Post #3397030
2026-06-25 05:36 UTC
Replies (33)
-
@RosaCtrl@social.vivaldi.net 2026-06-25 05:47
RE: https://social.vivaldi.net/@RosaCtrl/114409610291341173 @typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt I think we are in Taking care of god, except we are the dying civilisation
-
@ericschutte@mastodon.nl 2026-06-25 06:24
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt Yes, I totally agree. But “DON’T PANIC” seems less plausible every day.
-
@energisch_@troet.cafe 2026-06-25 06:30
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt only the intension is different: Our techgiants don't build increasingly bigger computers to answer questions. They build them to gain more power over other people, nations, economies. There is no quest for answers. Only for profits.
-
@nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social 2026-06-25 06:39
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt And they were the filthy rich people who did it too...
-
@bright_helpings@mspsocial.net 2026-06-25 07:22
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt i was literally just thinking about this very thing yesterday
-
@davidtheeviloverlord@mastodon.social 2026-06-25 07:45
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt So much of today's reality has been ripped off from science fiction. Tech-bros looked at all the dystopian warnings, and saw instruction manuals.
-
@GracelessHippo@mastodon.ie 2026-06-25 07:49
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt As do the industry of philosophers built up around it to jump on the gravy train of the gullible
-
@craignicol@glasgow.social 2026-06-25 07:51
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt @gombang@social.nancengka.com maybe we should put the mice in charge
-
@Janet_52square@sunny.garden 2026-06-25 08:15
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt He saw so much, but just didn’t know to call it ‘Deep Slop’…
-
@yakmacker@society.kalli.st 2026-06-25 09:13
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt best part is, the answer was also wrong
-
@magpieluvseeds@mastodon.social 2026-06-25 09:26
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt just remember who’s the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
-
@rooftopjaxx@kolektiva.social 2026-06-25 09:52
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt All Power To The White Mice.
-
@capnthommo@c.im 2026-06-25 09:54
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt I think the sweetest bit about that is that so little attention was paid at all stages of the project was that the answer (42) ended up being the solution to the ultimate question "what is six times seven?"
-
@stevewfolds@mastodon.world 2026-06-25 10:08
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt @capnthommo@c.im “The Nine Billion Names of God”, Short story by Arthur C. Clarke, 1953. 6 pages https://faculty.winthrop.edu/kosterj/WRIT510/readings/The%20Nine%20Billion%20Names%20of%20God.pdf
-
@Bastianoso@mastodon.social 2026-06-25 10:18
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt We should stop the replies once we hit the number 42.
-
@daveybot@mastodon.scot 2026-06-25 10:35
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt I think Deep Thought's further reflection on the somewhat tedious nature of the whole wretched exercise was also particularly telling: "...So long as you can keep disagreeing with each other violently enough and slagging each other off in the popular press, you can keep yourself on the gravy train for life."
-
@luc0x61@mastodon.gamedev.place 2026-06-25 10:57
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt For now we're still at the regular computer level (the advanced computer was planet Earth, to give the ultimate question). And even at this level the LLMs can't compute results to 42.
-
@corpsmoderne@mamot.fr 2026-06-25 11:26
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt at least the answer was short and to the point and not an endless flow of gibberish 😩
-
@curtmack@floss.social 2026-06-25 11:28
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt up there with the Twilight Zone episode about the man who finds a fortune telling machine at a diner that gives generic but seemingly always true answers, and he becomes obsessed and starts asking the machine everything
-
@darrenhartland@caneandable.social 2026-06-25 11:30
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt Adams was a genius and way ahead of his time, and possibly mostly harmless.
-
@F100@mastodon.social 2026-06-25 12:34
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt Also see Asimov's "The Last Question" "By the year 2061, two technicians ask Multivac, the supercomputer that powers human civilization, whether entropy can be reversed. The computer responds that it lacks sufficient data to answer. As millennia pass, humanity continues to pose this same question to ever more advanced computers— Each time, the response remains unchanged..." https://www.unsoft.com/shortstory/lastquestionasimov.pdf
-
@ferricoxide@blahaj.zone 2026-06-25 12:39
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt So does the B Ark. Or, at least, one wishes there might be a B Ark. They didn't have "influencers" — on social media or otherwise — back when Adams was still around, but he probably would have included them with the public telephone cleaners.
-
@jens@social.finkhaeuser.de 2026-06-25 12:59
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt It was a warning not to build the torment nexus, but techbros misunderstood and in fact built the torment nexus.
-
@WolframZell@mastodon.social 2026-06-25 13:14
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt I think the idea behind this is, that if you don't have the right questions, the answers are useless and that finding the right questions is the hard part. On the other hand the right questions may yield the answer in themself.
-
@wesdym@mastodon.social 2026-06-25 13:28
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt This tale is likely analogue for real-life experiences or observations. In this case, the infernal habit of large companies to pour horrible amounts of treasure into half-baked plans, only to have to come back later and do the same, only much more, to fix those oversights. My father, when he was a consultant, said the mentality is, there's never time and money to do it right the first time, but there's always time and money to do it over.
-
@rl_dane@polymaths.social 2026-06-25 13:37
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt Me watching dystopian B-movies in the early nineties: "This is so hilariously stupid and implausible." Me in 2026: "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU—" 😂🤣😭
-
@Dero@socialbc.ca 2026-06-25 13:51
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt @skyglowberlin@fediscience.org Jeopardy nightmare episode
-
@UpLateGeek@bitbang.social 2026-06-25 17:13
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt the even funnier part was that the question that the computer came up with was the wrong question to begin with!
-
@zauberlaus@chaos.social 2026-06-25 21:22
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt and that it can’t do proper arithmetic is just spot on
-
@F100@mastodon.social 2026-06-25 21:44
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt also see Robert Sheckley's "Ask a Foolish Question": https://archive.org/details/askafoolishquest33854gut #scienceFiction #ai #ThatstheWrongQuestion
-
@Tionisla@mastodon.bsd.cafe 2026-06-26 07:12
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt ACK, and I still think Arthur Dent trying to tell the nutri-matic food dispenser so it can make "almost but not quite like Tea" is a pretty good prophecy of slop prompting. Back in the 80ies I found it a hilarious idea, now it scares me how good Douglas Adams predicted our present/future (Grabs towel, gazes uneasily at the sky)
-
@gcvsa@mstdn.plus 2026-06-27 02:28
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt There's just one thing. The computer to calculate the answer was actually a computer. The computer to calculate the question was actually all of Planet Earth. But here's the kicker: Earth was destroyed by the Vogon fleet just 5 minutes before it was due to announce the result. And *that*, my friend, *that* feels like exactly where we are heading, with the Vogon commander in the White House.
-
@geonz@mathstodon.xyz 2026-06-27 03:05
@typeswitch@gamedev.lgbt especially if it makes a few people jack-off rich.