm and watch it. But, ugh....

The one clip I've seen has Steinberger -- an obvious steroid abuser, because of course -- remarking that he views "vibe coding" as a slur and prefers "agentic engineering."

Jfc.
February 16, 2026 at 10:55 PM
Claude Code blew my mind and changed the way I code! Get on board bro, or you'll be left behind!

The way I code (when I'm not injecting far too much synthetic testosterone and lifting 2-4 hrs/day):
February 16, 2026 at 10:45 PM
I love this entirely too much.

If I were teaching a course on AI this would definitely make it into one of the slides.
What could go wrong using AI to help stage a few listing photos?
February 16, 2026 at 10:40 PM
This is not a world I want to live in any longer.

As Gerard says in today's video: "the crash cannot happen soon enough."
The obnoxious GitHub OpenClaw AI bot is … a crypto bro
YouTube video by Pivot to AI
youtu.be
February 16, 2026 at 10:11 PM
Jfc.

Yes, this "idea" has become the "baseline" across "much of the left-intellectual landscape" insomuch that this "idea" is a description of what LLMs are and do.

There's nothing more happening than token prediction; these are synthetic text extruders, not cognitive machines enclosing a mind.
February 16, 2026 at 9:53 PM