AI models don’t really 'get' the BSDs.
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AI models don’t really 'get' the BSDs. As a result, they often provide incomplete, imprecise, or flat-out wrong answers by defaulting to Linux paradigms. When it comes to illumos-based systems, they just completely lose the plot.
This is becoming a serious issue for the BSDs and illumos ecosystems. We are seeing entire websites flooded with AI-generated tutorials and guides that are totally incorrect. Most people don't realize this; they follow the instructions, fail, and then assume that the BSDs doesn't work well or are 'unstable' because they have supposedly changed since the guide was written.
Luckily, some people eventually find my blog, reach out, and finally understand what's actually going on. Others, unfortunately, end up on major social sites or comments, claiming that these systems are broken.
In 2026, one of our greatest challenges will be teaching people how to vet their sources and filter information.
And I see this as a very, very uphill battle.#IT #SysAdmin #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #illumos #News #UnderstandingText #Disinformation
@stefano This is a good thing. While the mindset thinks using AI - as in LLM’s - is okay, they won’t understand the BSD’s. When they are ready - mature enough to understand the BSD mindset - they will reject the LMM’s first and from that everything else will follow.
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AI models don’t really 'get' the BSDs. As a result, they often provide incomplete, imprecise, or flat-out wrong answers by defaulting to Linux paradigms. When it comes to illumos-based systems, they just completely lose the plot.
This is becoming a serious issue for the BSDs and illumos ecosystems. We are seeing entire websites flooded with AI-generated tutorials and guides that are totally incorrect. Most people don't realize this; they follow the instructions, fail, and then assume that the BSDs doesn't work well or are 'unstable' because they have supposedly changed since the guide was written.
Luckily, some people eventually find my blog, reach out, and finally understand what's actually going on. Others, unfortunately, end up on major social sites or comments, claiming that these systems are broken.
In 2026, one of our greatest challenges will be teaching people how to vet their sources and filter information.
And I see this as a very, very uphill battle.#IT #SysAdmin #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #illumos #News #UnderstandingText #Disinformation
@stefano Or maybe the info about BSDs is so complex, fragmented, and outdated that it cannot be automatically processed?
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@stefano Or maybe the info about BSDs is so complex, fragmented, and outdated that it cannot be automatically processed?
Questo post è eliminato! -
Not really, because what I had in mind is linking to actual, real documentation from the projects.
For instance, for OpenBSD (which has the best documentations), link to man.openbsd.org and the FAQ, with a few explanations.
Are you trying to do this under NetBSD? Take a look at this section of the NetBSD Handbook, plus a few man pages on man.netbsd.org and some command examples, etc... etc...
No 'rings' needed. Include lots of warnings about AI first, of course.
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AI models don’t really 'get' the BSDs. As a result, they often provide incomplete, imprecise, or flat-out wrong answers by defaulting to Linux paradigms. When it comes to illumos-based systems, they just completely lose the plot.
This is becoming a serious issue for the BSDs and illumos ecosystems. We are seeing entire websites flooded with AI-generated tutorials and guides that are totally incorrect. Most people don't realize this; they follow the instructions, fail, and then assume that the BSDs doesn't work well or are 'unstable' because they have supposedly changed since the guide was written.
Luckily, some people eventually find my blog, reach out, and finally understand what's actually going on. Others, unfortunately, end up on major social sites or comments, claiming that these systems are broken.
In 2026, one of our greatest challenges will be teaching people how to vet their sources and filter information.
And I see this as a very, very uphill battle.#IT #SysAdmin #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #illumos #News #UnderstandingText #Disinformation
@stefano As somebody who was around back in the days when some BSD folks were arrogant "all Unixes are BSD, who cares about silly HP-SUX etc", there is a certain opportunity for Schadenfreude here. (Joke.)
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AI models don’t really 'get' the BSDs. As a result, they often provide incomplete, imprecise, or flat-out wrong answers by defaulting to Linux paradigms. When it comes to illumos-based systems, they just completely lose the plot.
This is becoming a serious issue for the BSDs and illumos ecosystems. We are seeing entire websites flooded with AI-generated tutorials and guides that are totally incorrect. Most people don't realize this; they follow the instructions, fail, and then assume that the BSDs doesn't work well or are 'unstable' because they have supposedly changed since the guide was written.
Luckily, some people eventually find my blog, reach out, and finally understand what's actually going on. Others, unfortunately, end up on major social sites or comments, claiming that these systems are broken.
In 2026, one of our greatest challenges will be teaching people how to vet their sources and filter information.
And I see this as a very, very uphill battle.#IT #SysAdmin #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #illumos #News #UnderstandingText #Disinformation
Questo post è eliminato! -
AI models don’t really 'get' the BSDs. As a result, they often provide incomplete, imprecise, or flat-out wrong answers by defaulting to Linux paradigms. When it comes to illumos-based systems, they just completely lose the plot.
This is becoming a serious issue for the BSDs and illumos ecosystems. We are seeing entire websites flooded with AI-generated tutorials and guides that are totally incorrect. Most people don't realize this; they follow the instructions, fail, and then assume that the BSDs doesn't work well or are 'unstable' because they have supposedly changed since the guide was written.
Luckily, some people eventually find my blog, reach out, and finally understand what's actually going on. Others, unfortunately, end up on major social sites or comments, claiming that these systems are broken.
In 2026, one of our greatest challenges will be teaching people how to vet their sources and filter information.
And I see this as a very, very uphill battle.#IT #SysAdmin #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #illumos #News #UnderstandingText #Disinformation
@stefano It's possible newer versions fare better, but this https://nxdomain.no/~peter/chatgpt_writes_pf.conf.html piece from mid-2023 had ChatGPT failing to produce anything even close to valid for pf.conf.
The results are classic GIGO but with lots of extra hardware thrown at it for no good reason.
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undefined stefano@mastodon.bsd.cafe ha condiviso questa discussione su
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AI models don’t really 'get' the BSDs. As a result, they often provide incomplete, imprecise, or flat-out wrong answers by defaulting to Linux paradigms. When it comes to illumos-based systems, they just completely lose the plot.
This is becoming a serious issue for the BSDs and illumos ecosystems. We are seeing entire websites flooded with AI-generated tutorials and guides that are totally incorrect. Most people don't realize this; they follow the instructions, fail, and then assume that the BSDs doesn't work well or are 'unstable' because they have supposedly changed since the guide was written.
Luckily, some people eventually find my blog, reach out, and finally understand what's actually going on. Others, unfortunately, end up on major social sites or comments, claiming that these systems are broken.
In 2026, one of our greatest challenges will be teaching people how to vet their sources and filter information.
And I see this as a very, very uphill battle.#IT #SysAdmin #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #illumos #News #UnderstandingText #Disinformation
@stefano@bsd.cafe «And I see this as a very, very uphill battle».
it's not even a battle; it's a bog that you're being pushed into while the battle happens elsewhere :-(
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@stefano similar issue, though more subtle, for Linux as well. Most "ai"-generated answers are wrong in ways not obvious to people who don't know much about the subject (which is clearly the intended audience for this junk).
I've gone so far as telling my guys to not use chatgpt & ilk to find answers. That was after a couple of near misses due to BS command line arguments.
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@denisbloodnok they've moved beyond that in more sinister ways. If you're looking at a hash prompt 80% is just not good enough and reading man pages should be second nature if something exceeds your muscle memory. PFYs need that made clear.
@stefano -
@stefano As somebody who was around back in the days when some BSD folks were arrogant "all Unixes are BSD, who cares about silly HP-SUX etc", there is a certain opportunity for Schadenfreude here. (Joke.)
@stefano (Actually, now when I try to remember, I guess the HP-UX kernel *was* based on BSD, but then they wanted to hide that in userland and APIs and follow the "System V, consider it standard" mantra for corporate credibility. Or something.)
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AI models don’t really 'get' the BSDs. As a result, they often provide incomplete, imprecise, or flat-out wrong answers by defaulting to Linux paradigms. When it comes to illumos-based systems, they just completely lose the plot.
This is becoming a serious issue for the BSDs and illumos ecosystems. We are seeing entire websites flooded with AI-generated tutorials and guides that are totally incorrect. Most people don't realize this; they follow the instructions, fail, and then assume that the BSDs doesn't work well or are 'unstable' because they have supposedly changed since the guide was written.
Luckily, some people eventually find my blog, reach out, and finally understand what's actually going on. Others, unfortunately, end up on major social sites or comments, claiming that these systems are broken.
In 2026, one of our greatest challenges will be teaching people how to vet their sources and filter information.
And I see this as a very, very uphill battle.#IT #SysAdmin #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #illumos #News #UnderstandingText #Disinformation
@stefano One takeaway from the OpenZFS Summit was that dated, canonical documentation is critical, so Reddit posts don’t become the source of truth.
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AI models don’t really 'get' the BSDs. As a result, they often provide incomplete, imprecise, or flat-out wrong answers by defaulting to Linux paradigms. When it comes to illumos-based systems, they just completely lose the plot.
This is becoming a serious issue for the BSDs and illumos ecosystems. We are seeing entire websites flooded with AI-generated tutorials and guides that are totally incorrect. Most people don't realize this; they follow the instructions, fail, and then assume that the BSDs doesn't work well or are 'unstable' because they have supposedly changed since the guide was written.
Luckily, some people eventually find my blog, reach out, and finally understand what's actually going on. Others, unfortunately, end up on major social sites or comments, claiming that these systems are broken.
In 2026, one of our greatest challenges will be teaching people how to vet their sources and filter information.
And I see this as a very, very uphill battle.#IT #SysAdmin #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #illumos #News #UnderstandingText #Disinformation
@stefano I know you know this, just reiterating to further depress myself and others I guess: This is sadly not specific to BSD or any one piece of knowledge. AI models don't 'get' anything. They have no concept of knowing anything, and SEO pages generated by AI containing incorrect information are polluting the training sets of AI models, so nothing good can come of it.
The video linked from this thread eloquently makes that point, among many others.
https://akkoma.xn--pikabl-0xa.se/objects/34faab37-a455-44f7-abeb-d0b937cd479a
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@stefano I know you know this, just reiterating to further depress myself and others I guess: This is sadly not specific to BSD or any one piece of knowledge. AI models don't 'get' anything. They have no concept of knowing anything, and SEO pages generated by AI containing incorrect information are polluting the training sets of AI models, so nothing good can come of it.
The video linked from this thread eloquently makes that point, among many others.
https://akkoma.xn--pikabl-0xa.se/objects/34faab37-a455-44f7-abeb-d0b937cd479a
IMHO, it's kind of a ray of hope that BSDs are (for now at least) relatively immune to A"I" BS?
CC: @stefano@bsd.cafe
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IMHO, it's kind of a ray of hope that BSDs are (for now at least) relatively immune to A"I" BS?
CC: @stefano@bsd.cafeYou mean BSD code itself? I hope there are strong policies to prevent it (for contributors to follow), otherwise sooner or later it will happen. Related: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@skylark13/115842600214466205
But even if it doesn't affect (infect) the code, it is a huge net-negative for users trying to find information to troubleshoot issues by themselves.
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You mean BSD code itself? I hope there are strong policies to prevent it (for contributors to follow), otherwise sooner or later it will happen. Related: https://mastodon.gamedev.place/@skylark13/115842600214466205
But even if it doesn't affect (infect) the code, it is a huge net-negative for users trying to find information to troubleshoot issues by themselves.
The policy postulation is ponderous! I dunno if or what BSD projects might adopt with regard to such things, but it's interesting food for thought!
The net-negative perspective kind of goes with the territory of being involved with less popular projects, but I've already been in these sorts of XKCD situations: https://xkcd.com/979/
Though it can be vaguely hilarious to google (back before that became its own A"I" minefield) something, and find a post, where I was the only one banging my head against an issue (or providing some vague solution, that others apparently hadn't improved upon in the ensuing years).
CC: @stefano@bsd.cafe
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AI models don’t really 'get' the BSDs. As a result, they often provide incomplete, imprecise, or flat-out wrong answers by defaulting to Linux paradigms. When it comes to illumos-based systems, they just completely lose the plot.
This is becoming a serious issue for the BSDs and illumos ecosystems. We are seeing entire websites flooded with AI-generated tutorials and guides that are totally incorrect. Most people don't realize this; they follow the instructions, fail, and then assume that the BSDs doesn't work well or are 'unstable' because they have supposedly changed since the guide was written.
Luckily, some people eventually find my blog, reach out, and finally understand what's actually going on. Others, unfortunately, end up on major social sites or comments, claiming that these systems are broken.
In 2026, one of our greatest challenges will be teaching people how to vet their sources and filter information.
And I see this as a very, very uphill battle.#IT #SysAdmin #FreeBSD #NetBSD #OpenBSD #illumos #News #UnderstandingText #Disinformation
@stefano I think it’s a good thing. Weeds out the slop.
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Questo post è eliminato!
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@stefano @teajaygrey @skylark13 Been there! "Wow, this person did all the _exact_ same investigation and troubleshooting that I… oh. It's me."
Also, remember how frustrating #FilterBubbling in search engines became (long before this AI shit)?!
"Why can't I find anything _not_ on a StackOverflow-powered site?!"
— and —
"I googled _exactly_ the same phrase you said you did and I'm _not_ finding the sources you found!"
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@NoFlexZone
Depends on what it is for the person using BSD. "The point" of doing something is never the same for everyone.
@stefano
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