#Generative AI Misconceptions

[enterprise-cloud-services]

Unlock the truth about Generative AI. Learn the facts behind 10 common myths and misconceptions to navigate the AI landscape with confidence.

[rubylogan15]

Unlock the truth about Generative AI. Learn the facts behind 10 common myths and misconceptions to navigate the AI landscape with confidence.

[generative-ai-in-bi]

10 Generative AI Myths You Need to Stop Believing Now

Original source : 10 Generative AI Myths You Need to Stop Believing Now

Many people are already familiar with the concept of generative AI, yet, there are still numerous myths and misconceptions connected with it. However, being aware of the reality that lies behind such opportunities is indeed essential to work with all these features in appropriate ways.

Here, ten myths regarding generative AI are exposed to assist people dealing with reality and fake information.

1. AI Can Do Everything Humans Can Do (And Better)

Without a doubt, the most common myth around AI is that it can replicate all the activities that people can and even exceeds their capability levels. Despite appreciable advances in forms of applications embracing generative AI that includes language and vision, and even artistic products, an AI system is a tool developed by man. Artificial intelligence is not as holistic as human intelligence, it does not have personal insight, emotions, and self-awareness.

AI used effectively for tasks that are clearly defined. For example, it can process large chunks of information in a short span of time than it would take any person, thus helpful in areas like data analysis and forecasting. But it is weak at solving problems that involve practical reasoning, moral reasoning, or understanding of contingencies. Generative AI can create text, images from the learned patterns from the provided data but it does not comprehend the content as a human does.

2. AI Writing is Automatically Plagiarism-Free

Another myth is that AI writing does not have plagiarism since what the system produces is original. However, as we have seen, generative AI works on the availability of current raw data to generate content, it cannot create new text. It implies that one is never certain that AI is not regurgitating fragments of the data set input to it, meaning questions relating to originality and plagiarism could arise.

AI in content generation, thus, needs to have well-developed checks on originality to ensure the content produced is original and not plagiarized. There is always some use for programs such as plagiarism detectors, but they should always be reviewed by a person. For the same reason, the training data needs to be selected with equal attention in order to avoid reproducing someone else’s efforts. It is important to understand such limitations to achieve a reasonable level of AI application in content creation.

3. AI Completely Replaces Human Creativity

Another myth is that AI affords to take over creativity by humans. Thus, AI can support and improve creative tasks, but it will never possess the creativity that is inherent in human beings. Creativity goes beyond ideas of placing together of different ideas to form new compositions; the same encompasses emotional aspects, cultural aspects and the aspects of innovation that center on the experiences of human beings.

Referring to music, art or written text, generative AI is as creative as a parrot, in the sense that it will recreate creativity that has been passed through it by using patterns which have been fed into it. It doesn’t come with the purpose of creating. On the contrary, AI can be perceived as a tool that can supplement human imagination by giving more ideas, more time, and the means for the idea manipulation.

4. AI is Unbiased and Objective

One more myth is that of AI being completely neutral and free from an opinion and prejudice. Actually, any AI system captures the existing biases and discrimination in the data used for training and the algorithms employed in a system’s design. By definition, an AI system is as good or as bad as the data that is given to it as input; therefore, if the data fed into an AI system is prejudiced, the outcome will also be prejudiced. This is a problem especially on profiles that require sensitive decision making such as hiring, police force, lending among others.

It is important to select training data that is diverse and inclusive, perform bias checks on AI regularly, and incorporate fairness constraints in AI algorithms. These issues have to be dealt with and addressed so that through transparency and accountability in the development and deployment of AI, AI systems used are fair and equitable.

5. AI will Take All Our Jobs

One of the main issues is the idea that AI will take our jobs. To some extent it is true that through the introduction of innovative technologies such as AI and automation they spark threats of job loss; however, it is equally important to note that they are more of a job reinvention process. In the human-robot interaction, AI is useful as it can perform routine and uninteresting activities that do not require human creativity.

In the past, people highlighted the fact that generation of technology leads to emergence of new employment forms while leaving some of the existing positions without demand. The major challenge therefore lies in how the workers are going to undergo a transformation by developing new skills that are inline with AI. Continued and expanded access to education and training that relates to the emerging areas of digital literacy, AI, and data science will have to be ensured in the near future.

6. AI is a Silver Bullet for All Your Content Needs

Some think that with the help of AI one can face no difficulties and overcome any hurdles in content creation. AI can truly improve the content generation process but that does not mean it is the universal solutions. Many things which an AI creates are to be reviewed by a human being in order to avoid mistakes, update and improve the quality. Also, AI is unable to grasp context and subtlety, which are critical for producing quality and valuable content.

AI also has an ability to write first drafts, provide suggestions and even promote content with help of SEO. But further adjustment and enhancement in the content can only be done by human inputs so as to meet the exact standard and effectively appeal to the audience.

7. AI Can Fully Understand and Replicate Human Emotions

Among them let me mention another one — AI can capture and mimic human feelings. Thus it is seen that though there can be an analysis of emotional signals and a response that appears sympathetic, there is no feeling. AI can be designed to identify signs of emotions in people’s actions and words, but it does not mean that it really knows or can feel emotions.

Affective Computing or the Emotional AI is the branch of artificial intelligence that is focused on making human-computer interactions dependent on the emotions. However, these systems work on predefined rules and defined data pattern, which gives them no emotional intelligence like that in the human heart. It means that AI can only imitate the emotions but cannot replace the feeling that people in the same mood can share.

8. AI is Completely Secure and Trustworthy

Believing that AI is fully safe and trustworthy is a misconception that one should better avoid. There are several security risks associated with integrated AI systems, such as attacks, hacking, and misuse. The issue of security is fundamental while deploying the AI system to ensure that the system is protected both from an external and internal attack.

AI developers and users should have appropriate security measures like encryption, auditing, and monitoring that should be put in place all the time. Further, there is a need for ethical standards and legal frameworks on the use of AI to encourage its utilization in a proper, accountable manner. It is worth remembering that trust can only be gradually established through constant engagement in addressing security and ethics issues.

9. AI is Infallible and Always Accurate

The other myth is that the AI is always perfect and does not make any mistakes. Thus, it might be asserted that despite of the high level of accuracy AI could produce a great number of mistakes. AI systems can also error, for instance, because of the lack of a sufficient amount of training examples, existence of some algorithm defects, or unpredictable events. There are problems when relying on the results of AI without people’s intervention or monitoring.

But it is important to understand that AI is a tool that can strengthen human capacities, not remove them. AI solutions require human experience and decisions for the validation of the application outputs for accuracy and reliability. The awareness of AI’s drawbacks is useful for decision-making about AI’s best application.

10. AI is Only for Tech-Savvy Experts

The last myth is that only people with high IT skills can implement AI. However, creating and implementing the sophisticated AI systems necessitates a certain level of technical expertise; yet, some of the AI tools and applications are built to suit everyone’s needs. AI technologies can be introduced and implemented by a wider audience because of friendly interfaces, ready-made models, and documentation that can be easily read by Non-IT specialists.

Business entities and other users do not need a strong technical background when interacting with AI technologies and rather use various AI platforms and automated machine learning tools, as well as applications. These tools bring artificial intelligence to the minds of more people so that a wider circle of individuals can try using AI for different tasks.

Conclusion: Separating Generative AI Fact from Fiction

Generative AI is one of the most influential technologies today, yet, it is important to cut through myth and hype with the possibilities. It shows information about myths and facts about AI aiming to provide the people with reasonable expectations and actually try to put its abilities to use in a proper and safe way. However, understanding AI’s capabilities and drawbacks is the key to using this powerful invention to help enhance human creativity, reduce costs and optimize the way to develop new products and services while contemplating AI’s ethical and security issues.

If you want to read the full blog then click here: 10 Generative AI Myths You Need to Stop Believing Now

[snickerdoodlles]

pulling out a section from this post (a very basic breakdown of generative AI) for easier reading;

AO3 and Generative AI

There are unfortunately some massive misunderstandings in regards to AO3 being included in LLM training datasets. This post was semi-prompted by the ‘Knot in my name’ AO3 tag (for those of you who haven’t heard of it, it’s supposed to be a fandom anti-AI event where AO3 writers help “further pollute” AI with Omegaverse), so let’s take a moment to address AO3 in conjunction with AI. We’ll start with the biggest misconception:

1. AO3 wasn’t used to train generative AI.

Or at least not anymore than any other internet website. AO3 was not deliberately scraped to be used as LLM training data.

The AO3 moderators found traces of the Common Crawl web worm in their servers. The Common Crawl is an open data repository of raw web page data, metadata extracts and text extracts collected from 10+ years of web crawling. Its collective data is measured in petabytes. (As a note, it also only features samples of the available pages on a given domain in its datasets, because its data is freely released under fair use and this is part of how they navigate copyright.) LLM developers use it and similar web crawls like Google’s C4 to bulk up the overall amount of pre-training data.

AO3 is big to an individual user, but it’s actually a small website when it comes to the amount of data used to pre-train LLMs. It’s also just a bad candidate for training data. As a comparison example, Wikipedia is often used as high quality training data because it’s a knowledge corpus and its moderators put a lot of work into maintaining a consistent quality across its web pages. AO3 is just a repository for all fanfic -- it doesn’t have any of that quality maintenance nor any knowledge density. Just in terms of practicality, even if people could get around the copyright issues, the sheer amount of work that would go into curating and labeling AO3’s data (or even a part of it) to make it useful for the fine-tuning stages most likely outstrips any potential usage.

Speaking of copyright, AO3 is a terrible candidate for training data just based on that. Even if people (incorrectly) think fanfic doesn’t hold copyright, there are plenty of books and texts that are public domain that can be found in online libraries that make for much better training data (or rather, there is a higher consistency in quality for them that would make them more appealing than fic for people specifically targeting written story data). And for any scrapers who don’t care about legalities or copyright, they’re going to target published works instead. Meta is in fact currently getting sued for including published books from a shadow library in its training data (note, this case is not in regards to any copyrighted material that might’ve been caught in the Common Crawl data, its regarding a book repository of published books that was scraped specifically to bring in some higher quality data for the first training stage). In a similar case, there’s an anonymous group suing Microsoft, GitHub, and OpenAI for training their LLMs on open source code.

Getting back to my point, AO3 is just not desirable training data. It’s not big enough to be worth scraping for pre-training data, it’s not curated enough to be considered for high quality data, and its data comes with copyright issues to boot. If LLM creators are saying there was no active pursuit in using AO3 to train generative AI, then there was (99% likelihood) no active pursuit in using AO3 to train generative AI.

AO3 has some preventative measures against being included in future Common Crawl datasets, which may or may not work, but there’s no way to remove any previously scraped data from that data corpus. And as a note for anyone locking their AO3 fics: that might potentially help against future AO3 scrapes, but it is rather moot if you post the same fic in full to other platforms like ffn, twitter, tumblr, etc. that have zero preventative measures against data scraping.

2. A/B/O is not polluting generative AI

…I’m going to be real, I have no idea what people expected to prove by asking AI to write Omegaverse fic. At the very least, people know A/B/O fics are not exclusive to AO3, right? The genre isn’t even exclusive to fandom -- it started in fandom, sure, but it expanded to general erotica years ago. It’s all over social media. It has multiple Wikipedia pages.

More to the point though, omegaverse would only be “polluting” AI if LLMs were spewing omegaverse concepts unprompted or like…associated knots with dicks more than rope or something. But people asking AI to write omegaverse and AI then writing omegaverse for them is just AI giving people exactly what they asked for. And…I hate to point this out, but LLMs writing for a niche the LLM trainers didn’t deliberately train the LLMs on is generally considered to be a good thing to the people who develop LLMs. The capability to fill niches developers didn’t even know existed increases LLMs’ marketability. If I were a betting man, what fandom probably saw as a GOTCHA moment, AI people probably saw as a good sign of LLMs’ future potential.

3. Individuals cannot affect LLM training datasets.

So back to the fandom event, with the stated goal of sabotaging AI scrapers via omegaverse fic.

…It’s not going to do anything.

Let’s add some numbers to this to help put things into perspective:

LLaMA’s 65 billion parameter model was trained on 1.4 trillion tokens. Of that 1.4 trillion tokens, about 67% of the training data was from the Common Crawl (roughly ~3 terabytes of data).

3 terabytes is 3,000,000,000 kilobytes.

That’s 3 billion kilobytes.

According to a news article I saw, there has been ~450k words total published for this campaign (*this was while it was going on, that number has probably changed, but you’re about to see why that still doesn’t matter). So, roughly speaking, ~450k of text is ~1012 KB (I’m going off the document size of a plain text doc for a fic whose word count is ~440k).

So 1,012 out of 3,000,000,000.

Aka 0.000034%.

And that 0.000034% of 3 billion kilobytes is only 2/3s of the data for the first stage of training.

And not to beat a dead horse, but 0.000034% is still grossly overestimating the potential impact of posting A/B/O fic. Remember, only parts of AO3 would get scraped for Common Crawl datasets. Which are also huge! The October 2022 Common Crawl dataset is 380 tebibytes. The April 2021 dataset is 320 tebibytes. The 3 terabytes of Common Crawl data used to train LLaMA was randomly selected data that totaled to less than 1% of one full dataset. Not to mention, LLaMA’s training dataset is currently on the (much) larger size as compared to most LLM training datasets.

I also feel the need to point out again that AO3 is trying to prevent any Common Crawl scraping in the future, which would include protection for these new stories (several of which are also locked!).

Omegaverse just isn’t going to do anything to AI. Individual fics are going to do even less. Even if all of AO3 suddenly became omegaverse, it’s just not prominent enough to influence anything in regards to LLMs. You cannot affect training datasets in any meaningful way doing this. And while this might seem really disappointing, this is actually a good thing.

Remember that anything an individual can do to LLMs, the person you hate most can do the same. If it were possible for fandom to corrupt AI with omegaverse, fascists, bigots, and just straight up internet trolls could pollute it with hate speech and worse. AI already carries a lot of biases even while developers are actively trying to flatten that out, it’s good that organized groups can’t corrupt that deliberately.

[all-ai-ladies]

Something went right wrong 🤣.

I still would though. Might be a little bit challenging but I’m sure I could rise to the occasion!

[angryisokay]

"Gen Z seems to think they can write off anything as a business expense. Where did they get this idea? Seinfeld reruns perhaps?"

Or, ya know, a constant whining from politicians and internet famous morons claiming that rich people just "write everything off" and get away with not paying taxes. And they never look any deeper into what a tax write off actually is because the people on their phone told them all they need to know.

[the960writers]

It's hilarious how nanowrimo fails at understanding what their event is about. Thinking that writing is about filling pages with a certain number of words is a misconception about what writing actually is, one you usually only see from techbros.

But here they are, from the event of writing a story in 30 days, telling you that you can just prompt a generative AI and let it spit out 50k in a few seconds and that is somehow just like writing 🤦‍♀️

[dresshistorynerd]

That ChatGPT ask about The Great Famine made me think about how generative AI is so devastating for historical understanding, but especially the understanding of dress history. There's a lot of completely inaccurate history AI slop, both generated images and writing. I'm always searching primary source images, but even then I've started to come across the occasional AI generated image, which is always very bad. Google image search is at this point almost useless.

The issue is that there's so much outdated information and frankly misinformation about history in the internet and in other source materials the AI scraps. This is of course an issue with many other fields as well, but history definitely belong to the fields which have most misinformation spread about them. When a human armed with a bit of critical thinking comes across a source they can evaluate it's validity. But AI doesn't have critical thinking. It can't think. So if there's a lot of sources, which peddle the same common misconception, AI weights it above what the few rigorous academic sources say. And then the AI becomes basically a misinformation peddling machine. And there's no way of finding our where it got it's information. Even the AI doesn't really know because of the way it works, and that's why, when you try to ask it, it tries to scours for sources that say similar things it was saying rather than giving the actual source it got the information from. And if it doesn't find a source? Well, it might hallucinate one. This is of course an issue in multiple level not just because it's filling the internet with misinformation and drowning out reliable information. It's also basically a plagiarism machine.

This is even worse with dress history than most historical fields, because dress history is such a new field and there's comparatively very little quality research. Even many historians of different fields peddle a lot of old misconceptions of dress history (sometimes you even come across a fairly new paper on dress history and there's some misconception repeated as a truth). So of course AI is very unlikely to produce anything close to accurate information on dress history.

So to see for myself how bad it actually is (and to have a bit of laugh) I decided to try out ChatGPT for the first time. I decided I would ask it a question I have answered in a blog post myself before to see how close (or far) it got.

Here's what I asked: "When did it become socially acceptable for men to wear dresses?"

I have written a very long post on this before found here.

And here's the answer ChatGPT gave with my commentary:

The idea of men wearing dresses has evolved significantly over time, with different periods in history showcasing varying degrees of acceptance. In general, men have worn clothing that could be considered "dress-like" at various points in history, though the specific social context has changed. 1. Ancient and Medieval Times: Men in many ancient cultures, including the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, wore tunics, robes, or other garments that we might now think of as dresses. These were considered appropriate for men, often signifying social status, wealth, or ceremonial importance.

Not bad, though this makes it sound like men only wore dresses to signify status, wealth or ceremonial importance, when in fact all men wore dresses. I also made a point in my post to say these were dresses, not just "dress-like". They were (mostly) constructed and (mostly) called the same as the equivalent clothing women wore, so of course I take issue with the framing.

2. Renaissance and Early Modern Period: During the Renaissance and up through the 17th century, men’s fashion included elaborate gowns, skirts, and dresses, often with frills, lace, and rich fabrics. These were considered fashionable and elegant for men, particularly among the aristocracy.

Here's were we're getting to the inaccurate territory. Yes still during renaissance men were wearing dresses, however it was becoming fashionable among especially young noble (and soldier class) men to wear extremely tiny skirts, until they stopped being skirts and turned into very fitted thighs (hose) and doublet. It was the period when dress became increasingly less acceptable for men to wear, but it was precisely lower class and peasant men, who were slower to follow the new fashions and masculine standards, not very surprisingly. But by Early Modern Period it had become unacceptable for men to wear dresses. Yes, there was still hems at points, but those were coat hems, which might seem like basically the same as a skirt hem, but conceptually they were different. It's the same today. No one thinks nothing of it if a man is wearing a long overcoat, with buttons closed, on top of a suit, but if they are wearing thighs and same length skirt? Well, for the next couple of weeks you'll get outrage op-eds and conservative influencers losing their minds over "the death of Western civilization".

Also in 1600s (roughly around 1630s-1660s) rich fabrics and elaborated detailing was not fashionable, not among women and certainly not among men. Men's fashion especially favoured a lot of black and other dark and neutral tones, influenced by somber religious atmosphere influenced by the all the Reformations and Counter-Reformations and wars about them going on at the time. (Of course there's some counter examples, but the general statement ChatGPT gave to me is simple incorrect.)

3. 18th and 19th Century: By the 18th century, Western fashion for men became more structured, and by the Victorian era (19th century), men were expected to wear trousers, waistcoats, and suits (my comment: you mean coat right, ChatGPT?? suit already encompases trousers and waistcoat). The shift towards more gender-specific clothing for men and women took root, and women’s dresses became more ornate and feminine, while men’s clothing became more utilitarian and restrictive.

First of all the height of structuring in Western fashion for both men and women, was during the Elizabethan Era, and additionally men's fashion got briefly a little less structured during the 18th century. As I explain in my post about the actual origins of modern men's suit (it was not Beau Brummel), the three piece suit with trousers, waistcoat and coat was popularized in 1670s. Women's dresses becoming more "feminine" means literally nothing when what was feminine was just seen differently. Of course it became more feminine in our modern eyes, when we get closer to the present day in the historical timeline, because modern femininity was being formed at the time. Men's fashion did become more utilitarian (I talk about a bit about the reasons why in the post about three piece suit above), but I wouldn't call it more restrictive necessarily.

Points for ChatGPT though for acknowledging that fashion became more gender specific around 18th and 19th centuries.

4. 20th Century: The 20th century saw men in dresses or skirts make occasional appearances in fashion, especially in avant-garde or countercultural movements. For example, in the 1920s, some male actors in Hollywood (my comment: here it's "forgetting" where it's going with the sentence, because it doesn't understand what a cohesive sentence means), such as Marlene Dietrich’s famous cross-dressing moments, challenged gender norms. In the 1960s and 1970s, figures like David Bowie, with his androgynous style, brought more attention to the concept of men wearing dresses as part of a wider push for gender fluidity in fashion.

The fact that cross-dressing became more acceptable in the early 20th century for women and people seen as women, didn't really do anything (or very little) to the make cross-dressing more acceptable for men, or those seen as such. Counter culture fashions in 70s and 80s were much more accepting of androgynous men and men wearing skirts, but the wider mainstream fashion was absolutely not accepting of that, definitely not outside the rock icons, who themselves were also side-eyed a lot.

5. Late 20th to 21st Century: By the 1990s and 2000s, with the rise of gender nonconformity and movements pushing for gender equality and expression, men wearing dresses became more visible and socially accepted. Public figures like Prince, Kurt Cobain, and later, celebrities like Harry Styles and Billy Porter, have worn dresses and skirts as part of their personal style, pushing the boundaries of traditional gendered fashion.

It's absolutely still not seen as acceptable for men to wear dresses. Yes, couple of celebrities have done that, and yes there's alternative fashion and queer people who do that, but if you take a look at how people in legacy and social media talk about them, it's pretty obvious that's not socially acceptable in the mainstream.

In essence, it became more socially acceptable for men to wear dresses as part of a broader cultural shift toward embracing non-binary gender expression and rejecting rigid gender norms, especially in the 21st century. Celebrities, designers, and activists have played key roles in challenging the old norms, making fashion more inclusive and fluid. This acceptance continues to grow in many parts of the world, although social attitudes can still vary greatly depending on cultural context.

"A broader cultural shift toward embracing non-binary gender expression and rejecting rigid gender norms." Laughing crying. Yeah, there was a cultural shift, but clearly it was not super broad. It's really laughable to suggest in the heart of the reactionary backlash moment that it's somehow broadly socially acceptable for men to wear dresses.

Also this "although social attitudes can still vary greatly depending on cultural context" makes it sound like outside the western context, which this answer is all about, the attitudes haven't changes as much, when in fact outside the western context dresses for men are much more often acceptable and part of the cultural norms.

Perhaps it was unfair of me to ask my question in a misleading way, since the answer to "when did it become acceptable for men to wear dresses" is "it was for a very long time, but it's not anymore". But this is part of the issue with ChatGPT and similar text based AI. When you ask them a question they will take the assumptions of the question and run with them, even if the assumptions in the question are completely false. It's not just a misinformation machine, but a misinformation machine designed to reinforce your preconceived notions. For example if you would ask ChatGPT "why were corsets unhealthy?" it might answer with a very long answer full of pseudoscientific misinformation straight from the mouths of Victorian eugenists. I did that and the answer was extremely predictably. I'm not going to go through all that since is was so very long and this is getting long enough, but for a taste, after all the bullshit reasons it gave, here's what it wrote at the end:

Why Corsets Were Worn Despite Health Risks: Fashion and Aesthetic Appeal: Corsets were primarily worn to achieve a specific beauty standard that emphasized an extremely small waist and a curvy figure. This was considered a symbol of femininity, refinement, and social status during certain historical periods. Cultural Norms: The societal pressure to conform to the idealized figure meant many women endured discomfort and health risks to fit into the norms of the time.

The biggest eyeroll. Of course nothing about how it distributes the weight of the boobs much more comfortably in the waist rather than the shoulders, or how the heavy dresses people wore needed support or movement would have been very difficult, or how it was an easy way to alter the body, any kind of body, to the fashionable silhouette without needing any invasive procedures or dangerous diets. The most classic, most predictable corset misinformation. This is exactly what I meant at the beginning. The internet is so full of this bullshit already, in the AI algorithm it makes it true.

The lesson is: do not use ChatCPT as your search engine and don't trust it as your source of information. There is numerous of issues with generative AI and the spread of misinformation is certainly one of the biggest, seeing how much death and destruction misinformation has caused only with vanilla social media. I'm afraid to think about the repercussions of refining that metaphorical misinformation machine with the literal misinformation machine. If you want to do research into dress history yourself, but don't know where to start, rather than asking ChatGPT, here's my tips for where to start.

Also be skeptical of the sources you find in the internet, including everything I write. In the age of generative AI it's even more important to use proper sourcing. I'm definitely not perfect about this, since I'm extremely chaotic in my research most of the time and bad at keeping my sources in good order (I don't want to do boring stuff when researching for my hobby, I do that enough for uni), but I'm making an effort to be better about it, at least for my more structured posts. But if you want to know any sources I've used for any reason, when I haven't listed them, you're always free to ask. I might have it somewhere among my 500 open tabs still open, or I might still be able to find it again. So anyway, be skeptical of writings (again, including mine) which don't have sources listed, not just because it could be AI, but also because the same issues apply outside AI - it's much harder to evaluate how trustworthy the writing is or to know weather it's plagiarized.

[feelmyskinonyourskin]

Judex, Judicum, Infantem - Chapter 4

(Eventual)Reader x Matt Murdock x Frank Castle

previous chapter | next chapter | series masterlist | my masterlist

gif by me (Reminder if you repost my gifs and don't properly credit me, I will block you and report your blog. It happened with the gif I made for the last chapter and I'm not happy.)

summary: You have your first doctors appointment to check up on the baby, which prompts you and Matt to discuss how life will look for the two of you going forward.

warnings: AFAB Reader. No use of Y/N. Mention of pregnancy, doctor visit and blood work. Brief mention of vomiting.

w/c: 3,248

*I never give permission for my fics, manips, or any other original creation I post on Tumblr to be copied, posted elsewhere, translated, or fed into any AI program. The only platforms I currently post on are Tumblr and AO3. Thanks!*

The jelly was cold on your skin and you tried not to crawl up the table as the ultrasound technician spread it around your midsection with the wand. She clearly lied to you when she said the bottle had been sitting in a warmer all morning. You also weren’t expecting it to smell, the slight tang to the goo hovered in the air and made you want to gag. You could only imagine how strong it must be for poor Matt sitting beside you.

It seemed like as soon as you discovered you were pregnant, every stereotypical symptom kicked in with a fury. Everything smelled atrocious and made you want to retch, you regularly had a dull headache, you’d spent most mornings hunched over the toilet, and your boobs barely fit in your bras and were so sore.

“Okay, so let me tell you what I’m looking at,” the sweet technician spoke with a demeanor far too cheery for this time of the morning, turning the screen towards you, “All this white area is your uterus, and this little dark spot is your baby! Right up here is the head…”

You took her word for it. To you it looked just like an indistinguishable blob.

Matt must have sensed your skepticism that you were actually looking at your baby, because his hand gave yours a little reassuring squeeze.

“How does everything look?” Matt asked

“Everything is looking perfectly healthy. Based on the size, I’d say you’re at about 8 or 9 weeks along already. Once the doctor takes a look and gets your blood results back, she’ll be able to give you a more accurate prediction on your progress and your due date.”

You grimaced, arm still sore from the blood draw they had to give you earlier. You were not looking forward to the amount of doctor’s visits, poking and prodding to your body, and general medical discomfort that would be in your future for the next 8 months. Not to mention the menacing looking wand you knew was about to get shoved up your hoo-ha.

“Okay, so let’s take a listen” she continued, still moving the device around your belly.

She pressed a button on the machine and instantly a sound came out, a kind of rhythmic whoosh whooshing that would have made a great beat if you were dancing in a nightclub.

“Is that the heartbeat?” Matt asked

“Sort of. It’s a common misconception, but the baby’s heart is not anywhere near formed this early. We call it fetal activity, but most of the noise is caused by all the tissue and such that will eventually form into a heart. But the fact that we can hear it so clearly is really good.”

Matt smiled, giving your hand a few strokes with his thumb as he listened. You were happy there was something for Matt to take in from this appointment, not able to see the little grey blob on the screen that was apparently your growing baby.

“It’s strong.”

“Yes, all is sounding good.” she confirmed

You hoped between the amount of information being thrown your way today and all your pregnancy symptoms, that Matt wasn’t tuning into how you were really feeling too much. Sure, you were listening when the doctor came in and gave you the run down of what to expect at the next few appointments, and you smiled as every nurse and phlebotomist came in to congratulate you and take yet another vital of yours. But if you thought about it too long, you were feeling a little numb. So overwhelmed by all of it and still, quite frankly, a little in shock that in just a few months, you would be a mother and your world would change.

It didn’t help that you’d also been sleeping poorly, pregnancy causing night time acid reflux to plague you. Matt had begun staying over a few nights a that week, helping you through your morning sickness like the saint he was. Though you knew it had to be extra unpleasant to deal with with his heightened sense of smell.

Before he crawled into bed beside you, he was out every night since you’d told him the news prowling the city in his suit. Not hunting down muggers and gang leaders as he usually did, but out seeking any hint of information to Frank’s whereabouts. You admired his good heart. The notion that Frank would ever be back in you or your child’s life was something you’d let go of the minute you stepped into that empty warehouse office. But Matt was too decent, too good hearted. He wanted to at least give Frank the opportunity to know. You wondered how much longer he would try to find him until he too gave up.

“Once you get dressed, you can head out into the lobby and they’ll have a print out of the ultrasound for you. And we’ll see you at your next appointment.”

“Thank you.” you replied

“You know, if you’re interested, there are services— start ups and whatnot that can do a 3D print of your ultrasound. It’s not something we offer here, but they’ve dropped off brochures. It’s pricey so you might want to wait until baby is a bit bigger, but it might be a nice way for your husband to ‘see’ the baby too.”

You winced at the way she so casually threw around the word husband, clearly not having read your paperwork closely. All the excitement of getting to this appointment had been a welcome distraction from discussing what the two of you would be moving forward. Though Matt was basically treating you like a serious relationship at this point, daily good morning texts and sexless sleepovers and all, you weren’t sure where he stood on things. Not that you were sure where you stood on things either.

If Matt sensed the way your heart stopped at the suggestion the two of you were married, he didn’t give any hint outwardly. Instead his face was lit up, pleased grin spreading across his face as his eyebrows rose at the suggestion of a 3D scan.

There were still plenty of months until the baby arrived and it felt already like there was far too much to do in the mean time. Your studio in Chelsea was completely unsuitable to raise a baby in, so you knew you needed to move. Then there was the matter of telling every one in your lives the news. You weren’t really showing yet, but felt beyond bloated and it was starting to become difficult to zip your pants. How much longer could you keep the secret from coworkers and friends?

Additionally, you never realized how many things a baby needs until you’d begun to research. A registry would need to be made and you were sure Colleen would want to throw you a shower once she heard the news. Plus setting up a nursery where ever you’d be moving. Taking prenatal classes. Finding a pediatrician. The list went on and on and made your head spin.

“Sweetheart?” Matt interrupted your dizzying spiral of thoughts as you led him down the sidewalk and away from the doctor’s office

“Hmm?”

“I asked if you were still feeling up to brunch? You okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, just tired. But brunch sounds good. I’m starving.”

“Okay. Two more blocks.”

“Hopefully the scent of shitty diner coffee doesn’t make me gag. God, I don’t know how you live like this, I feel like I can smell everything.”

Matt’s shoulders shook as he chuckled.

“I’ve gotten used to it.”

The tiny diner situated on 44th and 11th buzzed as you sat in a booth by the window. The chatter of it’s patrons nearly drowned out by the whir of an espresso machine and the sound of a grill firing from behind the little pass through. It was a familiar spot, one Matt had taken you to once after waking up in his bed. The vinyl booth squeaked anytime you moved even a little and the brown plastic table painted to look like wood was sticky under your hands from years of poor cleaning of spills of syrup, coffee, and god knows what else.

“I don’t know about you, but I really liked her suggestion of getting a 3D print of the ultrasound. So I can ‘see’ the baby too.” Matt commented as he sipped on his latte

“Yeah that would be really nice. But hey, I’m glad you got to hear the baby at least today. Unless that’s something you can already hear without the machine?”

“A little, I think. I can definitely tell there’s more activity going on there, though it could also just be indigestion.” he gestured towards your stomach with a teasing grin

Matt’s entire demeanor had been particularly carefree these days, his flirtatious behavior extra charged by the joy of his impending fatherhood. A stark contrast to how you were currently feeling; a nervous wreck about the future and avoiding any celebratory moods until more things were worked out.

Still, you couldn’t help but roll your eyes and smile at his comment, both of you knowing pregnancy and your digestive system were not currently friends at the moment. Not that you were helping things either with the enormous stack of pancakes in front of you.

“But I know it’s not.” he reassured “I can tell it’s just the baby because you smell pregnant.”

“Excuse me? Did you just say I smell pregnant?”

“Yeah.” Matt answered casually, as if he had just mentioned a commonly known fact like how geese fly in a v-shape or nobody wears white after Labor Day.

“What the hell does that even mean?”

The light huff of air he let out through his nose in a quiet snort annoyed you as you waited for him to explain this “blind guy with heightened sense of smell” quirk.

“Pregnant people just smell different. I don’t know how to describe it. If they’re early enough along that I can’t hear the baby, I usually know just by how they smell. Once nearly got tossed out of a courtroom cause I let slip the witness was pregnant before she even knew it.”

You tugged at your sleeves, suddenly very self conscious that Matt could detect whatever this mystical pregnant odor was and worried that it was anything but pleasant.

“You can smell me?! It’s bad enough you can smell my morning sickness—”

Matt reached across the table, taking your hand in his in reassurance.

“Hey, don’t be embarrassed. Your body is changing rapidly sweetheart; hormones and all that. It’s not bad, I promise.”

“You’re gonna be an expert at knowing when the baby needs changed.”

“Hopefully it won’t smell as bad as Funfetti pancakes.”

“Excuse me Mr. Murdock, are you making fun of a pregnant woman’s cravings?!” you teased, taking an exaggeratedly large bite of the very meal he was condemning.

“No, no sweetheart,” he replied through a hearty chuckle at your dramatics “I promise. But I have a bad history with Funfetti. The nuns used to make those cakes anytime there was a birthday at the orphanage. One year Mary Sue Poots, she was this girl a few years younger than me with a real annoying laugh, anyway she had too much and threw up in the middle of mass all over the chapel and ever since the smell has always gotten to me.”

“Ew.”

Matt shook his head as you took another bite. But behind his red glasses there was his usual air of mischief and you knew he was holding back some witty remark.

A comfortable silence fell between the two of you as you continued to enjoy your meal. You stared out the large window at the flurry of New York mid-morning passersby, eager to get to work and their days ahead. Yet here you were, frozen in a content moment sitting across from Matt, despite all the chaos in your heart. Swirling around the straw of your orange juice, you couldn’t help but wonder more about all the things you’d yet to learn about Matt. Hints of a less than perfect past occasionally slipped through between his sarcastic phrases and kind gestures.

Matt was slow to open up, but at least he was letting you in at all. Unlike Frank. Anytime you had tried to get into that huge head of his, it was like pushing a thousand pound boulder up a hill using only a singular uncooked spaghetti noodle for leverage and a dream.

“Do you like living in Hell’s Kitchen?” you asked, eager to know if he chose to stay close to where he grew up out of comfort or routine.

“Yeah. Anytime I’ve moved away, it’s always like a part of me is missing. Why?”

“My apartment is a little small for raising a kid. I need to start thinking about a bigger place and I think a change of neighborhoods wouldn’t be bad for me. Raising our child somewhere that’s clearly important to you seems like a good idea. Plus, being close to you will make things easier for co-parenting.”

The easy attitude Matt had been displaying all morning instantly turned cold as he sat up, rigid in his seat across from you. Behind a straight-lined scowl, he ran his tongue along his teeth.

Finally, after a beat he spoke, nervously tapping a finger against his mug.

“Sweetheart, what did you think I meant when I said I was all in?”

“I—”

“I just assumed you’d want to move in with me. My place is plenty big for all three of us.”

Shit. He wasn’t angry. He was hurt.

A pang of sadness cut through your chest as you thought of your reply. He really meant it when he threw around the word family. You hadn’t considered that Matt would want all of that, assuming his reassurance of “all in” was in regards to the baby and not you. Especially not since Frank was always going to be a looming cloud over whatever your relationship would be and your baby’s life.

You pondered his suggestion.

Home. Family.

Could you ever deserve such comforts?

“I would like that. Very much.” you responded softly

Matt relaxed a little bit in his seat and you knew your heartbeat was letting him know that you meant it.

“Good.” his voice was gentle but with a hint of determination to it, “With that settled, when do you want to start telling people? Kirsten and Foggy can tell I’ve been acting weird lately and not my usual weird.”

“We should wait until at least the 12 week mark. It’s what all the blogs say you should wait until cause I guess most of the bad stuff could have happened by then. And if we want, we can learn the gender then too.”

“Yeah. I want to know. Do you?”

“Yes.”

The few bites left of your pancakes had since gone cold, but still you pushed them around your plate with your fork. You still weren’t sure if you were worth the assured devotion Matt was offering you. The diner was far less crowded now, breakfast and brunch crowd thinned out to just a few patrons, allowing you to hear more of the thoughts rattling around in your brain.

“Colleen’s going to flip when I tell her you’re my baby daddy.” you remarked, wanting to ease the sheepishness you felt at still not believing Matt’s certainty.

“She’d flip even more if she knew the whole story.”

There it was; the ever present ghost of Frank wedging himself into all this goodness.

“Yeah.” you agreed

“Just to be prepared, what do you want me to say? When I tell people? I’ll go with whatever you’re most comfortable with.”

“I mean we can start with most of the truth. It was casual, it happened, we decided to try to make it work.”

Matt nodded, his lawyer brain liking the straightforwardness and simplicity of the story.

“Or you can tell them your pregnant situationship was a whore and between the two of you, you were the less of a mess and decided to stay.”

Matt shook his head, agitated at how you just couldn’t help yourself from making a self disparaging remark.

“Is that what you want me to call you?” he asked, a sharpness to his voice at the mere suggestion

You weren’t sure which descriptor you just threw out he was referring to, but decided on the less offensive one.

“I prefer it to the term baby momma. Feels too 2000s.” you replied

Deflecting with sarcasm. It would be a miracle if your baby ever said a serious phrase between how good both you and Matt were at it.

“You’re gonna move in with me and have my kid, but you’re really that scared of the word girlfriend?”

“I’m not scared of it it just feels… childish. We’re both too old for that.”

A lie. You were scared of that word. But he let it go.

“Well, I can’t call you my partner like the kids do these days. I’m a lawyer. It makes it sound like you’re joining the firm.”

You didn’t know how much body language Matt’s super senses could pick up on, but you were pretty sure he could have heard your eyes roll from at least a half a block away. The satisfied smugness on his face let you know that, yeah, he knew.

“Fine I’m you’re girlfriend, which sounds so stupid and cheesy by the way.”

“Hey, I’m Catholic. Most of us in situations like this just get married right away.”

“Don’t push it.” you scolded

You liked how much Matt was laughing today and that you were the cause of it, always swooning just a little at the way his eyes crinkled anytime he was amused.

“My mom is gonna be thrilled, son of a nun having a bastard child out of wedlock.”

Once again whatever silly rapport you and Matt were building came to a screeching halt.

“Your mom is… alive?”

Matt nodded, and the way he did indicated clearly there was way more to the story than that.

“I wasn’t sure.” you continued “And she’s a nun? Is that why you moved to the orphanage after your dad died? Cause she could raise you where she worked? Or no? Since you said before she wasn’t in your life.”

“Both.”

“What do you mean both?”

“She raised me with all the other nuns. Like all the other children who lived there. And did not tell me she was my mother.”

“Jesus.” you muttered in shock

“Yeah.”

“And now?”

“It’s complicated.”

“I’m sorry Matt. I didn’t know.”

“Well, now you do.”

There were plenty of fears and trepidations in your heart about how good you would be at raising another human, but you already loved this baby more than you could ever say and couldn’t imagine putting your child through something like that. A life with you in it but without them knowing but still being right there beside them the whole time.

You already knew Matt was a good man, but his previous statement about not repeating his parent’s mistakes rang loudly in your head, weight added by this revelation about his mom. You knew he was going to be such a good father to this baby.

“Will you want her to meet the baby? And me?” you asked

“Yeah. But we can wait on that.”

As you nodded your head in agreement, Matt flagged down your waitress to pay the bill.

“So, since we both have the rest of the day off, should we get to your place and start packing?”

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

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[enterprise-cloud-services]

Stop believing these 10 Generative AI myths! Get accurate insights and separate fact from fiction in the evolving world of artificial intelligence.

[rubylogan15]

Stop believing these 10 Generative AI myths! Get accurate insights and separate fact from fiction in the evolving world of artificial intelligence.

[elbiotipo]

Actually my main worry with AI doesn't go through image generation but rather text generation. Text is perhaps the easiest thing to create, store and share on the internet and any digital medium. And AI is very, very good at making it. I've been testing Deepseek to create text for me, from stupid fanfics (don't ask) to more serious text, including my favorite, fictional non-fiction articles, and the results, with some polishment, could easily pass for a real thing and feed misinformation.

Lots of historical and cultural misconceptions are actually based in on a couple of texts that were cited and re-cited out of context. Imagine if I, for example, used AI to write about a topic like Andean mythology. Much of the concepts might be right and the writing that an AI might do on could pass for professional writing, but even the smallest misconception or hallucination, if my article gets shared over and over, might cement on the public consciousness.

This isn't the fault of the AI though, because humans can and do this. Do you know how much misinformation there is in Wikipedia? And Wikipedia, being the introductory reference to many topics, is the largest source of information for many people... and it isn't as trustworthy as it seems. Remember that hoax in the Chinese Wikipedia where a single user rewrote Russian history? Not the first time it happened either. It's terrifying how many of these are, just a few looks at the Spanish Wikipedia have led me to find horrifying amounts of misinformation.

AI does not generate misinformation on itself. But it can be asked to produce these hoaxes and misinformation in mass scale.

My solution? Not ban AI, because that's impossible and stupid, and LLMs are actually excellent tools. My personal idea is to return to reference books, especially printed books by institutions with various authors. Why print books? Because anyone can go into ChatGPT and ask it to write an article about a fictional culture, edit it, and pass it as fact (in fact, I could do it right now). But when you have a printed book, your articles must go through many checks until it reaches print. It does not need to be printed as in paper, it can be shared in other formats but it does need to be checked and rechecked until there is a final edition as in i.e. not a wiki or a blog or a impermanent thing.

I believe that we have relied too much on Wikipedia as the only encyclopedia, and while it is great in many ways, the model starting to show its cracks. I think there should be many curated online encyclopedias for many topics, done by experts and with stronger quality controls than whoever is admin right now.

[glitter-stained]

A compilation of resources

Hi guys, sorry for spam-posting this morning: I have over 2000 drafts and needed to get these posts out so I could put them in order, in order to make this post.

FOOD

Stay on track of recalls to avoid getting food poisoning

5 ingredients/45 minutes recipes

Apple chai caramel cider

How to make cookies in a mug

Edible plants catalogue:

Homemaking, gardening and self-sufficiency resources that will not radicalize you:

RESOURCES FOR PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH AND SUPPORT

Disability survival guide

Resources for sign languages

Toothbrushes you can use while in bed!

Hey, person who's feeling overwhelmed by life!

How to do hard things

Reality statements for interpersonal effectiveness

In case anyone else is having a bad night

Stretching advice

Learn the Beck Columns with Cassandra Cain!

How to actually help someone who attempted suicide via pills

READING RESOURCES

Public domain websites

Bookshop is in the place!

Reading sites

Ao3 cheatsheet

Support your local library

Study time!

WRITING RESOURCES

Disability writing guide

On villains with tragic backstories

On carrying children

Some writing resources

Ref recs for whump writers

Writing dialogue

Writing characters with Schizophrenia

Writing advice ("crime")

Taking emotional intelligence in account!

Non tragic backstories

Useful geographical descriptors for writers:

How to say "it hurts"

You don't need an agent

Write your story backwards

Quick english grammar dialogue guide

Worldbuilding guide website

GRAPHIC ARTS RESOURCES

Anatomy help

Hot artists don't gatekeep

Sketch warm-ups

SURVIVING THE DIGITAL HELLSCAPE

Resources for staying safe online

Escape the discord generative AI

Stop NCII

Back-up your tumblr blog

Fuck ads

Fuck your paywall

Fuck your paywall, science edition

Learn the basics of digital archiving/preservation

Fuck your overpriced Netflix subscription

Hidden search systems

MISCELLANEOUS

Dealing with the worst case scenario

Supporting native artwork

Correct your misconceptions!

Free classes!

Small ways in which you can support science!

Frozen water survival guide

Kink sex ed

Care packages

Magical bookstores (now with a map!)

There we go! Hopefully some of those help make your life easier.

[justahusk]

Update: Pokémon Infinite Fusion will cease the use of AI-generated dex entries, as well as work on automating sprite removal (the message in the third image comes from PIF staff chats and has not been made public)!

Thank you all so much for making this possible. I never imagined the reaction that my previous post would end up getting. Again, thank you guys for supporting and standing with the artists in the community.

The popularity of this post also caused some misconceptions, so I want to correct those while I'm at it, but it's not a necessity to read it all.

Happy holidays to everyone that came together to help us out!

As said in the post:

Sprite Remover code: https://bsky.app/profile/just-a-husk.bsky.social/post/3le2gkymcfs25

Washington Post Article (paywalled): https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/09/18/energy-ai-use-electricity-water-data-centers/

Instagram post of the article, by Washington Post: https://www.instagram.com/p/DAHPEEKtpQw/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

[summergoodwife]

Crazy how many people I've seen say "Generative AI is not plagiarism, human writers just rearrange other works, too!"

Way to tell on yourself that you don't know how to make art lmao. There's a great Hayao Miyazaki quote (the thing he actually said in the image that got later captioned to say "anime was a mistake") that goes a long way to shutting this misconception down.

You see, whether you can draw like this or not, being able to think up this kind of design, it depends on whether or not you can say to yourself, “Oh, yeah, girls like this exist in real life.” If you don’t spend time watching real people, you can’t do this, because you’ve never seen it. Some people spend their lives interested only in themselves. Almost all Japanese animation is produced with hardly any basis taken from observing real people, you know. It’s produced by humans who can’t stand looking at other humans. And that’s why the industry is full of otaku!

Good art comes from life. You cannot make something impactful by just observing what others have already made, and anybody who claims that you can is simply looking for an excuse not to do the hard parts of art.

[anonpolls]

Thanks, Anon!

-submit your poll!-