ABrockwell @aebrockwell@social.cleverlibre.org

@mcnado

Stop Treating AI Models Like People!

No, they haven’t decided to teach themselves anything, they don’t love you back, and they still aren’t even a little bit sentient.

Sasha Luccioni and I have had enough of this nonsense & discuss in a joint essay:

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/stop-treating-ai-models-like-people

Quote from article: Once the Nazis took power they banned books, outlawed drag shows and homosexuality, changed school curricula to remove mention of their atrocities in WWI, and rewrote election laws so they’d never again lose an election.

My thoughts: A whole bunch of people, myself included, started pointing out parallels between the Trump-era GOP and the Nazis well before he was elected. We were accused of employing hyperbole, and told to "give him a chance."

Well, just call me Cassandra ... because here we are.

Just. Like. I. Said. We. Would. Be.

https://open.substack.com/pub/thomhartmann/p/whats-behind-the-gops-war-against?r=1ekuyr&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

"Chatbots" on company websites are basically useless and clueless, and that's nothing new.

But don't you worry, soon they will all be integrated with ChatGPT. This will not make them less useless and clueless, but they will gain the ability to authoritatively gaslight you as well!

Progress!

A real “pro-life” movement would ban assault rifles while enacting Medicare for All, paid sick leave, universal childcare, and a living wage.

Hello Fediverse! 👋

#Wikipedia :wikipedia: is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system called MediaWiki. -- or so says our Wikipedia article (https://w.wiki/W).

Follow for cool facts, behind-the-scenes details on editing processes and tips on getting started contributing!

#Introduction #FreeCulture #FreeContent #OpenKnowledge #wiki #CreativeCommons

The thing about Twitter is that it really lacks a lot of the features you'd expect from a true Mastodon replacement.

For example, there's no way to edit your toots (which they, confusingly call "tweets"—let's face it, it's a bit of a silly name that's difficult to take seriously).

"Tweets" can't be covered by a content warning. There's no way to let the poster know you like their tweet without also sharing it, and no bookmark feature.

There's no way to set up your own instance, and you're basically stuck on a single instance of Twitter. That means there's no community moderators you can reach out to to quickly resolve issues. Also, you can't de-federate instances with a lot of problematic content.

It also doesn't Integrate with other fediverse platforms, and I couldn't find the option to turn the ads off.

Really, Twitter has made a good start, but it will need to add a lot of additional features before it gets to the point where it becomes a true Mastodon replacement for most users.

#twitter #mastodon #twittermigration

👋 Hello #fediverse! I'm going into a meeting at 4ET to talk about our newsroom's social media options.

If you think our station and other NPR stations should have a Mastodon server and a broader presence in the #fediverse, pls boost this post. If you have thoughts, please reply, I want to hear them!

#compost #diy #dit #soil #degrowth #wasteLess

My wife found this one somewhere. This is why open-mindedness is the underpinning of the Scientific Method and people who lack it will never comprehend the Method. If the goal is the instant gratification of certainty and always being right, the Method will disappoint and the only recourse becomes self-delusion.

This is how geologists collect lava samples from an active volcano.

Chemical analysis of lava provides important information about activity deep inside a volcano's magma chambers.

Video credit: USGS
Source: https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vsc/movies/movie_187.html

You folks were super enthusiastic about my posting more on Mastodon, so let's try this.

RT/boost and let's see if there's interest in a regular #Ukraine thread!

Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.

For the last year, I've been tracking a notorious Russian unit known for its role in killing 100s of civilians.

This past month we published how we found them.

The media, at least those that are even bothering to cover it, are truly missing the forest for the trees. The disaster of the bird site is not its garbage performance and functionality “clunkiness.” It’s that is a goddamned misinformation fascist propaganda engine. That’s it. That’s the story. I’ve been trying to get journalists to cover it. Guess I have to do it myself.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/07/technology/elon-musk-twitter-changes.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

If judges get to reverse FDA decisions then doctors should get to reverse judicial rulings

I’ll go first: I reverse the Dobbs ruling

My heart is woven into the fabric of birthdays, long gone, where you grew and changed and grew some more. It rests in the corners of your room, where echoes of you still exist in the place where you spent your whole childhood.

Now it’s the shape of your eyes, almond and wide, looking up at me as I reach the tall places. My heart remembers your face as nourishment. You were a gift, my heart the recipient.

#vss365 #poetry

Sometimes, a political event galvanizes me to DO something, right away. The anti-democracy, pro-gun, and racist expulsion of two Democrats by the Republican-controlled state legislature prompted me to see whether we here on #Mastodon can join together to boost the political careers of the two men, #JustinPearson and #JustinJones. 1/2

Tennessee’s Republican-led House expels two Democratic lawmakers over gun reform protest. Contribute to the Legislators who were expelled. Stand up to Fascism and Racism.

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dlcc-jones-pearson