Artificial idiocy, real arrogance
On the infliction of artificial idiocy without consent
I think Craig P understates this: “The newest version of Firefox added browser.ml.linkPreview.* settings in about:config, which apparently serve no purpose other than popping up massive, stupid overlays where they offer to use AI to describe the bookmark you've visited 500 times.
“So fuckin' stupid that we have to constantly disable more and more settings they've randomly added to get around the fact that we've disabled all the settings. It's just the fucking worst, people that run companies are all brain-dead assholes.”[1]
Broligarchs are remarkably obsessed with ramming artificial idiocy down our throats even where we don’t want it and despite our considerable skepticism.[2] In essence, despite all the ‘hallucinated’ ‘slop,’ they are convinced that they know what’s good for us, or that they can make money on it (though “profits remain scarce, and some economists are warning of an impending bubble,” and “the potential return on these massive investments remains murky”[3]), or both.
Having begun my adult life in high technology—this was in the late 1970s to mid-1980s—I know something of the empowerment that people who work in this industry can feel as they create new ways to get technology to do useful things. It’s an empowerment that leads to arrogance, an arrogance we see whenever we are baffled by technology that developers conceive as brain-dead obvious; when, having finally mastered one bit, we are confronted with an upgrade that demands we figure it all out again; when, as with artificial idiocy, quantitative methods are applied to qualitative problems, leaving us with unsatisfactory “solutions” presumed to work for most of us most of the time; when buggy products are released by delusional developers who think testing is for other people; when we seek user support and are treated to artificial idiocy; and when developers reply to such complaints with a collective “not us!” or “not all developers!”
Guys—and yes, most developers are still men—I’ve been there and I know better. It’s toxic masculinity just as surely as the drivers of pickup trucks “rolling coal,” just as surely as in the antics that raise doubts as to how any men survive to reproduce, just as surely as in pointless aggression. And as for the women, they’re largely competing to out-“man” the men. So spare me.
Mozilla (the developer of Firefox) is far from alone in pushing artificial idiocy on us without our consent. I remember, even six years ago, before I left the San Francisco Bay Area, seeing billboard after billboard hyping artificial idiocy as the greatest thing since rubbing two sticks together to produce fire. Artificial idiocy is everywhere now, without our consent, while broligarchs smack their lips with delight over the labor costs they’re sure they’ll reduce (and they neglect the question of who will be able to afford to buy their products).
It’s a form of assault.
[1] Craig P, Mastodon, December 26, 2025, https://mastodon.social/@Craigp/115788765657548672
[2] Brian Kennedy et al., “How Americans View AI and Its Impact on People and Society,” Pew Research Center, September 17, 2025, https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2025/09/17/how-americans-view-ai-and-its-impact-on-people-and-society/
[3] Danielle Kost, “AI Companies Don’t Have a Profitable Business Model. Does That Matter?” Harvard Business Review, November 12, 2025, https://hbr.org/2025/11/ai-companies-dont-have-a-profitable-business-model-does-that-matter