this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
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Calling people NPCs because they use AI is pretty ironic. Using a tool doesn't make someone less human, any more than using a calculator makes someone incapable of thinking. The real question is whether people are using AI to expand their thinking or outsourcing it entirely. Blindly repeating AI-generated content is one thing; using AI as a tool for creativity, learning, or productivity is another. Judge the thought, not the tool.
Comparing LLMs to simple tools is a bullshit argument. Calculators are deterministic and they don't confidently give incorrect answers, for one.
The hammer doesn't hit the nail 100% of the time. Sometimes it hits your thumb and it hurts a lot.
A professional will be able to handle a hammer a lot better than an amateur.
The IPO bots are out to pump the numbers. This is an established routine lol. The idiots eat it up
Calling people NPCs because they delegate their thinking to a machine.
Unused, the brain atrophies. The human dies.
There's still a living body, most of the time, but it's merely the slop machine's peripheral.
A husk, a mockery of humanity, a corporation's wet dream, still given the same rights and respect as a real living human being, despite being merely a tool to carry on the corporation's whims.
NPCs is appropriate. Clearer than reverse centaurs.
A meat proxy.
i am absolutely judging the tool. no matter how you use it, you're tacitly approving of its existence. by continuing to use chatgpt and claude, you're essentially saying "all the stealing you did, all the power you use, all the underhanded business tactics keeping you afloat, i'm okay with that."
Don't want to wake you, but this is happening with the majority of products in imperialism. The AI it's just a bigger more concentrated tool of theft.
If you are ok with the stealing of lives (kids/adults) in Africa, Asia or wherever, it's a little ironic to have a problem with the AI stealing all the continents.
"and yet you participate in society"
You both have a point, but I've seen people make excuses such as the fact that ethically produced chocolate isn't as cheap as non-ethically produced chocolate, which could be bought everyday. But why buy and eat chocolate everyday?
It is the same thing with factory farming; people now expect to eat more meat than people had, and advertising says to men that you're as masculine as the amount of meat you eat.
The influence of hyperconsumerism is horrible, it justifies luxury at the expense of ethics as a necessity.
The ones at the top have the worst case of luxury addiction.
what is with the high school level takes today? the system is bad, people exist in the system, people need to remain sane, people can indulge in a bit of badness sometimes in order to remain sane without being labeled as bad. that's the baseline. that's where the discussion should start. the response to "there is no ethical consumption under capitalism" should not be to just consume everything.
i have cheap clothes that are likely cheap because of unethical practices. same with my phone, same with my food. the difference between all those and an llm is that i need all of those things to exist in polite society. i do not need an llm.
some people's situation is such that they need a car. that's fine. they do not need an llm. some people have businesses that can only reach enough customers through social media. that's fine. they do not need an llm.
llms are the civet coffee of the digital world. expensive, bad for the environment in more ways than you think, highly unethical, nothing special, and completely unnecessary. nobody needs coffee, but some people "need" coffee. but nobody needs civet coffee. like nobody needs an llm.
What do you mean? What I'm getting is that people must do bad things to remain sane in a bad system but they have to do it in small doses so they don't be labeled as a bad person? Sorry, this part is just unclear to me.
I guess what I can get from that, is that some people think huge doses of it are normalised, it's what they're used to. In a bad society, unethically produced chocolate is cheap, advertising says—and omitting the fact it is unethically produced—it will make you feel good, from childhood to adulthood.
And since people dislike change, being confronted with the fact that something that feels good is actually bad results in cognitive dissonance. Eating chocolate daily something they're used to, and even if an ethical option exists, if they can only afford it once in every 3 days, they are unwilling to change even if they must support slavery.
When people do boycotts what tends to happen is that they find out that they don't in fact, need something that is basically a luxury to that degree. It was just something they are used to.
People can dislike boomers and privileged people for the same thing. I mean, if you think you are allowed to criticise them, don't you think the ones below you also have the right to criticise you? Because unfortunately, I am one of the people whose suffering westerners find acceptable as long as it brings them convenience. Like CEOs with their employees, now that I think of it.
Same thing with clothes, phones and cars. There are people who make fun of others for being diligent with the 20-80 rule because apparently normal people should replace phones every 2 years. Seeing comments like that really shocked me because I am not used to seeing such an attitude of luxury. Since I don't edit videos or play demanding games, when my battery fails me every 3 years I would replace my battery. Hearing people buy clothes every month for a total of 12 per year also somewhat shocked me, because in 5 years that's already 60 pieces of clothing. And it is shocking to see American traffic because their cars are big AF.
not must. i mean that we should not judge people for acting how the system wants them to. being a conscious consumer is good, but you're not automatically a bad person if you splurge occasionally.
what i take issue with is the "double standards" comment, which essentially says "if you don't use llms but you own a phone/commute by car/eat meat/whatever, you're a hypocrite". it ignores the context in which people exist.
i will absolutely call people out for replacing their phone every two years or shopping on shein, but i will not judge them for simply owning a car. some places have shitty infrastructure.
likewise, i will not judge someone who just wants a taste of luxury now and then, like taking a fancy vacation once in a while. but i will judge the hell out of them if the destination is dubai.
point being, people need to be able to treat themselves occasionally without being shamed. shame is reserved for those who do it all the time, especially when knowing the cost.
llms are a new luxury. i will not judge people for trying them out. i will, however, explain the real cost. if they persist after that, they will be shamed.
Yes, but I don’t go blindfolded and I don’t have double standards. AI is the pinnacle of the system not a problem (get as much as you can from others without give something).
since when is "i will not contribute to worsening the system i am forced to be a part of" a double standard? people need to eat. they do not need chatbots.
They don’t need a lot. They don’t need 3000cc cars, 2 closet of unused clothes, new iphone/android every year, etc etc. But guess what.
what?
The gimmicks I decribed are in the same category with the AI usage.
Its double standard when your friend buys a new iphone every year, and you say nothing to him, but when they use AI you start the debate. Its based on stealing others countries minerals / work, and its bad for the planet.
ah, so you're making assumptions. i see.
No assumptions. This is how the modern society works. USA is 4% of the world's population and consumes around 25%. And it is just a country.
you're making assumptions about people not saying anything, based on the (observed) behaviour of 4% of the population, and then, believing yourself to be the only one to either a) call people out and living as you're learning, or b) not caring even a bit, take an assumed moral high ground which given a) is amazingly narrow-minded, or given b) is downright disturbing.
people do what they can, and they should be commended when they change for the better. a tool notably does what it's designed to do, and should be criticised if that thing is bad.
What makes you think that anyone on this site is ok with that?
Do you know where you are right now?
It was an answer to a comment not a post.
You should change the anyone to everyone, because the majority does it, either without knowing or knowing and has no alternative. Its called modern society.
What if one doesn't use commercial LLMs, and use open-source local LLM instead?
the ones that are actually open, as in publishing not only weights but training data and code, are startlingly few.
What about using the output of the tool?
Like, if I take one of those life-saving drugs discovered by AI... What's your take?
Or if I look at the hurricane path prediction maps.
Or if the fusion reactor designs created with AI work out.
none of those are llm-based systems. as for llm-created things, i will avoid them like the plague because normalising them is giving even more power to the owners.
The OP didn't specify. The post is just about "AI".
Also, the pharmaceutical AI is the same AI as LLMs. It's just trained differently.
lol
It's quite refreshing to find sometimes people thinking the same things I do about the current state of the world, it seems the vocal majority is on the AI hype train. Maybe I am naive but I hope there are many people "like us" that simply keep their opinions less public, just because they are not so hyped and following the trend
most people i know in computer-related professions have negative opinions on llms. they range from unimpressed to 100% opposed. people who are neutral to positive are usually not aware of any background.
An oxymoron.
Thought-terminating cliché
That's actually a pretty great description of LLMs.
Where did you hear this term 😁😁, you heard the adults talking and thought you understood. So precious
Lemmy users would've hated when the calculator was invented.
Comparing LLMs to calculators is so goddamn disingenuous.
If people equated calculators to have achieved the ability to solve all the problems of mathematics or replace mathematicians, people would be pissed off.
Fuck you, with a rake, sideways. You're either the most disingenuous person who ever lived (unlikely, stiff competition, you're not smart enough), or the dumbest person who ever lived (obviously true lmao, we can all tell)
Ok, when?
I used to be able to do long division in my head. Square roots. That kind of thing.
Then they allowed us to use calculators in class, and I was too young to realise the danger. Now that part of my brain is gone. Dead. I can't do those calculations without using the machine as a crutch. It mutilated me, maimed me, killed a part of me, and made me dependent on it.
I won't let LLMs do the same to the rest of my brain, and will treat anyone who does with the pity, disgust, and existential nausea and horror they deserve.
This is the correct take. You're 100% correct, all of us who used to "think" (how archaic! The TV screen tells us what to think) feel this way.