ABrockwell @aebrockwell@social.cleverlibre.org

The way the tech industry gets worse faster and faster as we approach the singularity is the spaghettification of enshittification.

I posted a rant about how annoying virtually everything "AI" is (call directors, roombas, LLMs advertised as though they said true things...).

https://ceoln.wordpress.com/2023/03/04/ai-is-terrible-at-almost-everything-a-rant/

#AI #LLM #roomba #intuit #rant

One cool thing about #JonStewart going viral again for another basic, research-grounded interview with a genuinely malice-driven "traditional-values" neo-Nazi cretin is that it gives 98% of journalists another 101 lesson in the actual good work they could do if they didn't have to worry about "losing access" to disingenuous shitsacks they 100% know to be lying in order to make America a shittier, more violent reactionary cesspit than it already is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCuIxIJBfCY

What is consciousness? What is intelligence?

Over the millennia the ink spilled on these two words have produced more smoke than mirrors making all the sturm and drang and pearl clutching and about “artificial intelligence” so incredibly laughable. AI has truly put the “hype” in hyperventilation.

Please read this slightly older opinion that makes the case.

https://science.thewire.in/economy/tech/ambitious-predictions-about-the-future-powers-of-computers-keep-flopping-why/

@aebrockwell

We provide a csv file of fediblock that one can import to block this servers rather quickly. See here if you'd like to use it.

But yes if your getting harassed, report it or we can act.

https://qoto.org/@freemo/109303687938265107

@peterdrake

Has anyone seen this organized anti-trans campaign? I've been seeing a bunch of posts with:

- An anime girl avatar
- A short, violently anti-trans message
- A huge list of unrelated hashtags (which is why I'm seeing them)
- A video

I block the instances as I see them, but that doesn't help much as each seems to come from a new instance.

What defense does Mastodon have against such an attack? The only tactic I can think of is pre-screening instances before federating with them, which would be a problem for all small instances.

#ThisIsWhyWeCantHaveNiceThings

Here is your must-read article for the day, a profile of @emilymbender, and her efforts to deflate the ridiculous hype around large language models such as ChatGPT.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-chatbots-emily-m-bender.html

The reason TikTok is such a threat is because it's not a Chinese platform, it's a global platform controlled by China. Theoretically at any point China could use it to drag foreign users into their sphere of influence. Twitter was a threat for the exact same reason. The difference being it's not a theoretical future problem. Its owner is already actively spreading Russian propaganda, amplifying fascists talking points, and openly admitted to manipulating the algorithm for his own personal gain. You currently have hundreds of millions of international users under the influence of a far-right pro-Russian Autocrat. If I was in charge of banning social media platforms for national security reasons I'd be watching TikTok very very closely, but I'd be holding a Defcon1 five alarm 5 meeting about banning Twitter right now.

Encouraging all supporters of #highered to take a stand against authoritarians dictating who can teach at public universities and what they can teach. Please consider signing this joint statement by the American Association of University Professors, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Coalition Against Censorship:
https://actionnetwork.org/forms/florida-bill-would-destroy-higher-education-as-we-know-it/

#StopHB999 #academia @academicchatter @academicsunite

The Fox "News" documents show a network that inhabits a funhouse non-reality that it created and cannot escape. They've warped people's minds so much that they must play along with blatant lies because otherwise they'll lose viewers who are delusional *because* of their own programs. What a dystopian mess.

"People have been anthropomorphizing AI at least since ELIZA in the 1960s, but the new Bing chatbot seems to have kicked things up a notch.

This matters, because anthropomorphizing #AI is dangerous" #ChatGPT #bingchat #generativeai
https://open.substack.com/pub/aisnakeoil/p/people-keep-anthropomorphizing-ai?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

When I was a boy, I watched all kinds of science fiction the science in which would make me cringe now. (Not to mention writing, acting, special effects ... ) Bad science alone pulls me out of the story and annoys me now. But I sure did enjoy sf on the screen a lot more then. I miss that boyish purity of escape.