I'm tired of people complaining about the use of AI in foundational pieces of software, but the only time anything ever gets forked or the only time anyone cares, if it's something like a text editor. I get forking things like Linux is nearly impossible. You're never going to get the critical mass to do it. You're never going to get the expertise to do it. Text editors are easy. Things like "XML parsing" or "USB device handling" are specialist domain knowledge. But it's like. I'm starting to wonder if people really care about LLMs or if they just want to appear like they care. Because getting people to try to help work on alternatives for foundational shit, the domain where I live, because I don't work on UI shit I work lower in the stack, is like pulling teeth. Especially when quality of that shit has gone way way downhill in some parts of it and/or the devs are shitty. It's easy to get attention when an editor's authors use AI, or when an editor's authors are pieces of shit. It is almost impossible to get attention for "oh yeah libusb is run by an asshole and they're using slop." Both of which are true. You just fucking can't make anyone care. You can't make them realise that slop is coming for the foundations. Not just the use of AI but a gradual decline in quality that's going to get worse and is an invisible sort of rot that creeps in. And because no one wants to touch that part of the stack, they'll just keep working around it. I'm tired, boss. To be honest, "tired" doesn't even describe it. More like pissed off and tired of the straight-up hypocrisy. It's fun to dunk on AI and LLMs and slop up until the point of actually doing something meaningful at a level they don't see matters. Then suddenly people don't seem to care about slop anymore. Huh. It's almost like it's not actually about AI but aesthetics. It's like "certified organic" or going vegetarian in a performative way. You wanna look like you're doing something. But you don't really want to do anything either. I mean a handful of people care at some levels, but getting people to care in general is impossible. Getting people to contribute to things without it? Psh, good fucking luck. Same as it ever fucking was, innit. People like the aesthetics of activism without any of the actual work. Good God, people deserve slop if this is how they're gonna be.