#Amazon Tester

[free-amazon-products]

Amazon Product Tester Sign-Up: What You Need to Know

Interested in becoming an Amazon product tester? Find out everything you need to know about the sign-up process, requirements, and tips to increase your chances of being selected. https://www.pr4-articles.com/Articles-of-2024/amazon-product-tester-sign-what-you-need-know/ Start testing and keeping products today! 📦✨ #AmazonTester #ProductReviews #FreeStuff

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Three AI insights for hard-charging, future-oriented smartypantses

MERE HOURS REMAIN for the Kickstarter for the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There’s also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

Living in the age of AI hype makes demands on all of us to come up with smartypants prognostications about how AI is about to change everything forever, and wow, it's pretty amazing, huh?

AI pitchmen don't make it easy. They like to pile on the cognitive dissonance and demand that we all somehow resolve it. This is a thing cult leaders do, too – tell blatant and obvious lies to their followers. When a cult follower repeats the lie to others, they are demonstrating their loyalty, both to the leader and to themselves.

Over and over, the claims of AI pitchmen turn out to be blatant lies. This has been the case since at least the age of the Mechanical Turk, the 18th chess-playing automaton that was actually just a chess player crammed into the base of an elaborate puppet that was exhibited as an autonomous, intelligent robot.

The most prominent Mechanical Turk huckster is Elon Musk, who habitually, blatantly and repeatedly lies about AI. He's been promising "full self driving" Telsas in "one to two years" for more than a decade. Periodically, he'll "demonstrate" a car that's in full-self driving mode – which then turns out to be canned, recorded demo:

https://www.reuters.com/technology/tesla-video-promoting-self-driving-was-staged-engineer-testifies-2023-01-17/

Musk even trotted an autonomous, humanoid robot on-stage at an investor presentation, failing to mention that this mechanical marvel was just a person in a robot suit:

https://www.siliconrepublic.com/machines/elon-musk-tesla-robot-optimus-ai

Now, Musk has announced that his junk-science neural interface company, Neuralink, has made the leap to implanting neural interface chips in a human brain. As Joan Westenberg writes, the press have repeated this claim as presumptively true, despite its wild implausibility:

https://joanwestenberg.com/blog/elon-musk-lies

Neuralink, after all, is a company notorious for mutilating primates in pursuit of showy, meaningless demos:

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-pcrm-neuralink-monkey-deaths/

I'm perfectly willing to believe that Musk would risk someone else's life to help him with this nonsense, because he doesn't see other people as real and deserving of compassion or empathy. But he's also profoundly lazy and is accustomed to a world that unquestioningly swallows his most outlandish pronouncements, so Occam's Razor dictates that the most likely explanation here is that he just made it up.

The odds that there's a human being beta-testing Musk's neural interface with the only brain they will ever have aren't zero. But I give it the same odds as the Raelians' claim to have cloned a human being:

https://edition.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/03/cf.opinion.rael/

The human-in-a-robot-suit gambit is everywhere in AI hype. Cruise, GM's disgraced "robot taxi" company, had 1.5 remote operators for every one of the cars on the road. They used AI to replace a single, low-waged driver with 1.5 high-waged, specialized technicians. Truly, it was a marvel.

Globalization is key to maintaining the guy-in-a-robot-suit phenomenon. Globalization gives AI pitchmen access to millions of low-waged workers who can pretend to be software programs, allowing us to pretend to have transcended the capitalism's exploitation trap. This is also a very old pattern – just a couple decades after the Mechanical Turk toured Europe, Thomas Jefferson returned from the continent with the dumbwaiter. Jefferson refined and installed these marvels, announcing to his dinner guests that they allowed him to replace his "servants" (that is, his slaves). Dumbwaiters don't replace slaves, of course – they just keep them out of sight:

https://www.stuartmcmillen.com/blog/behind-the-dumbwaiter/

So much AI turns out to be low-waged people in a call center in the Global South pretending to be robots that Indian techies have a joke about it: "AI stands for 'absent Indian'":

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

A reader wrote to me this week. They're a multi-decade veteran of Amazon who had a fascinating tale about the launch of Amazon Go, the "fully automated" Amazon retail outlets that let you wander around, pick up goods and walk out again, while AI-enabled cameras totted up the goods in your basket and charged your card for them.

According to this reader, the AI cameras didn't work any better than Tesla's full-self driving mode, and had to be backstopped by a minimum of three camera operators in an Indian call center, "so that there could be a quorum system for deciding on a customer's activity – three autopilots good, two autopilots bad."

Amazon got a ton of press from the launch of the Amazon Go stores. A lot of it was very favorable, of course: Mister Market is insatiably horny for firing human beings and replacing them with robots, so any announcement that you've got a human-replacing robot is a surefire way to make Line Go Up. But there was also plenty of critical press about this – pieces that took Amazon to task for replacing human beings with robots.

What was missing from the criticism? Articles that said that Amazon was probably lying about its robots, that it had replaced low-waged clerks in the USA with even-lower-waged camera-jockeys in India.

Which is a shame, because that criticism would have hit Amazon where it hurts, right there in the ole Line Go Up. Amazon's stock price boost off the back of the Amazon Go announcements represented the market's bet that Amazon would evert out of cyberspace and fill all of our physical retail corridors with monopolistic robot stores, moated with IP that prevented other retailers from similarly slashing their wage bills. That unbridgeable moat would guarantee Amazon generations of monopoly rents, which it would share with any shareholders who piled into the stock at that moment.

See the difference? Criticize Amazon for its devastatingly effective automation and you help Amazon sell stock to suckers, which makes Amazon executives richer. Criticize Amazon for lying about its automation, and you clobber the personal net worth of the executives who spun up this lie, because their portfolios are full of Amazon stock:

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

Amazon Go didn't go. The hundreds of Amazon Go stores we were promised never materialized. There's an embarrassing rump of 25 of these things still around, which will doubtless be quietly shuttered in the years to come. But Amazon Go wasn't a failure. It allowed its architects to pocket massive capital gains on the way to building generational wealth and establishing a new permanent aristocracy of habitual bullshitters dressed up as high-tech wizards.

"Wizard" is the right word for it. The high-tech sector pretends to be science fiction, but it's usually fantasy. For a generation, America's largest tech firms peddled the dream of imminently establishing colonies on distant worlds or even traveling to other solar systems, something that is still so far in our future that it might well never come to pass:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/09/astrobezzle/#send-robots-instead

During the Space Age, we got the same kind of performative bullshit. On The Well David Gans mentioned hearing a promo on SiriusXM for a radio show with "the first AI co-host." To this, Craig L Maudlin replied, "Reminds me of fins on automobiles."

Yup, that's exactly it. An AI radio co-host is to artificial intelligence as a Cadillac Eldorado Biaritz tail-fin is to interstellar rocketry.

Back the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle here!

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/31/neural-interface-beta-tester/#tailfins

[loubella77]

Who’s ready? I am!

Dm me if you also wanna be a sex toy tester, I can send u to a REAL account 😎

[six-of-ravens]

apparently despite the amazon man building a fortress of boxes in front of my door the fire inspector and manager got in to test the alarm, bc they left the goddamn door unlocked and I'm certain I locked it this morning...

[moneyearndigital]

How to Become an Amazon Product Tester : 2024

Unbox your dream job! 📦 Learn how to score gigs testing the latest gadgets for Amazon. 💻

How to Become an Amazon Product Tester – Hilarious Journey If someone told me a year ago that I’d be making money testing out the latest gadgets and gizmos, I would have laughed in their face. Me, an Amazon product tester? As if! But after slogging away at my boring desk job day after boring day, I decided I needed to spice up my life. So I set out on a journey to become the coveted product…

[777sturn]

𝐛𝐟!𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝜗𝜚 matt sturniolo

𝒊𝒏 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒄𝒉. . . matt is a boyfriend

𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈(𝒔) none just cute little things i think matt would do if he was a boyfriend

𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒓’𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆 i love him to death he fs will treat his gf like a sweetheart (i’ll add more in the future!) sorry for being so inconsistent 😭😭 im trying to get back into writing againnn yippee

bf!matt who is definitely a huge quality time person. hes willing to be around you everytime but he isn’t too clingy (ofc he still is) he especially enjoys those late night car rides with you and blasting music through the windows (mac miller, frank ocean, etc.)

bf!matt who loves watching movies with you no matter what. he literally watched 10 thing i hate about you (im not over this guys pls) and he is willing to watch any movie, as long as hes cuddled up next to you.

bf!matt who is a literal yapper when he’s around you. usually he’s quiet and reserved but as soon as you’re with him, he just talks and talks and talks. its probably about the most random topics too or giving you a rundown on his day.

bf!matt who’s a cuddler by heart. he loves when you lay your head on his lap while he twirls his fingers around your hair but he loves when his head is on yours so he can admire you from down below. he loves holding you close to him and pepper gentle kisses all over your face.

bf!matt who isn’t too cheesy but cheesy enough. he loves to refer to you as ‘my girl’ or ‘baby’ and he will go absolutely insane when he gets called baby by you. like he gets all flushed and will hold you forever.

bf!matt who is the type of boyfriend to buy you a bouquet of flowers but takes one for himself so he could see when it dies to buy new ones. he will also spoil you to death. for example, if you bring up something that you want or mention a stuffed animal, expect to see an amazon delivery box on your porch step.

bf!matt who is willing to try anything for you. for example, your cooking or baking and you need a taste tester: he’s there! when you wanna try out new skincare or making: again, he’s there! he just wants to spend a lot of time with you and making you happy

bf!matt who you don’t argue with often, but when you guys do, you end up making up by the end of the day. he will spam you saying you guys should talk it out and if you dont answer he will be at your doorstep holding flowers and a fast food bag of your favorite food.

[verysium]

ACT 1, SCENE 2: blue lock headcanons

nagi found out amazon product testers were a real thing, and he had never been more happy in his entire life. if he wasn't training to become a professional football player, that would have been his dream job.

sae became a victim of the cat distribution system the moment he moved to spain. he left his window open once, and he came back to a whole secret society of strays on his fire escape.

aryu used to watch his mother do her makeup in the bathroom every morning. after she left for work, he would use her hair curlers and nail polish to bedazzle himself. if you ever ask him to do your makeup, he would tilt your chin up with one hand and ever so gently swipe on your lipstick for you.

kaiser is a whore for attention, even if it is bad attention. if you're not listening to him during dinner, he would most definitely steal the food right off your plate whilst maintaining eye contact. gives you the most shit-eating grin once you catch him.

rin genuinely cannot function around the female species. sometimes his aunties make small talk during family gatherings, and he just sits awkwardly with his baby cousin in his arms. the baby almost always cries.

sae still uses his ipod from 2005. he doesn't have any interest in music, so he mostly uses it as a white noise filler during long flights. if you send him a song recommendation though, he will listen to it.

rin kept a diary as a teenager with some of the entries completely filled with angsty scribblings about sae. he definitely had an entire section somewhere dedicated to death and existentialism. the second half of his journal is reserved solely for you though. he sometimes doodles flowers in the margins.

raichi is chronically online. he would be the type to have an entire four-page argument with a stranger in the youtube comment section. sometimes you have to remind him that the outside world actually exists, and he needs to go outside and touch grass.

sae is secretly intrigued by artists. like how can you just transfer an image from your head onto paper? is it some sort of magic? he cannot wrap his mind around anything that isn't concrete and tangible. he sometimes walks through the streets of madrid just to spy on the old people painting the sea. if you made a drawing of him, he would internally malfunction.

isagi used to help his mother with knitting and sewing. he even learned how to crochet one summer but forgot all about it once he got into football. would not complain if you asked him to do laundry or iron clothes. he is (most of the time) very sweet and kind.

bachira does not have a sleep schedule. what is sleep? he only knows 24/7 hyperactivity and the demons under his bed. would wake you up at the crack of dawn just to go hang out in some random abandoned parking lot.

sae has to physically restrain himself whenever he does shoots for brand endorsements. he would definitely tell the truth if the product was low-quality while literally being on set for its commercial. this man does not lie. cannot model for the life of him. he lost his ability to smile a long time ago, and he feels viscerally ill every time a camera is shoved into his face. if you're there to accompany him though, he will straighten up and at least attempt to look enthusiastic.

rin is terrible at any sort of class that involves creative writing. however, he does enjoy reading haikus. it's the only form of poetry he can understand. definitely sends you one when he misses you.

reo is clueless whenever you tell him that you feel ugly in your outfit. like where is the ugliness? all he sees is the most stunning person in the world. definitely recommend taking him shopping. he would go into the fitting rooms with you and give you the most encouraging confidence boost you have ever felt.

sae has the strongest enamel in existence because he bites his popsicles right off the stick. rin tried to do that once and ended up getting brain freeze.

yukimiya is the type to go from 0 to 100 in less than a millisecond. if anyone says anything remotely negative about you, he will definitely make sure they do not live to see the light of day. he does all this with the most charming smile on his face too.

shidou has no table manners. he would be the messiest eater in existence. if the dining hall looks like a velociraptor just barraged through, you know shidou was there. he only uses a napkin because you told him to.

rin wears chelsea boots and women's clothing. he has a collection of trench coats in his closet, and they're one of the only things he's incredibly proud of. at least he beats sae when it comes to fashion sense.

ness would pack you lunch every day without you even asking for it. he also uses those glittery animal toothpicks and cuts your apples into hearts. his paper notes are little menacing though. usually it has your name written a thousand times in blood red ink.

sae would let you braid flowers into his hair, but he would wrinkle his nose in embarrassment if you ever took a picture of it. he tries to act nonchalant when you gush about how pretty he is because in his mind he looks incredibly stupid. will keep that photo by his bedside and look at it when he's lonely though.

isagi is incredibly clumsy. sometimes he will act like an egomaniac before falling right on his face. the world has an interesting way of humbling him. he does keep his mood swings in check when you're around though. your presence gives his mind inner peace.

otoya has color-coded folders for every girl he has dated. he keeps their names, likes, dislikes, and contacts all separately filed so he doesn't confuse them. however, on your night out, he got so caught up in talking to you, he forgot to even update your file. the date ended with him smiling like a damn fool. you're always the exception.

aiku is the type to just be casual about everything. he just got into a car accident while on call with you? that's okay because he got to hear your pretty voice on facetime. he took a tidal wave straight to the face while ogling you at the beach? that's no problem because he got a sneak-peek at your cute little bathing suit. this man literally has no sense of self-preservation when it comes to you.

bachira was the kid who tried to mix up weird concoctions at the school lunch table. now it translates into drinking both an energy drink and americano at once. you had to pull him away from the soda fountain because he kept trying to add every single drink combination possible into his red solo cup.

sae would blatantly stare at your ass and then tell you it was for research purposes. if you press further, he will pull up the statistics showing how buttock size correlates with athletic ability.

rin is obsessed with tea only because he saw his brother drink it at family dinners. he always sat up straight on the zabuton and sipped the bitter leaf juice as a way to impress the grown-ups. unfortunately for him, he developed a caffeine addiction in his late teens.

niko would be the tech-savvy person in your relationship. he doesn't believe in traditional flowers, so he codes you an entire HTML webpage with roses on the user interface. he also wholeheartedly believes that virtual pets are real pets.

shidou is an adrenaline junkie. he has six piercings, two of which are helix. he also snowboards during the winter and speeds on the highway for fun. (don't be like shidou, kids.)

© verysium 2023 / please do not translate, repost, or plagiarize any of my works

[thehollowwriter]

(Idk if I send a lot of asks but)

💚: What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character?

💛: What is a popular ship you just can't get behind, and why?

💛: What is a popular ship you just can't get behind, and why?

Fucking

Leoruggie and jamikali. It's a tie.

Leona is 20+. Ruggie is 17. Ruggie is in a servant role and far less privileged than Leona, who is a prince. This ship just frustrates me so much, and so many fics involve Leona treating Ruggie even worse than he does in game so it's just... bleh.

Jamil is the Asim family's slave. He is a slave. "Servant", "caretaker", "bodyguard", etc are are all nice ways of putting it. Jamil's entire being revolves around Kalim. He cannot exist outside of Kalim. He takes the subjects Kalim takes, thinks of Kalik at all times, and can never truly enjoy himself. His life from the start is deemed as lesser than Kalim's, as he's his poison tester as well. He resents Kalim for this.

Kalim essentially owns Jamil. He is a kind boy but so awfully unaware of the harm he himself is causing Jamil. In his vignettes, in the events, etc, whenever he's faced with a problem or wants something done, he tells people, "Jamil will handle it!" And carries on with no regard to Jamil's feelings or if it's even possible to do such things.

When Jamil tells him to stop doing something, or that he can't get this thing done in time, Kalim ignores him and says "I can count on you Jamil!" Why? Because Kalim is spoiled and even he is sweet, doesn't really understand the word no. Obviously, he's not doing this maliciously, but it's still very harmful and does nothing but contribute to Jamil's stress and suffering.

Idk, this whole ship doesn't sit right with me because it just feels like romance is a bandaid slapped onto a gaping chasm of a problem. Not to mention, no matter how kind Kalim is, it's very toxic and dangerous for Jamil to be dating someone with complete and unquestionable control over his autonomy like Kalim.

💚: What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character?

Azul beats out the tweels by 0.0000000001% so...

People either make him too much of a soft hearted crybaby, or too much of an evil capitalist.

Azul was hurt deeply as a child. The emotional scars left will take a very long time to fade. To cope he strived to make himself better, stronger, more desirable, and so on. In doing so, he's hardened his heart and it's a lot more difficult to get him now. It's literally stated in game that he hasn't cried in years. So no, reader giving him some affection won't make him burst into tears. He's not emotionless, but he's not going to turn into Season 1 Deku 2.0.

Then there's the other end of the scale. Some of ya'll make Azul way worse than he actually is. No, he's not going to force someone to date him. No, he's not going to make a potion to fucking... drug the reader??? Idk so many fics make him so overbearing and aggressive it's just... not like him.

And, let's not forget, he's a restaurateur's son and is literally just... a guy who owns a restaurant and wants to expand it. Sometimes people treat him like he's going to be the next CEO of Amazon or something. Azul is not ever going to be as viciously awful as most if not all CEOs are. Remember those guys are also sexist, homophobic, and racist and often fund bigoted organisations. Which... Azul would not do?

I know Azul can be a difficult character to write. It's hard to get a good balance when he's so morally grey. He's not an angel, but he's definitely not a complete monster either.

Sorry this is so long Elena, I got excited 😭

[free-amazon-products]

Applying to Be an Amazon Product Tester - Tips and Tricks for Success

Becoming an Amazon product tester is an enticing opportunity for many, offering the chance to receive and review products before they hit the market. Not only can you get your hands on the latest gadgets and gizmos, but you can also help shape the future of products through your feedback.

What is the role of an Amazon Product Tester?

Before diving into the application process, it's essential to understand what being an Amazon product tester entails. Product testers receive items for free or at a significant discount in exchange for providing honest reviews. These reviews help other customers make informed purchasing decisions and give manufacturers valuable feedback to improve their products.

Step to Become an Amazon Product Tester

Follow the mentioned below steps to become an Amazon Product Tester:

Create a strong Amazon profile

Your Amazon profile is your first impression. Ensure that it is complete and professional:

Profile picture - Use a clear, friendly photo of yourself.

Bio - Write a concise bio that highlights your interests and expertise. Mention your enthusiasm for trying new products and your commitment to providing honest reviews.

Review history - Start by reviewing products you've purchased on Amazon. Focus on writing detailed, thoughtful, and honest reviews. Highlight both the pros and cons of each product.

Join the Amazon Vine Program

Amazon Vine is an invitation-only program where top reviewers are invited to test and review new products. While you can't directly apply, you can increase your chances of being noticed:

Write quality reviews - Amazon invites reviewers based on the helpfulness of their reviews. Ensure your reviews are well-written, thorough, and helpful to other customers.

Review frequently - Constantly reviewing products increases your visibility on the platform.

Participate in third-party review sites

Several third-party websites connect brands with potential product testers. Some popular ones include:

Snagshout - Offers discounted products in exchange for reviews.

Vine voice - Connects reviewers with products that need honest reviews.

BzzAgent - Matches you with products based on your interests and demographics.

Influenster - Sends products for free in exchange for social media promotion and reviews.

Build a strong online presence

Brands often look for testers with a significant online presence to help promote their products:

Social media - Grow your followers on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Engage with your audience by posting quality content regularly.

Blogging - Consider starting a blog where you can post detailed product reviews and other relevant content.

YouTube - Create a YouTube channel to post unboxing videos, reviews, and tutorials.

Apply to become a product tester

Once you've built a strong profile and online presence, start applying to be a product tester:

Amazon Vine - Keep writing quality reviews and aim to get invited.

Review sites - Sign up for multiple third-party review sites and complete your profiles.

Direct contact - Reach out to brands directly via email or social media, expressing your interest in reviewing their products. Include links to your Amazon profile, blog, and social media accounts.

Tips for writing effective reviews

Writing effective reviews is crucial to your success as an Amazon product tester. Here are some tips to help you craft reviews that stand out:

Be honest and detailed

Honesty is key. Provide a balanced review that includes both positives and negatives. Detail your experience with the product, including how you used it and any issues you encountered.

Use high-quality photos and videos

Visual content can significantly enhance your reviews. Take clear, high-quality photos and videos of the product, showcasing its features and any issues. This adds credibility to your review and makes it more engaging.

Be specific

Specificity helps other customers make informed decisions. Mention particular features you liked or disliked, and explain why. For example, instead of saying "The product is great," say "The product's ergonomic design made it comfortable to use for extended periods."

Follow review guidelines

Ensure your reviews comply with Amazon's review guidelines. Avoid using offensive language, mentioning competitors, or including personal information.

Leveraging your success

Once you've established yourself as a reliable and valuable Amazon product tester, there are ways to leverage your success for more opportunities:

Network with other reviewers

Join online communities and forums where product testers share tips, opportunities, and experiences. Networking can lead to more opportunities and collaborations.

Expand to other platforms

Don't limit yourself to Amazon. Explore product testing opportunities on other platforms like eBay, Walmart, and Best Buy. Each platform has its review community and offers different products.

Monetize your reviews

If you have a substantial online following, consider monetizing your reviews through affiliate marketing. Sign up for Amazon’s Affiliate Program or other affiliate programs to earn a commission on sales generated through your review links.

Stay updated

Keep up with trends in product reviewing and testing. Stay informed about new review platforms, changes in Amazon’s policies, and emerging opportunities. This knowledge will help you stay ahead of the competition and continue to receive products to review.

Becoming an Amazon product tester is an exciting opportunity that combines the joy of trying new products with the satisfaction of helping other consumers make informed decisions. Remember to be honest, detailed, and engaging in your reviews, and leverage your success to explore new opportunities. With dedication and persistence, you can establish yourself as a trusted and influential product tester on Amazon and beyond. Testerz is the best platform if you are looking to apply for an Amazon product tester. They provide you with all Amazon premium products for testing to get a realistic review. Anyone can contact them by visiting their website, and to apply, you need to click on the Get Started button on the website.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Even if you think AI search could be good, it won’t be good

TONIGHT (May 15), I'm in NORTH HOLLYWOOD for a screening of STEPHANIE KELTON'S FINDING THE MONEY; FRIDAY (May 17), I'm at the INTERNET ARCHIVE in SAN FRANCISCO to keynote the 10th anniversary of the AUTHORS ALLIANCE.

The big news in search this week is that Google is continuing its transition to "AI search" – instead of typing in search terms and getting links to websites, you'll ask Google a question and an AI will compose an answer based on things it finds on the web:

https://blog.google/products/search/generative-ai-google-search-may-2024/

Google bills this as "let Google do the googling for you." Rather than searching the web yourself, you'll delegate this task to Google. Hidden in this pitch is a tacit admission that Google is no longer a convenient or reliable way to retrieve information, drowning as it is in AI-generated spam, poorly labeled ads, and SEO garbage:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/03/keyword-swarming/#site-reputation-abuse

Googling used to be easy: type in a query, get back a screen of highly relevant results. Today, clicking the top links will take you to sites that paid for placement at the top of the screen (rather than the sites that best match your query). Clicking further down will get you scams, AI slop, or bulk-produced SEO nonsense.

AI-powered search promises to fix this, not by making Google search results better, but by having a bot sort through the search results and discard the nonsense that Google will continue to serve up, and summarize the high quality results.

Now, there are plenty of obvious objections to this plan. For starters, why wouldn't Google just make its search results better? Rather than building a LLM for the sole purpose of sorting through the garbage Google is either paid or tricked into serving up, why not just stop serving up garbage? We know that's possible, because other search engines serve really good results by paying for access to Google's back-end and then filtering the results:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

Another obvious objection: why would anyone write the web if the only purpose for doing so is to feed a bot that will summarize what you've written without sending anyone to your webpage? Whether you're a commercial publisher hoping to make money from advertising or subscriptions, or – like me – an open access publisher hoping to change people's minds, why would you invite Google to summarize your work without ever showing it to internet users? Nevermind how unfair that is, think about how implausible it is: if this is the way Google will work in the future, why wouldn't every publisher just block Google's crawler?

A third obvious objection: AI is bad. Not morally bad (though maybe morally bad, too!), but technically bad. It "hallucinates" nonsense answers, including dangerous nonsense. It's a supremely confident liar that can get you killed:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/01/mushroom-pickers-urged-to-avoid-foraging-books-on-amazon-that-appear-to-be-written-by-ai

The promises of AI are grossly oversold, including the promises Google makes, like its claim that its AI had discovered millions of useful new materials. In reality, the number of useful new materials Deepmind had discovered was zero:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

This is true of all of AI's most impressive demos. Often, "AI" turns out to be low-waged human workers in a distant call-center pretending to be robots:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/31/neural-interface-beta-tester/#tailfins

Sometimes, the AI robot dancing on stage turns out to literally be just a person in a robot suit pretending to be a robot:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

The AI video demos that represent "an existential threat to Hollywood filmmaking" turn out to be so cumbersome as to be practically useless (and vastly inferior to existing production techniques):

https://www.wheresyoured.at/expectations-versus-reality/

But let's take Google at its word. Let's stipulate that:

a) It can't fix search, only add a slop-filtering AI layer on top of it; and

b) The rest of the world will continue to let Google index its pages even if they derive no benefit from doing so; and

c) Google will shortly fix its AI, and all the lies about AI capabilities will be revealed to be premature truths that are finally realized.

AI search is still a bad idea. Because beyond all the obvious reasons that AI search is a terrible idea, there's a subtle – and incurable – defect in this plan: AI search – even excellent AI search – makes it far too easy for Google to cheat us, and Google can't stop cheating us.

Remember: enshittification isn't the result of worse people running tech companies today than in the years when tech services were good and useful. Rather, enshittification is rooted in the collapse of constraints that used to prevent those same people from making their services worse in service to increasing their profit margins:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/26/glitchbread/#electronic-shelf-tags

These companies always had the capacity to siphon value away from business customers (like publishers) and end-users (like searchers). That comes with the territory: digital businesses can alter their "business logic" from instant to instant, and for each user, allowing them to change payouts, prices and ranking. I call this "twiddling": turning the knobs on the system's back-end to make sure the house always wins:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

What changed wasn't the character of the leaders of these businesses, nor their capacity to cheat us. What changed was the consequences for cheating. When the tech companies merged to monopoly, they ceased to fear losing your business to a competitor.

Google's 90% search market share was attained by bribing everyone who operates a service or platform where you might encounter a search box to connect that box to Google. Spending tens of billions of dollars every year to make sure no one ever encounters a non-Google search is a cheaper way to retain your business than making sure Google is the very best search engine:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

Competition was once a threat to Google; for years, its mantra was "competition is a click away." Today, competition is all but nonexistent.

Then the surveillance business consolidated into a small number of firms. Two companies dominate the commercial surveillance industry: Google and Meta, and they collude to rig the market:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

That consolidation inevitably leads to regulatory capture: shorn of competitive pressure, the companies that dominate the sector can converge on a single message to policymakers and use their monopoly profits to turn that message into policy:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/05/regulatory-capture/

This is why Google doesn't have to worry about privacy laws. They've successfully prevented the passage of a US federal consumer privacy law. The last time the US passed a federal consumer privacy law was in 1988. It's a law that bans video store clerks from telling the newspapers which VHS cassettes you rented:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Privacy_Protection_Act

In Europe, Google's vast profits lets it fly an Irish flag of convenience, thus taking advantage of Ireland's tolerance for tax evasion and violations of European privacy law:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/15/finnegans-snooze/#dirty-old-town

Google doesn't fear competition, it doesn't fear regulation, and it also doesn't fear rival technologies. Google and its fellow Big Tech cartel members have expanded IP law to allow it to prevent third parties from reverse-engineer, hacking, or scraping its services. Google doesn't have to worry about ad-blocking, tracker blocking, or scrapers that filter out Google's lucrative, low-quality results:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Google doesn't fear competition, it doesn't fear regulation, it doesn't fear rival technology and it doesn't fear its workers. Google's workforce once enjoyed enormous sway over the company's direction, thanks to their scarcity and market power. But Google has outgrown its dependence on its workers, and lays them off in vast numbers, even as it increases its profits and pisses away tens of billions on stock buybacks:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/25/moral-injury/#enshittification

Google is fearless. It doesn't fear losing your business, or being punished by regulators, or being mired in guerrilla warfare with rival engineers. It certainly doesn't fear its workers.

Making search worse is good for Google. Reducing search quality increases the number of queries, and thus ads, that each user must make to find their answers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

If Google can make things worse for searchers without losing their business, it can make more money for itself. Without the discipline of markets, regulators, tech or workers, it has no impediment to transferring value from searchers and publishers to itself.

Which brings me back to AI search. When Google substitutes its own summaries for links to pages, it creates innumerable opportunities to charge publishers for preferential placement in those summaries.

This is true of any algorithmic feed: while such feeds are important – even vital – for making sense of huge amounts of information, they can also be used to play a high-speed shell-game that makes suckers out of the rest of us:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/11/for-you/#the-algorithm-tm

When you trust someone to summarize the truth for you, you become terribly vulnerable to their self-serving lies. In an ideal world, these intermediaries would be "fiduciaries," with a solemn (and legally binding) duty to put your interests ahead of their own:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/07/treacherous-computing/#rewilding-the-internet

But Google is clear that its first duty is to its shareholders: not to publishers, not to searchers, not to "partners" or employees.

AI search makes cheating so easy, and Google cheats so much. Indeed, the defects in AI give Google a readymade excuse for any apparent self-dealing: "we didn't tell you a lie because someone paid us to (for example, to recommend a product, or a hotel room, or a political point of view). Sure, they did pay us, but that was just an AI 'hallucination.'"

The existence of well-known AI hallucinations creates a zone of plausible deniability for even more enshittification of Google search. As Madeleine Clare Elish writes, AI serves as a "moral crumple zone":

https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

That's why, even if you're willing to believe that Google could make a great AI-based search, we can nevertheless be certain that they won't.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/15/they-trust-me-dumb-fucks/#ai-search

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

--

djhughman https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Modular_synthesizer_-_%22Control_Voltage%22_electronic_music_shop_in_Portland_OR_-_School_Photos_PCC_%282015-05-23_12.43.01_by_djhughman%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[ohheyitsjustbear]

We're looking for tester in USA for free Sex toys on Amazon in exchange for an Amazon review.  We PREPAY :) Do you wanna try one?

"We just need your name, address and all your bank details cos this is definitely legit and not a scam AT ALL"

[keepingupwithzaynmalik]

Zayn Malik Launches New Non-Alcoholic Cocktail — with Replicas of His Tattoos on the Cans (Exclusive)

VIA PEOPLE MAGAZINE

Zayn Malik is going in a new direction — the non-alcoholic drink business.

On Tuesday, the musician, 30, announced that he is joining alcohol-free drink brand Mixoloshe as the chief creative officer and co-owner. To celebrate the announcement, the “Love Like This” singer released his first mocktail: the lychee martini.

“The non-alcoholic beverage market is ready for disruption,” Malik said in a statement, shared first with PEOPLE. “We see consumers already shifting preferences towards healthier and alcohol-free alternatives, which provides an opportunity for a brand like Mixoloshe to redefine this industry.”

The One Direction alum shot an edgy ad campaign in Turks & Caicos to reveal the drink and his new role.

In the commercial, the “Pillow Talk” singer is sipping on the non-alcoholic lychee martini by the water. The video shows off the unique design of the can, which was inspired by Malik’s tattoos and features exact replicas of some of them, including one on his arm that reads "ZAP!"

The new flavor is described by the brand as “sweet, floral and slightly tropical” and emphasizes the same focus on real ingredients that other Mixoloshe drinks boast. PEOPLE got a preview of the lychee martini and taste testers were taken with both the sophisticated fruity flavor and its ability to deliver a boozy smell without any alcohol.

Mixoloshe has seven other canned non-alcoholic cocktails including a tropical smoky margarita and blueberry gin and tonic. The female-founded brand also sells alcohol-free tequila, gin and whiskey.

“I could not be more excited about the chance to make some noise in the category of non-alcoholic beverages," Malik added in the statement, "and build one of the most talked about drinks in the world."

A four pack is available at Walmart for $10, and 12 packs are available exclusively online through Walmart, Amazon and Mixoloshe for $35.

GET IT HERE.

[voidthewanderer]

I was gonna do this under a read more, but fuck it. You get to deal with me now.

Nothing is truly original and people need to get over this fact.

Yes, you can make original work, but someone, somewhere is going to find a correlation to an existing thing. It doesn't matter if the original work's artist has never seen what they're referencing, it came from somewhere.

The last truly original thing I have ever seen be created was the Cannonball Loop in Action Park, NJ. And you wanna know something about this monstrosity?

This thing never opened to the public because it was too dangerous even for the testers. Gene Mulvihill was apparently trying to pay people to try this death trap. His own son was even hesitant to try it. The last truly originally creative thing I've ever seen was a death trap waiting to happen.

Human creativity builds off of what it sees; changing it into something for an individual's own palette. A good portion of the time, it's a subconscious thing, you don't even realize that you create something that's similar to something else. It could be something even as simple as "I saw this thing a while back" and just forgot until you see it again.

I linked this before, and I'll link it again. TomSka's video on plagiarism in the arts. He talks specifically about his own experiences with plagiarism (both actual and not actual plagiarism). In all honesty, I do urge every creative to watch.

I shared this a while back specifically for his "Somerton Scale". Here it is typed out.

No Correlation -> Parallel Thinking -> Subconscious Appropriation -> Inspiration -> Influence -> Reference -> Allusion -> Derivative -> Imitative -> Cloning

So, obvious, the first point (no correlation) and final point (cloning) are straightforward. No plagiarism and blatant plagiarism. It's those in between points that I see far too many people get their fucking panties in a bunch. Most specifically, the two points I want to talk about; parallel thinking and subconscious appropriation.

The first two points kind of go hand in hand. Parallel thinking is the process of two unrelated people having the same idea. Now, why do I personally say that this goes hand in hand with subconscious appropriation? Well, there's a reason why certain riffs in music are called earworms or why an idea might sometimes be called a brainworm. You get an idea from somewhere that you love and you make it your own.

Let's take, for example, I dunno... Counting freckles on your partner. I can't begin to tell you how many times I have read this, quite frankly trope in free harlequin ebooks on Amazon. I used to have time to read a lot when I was younger and I didn't care what it was, as long as it was reading material. Did they all steal that idea from one another? No, they didn't. It's honestly a very human thing that actual real humans do. A person doing something to create a mental image of their partner; wanting to engrave every little detail into their minds. That is an adorable thought and a lot of people do it. I know I would.

It's these two points that I always see people throw the biggest, most absolute infantile tantrums. And, almost 98% of the time, it's always the only correlation between two pieces is the same idea. Yeah, you know my "Elect Death for President" art I recently did? I highly doubt I'm the first person to make art of such a dark concept. Especially since I even got the idea from the Wednesday 13 song of the same name. I'm also writing a fic based off the Creature Feature song A Gorey Demise, which was based off of The Gashlycrumb Tinies. Just because I'm using the lyrics of the song for the chapter titles, it doesn't mean it's plagiarism. Now, if I used the lyrics for the chapter titles, didn't tell anybody that it was based off of a song, and possibly changed the name of the story? Yeah, that might be a different story. But even then, that would more fall into the category of allusion (thinly).

As I previously mentioned, we see and hear things we like, it doesn't matter what the media is. Music, stories, movies, tv shows, even just the world around us, and locks it away into a place that we call our own. We make up our own little ideas based off of these things our minds take in; it gets twisted into our own personal tastes. Sometimes people just don't remember where they might get an idea from. Or, they do know, but it's just a small thing, it's not worth mentioning. That doesn't make an idea plagiarism.

Now, I wanna swing the topic slightly for a moment. Character creation and theft. I'm gonna be blunt with you guys, some of my characters are stolen... to a degree. What do I mean by this?

Savino and his brothers; they were all my and an ex-friend's rendition of The Midnight Crew from an old roleplay we'd had going on for like two years. Yes, Homestuck Midnight Crew. By the time I actually took control of the lot of them, they were shadows of their former selves; the only thing distinguishing them from what they were originally being that I hadn't actually made them human at that point or changed their names. If I'd never said anything, there's literally only like two people who would've known that they were originally a roleplay version of the homestuck characters.

The same thing with Jason. He's my former Turbo from my Wreck-It Ralph rp blog days. Now, granted, my Turbo was already pretty disjointed from WiR even in his initial creation, but once I left that era of my life, I didn't want to just throw him into the pit. I still wanted to use him for something; I loved him too much to do that. A fresh coat of paint, a new backstory, and he's now a part of my Fallout line up. Doesn't negate where he came from, however. But, again, if I hadn't said anything, only maybe two or three people would have known.

However, these characters are so disjointed from their original content that they're not that anymore and haven't been associated with their former selves for a long time. Without mentioning anything, most people would be none the wiser unless you previously knew me from those eras of my life. And I am still further developing these characters to further disjoint them from their origins. Vague references at best (Savino and his brothers initials being the same, as well as their crew still being called the Midnight Crew or Jason still sporting the facial markings I'd originally given my Turbo).

There's no real excuse to steal another person's character, however. Outright laying claim or using another person's character for any reason, especially without doing any sort of changes is no different than plagiarism. And, quite frankly, you must be quite the miserable person to do as such. Kinda makes me wonder, what else are you hiding.

Sure, it's possible to have a character that's similar to somebody else's without realizing it until someone points it out. It does happen, quite a lot. However, I also see it more often than naught someone just sees a character, hates how the original creator is portraying them, and then steals it. When they're called out about it, they throw a temper tantrum, claiming that it's totally their own character for sure. Some people are just cheeky cunts and extremely blatant about it.

Theft/plagiarism isn't something that should be taken lightly. Nor is it something that you should just throw around willy fucking nilly. It's a serious claim. And to claim something that you know doesn't actually fall under plagiarism/theft, honestly makes you a shit human being. It's time to learn that not everything you do isn't actually original.

I'll be the first to tell you, just because I ran my shit through a plagiarism checker and got 100% original content? Doesn't mean that I'm not the first person to come up with a brothel in a church or a scummy bad guy kidnapping someone for leverage to rule something. I'm not the first person to write two friends having drunken sex. And I know I won't be the last. You certainly aren't going to be the first to create your ideas either. But you also won't be the last, either.

Just, sit in your little bubble and create. And stay in your own goddamn lane. Unless it's actually, legitimately a beat-for-beat recreation of your work; just shut up. It's not as original as you might think it is.

[nancyberry33]

Hi!I'm Nancy!We are a professional amazon seller and we are looking for Amazon tester( who lives in USA/CA/DE/FR/Spain). 💕DM me to get FREE Toy~😍

[overtsexting]

Finally, I have found the Fire Emblem Incest Oasis. Please, tell me your thoughts on Saizo/Kaze and Chrom/Owain.

This post gets a cut!!! I try to remember to do that when I ramble on 😌

While I’m not particularly head empty about saizo/kaze it is lowkey what got me to play fates… my friend sent an image of the hubba tester…

I saw that, got head empty, read all 4 fics in the saizo/kaze tag, discovered someone had modded an s support for them, learnt more about the nohrsibs and the fact that camilleo is semicanon, read all those fics too, and then FINALLY received the new 3ds charger off amazon I was waiting for, so I could play this game. And promptly learnt to mod it. All in the span of like… a week.

Consider, though, a Saizo who does everything he does for Kaze? But can’t articulate that or express it to him? And a Kaze who distrusts him, who thinks that the reason Saizo keeps him in the dark and left in the first place is because he doesn’t care for him at all… who expects Saizo to leave him again.

Needless to say, while they’re not at the forefront of my mind they did kick off the whole fates thing!!!!! I do actually love them a LOT. I just got them married in my BR save. Asugi is green, and got 0 inherited skills he wouldn’t have already had anyway 😌.

Their dynamic is very Good, imo. Every time they interact they seem like they have so much to say, but lack the words to say it. It’s obvious that they love each other a lot but can’t express it, and that creates what appears as a sense of longing, especially on Kaze’s part. He’s clearly so concerned about his brother, and very hurt that his Saizo won’t share his troubles with him—yet struggles to find the words to just ask. There’s SO much tension there and I love it. They’d both benefit from just letting loose and fucking once or twice, I think. As stress relief. I wish I had more thoughts and headcanons about them, because I’d absolutely share them!!

I offer this, if you haven’t read it. It’s really beautifully written, bittersweet, with unrequited feelings from Kaze. The sort of thing where if a tag only has 4 fics…. you don’t expect to find something of this quality.

Side note, I think it’s fun that they’re twins. It’s rare that twins in games look so different from each other.

~

As for Chrom and Owain, mmmmmmm. I haven’t seen any content of them, but I have heard it mentioned once or twice and it’s a VERY good concept. I don’t really like Chrom being incesty actually, for whatever reason, but the idea of Owain having a massive crush on his hot, completely oblivious uncle?? Absolutely yes. Who wouldn’t have a massive crush on Chrom!?!

Especially if in his original timeline, Chrom was just. His cool, fun uncle, who died when Owain was relatively young. But he comes back in time and now Chrom is barely a few years older than him and extremely hot, oh no.

Chrom, happily married, thinking his nephew is a bit odd but fun. While Owain in his tent hopelessly jerks off to one of those posters Frederick made…

[crochetcouch]

Incredibly excited today as our 2nd book went live today!  Our pattern testers were phenomenal in getting the patterns tested and submitted such great photos!  

The cutie in the center is my granddaughter, Gabrielle <3  A huge shoutout to my daughter for taking her to a photographer and getting the photos taken…..thank you @Kristen Fioravanti Photography in Baltimore, MD for doing such a great job!

You can get this book on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CLHC2W7F