abidingphantom

[abidingphantom]

Free snacks!!

[abidingphantom]

Or the other one... "Oh, well, AI should be tagged and then you can just check to see..." Why do I have to verify whether everything I see is reality or some unnecessary attempt to trick me??? And not even, like, a high effort Photoshop that I can later be impressed by the skill and dedication to creating the trick but just some freaking algorithm spitting crap out??? 😭😭😭

Why are we in the reality with AI trying to trick us instead of whimsical elvish creatures?

an underrecognised tragedy of AI slop isn't just that any piece of contemporary art could be AI, any news reel could be AI, it's that now just any video of something vaguely nice and whimsical happening in the world could be AI

this is about the trampoline bunnies

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Correct

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Fantastic idea! Also, great hat sketch!

Also want to add "it's so beatable" to the mix as the in-between state.

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Reblog for the teensie visibility my blog can give.

Are there any open letters/petitions being put together around this abuse of power? Alternatively, has anyone looked into what it'd take to spin up a new payment processor outside of the existing (obviously this would be expensive, but I also feel there's a legitimate opportunity to not only do good but also make quite a good living).

reposting from bsky, but heres a cheat sheet for how to properly send a message to payment processing companies over the recent highly conservative shift in where youre allowed to legally spend your money

more info here!

[abidingphantom]

Jessica do be correct

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Thanks... It's horrifying that we have to find out that we're auto opted INTO something by a random person on the internet... 😭🤮

Hey everyone, I know it's going to be a busy day for a lot of people, but Google enrolled everyone over 18 into their AI program automatically.

If you have a google account, first go to gemini.google.com/extensions and turn everything off.

Then you need to go to myactivity.google.com/product/gemini and turn off all Gemini activity tracking. You do have to do them in that order to make sure it works.

Honestly, I'm not sure how long this will last, but this should keep Gemini off your projects for a bit.

I saw this over on bluesky and figured it would be good to spread on here. It only takes a few minutes to do.

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All very good points! To double down further against the very SPECIFIC argument that is going around circles who think they're tech-forward: "This is the second internet."

Let's put aside the point that GenAI doesn't solve anything (also something I agree with and should explore more in a different post)...

That is NOT an argument for good in my opinion. The internet solved a lot of problems. Communication, effective distribution of knowledge, democratizing (some) education, and other good things. HOWEVER it has also led to a world that's increasingly difficult to distinguish from the dystopian hellscapes warned of in MANY sci-fi fictions. Beyond that, social media is demonstrably bad for humans. It may have started out with pure intentions, but has since become, by enlarge, a negative thing (yes, I'm saying this ON a social media platform, though I'd argue one of the least-bad).

We've slowly hardwired the human brain to expect a constant micro stream of dopamine and stress. We've habituated ourselves to know "what's going on" with everyone and everything. News has become synonymous with "information from an official source that probably has some truth to it", our herd mentality tendencies are exacerbated. Algorithms to curate our experiences "for our pleasure" have built little wells which we frogs rarely look up from, wells which the companies and media giants of our Sphere may toss their products and belief nets into and find easy prey. Social skills are becoming increasingly less common, in part because both kids and adults are always online.

Now let's imagine a world where tech bros get the AI they think they want. The "AI" (which, as an aside, shouldn't be called "AI" at all 90% of the time as it's just a marketing term meaning almost nothing at this point...) which they're trying to push down our throats. Alright, students stop internalizing anything. Children stop learning to communicate effectively with other people, preferring an AI model which learns how to push their particular buttons (not because the AI cares in any way, mind, but because that's how it's owning company can make the most profit from its users).

The end goal of AI is to transform the common person. They want to create people who: don't have to learn because "AI will summarize it anytime I ask". They don't need to think because "AI can answer the question." They don't need to create because "AI will make whatever I want."

In other words, AI is actively leading people to further dependence on the companies that produce them. Companies which we KNOW are evil. Companies which are governed by people who ALREADY hold so much wealth they might as well own the world. Companies who DO. NOT. CARE. ABOUT. PEOPLE.

Fuck. Turned from agreeing to a well reasoned and succinct argument against AI into a rant. Oops.

A lot of otherwise intelligent people are scared to criticize chatGPT because they think there is an observed pattern in history where new technology is always either good or inevitable, and people who are skeptical of new technology always look like fools, and they are scared to look foolish when AI is The New Technology That Revolutionized Everything.

I am not scared of any of that nonsense. The first reason, is that chatGPT isn't a "new technology" at all, both because it is just a scaled-up version of stuff that already existed, and because "technology" implies a thing that does something useful and ChatGPT doesn't appear to do anything useful.

The second reason, is that the people frightened of looking like Luddites assume that because we are all alive, the feared bad outcomes of new technology have never happened, and that is just completely false. New technologies have sometimes had awful impacts upon human quality of life and the environment. Sometimes, unilaterally inferior technologies have replaced superior technologies for economic or other reasons. Almost always new technologies have a mix of positive and negative impacts.

In fact, I think the uncontrolled, rapid growth of generative AI and large language models is happening because of the common belief that "new technology" is always inevitable and good. This is a new technology, therefore "developing" it is inherently leading towards Something. But instead, the amount of resources and environmental and human devastation is simply accelerating and accelerating. The new technology takes everything and gives us nothing.

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Alternative response: Yes! Don't you see him on Noel's shirt??

Noel Fielding is wearing Jacob Horse with hair?? How have I never noticed this before??

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Jacob horse has always been alive in spirit

Noel Fielding is wearing Jacob Horse with hair?? How have I never noticed this before??

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Noel Fielding is wearing Jacob Horse with hair?? How have I never noticed this before??

[abidingphantom]

Rumi’s majestically long hair~ ✨✨✨

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The idea of professionalism is so fucking weird. The more I think about it the more off the wall it seems.

At face value, "hey, don't let you personal life color your work. Be professional." makes sense... Until you realize you're being asked to put aside who you are as a human in favor of better performing whatever role you're employed for. A better request from management might be, "Hey could you please be the exact one dimensional caricature I need to best serve the company. Become better aligned with the ideals of the cult... Er... The culture. The corporate culture. Yes."

Like, I get "he's very professional" is a compliment... But it's just becoming increasingly horrifying to me that we, as humans, are expected to never relate to each other AS HUMANS within a "professional" setting... And further, what other settings even exist anymore?

[abidingphantom]

Absolutely incredible. I like to think this is how whimsical I'd be if I somehow became famous and sought after.

I love themmmm

this would actually get me to watch BFQOTY again

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Everyone on Earth needs to see this. It's vital.