#AI articles who knew

[sayruq]

A new investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call reveals that the Israeli army has developed an artificial intelligence-based program known as “Lavender,” unveiled here for the first time. According to six Israeli intelligence officers, who have all served in the army during the current war on the Gaza Strip and had first-hand involvement with the use of AI to generate targets for assassination, Lavender has played a central role in the unprecedented bombing of Palestinians, especially during the early stages of the war. In fact, according to the sources, its influence on the military’s operations was such that they essentially treated the outputs of the AI machine “as if it were a human decision.”

During the early stages of the war, the army gave sweeping approval for officers to adopt Lavender’s kill lists, with no requirement to thoroughly check why the machine made those choices or to examine the raw intelligence data on which they were based. One source stated that human personnel often served only as a “rubber stamp” for the machine’s decisions, adding that, normally, they would personally devote only about “20 seconds” to each target before authorizing a bombing — just to make sure the Lavender-marked target is male. This was despite knowing that the system makes what are regarded as “errors” in approximately 10 percent of cases, and is known to occasionally mark individuals who have merely a loose connection to militant groups, or no connection at all. Moreover, the Israeli army systematically attacked the targeted individuals while they were in their homes — usually at night while their whole families were present — rather than during the course of military activity. According to the sources, this was because, from what they regarded as an intelligence standpoint, it was easier to locate the individuals in their private houses. Additional automated systems, including one called “Where’s Daddy?” also revealed here for the first time, were used specifically to track the targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they had entered their family’s residences.

The Lavender machine joins another AI system, “The Gospel,” about which information was revealed in a previous investigation by +972 and Local Call in November 2023, as well as in the Israeli military’s own publications. A fundamental difference between the two systems is in the definition of the target: whereas The Gospel marks buildings and structures that the army claims militants operate from, Lavender marks people — and puts them on a kill list. In addition, according to the sources, when it came to targeting alleged junior militants marked by Lavender, the army preferred to only use unguided missiles, commonly known as “dumb” bombs (in contrast to “smart” precision bombs), which can destroy entire buildings on top of their occupants and cause significant casualties. “You don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people — it’s very expensive for the country and there’s a shortage [of those bombs],” said C., one of the intelligence officers. Another source said that they had personally authorized the bombing of “hundreds” of private homes of alleged junior operatives marked by Lavender, with many of these attacks killing civilians and entire families as “collateral damage.”

Remember, the Israeli occupation government considers all men over the age of 16 to be Hamas operatives hence why they've claimed to have killed over 9,000 of them (which matches the number of Palestinian men killed according to the Ministry of Health). So, when the article speaks of 'low level' or 'high level militants' they're likely speaking of civilians.

If Israel knew who Hamas fighters are, Oct 7th wouldn't have caught them off guard and they wouldn't still be fighting the Palestinian resistance every single day.

[rowdyluv]

summary: jack is fuming mad about the gossip blog’s post about y/n. he makes a trip to her public relations manager’s office to settle the issue.

word count: 1k

warnings: angry jack, profanity, use of y/n,

notes: sincerest apologies for the delay and that it’s so short. I don’t want to mix two topics into one part and shorten the series, still working through hurricane helene damages at my sisters and a lot of co workers were affected and haven’t been able to come in.

© property of quinnylouhughesx43 ; do not copy and re-upload as your own - anywhere. do not place my work inside AI codes, do not translate.

Jack stormed into Ms. Castellanos' office, his usual bright blue eyes now a fiery mix of anger and desperation. He slammed his phone down on her desk, the screen displaying the latest headline from 'Pucking Gossip', a notorious bullshit gossip blog that had a knack for stirring drama in the lives of professional hockey players.

"You've got to be kidding me," he barked, his voice echoing off the eerily empty white walls. Castellanos kept her office appearance the way she typically came across, plain and empty. "What the hell is this? Did you even know this was out there? If not, what the hell are you doing all day? What are your employees doing? Get some smart computer person to it taken down. Find the person who wrote it, and get them to take it down. I don’t care just do it.”

Jack paced her office chewing the edge of his fingers, then his bottom lip, and back to his fingers. His motions flipped from anger, frustration, to worry for Y/n. Worry for if she had seen the lies someone had put out about her and now who knows how many people have seen it.

Ms. Castellanos took a moment to re-read the article again for the 100th time, her eyes narrowing with each line. When reading the article before she didn’t see much wrong with it. It was just another day for her in the office, another player’s problem becoming hers to clean up.

From a professional stand point she knew the stakes of the situation. Y/n had become a crucial part of Jack’s image rebranding, and any negative light on her could ruin everything they had worked so hard for. But, it was then she realized Y/n truly meant more to him than the agreement. She was skeptical of the best friends story he had spun out when suddenly she was the one taking the place of his fake girlfriend, but it’s clear now. But best friend doesn’t describe his feelings towards her in the slightest with the way he’s acting. She took a deep breath, her hands resting gently on the cold metal edge of her desk.

"Jack, I understand that this is upsetting, but we need to handle this strategically. We can't just go after the blogger or demand they take it down," Ms. Castellanos said calmly, her eyes never leaving the screen of the phone.

Jack's pacing grew more agitated, his hands balling into fists at his sides. "How is this strategic? They're tearing apart Y/n's reputation! She's not even met the girls yet." He jabbed a finger at the article, as if the digital ink could feel his fury.

Ms. Castellanos looked up from the screen, her expression shifting to one of understanding. "I know how much you care for her, Jack, and we will address this. But we can't let our emotions dictate our response. We need to control the narrative, not give them more ammo for their next article. You know all too well how quickly they will tear you apart.”

Jack stopped his pacing, his gaze locking onto hers. "But they're lying about her. She's not like that. She’s never been like that." His voice grew softer, the anger giving way to genuine concern for his friend's well-being.

Ms. Castellanos nodded, placing the phone aside. "I believe you, Jack. But we must be careful. We need to gather all the facts and build a counter-narrative that is both truthful and compelling." She paused, tapping her manicured nails on the desk. “One of the team’s charity galas is coming up. I will arrange for Amanda to interview you and Y/n on the red carpet. She will have specific questions to ask about why Y/n sits behind the bench versus why she doesn’t sit in the private box. I will arrange seating so that instead of your usual table with the singles, you’ll be with the couples. Giving her an opportunity to meet and chat. It is your responsibility to tell your teammates that none of this.” She waves her finger in a circle above the phone before sliding it across her desk. “Is true and that Y/n isn’t who it makes her out to be.”

Jack's fists unclenched slightly, the tension in his shoulders easing just a bit. "Okay," he agreed, though the skepticism was clear in his voice. "But what about the blog? What if they don't believe us?"

Castellanos steepled her fingers, her gaze sharp. "We'll have to be proactive. I'll draft a statement from both you and Y/n addressing the rumors. We'll release it before the gala so the media knows we're aware and in control of the story. We have taken multiple pictures of the two of you bumping fists or shaking hands before games or in between periods. We’ve caught you looking at her from the bench during timeouts too. We can spin a story out of it. In the statement release pre-gala we will be sure to include that the gala is the first time she will be meeting the entire team and their significant others as well. Clearing everything up, then Amanda will get personal statements in her interview.”

Jack took a deep breath, his eyes flickering with hope. He knew the PR world was a minefield, but he trusted Castellanos knew the terrain better than anyone. He finally sat down in the chair across from her desk, his shoulders slumping with the weight of his anxiety. The first genuine smile since he walked into her office graced his features. "Thank you, I appreciate it. I just need a moment to chill out."

Ms. Castellanos nodded in understanding, her own expression softening. "I'll get to work on the statement immediately. You go home and simply believe in me to get it taken care of.”

taglist: @luke-hughes43 @thedevilrisen

[copperbadge]

Hey Sam, this came across my feed on twit and I wondered if you’d heard about it at all? :(

https://www.reddit.com/r/duolingo/comments/18sx06i/big_layoff_at_duolingo/

Direct link for the curious. Short version, a post on Reddit reported that Duolingo laid off a "large percentage" of its staff, replacing them with AI. I hadn't heard about it, but I knew there were reports about Duolingo trimming its offerings and losing a lot of goodwill after revamping itself a year ago; they've been public about their use of GPT-4 AI starting last March, and it was a tentpole of this year's annual convention, so I was aware of that as well.

The Reddit post is by a former Duolingo contractor, who also shares their severance letter, which is terse to say the least. They state that of their four-person team, two people were let go, with the others left to "babysit the AI". They say that they're a translator and that the people who remained were recast as "curators" for AI translation.

But the post is also not otherwise sourced. So here is everyone's periodic reminder that if the only source is Reddit and Reddit isn't citing other sources, you need to dig a little.

All journalistic sources I've seen (that aren't paywalled, like the Bloomberg article most of them cite) are visibly using the Reddit post as their entre, but also state that the percentage of contractors who were let go is about 10%. That's 10% of contract workers, not 10% of all staff, although admittedly I don't know how many people Duolingo employs, contract or otherwise. 10% is a meaningful chunk, but Duolingo has said that the contractors were let go because their projects had wrapped. While company reps state that this all could be related to the use of AI, they've also said that it's not a 1:1 replacement.

Mind you, the company isn't offering much in the way of backing that up, either.

So there are a couple of issues. Some workers probably were let go simply because their work was finished; the Reddit user doesn't seem to be one of those. We are still seeing that at least some of these jobs were replaced by AI, which is undoubtedly a harbinger of things to come. We don't know what impact this will have on the app. We don't know what kind of work the majority of those people were doing. There's a thread in the Reddit post about whether the voices are now "AI voices" but there's no citation to back up the idea either. They definitely aren't doing AI voice generation for the Latin, where one of the voice actors has a nice voice and also a very loud pet bird.

There is a bigger issue of contract work in the digital and translation industries in the first place; a lot of these people should have been full employees and would have had more protection from this if they had been. Translators have also been brutally devastated by machine/AI translation, which is its own issue. But these are separate and much larger problems that are in no way unique to Duolingo.

I don't like taking this stance because I feel like I'm defending both Duolingo and AI, which isn't my goal. My goal is to remind people that if you see a single source offering a vague statement, you should fact-check. 10% is likely a lot of people but it's not "a huge percentage". We have no real numbers on who was fired, just this person on Reddit saying they're a translator and they were let go. Do I believe them? Absolutely, I have no reason not to and the basic gist is backed up by statements from Duolingo. Do I trust this person's intel? Not especially, after the loud axe-grinding noises they made while posting. Do I trust Duolingo, whose goal is to make money and not look bad while doing it? Not especially either, simply from the standpoint of "the bigger the company the more they're likely to screw you".

But the point is we don't have good data, and this is a complicated and nuanced issue involving a lot of different factors. So either you have to let it go on past, or you have to be prepared to dig a little deeper than a person posting to Reddit about getting laid off.

In any case, Duolingo is one of the few activities that brings me joy right now (I know, I'm working on the issue) and is the only language learning structure that has ever actually worked for me, so despite the new intel and despite the fact that I know a lot of people think of Duolingo's revamp the way I think of Tumblr's new dash, I'm going to keep on with it.

(Plus I paid up for a year, so I might as well at least use it until the year runs out and then reassess.)

[thebibliosphere]

wrt the AI thing, the doom is in what is just good enough to no longer pay people for it. Machine translation isn't good! The sentences are nice and often grammatically correct, but the information hasn't been accurately transferred a lot of the time (genre doesn't matter, but DeepL is pretty good for news articles, less good for other stuff). AI text is sentences that are made of words likely to go together it doesn't understand any of it. Especially if you want to write something a bit experimental, if you want to use specific words to evoke specific things etc etc... true art will not die, no matter how much some people try.

I mean, yeah, but that’s also just a progression of what’s already been happening for years. Publishing houses and companies have been outsourcing to the cheapest bidder for decades now due to lack of labor regulation and the death of unions. That’s what the major Harper Collins strike was about. Even while publishing houses are making record profits, they’re not paying their editors a living wage.

When I worked for a medium sized mainstream publisher back in the late 2000’s to 2010s, they used to remind us daily that if we didn’t hit our editing quota there were people on Freelancer and Fiver who would do it for a lot cheaper— and I was already earning below minimum hourly wage, that you could “make up” by taking on extra work.

(The salaried editors were the only ones with guaranteed income, the rest of us were told we were just lucky to be there.)

And multiple times a month they’d eliminate someone to ‘cut costs’ and the work would land on your desk and you’d be told to get it done because they knew we had no other options. It was this or unemployment at the start of what would be the second global recession of my life.

Eventually we did all get laid off and they opted for the cheaper, subpar labor. And while it sucked to be unemployed at that time, the relief I felt was real. I was no longer self-medicating with caffeine and alcohol to cope with the work environment. I was no longer churning out 100-200k a week in edits and rewrites to keep a job that treated me like shit. I missed it, because I loved working with my authors and editing and writing was something I loved. But I did not miss the rat race they had us locked into for the sake of profit over quality.

The fact that Harper Collins staff, one of the biggest publishers in the world who contribute to the monopoly that creates that environment, were also not making enough to live, tells me things have only gotten worse inside the industry. Unless, of course, you’re near the top of the corporate ladder. In which case you probably can’t understand why all the peasants are so unhappy.

The machines will not fully replace us—at least probably not in my lifetime. But that doesn’t mean what’s already happening isn’t bad.

AI is just the next wrung on this sordid descent into exploitation and elimination. We need better labor laws. We need better protections. We need fucking respect.

[motleyflash]

KINITOPET THEORY: SONNY_C IS KINITO

there's a lot of evidence for this, so i'll show you guys it! (i got most of the pictures from Forever Nenaa's gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UsjIm7G7bE&t=1409s)

#1. if you type kinitopet.com/email in your real web browser this image pops up "as the subject of your article has unfortunately passed away", DID KINITO KILL SONNY OR SOMETHING?? THE HELL?? i think that whenever kinito pulls someone into his digital world, it kills them in a way. he asks them for admin permission, then uses that power to do the shit he's doing so, those people in the command prompt are dead! ___________________________________________

#2. i don't know if you can see the image, but i've looked at the command prompt when it was deleting kinito and it says "removing file [sonnys_world.zip] from server ["kinito"]" which is pretty interesting... i'd also like to say, i think that dead body in sam's house is one of those people that you see in the command prompt... i do have a theory about sam and jade being humans but there's not much evidence except for sam's hanging body and when jade(?) says "i'm back here again, aren't i?" ___________________________________________ #3. the "IT'S NOT TOO LATE" email decoded

i find this email especially very, very interesting. the line "a soul enshrouded, a spirit's mournful chime" is most likely about the other trapped souls... i honestly do not know what else to say about this poem, other than the fact that it is very impressive how the person wrote it so uniquely! this does imply some dark stuff though, like how kinito traps the souls of the players in the computer. ___________________________________________ #4. the "EJSY SZ O?" email decoded (click the images to expand)

"I FEAR THAT WHEN YOU DELETE THAT SERVER YOU WILL DELETE ME" OHHH now we're talkin.. seeing at the very end, this makes me think that kinito took some of the stuff that sonny was saying in his head, and saying it directly to the player when he got deleted (kinito GUILT TRIPPING us god damn). and, from this email, sonny appears to be having an existential crisis! maybe the ai is feeding off of the souls' emotions for its own gain. it learns and adapts, remember? also, the "I KNOW THEORETICALLY I AM NOT REAL BUT I FEEL REAL" line makes me think that kinito took over sonny's mind for just a little bit. does kinito feel empathy after taking all these poor souls? honestly i'm seeing a lot of similarities with tadc and kinitopet (even though kinitopet came before tadc with the trailer but STILLLL). souls being trapped in a digital world with no escape, and some ai that apparently wants to be your friend...ALSO CIRCUS THEMED ESQUE STUFF _________________________________________ #5. this guy from the kinito plush ad

am i the only one who thinks that this might be sonny? or, some completely different soul that arrived before you? _________________________________________ #6. the messages on the computer when you delete kinito

these messages hurt me to the bone. sonny used the power he had left to contact you in those last lines, saying his final goodbyes to you. he knew that it was inevitable for his fate to come, and it did. maybe the player burning the computer was freeing the souls somehow... you know DAMN WELL i thought of henry emily's speech while seeing that computer burn to a crisp i dont have a good conclusion for this but this is my theory that sonny_c is kinito (in a way)... But hey! that's just a theory. A GAY THEORY Wrong one A GAMMEEEE THEORY if i find more, i'll be sure to update this also i apologize if this isn't very well structured.. i just grabbed this stuff and said "holy shit sonny chamberlain is kinito"... i'd love to hear other people's theories though! i made this post at like 1 AM so that's why it's poorly written

[3liza]

like all "how to draw anatomy" posts on Tumblr this one has a couple proportion inaccuracies but it's a good okay starter guide overall, HOWEVER, this particular panel is completely wrong. cellulite and stretch marks are not even remotely the same thing, nor are they "used interchangeably". cellulite is fat cells being restricted by connective tissue banding which has grown in a parallel layout, which causes dimpling when the fat sticks out between the bands of less stretchy tissue. like sitting on a patio chair. it can also be caused by adhesions and nodules in conditions like lipidema. stretch marks are superficial skin features caused by the scarification of skin which has been stretched faster than it can grow. they have nothing to do with each other, and one does not cause or contribute to the other, and I need to say this again: they are not interchangeable and I have no idea why this person thinks they are "used interchangeably". based on the Livestrong screenshot, they may have tried to cite an AI-written article. your skin is also not "connected to your muscle with cords". no one uses them interchangeably and if you attempted to do so with any person who knew anything about skin or anatomy they would be very confused

cellulite and stretch marks are normal and almost every human on earth over the age of about 15 has at least some of both, no matter how skinny they are.

[just-dreaming-marvel]

Caught In A Web ~ 27

CAUGHT IN A WEB MASTERLIST

< previous chapter

Word Count: 1,661ish

Summary: Natasha is fed up with everyone's bullshit. You get FRIDAY to spill some of the secrets.

Notes: This chapter is a little shorter than the last few, but that's fine. Let me know your thoughts!

“I’m over it! Now they want Wanda and Vision over in Malibu!” Natasha was shouting as she paced the common room. Wanda and Vision sat together on one couch while Bruce sat in a nearby chair. “This is idiotic! None of them know how to build a house, not even Tony! Besides, Tony is claiming it’s for Y/N, but the two haven’t spoken in weeks! Weeks!”

“Exactly 18 days,” Vision added.

“Not helping, dear,” Wanda told him softly, patting his arm.

“I’m going out there,” Natasha stated. “You all are staying here with Y/N because we can’t lose any more teammates to Tony’s craziness.”

“Are you sure that that’s a smart idea?” Asked Bruce. “Maybe we give them more time. They could be—“

“They’ve had enough time and have gotten completely nowhere. I’m taking a quinjet and leaving. Wanda’s in charge.” Natasha stormed out.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to be any of them when Natasha gets there.”

~~~

Natasha left without telling you, but you knew where she was heading. You could tell she was fed up with the men on the Team and was going to fix their mess. It was now late at night, and you were fed up with the secrets. You wanted to know what was actually going on in Malibu, so you went to Tony’s lab.

“FRIDAY?” You called, shutting the lab door and locking it.

“Yes, Miss L/N?” FRIDAY responded.

“I know that Tony is having you block me from the news and from what they are doing in Malibu, but I need to know. I need to know the news so I can begin to handle it and not be scared of it. I need to know what’s happening in Malibu. I need to know if Tony’s okay.”

FRIDAY took a moment to respond, almost like the AI had a choice of whether or not it listened to the orders given by Tony. You waited with bated breath, trying to keep your nervousness at bay.

“I have pulled up the file about the news outlets,” FRIDAY finally said as one of the hologram tables came to life. “Please let me know if you need any assistance.”

Slowly, you headed over to the table and sat down. You began to read through the headlines.

STARK DATING A CHILD

SUGAR DADDY STARK & SUGAR BABY L/N

STARK DATES A NOBODY

WHO IS Y/N L/N, AND HOW DID SHE LAND STARK?

IS Y/N L/N PREGNANT WITH TONY STARK’S CHILD?

You read a few of the articles and watched a few of the news clips. Tears ran down your cheeks as you took in the criticism and hatred, wishing that Tony was by your side. You understood why he protected you from this and were thankful for it. You wouldn’t have been able to handle it when the news broke out at first, but now you were putting the work into handling it better.

As you continued to scroll through, you realized it was going in chronological order. Suddenly you saw news articles and videos about Tony. The headlines had changed.

STARK IN LOVE

STARK STANDS UP FOR HIS GIRL

STARK REQUESTING PRIVACY AT THIS TIME

All the articles said the same thing, that Tony had made a statement about your relationship. You had no idea and began to read it.

As a public figure since birth, I understand that my life often becomes a point of intrigue and discussion. However, I believe certain aspects of my personal life should remain private out of respect for those involved. I am Tony Stark, and I do not need to explain myself to you, but I will explain anything needed to protect those I love.

Yes, it is true that I am in a relationship with Y/N L/N. Yes, she is younger than me, but that doesn’t matter. She is intelligent and kind and has brought immense joy into my life. I am deeply in love with her. She is my world, and I will do anything to protect her.

At this time, I am asking for your understanding and respect as we navigate our lives together. It is important to me to protect her from undue scrutiny and to allow our relationship to flourish away from the public eye. I will do what is necessary to stop the harmful opinions being thrown her way.

Tony Stark

You couldn’t help but cry harder. Tony stood up for you, telling the world he loved you. He was trying to make sure that you were safe from the public’s continuous comments. 

“FRIDAY, is Tony in Malibu?” You asked, hoping for an answer.

“Yes,” the AI responded.

“Can you prep a quinjet for me? I need a flight plan to Malibu, wherever Tony is… Please… I need to see him. I need to talk to him.”

“Miss—quinjet—15—Malibu—inform—Boss—“

“FRIDAY?” You stood up as FRIDAY cut in and out. The lights around the lab began flickering. “FRIDAY!” The lights completely cut out suddenly. You rushed to the lab doors to get out, but they wouldn’t unlock. “Help! Wanda! Vision! Bruce! Someone!”

The screens behind you came to life. Before you could even turn around, you could see the red light. Your heart was pounding against your chest as you slowly turned to face the screens. Air caught in your throat as the HYDRA symbol shone back at you, and a familiar, rough voice bounced through the room.

“Hail Hydra.”

~~~

“There’s a quinjet incoming,” Sam stated.

“It’s probably Wanda and Viz,” said Steve. “Tony wanted them here.”

“I don’t know why they haven’t been here the whole time. They could be doing all the heavy lifting.”

The quinjet landed, and the lamp lowered. All the men but Tony stopped to see who would walk down it. Natasha marched down the ramp, a determined look on her face.

“Shit,” Bucky muttered. “We’re all screwed.”

“You idiots!” Natasha shouted.

“Here we go,” Rhodey mumbled.

“You are not contractors or construction workers! You needed to talk Tony out of this, not help him build this!”

“Bucky started it,” Sam quickly blamed.

“Hey!” Bucky exclaimed. “I didn’t see any of you try to talk some sense into the man!”

“Because you had already got his sights on us building a house!”

“You didn’t—“

“Enough!” Natasha screamed. “I’m done with you all. Where is he?”

They all pointed towards the downstairs building site. They watched in complete silence as Natasha marched off. They waited until they couldn’t see or hear her anymore before anyone spoke up.

“She’s frightening,” Sam whispered.

“Just wait until Tony fights back,” Steve said.

~~~

Tony had his headphones blasting ACDC. He had dirty pants and a tank top on, which he had actually been wearing for a few times now. There were bottles of alcohol and coffee cups all over the sight since Tony was surviving off of liquids. 

Natasha was unimpressed as she felt thrown back in time to when Tony had destroyed his house while he was dying years earlier. She wasn’t in the mood for any of his antics, so she quickly pulled his headphones off and threw them to the side.

“What the— oh. It’s you,” Tony said, immediately getting back to work.

“Seriously? This is not okay, Tony. This is a new low.”

“I’m fine.”

“Bullshit.”

“Red—“

“Get your ass in the quinjet.”

“You’re not my mom.”

“You’re right, but I have a pretty good guess on how disappointed she’d be right now.” Tony clenched his jaw, remaining silent. “Okay, I’ll admit that that was low, but it needed to be said.” She sighed. “You need to come home.”

“I’m building a home.”

“You’re building a home that you think Y/N will like. You have no idea. You need her opinion on things. What if she hates it?” Tony stopped his movements. Natasha took it as a sign to move closer, coming around to meet face to face. “I know that you are doing this all for her, but you’re doing this the wrong way.”

“I just want her to feel safe…”

“I know, and I get it. But it’s time to come home. You and Y/N need to talk about everything—including this house. We also don’t want it to get out that the Avengers have started a construction company. The calls would never cease.”

Tony let out a breathy chuckle. “Yeah, guess you’re right.”

“One day, you’ll realize I always am.”

“Tony! Natasha!” Steve came running to them, yelling. “We have a problem!”

“What’s going on?”

“T’Challa just called. Something happened, and Rumlow escaped. We can’t get a hold of anyone at the Compound, and FRIDAY is down.”

“Impossible,” Tony said, rushing to his nearest suit. It refused to respond. “Come on!” He tried to get the suit to open, continuing to fail. “Come on!”

“Are the quinjets working?” Natasha asked Steve.

“That’s what Sam, Bucky, and Rhodey are working on right now,” he responded.

“We have to get to the Compound,” Tony said. “I have to get there… Y/N’s there.” His heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest as the panic set in. “I’m not there… I’m not there… I’m failing her again… I’ve got—I need—Y/N—” His breaths were uneven, and his head began spinning. It took only seconds for him to be on the ground, panicking.

“Tony!” Both Natasha and Steve exclaimed. They rushed to his side just before he passed out.

Steve was quick to scoop Tony up and began to rush to one of the quinjets.

“Sam got one working!” Bucky shouted. He noticed Tony in Steve’s arms. “What the hell happened?”

“We need to go,” Natasha stated as they headed for the working quinjet. “Rhodey! Sam! We need a medkit out and IVs. I’ll fly.”

Everyone worked quickly as Natasha got the quinjet off the ground and headed for the Compound.

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[matthewsgreybubbles]

Last year on Reddit, I came across these posts about Matthew’s girlfriend from NYC. Arabella Wells. An underage high school girl who was a rich, nepo baby. No one knew who her parents were, but it was said her dad was some important ceo or something and her mom was a famous model. Arabella was 17. They had all these stories and “sightings” about her and Matthew making out outside of Nobu in NYC, that he was always seen at her high school. There was a fake “news” article that he crashed her car. There was a lot. Anyway, I talked to some of the accounts who “knew” her and they sent me pictures of the girl. One of the pictures was a screen shot from ig. I went to some photo analyzing site and it confirmed it was photoshopped. On a whim, I took one of the pictures they sent me, and did a Google search and I actually found the REAL girl’s Twitter account. They were using her face as a face claim for the story. The real girl happened to be some girl from London, she’s 19, and had no idea any of this was going on. Her name also isn’t really Arabella Wells. That was a fake name. I know someone who dmed her and informed her of everything and she was seriously freaked out. In the story, they also said she was dating Matty Healy and that at a Christmas party in NYC, Matty and Matthew were arguing over her. They even had “voicemails.” Those were created with some AI software. When I tell you this entire thing is insane, I mean it!!

WHAT THE HECK???

I'm just shocked. What is wrong with these people for real?? This is more than insane like- whaaat? The poor girl?? I'm at a loss for words.

[feminismisstillahatemovement]

Google’s push to lecture us on diversity goes beyond AI

by Douglas Murray

The future is here. And it turns out to be very, very racist.

As the New York Post reported yesterday, Google’s Gemini GI image generator aims to have a lot of things. But historical accuracy is not among them.

If you ask the program to give you an image of the Founding Fathers of this country, the AI will return you images of black and Native American men signing what appears to be a version of the American Constitution.

At least that’s more accurate than the images of popes thrown up. A request for an image of one of the holy fathers gives up images of — among others — a Southeast Asian woman. Who knew?

Some people are surprised by this. I’m not.

Several years ago, I went to Silicon Valley to try to figure out what the hell was going on with Google Images, among other enterprises.

Because Google images were already throwing up a very specific type of bias.

If you typed in “gay couples” and asked for an image search, you got lots of happy gay couples. Ask for “straight couples” and you get images of, er, gay couples.

It was the same if you wanted to see happy couples of any orientation.

Ask for images of ���black couples” and you got lots of happy black couples. Ask for “white couples” and you got black couples, or interracial couples. Many of them gay.

I asked people in Silicon Valley what the hell was going on and was told this was what they call “machine learning fairness.”

The idea is that we human beings are full of implicit bias and that as a result, we need the machines to throw up unbiased images.

Except that the machines were clearly very biased indeed. Much more so than your average human.

What became clear to me was that this was not the machines working on their own. The machines had been skewed by human interference.

If you ask for images of gay couples, you get lots of happy gay couples. Ask for straight couples and the first things that come up are a piece asking whether straight couples should really identify as such. The second picture is captioned, “Queer lessons for straight couples.”

Shortly after, you get an elderly gay couple with the tag, “Advice for straight couples from a long-term gay couple.” Then a photo with the caption, “Gay couples have less strained marriages than straight couples.”

Again, none of this comes up if you search for “gay couples.” Then you get what you ask for. You are not bombarded with photos and articles telling you how superior straight couples are to gay couples.

It’s almost as though Google Images is trying to force-feed us something.

It is the same with race.

Ask Google Images to show you photos of black couples and you’ll get exactly what you ask for. Happy black couples. All heterosexual, as it happens.

But ask the same engine to show you images of white couples and two things happen.

You get a mass of images of black couples and mixed-race couples and then — who’d have guessed — mixed-race gay couples.

Why does this matter?

Firstly, because it is clear that the machines are not lacking in bias. They are positively filled with it.

It seems the tech wants to teach us all a lesson. It assumes that we are all homophobic white bigots who need re-educating. What an insult.

Secondly, it gives us a totally false image — literally — of our present. Now, thanks to the addition of Google Gemini, we can also be fed a totally false image of our past.

Yet the interesting thing about the past is that it isn’t the present. When we learn about the past, we learn that things were different from now. We see how things actually were and that is very often how we learn from it.

How were things then? How are they now? And how do they compare?

Faking the past or altering it completely robs us of the opportunity not just to understand the past but to understand the present.

Google has said it is going to call a halt on Gemini. Mainly because there has been backlash over the hilarious “diversity” of Nazi soldiers that it has thrown up.

If you search for Nazi officers, it turns out that there were black Nazis in the Third Reich. Who knew?

While Google Gemini gets over that little hurdle, perhaps it could realize that it’s not just the Gemini program that’s rotten but the whole darn thing.

Google is trying to change everything about the American and Western past.

I suggest we don’t let it.

There was an old joke told in the Soviet Union that now seems worryingly relevant to America in the age of AI: “The only thing that’s certain is the future. The past keeps on changing.”

[sayruq]

Biden's visit has concluded. Israel has spent his entire visit trying to muddy the waters of what happened to Al Ahli Hospital and despite their cartoonish efforts, it hasn't worked

The Global South and especially West Asia know who is responsible for the bombing and no amount of AI voice recordings of 'Hamas operatives' can change that.

Israel war crimes continues to backfire on them even in America

Biden backing Israel has had an impact on America's image. Here's a Wall Street Journal article warning that America's continued support is turning countries towards Russia and China which is code for turning countries against America

An EU official said that the EU will pay a heavy price in the Global South for its continued, unabashed support for Israel

There's also speculation that the Biden administration knew about the bombing before it happened.

Countries that were/are allied with Israel continue to distance themselves from Israel like Russia. The reason I keep highlighting Russia is because the West has been running out of ammunition due to the Russia-Ukraine war and that includes Israel which is rumoured to have sent 80-90% of its ammunition to Ukraine. If this conflict lasts a long time, Israel will need to buy weapons and ammunition and Russia would be one of the countries they would turn to (same with China)

So, where are we in terms of the conflict? After days of waffling over a ground operation in Gaza, Israel postponed it until some time after Biden's visit and now we're back here again

Now I'm no military expert but constantly going back and forth on whether or not you'll invade Gaza is bound to do damage to your troops' morale. No wonder they're dealing with mass desertions while their citizens demonstrate on the streets. The Israeli leadership has no plan besides bombing Gaza.

I've seen people on twitter say that the hospital bombing was done deliberately to normalise IDF soldiers to mass civilian deaths in places like hospitals, schools, places of worship, etc. I don't know if I believe that - I think they wanted to push Iran and Hezbollah's buttons before hiding behind Biden. I don't think these people are thinking strategically.

As far as the possibility of regional war is concerned, all indicators show that the West preparing for the war to escalate

Seems to me the Israel has seen what Ukraine has received in just a year and a half of war. They're done receiving a paltry 3.8 billion every year and now prepared to drag out the conflict and I can't say I blame with Biden proposing a 100 billion package for both Ukraine and Israel. This will stretch America too thin as far as funding in concerned. Cracks are already showing

There are parts of the US government that is unhappy that the Ukraine war is losing attention. During the Ukraine war, you had parts of the government that wanted focus to shift from Russia to China. Because of that, the US government has spent the past year alternating between hostility to Russia and threatening to go to war with China over Taiwan. When Niger expelled France from within its borders, America was preparing to join that conflict until Mali and Burkina Faso declared they would fight with Niger. Now they're entering a third front in West Asia. In short, the mighty empire is expending a lot of resources right now and it is not the threat it was when it invaded Iraq and Afghanistan in the early 2000s.

At any rate, the ground invasion of Gaza won't go the way Israel and America hopes it will

The coalition of Palestinian resistance fighters are still patiently waiting for the IDF to come meet them. Their allies aren't backing down either

The reason I keep making these posts is to remind people that, while the genocide of the people of Gaza is horrifying, the war for the liberation of Palestine has not yet been lost.

Do not lose hope. From the river to sea, Palestine WILL be free

[praise-suns-and-chill]

On another post a few comments, mine included, had a little chat about what Mashita's thought proccess could have been, during the Confession in the second game.

So I decided to write a little One Shot about it!

This includes Spoilers for Case 7 in Death Mark 2, as well as the DLC of Death Mark 1.

THIS? 

"I'm not gonna be surprised by anything that comes out of his damn mouth." 

Well. 

Fuck. 

He was really eating those words now, huh. 

He could only stare with eyes ripped open as Yashiki explained, his words as trembling as his hands, his eyes avoiding everyone else. 

In fear of judgement? 

Probably. 

Shame? 

Definitely. 

This was wrong. 

This was wrong on every level. 

He was never one to stick to rules but this? 

MURDER??? 

Mashita couldn't even speak at first as Yashiki just continued explaining. No, there had to be something else, every second now he would mention that they did find that girl again alive, there had to be more, there had to be. 

This was wrong. 

But there wasn't. 

There wasn't and he looked as guilty as ever. Having just confessed. 

To murder. 

"You must be kidding me." 

Words uttered in pure disbelief. 

This wasn’t happening. 

There is no way. 

"To think you'd kill someone..." 

Actually, he didn't want to think about that. Not a single bit.  

Yes, everyone had the potential to murder, he knew that better than most, but this was Yashiki. Compassionate to a stupid, suicidal degree Yashiki. 

"Don't blame him for that! He was controlled by the Departed!" 

Oh great, the brat was talking. Mashita glared at her out of reflex alone. 

Why the fuck was she so defensive anyways? Nobody would react like that after their best friend just got killed, what kind of weirdo was this girl??

"Insanity or not, murder is still murder", he snapped back, before his eyes stared back at Yashiki. 

He felt more like he was the one going insane, his mind completely elsewhere as old training just kicked in. 

It was the only thing that made sense right now. 

"Article 199, a person who kills another person is punished by the death penalty or life imprisonment or for a definite term of no less than five years." 

He felt sick of even thinking of this as an option. He rattled down those words out of pure habit, as he had many times before, in the Academy back in the day and his job later. 

"I'd slap the cuffs on you myself if I had them with me." 

He should, but he wouldn't. Why was he saying that, he wouldn't, because Yashiki would never kill anyone. 

God fucking damnit. 

His heart was racing as fast as his mind, his entire body tense, ready to spring at the threat and yet violently rejecting the very notion that there was a threat to begin with. 

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong, wrong, fuck! 

But Yashiki? 

Everyone else, maybe. 

He'd believe Shou, not planned but in affect, too impulsive. Ai too, stronger than she looked, against a stalking fan maybe. Daimon? Doctor, there was always a chance of malpractice. Yasuoka? That old hag definitely had a skeleton in her closet somewhere, if only because she dug it up once because the bones had some weird powers. 

The man who watched the only friends he had get attacked? 

The man who watched his friends get controlled to attack him? 

The man who watched half his friends get cursed into a coma and nearly die. 

The man who was nearly killed himself by the same goddamn spirit.  

The same man who after ALL THAT, still trembling in shock and trauma, barely aware of his own body, STILL refused to think about himself, just for fucking ONCE. 

The same man who looked at a dead spider, the remains of that goddamn spirit and still decided to show compassion to it before ANYTHING else-! 

...

Oh. 

Of course. 

And his body instantly relaxed, as did his mind.  

It didn't make any sense, possession or not. He would never do it. So he didn't. 

"...Let me just say one thing." 

It wasn't like him to get distracted. He had nearly forgotten what case they were even working on. 

"The law only applies if the victim is human." 

[whumpsday]

my unhinged rant about the whumptober discourse, below the readmore for the benefit of ppl who dont wanna see that crap. im just gonna go insane if i don't say this somewhere bc i feel like i'm losing my mind

this drama is genuinely so mind-blowingly stupid it's unreal, and it's been bothering me so much that i just HAVE to talk about it or i'm gonna go insane, if for no other reason than to get it out of my system. i honestly never expected the whump community to go on the kind of bad-faith tirade that's taking place.

disclaimer right here that i do not support AI scraping creative works without permission (like chatgpt and a whole host of AI art programs do) or these AI-generated works being passed off as legitimate creative works. obviously that stuff is bad, and literally everyone on all sides of this agrees it's bad. i used chatgpt exactly once one week after it came out, before i knew how shit it was, and haven't touched AI stuff since. because it steals from creators and it sucks.

now:

saying "whumptober supports/allows AI" when their official policy says plain as day:

"we are not changing our stance from last year’s decision"

"we will not amplify or include AI works in our reblogs of the event."

"we discourage the use of AI within Whumptober, it feels like cheating, and we feel like it isn’t in the spirit of the event."

is bonkers! whumptober is a prompt list, there is nothing TO the event other than being included in the reblogs. they literally cannot stop people from doing whatever they want with the prompts.

someone could go out and enact every single prompt in real life on a creativity-fueled serial killing spree and the whumptober mods couldn't do shit about it. it's not like it's a contest you submit to. it's a prompt list! someone could take every single prompt from the AI-less whumptober prompt list, feed it into chatgpt right now, and post them as entries. and the mods of THAT wouldn't be able to stop them either. because it's a prompt list.

the AI-less event have also made just... blatantly false claims, like that grammarly isn't AI. grammarly IS AI and they openly advertise this. hell, this is grammarly's front page right now:

and this is a statement from grammarly about how its products work:

its spellchecker / grammarchecker is AI-based! claiming it's not AI is just... lying. saying "this is an AI-less event" and then just saying any AI that you want to include doesn't count as AI is ludicrous.

and you know what? whumptober actually pointed this out. they said they don't want to ban AI-based assistive tools (like grammarly) for accessibility reasons. this post has several great points:

"AI is used for the predictive text and spellchecker that's running while I type this reply."

"Accessibility tools rely on AI." this is true and here's an article about it, though the article is a little too pro-AI in general for my tastes, there's nuances to this stuff. it's used for captioning, translation, image identification, and more. not usually the same kind of AI that's used for stuff like chatgpt. THERE ARE DIFFERENT KINDS!

"But we can't stop that, nor can we undo damage already done, and banning AI use (especially since we can't enforce it) is an empty stand on a hill that's already burning, at least in our view of things."

and people were UP IN ARMS over this post! their notes were full of hate, even though it's all true! just straight lying and saying that predictive text isn't AI (it is), that AI isn't used for accessibility tools (it is), that whumptober can somehow enforce an anti-AI policy (they can't because it's a prompt list).

in effect, both whumptobers have the EXACT SAME AI POLICY. neither allows AI-generated works, but both allow AI-based assistive tools like grammarly. everyone involved here is ON THE SAME SIDE, they all have the exact same opinion on how AI should be applied to events like this, and somehow they're arguing???

not to mention that no other whump event has ever had an AI policy. febuwhump, WIJ, bad things happen bingo, hell even nanowrimo doesn't have one.

and you wanna know the most ridiculous part of this entire thing? which is also the reason why none of the above events have an AI policy.

no one is doing this. no one is out there feeding whumptober prompts to chatgpt and posting them as fills for whumptober cred. it's literally a hypothetical, made-up issue. all of this infighting over a problem that DOESN'T EXIST.

to the point that people are brigading the whumptober server with shit like this:

saying "everyone who participates in whumptober is a traitor, you should go participate in this other event with the exact same AI policy but more moral grandstanding about it" is silly. every single bit of this drama is silly.

in the end, please just be nice to people. we're ALL against the kind of AI that steals from creators. the whumptober mods are against AI, the AILWT mods are against AI, whumptober participants are against AI, AILWT participants are against AI. there is no mythical person out here trying to pass chatgpt work off as whumpfic. let's all just be civil with each other over this, yeah?

[andmaybegayer]

This article makes an interesting point about generative AI stuff that I hadn't heard before:

I quietly attended a video conference about possible uses for ChatGPT tech. It was a series of presentations in an open-ended format, little demos of rough drafts and proofs of concept. At random: one to help design a kitchen. It was cool. You could whip up a little kitchen and do a little walkthrough and make changes. Would the kitchen collapse if actually built? Probably not. Did the AI understand the concept of load-bearing walls? Unknown. Did it know what it would be like to actually work in the kitchen it built? 100 percent no. Would somebody trust it? Probably, unless they knew otherwise. Would they pay an expert who had these answers some hundreds of dollars instead of using a nearly-free AI tool? No chance. They might take the AI’s output to an actual expert who could correct things and know the right questions to ask, but the damage has been done, and a whole field begins to suffer, as the demand for entry-level expertise vanishes, gutting the growth of a profession at the root.

I don't know to what extent to expect this, but I can absolutely see that without the need to hire people to design cheap little icons or brief copy text, lots of industries might find themselves with a dearth of trained talent because no one is even trying to do that anymore, resulting in an overall quality decrease because there's less practice going into the art overall.

I wonder if there are comparable occurrences in history, but those are all pretty grounded in like, manufacturing, which seems different in terms of the tradeoffs you're making. There's probably a textiles-related thing here if we want to wrap around on the Luddites.

[loopingpyre]

We posted an old half done article that was.... just a little anti-AI?

And things just got a little nuts.

Turns out the right wing grifter audience that follows us because we're the only outlet that also covers eroge news don't like it when you say that translation is good. And they're loud, and the boss was very surprised by this.

Who knew!

(you should follow us btw)

[onemillionfurries]

not for nothing, but around 2021 the CEO of the studio behind palworld was tweeting about ai generated pokemon designs, and how he “can almost not tell the difference,” referencing that exact article, actually. I do not think every single design was ai generated or that any ai references were used from start to finish with no human touch, but the CEO is very openly interested in ai technology and its applications in game development! I don’t think its a stretch to guess it may have been used somewhere in the pipeline. and as someone who also messed around with fakemon generators when the tech was still a bit novel, some of the designs do have that ai stink to them, even from around that time.

yeah i chose that article specifically bc i knew that the CEO had referenced it in a tweet. I WANTED to get into it in the post, but it was also 9am and I hadn't gotten a wink of sheep that night (... bc i was up all night playing palworld WHOOPS--) (im writing this off a 2 hour nap so pls forgive me if it's incomprehensible)

I remember the whole "palworld used ai to gen its monsters" narrative literally started because someone qrt'd someone pointing out that CEO's tweet and extrapolated that because the CEO spoke positively on AI generated pokemon, then the game MUST have AI generated monster designs which... wasn't what the original tweet was saying at all. but unfortunately nuance and reason is like poison to twitter so the speculation spiraled from there. (not like tumblr is much better. but I at least have the space to explain myself here, however poorly that may be :P)

And like, the unfortunate thing is that nearly /every/ CEO is interested in AI. their whole job is to make money, not art. some are just louder about it than others. with the insane crunch that the pokemon developers go through, I wouldn't be surprised if AI is also used in those games somewhere in the pipeline, whether that's in the past or a future release.

Let's also not forget when the pokemon company international was interested in hiring simeone with knowledge in NFT/web3 technology. if we're automatically assuming that open interest in something means that it's implemented, or that it will be at some point, then we better get to boycotting pokemon now!

I wanna be clear that I'm not defending the use of AI art in game development. it may very well be that AI /was/ used somewhere in the Palworld pipeline. I just don't want people to be asserting something as true with little to no actual evidence. ever since I got "called out" by an ex-friend of mine for some heinous shit that i quite literally never did, I've been a lot more diligent in figuring out if something people are freaking out about on social media IS actually true, or if it was a mountain made out of a molehill, as it tends to be 99% of the time.

(btw I'm curious as to what pals you think have that AI stink to them? im generally trying to avoid spoilers for later game pals bc i wanna discover them on my own, but if you wanna send a list or something that I can look up when im further in the game I'd be interested.)

[peachjagiya]

https://www.tumblr.com/peachjagiya/758576613743099904/the-more-i-rewatch-the-little-tkk-ft-call-on-ays

I respectfully disagree. Jikook apparently had no plans to go on any additional trips, nor did they plan to film more until after the US leg, as per the Forbes article. So idk how it would’ve been scripted to have Jimin bring up Tae before they knew he was going to be joining them. And who knows? Maybe bringing him up so much during the first trip spurred the decision to include him for the Jeju portion. I don’t think it’s that deep.

Ohhh good point.