Rowley @Rowley@social.cleverlibre.org

The choice of the term “hallucination” to describe what is happening with these language models is fundamentally misleading, and feels calculated to obscure their probabilistic nature.

Characterizing the fabricated output as “hallucination” means, by implication, that correct output is “knowledge”—that the incorrect results are aberrations, not the result of the exact same processes that sometimes produces factually sound results.

I mean... I agree with her.

"Lauren Boebert says fighting 'hate and antisemitism' is code for going after conservatives"

#politics #antisemitism #BlackMastodon #BlackFedi #BlackTwitter

https://www.rawstory.com/lauren-boebert-hate/

It's hard to describe how unscientific the Sackett v EPA SCOTUS ruling was today. By insisting that regulated waters only apply when there is "continuous surface connection" goes against everything we know about wetlands, runoff, and groundwater in watersheds.

Early in my career I did research on perchlorate, which was dumped en masse in the desert outside Las Vegas, many miles from any river. But somehow it found its way to the drinking water of Southern California...by magic? No, there are pathways that aren't obvious to the casual observer, which is why the Clean Water Act is based on science.

Regulatory authority without science is just what the MAGAs want to insist upon, because it then becomes gutted under responsible leadership, and dictatorial under them
https://www.vox.com/2023/5/25/23737426/supreme-court-clean-water-act-epa-pollution-wetlands-sackett-alito
#EPA #Sackett #SCOTUS #CleanWater

#HappyTowelDay everyone! #DontPanic and take a towel with you 🧣🧻 #FortyTwo #HitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy #TowelDay

“Until a drag queen walks into a school and beats eight kids to death with a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird, I think you’re focusing on the wrong shit.”

- Wanda Sykes

Whatever my failings have been as a journalist of 30 years — and there have been many — at least I will be able to exit my career knowing I left Twitter after it became a tool for the far right.

New reality show idea: "Confirmation Bias Island."

12 GPT enthusiast contestants trapped in a remote area with only an "A.I." assistant and their basic starting assumptions about where they are and how to get free. First one to challenge their preconceptions and the feedback loop of answers they're getting from the "a.i." and realise they're just in a park wins.

your regular reminder that elon musk is a right-wing oligarch who is running Twitter like it's his Super PAC against democracy

https://thecause.substack.com/p/elon-musk-is-a-right-wing-oligarch

Tech speakers, it's 2023. Stop using moms as your example of a non-technical audience. It's wrong, its not funny, and whatever you were saying, now most of your audience is not thinking about it.

Just use the exec team as an example instead and get on with your life.

If you are thinking fuck it there is no point in voting. Then you may not know how propaganda works but it did work on you.

New #pronoun controversy just dropped

Ban #LLMs Using First-Person Pronouns https://crookedtimber.org/2023/05/22/ban-llms-using-first-person-pronouns/

It’s like this: my sib Tidy just called and told me that a significant portion of the population of Austin is up in arms because Dell Children’s Hospital just shut down its entire adolescent medicine dept over fallout from this anti-gender-affirming care crap.

The only MD in the city doing trans youth medicine also happens to be, by all accounts, the best MD in the city for cis girls with other complex stuff. Both of my cis nieces with weird issues are among her patients. This poor doc just said “fuck it” and quit, she couldn’t take the relentless bashing. My nieces and countless other Austin girls are now without the medical care they need and deserve. And for what? The governor’s MAGA street cred?

My point is this: even if your kids aren’t trans, this anti-trans bullshit can and will still fuck them up.

Protecting trans kids protects ALL kids.

#ProtectTransKids

Rich People's Gain is Worth Less than Poor People's Pain: A new way to think about utilitarianism, courtesy of the #OfficeOfManagementAndBudget

https://doctorow.medium.com/rich-peoples-gain-is-worth-less-than-poor-people-s-pain-6c3631292841

#Utilitarianism #MarginalRevolution #MarginalUtility #IntellectualHonesty #LitmusTests

Truth:

The thing about this corruption and criminality—George Santos, Clarence Thomas, Rudy Giuliani, Trump—is that it’s so obvious. So brazen. As if there’s no need to hide it.

They've gone from "having concerns" about children's healthcare to openly celebrating the anti-trans pogroms sweeping the country. Mission accomplished, I guess.

They really showed us what a bunch of lying rich motherfuckers with massive media platforms and a fascist movement at their backs are capable of.

If you're rolling your eyes at the number of political posts in your feed, keep in mind that we're at the tipping point of authoritarianism here in the US (and other countries). For example, a political party is deciding whether women live or die in childbirth. The stakes are high, and we'll post about it.

I try to balance my posts with politics and lighter stuff. When it's a politics-heavy day, that balance may tilt toward the political end. But I"m not going to ignore reality altogether.