#IO9

[lackadaisycats]

It’s an article!

....and a trailer!!  ♣ ♣ ♣

[doctorfriend79]

Peter Capaldi - io9 Interview

[kingofdoma]

whoever chose that header image is a sinner

[lamajaoscura]

io9 Published an AI-Generated Star Wars Article Filled With Errors – Variety

[silvereyedowl]

I'd heard of the "Obi-Wan was the master and Qui-gon the apprentice" idea before, but not just how far it went.

[cranialgunk]

Bitter Tea

Recently Turner Classic Movies played The Good Earth and The Bitter Tea of General Yen back to back. I caught the former as the locusts descended upon the crops and continued to the latter as a “Chinked up” Nils Asther rode away in “Yellow Face” without care or concern for the rickshaw driver his car had just hit. I grimaced as I watched Nils Asther’s exaggerated Yellow Face – painfully narrowed…

[richdadpoor]

Chuck Tingle on His First Published Horror Novel | io9 Interview

Read more…

[rennerator]

LOVE LOVE LOVE Awwwwww, I LOVE HIM SO SO SOOOO F* MUCH!!!!! S2 Such a MARVELOUS, INCREDIBLE, MAGNIFICENT PERSON!!!!! :) I LOVE HIM!!!!! I LOVE HIM!!!!! Thank YOU SO SO MUCH for this!!!! You are AMAZING!!!! <3

It's the cut (x)

[tyrantisterror]

There was a writer at io9 who I lowkey viewed as my nemesis despite never interacting with him in any way because whenever I encountered an article with an absolutely dogshit shallow take on pop culture 9 tiems out of 10 it was written by him, and generally in mindless praise of Star Wars. I bring this up because before I quit reading the site he posted an article called "I don't get why geeks don't like sports" or something like that, and the thesis of the article was that geeks who love sci-fi and fantasy fiction should LOVE sports because they're basically the same thing - that everything one loves about sci-fi and fantasy fiction can be found in sports. To which I say:

No the fuck it can't

You, a man who is paid to write about geek shit for geeks to read about because your editors inexplicably believe you know why geeks like what they like, clearly lied on your resume

The argument went that sports have everything sci-fi and fantasy fans like, which it specified were, like, stakes, and drama, and people to root for and against, which is basically all it takes to make a sci-fi story, right? Like Jesus Christ it was so stupid, like, Jeff Bezos described how easy it is to make a great TV show stupid.

BUT! It did give me an idea. See, one of the big appeals to me about sci-fi and fantasy stories is the fantastical shit that shows up in them, like monsters, for example. Another big appeal is to see a how our current world can be reflected in the fantastical one - whether we see a better world, or one that's worse in a very dramatic way.

So, here is my suggestion for making sports just like fantasy and sci fi fiction: we add a new position to every single sport called The Minotaur. The Minotaur wears heavy body armor as well as a big, intimidating horned helm, and brandishes an axe with deadly efficiency. The Minotaur is a free agent, allowed to wander in and out of the stadium/ice rink/golf course/what have you as he pleases, but he must attempt to kill one player per game. The players are not allowed to take weapons into the game to defend themselves - only through sheer athleticism can they either evade or disarm the Minotaur, and in doing so save themselves.

If they did this, then finally they'd have everything I love in my sci-fi and fantasy movies in sports.

[chipthekeeper]

Mon cover? Nemik title? Oh yeah, we're so back

[die-comic]

WE CALLED THEM GIANTS is the new book Stephanie and I have been working on. It's a stand alone graphic novel, and it's out in November.

io9 had the announcement, which includes some preview pages to give a taste of what Stephanie has been doing.

It's all drawn (stephanie and I are already onto what we're doing next) and can't wait to show it to folks. Being a Graphic Novel, it's already available to pre-order from your retailers. (B&N/Amazon US/UK).

I'll be writing more in this week's newsletter, which you can sign up for here (or look in the archves).

It's the first time either of us have done something like this, so it's a huge thing.

Hurrah!

[taevayu]

helloo I rlly like ur users and I was hoping if you could do those short username fillers? like those random short letters, thank you in advance!

── ◜✧◞  short user fillers! ﹕ᶻz

noun fillers

io9 / flon / umii / iz-

ykv / meu / oyu / bli

rau / wic / zb1 / tzs

t89 / ooi / f7 / veo

mis / bwu / pxi / shu

examples -- how to use these?

io9tae / flonvera / umiitae / iz-vera

ykvtae / meuvera / oyutae / blitvera

rautae / wicvera / zb1tae / tzsvera

t89tae / ooivera / f7tae / veovera

mistae / bwuvera / pxitae / shuvera

i havent done fillers (this is like my 2nd request) so i hope anybody else who wanted fillers see this post :)) feel free to modify to your liking or even put anywhere in whatever name/phrase you have!!! thanks for requesting!! (i just decided to post this bc i think it would help with my activity...)

[kingofdoma]

dear good websites under corporate rule,

you don't HAVE to have a key member of your staff fired for you to all realize you don't need them and for you to forge your own path and be successful, y'know

you can just da share zone it and hit the bricks

just saying

yours,

kingofdoma

[mckitterick]

The End Is Near: "News" organizations using AI to create content, firing human writers

source: X

source: X

source: X

an example "story" now comes with this warning:

A new byline showed up Wednesday on io9: “Gizmodo Bot.” The site’s editorial staff had no input or advance notice of the new AI-generator, snuck in by parent company G/O Media.

G/O Media’s AI-generated articles are riddled with errors and outdated information, and block reader comments.

“As you may have seen today, an AI-generated article appeared on io9,” James Whitbrook, deputy editor at io9 and Gizmodo, tweeted. “I was informed approximately 10 minutes beforehand, and no one at io9 played a part in its editing or publication.”

Whitbrook sent a statement to G/O Media along with “a lengthy list of corrections.” In part, his statement said, “The article published on io9 today rejects the very standards this team holds itself to on a daily basis as critics and as reporters. It is shoddily written, it is riddled with basic errors; in closing the comments section off, it denies our readers, the lifeblood of this network, the chance to publicly hold us accountable, and to call this work exactly what it is: embarrassing, unpublishable, disrespectful of both the audience and the people who work here, and a blow to our authority and integrity.”

He continued, “It is shameful that this work has been put to our audience and to our peers in the industry as a window to G/O’s future, and it is shameful that we as a team have had to spend an egregious amount of time away from our actual work to make it clear to you the unacceptable errors made in publishing this piece.”

According to the Gizmodo Media Group Union, affiliated with WGA East, the AI effort has “been pushed by” G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller, recently hired editorial director Merrill Brown, and deputy editorial director Lea Goldman.

In 2019, Spanfeller and private-equity firm Great Hill Partners acquired Gizmodo Media Group (previously Gawker Media) and The Onion.

The Writers Guild of America issued a blistering condemnation of G/O Media’s use of artificial intelligence to generate content.

“These AI-generated posts are only the beginning. Such articles represent an existential threat to journalism. Our members are professionally harmed by G/O Media’s supposed ‘test’ of AI-generated articles.”

WGA added, “But this fight is not only about members in online media. This is the same fight happening in broadcast newsrooms throughout our union. This is the same fight our film, television, and streaming colleagues are waging against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) in their strike.”

The union, in its statement, said it “demands an immediate end of AI-generated articles on G/O Media sites,” which include The A.V. Club, Deadspin, Gizmodo, Jalopnik, Jezebel, Kotaku, The Onion, Quartz, The Root, and The Takeout.

but wait, there's more:

Just weeks after news broke that tech site CNET was secretly using artificial intelligence to produce articles, the company is doing extensive layoffs that include several longtime employees, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation. The layoffs total 10 percent of the public masthead.

*

Greedy corporate sleazeballs using artificial intelligence are replacing humans with cost-free machines to barf out garbage content.

This is what end-stage capitalism looks like: An ouroborus of machines feeding machines in a downward spiral, with no room for humans between the teeth of their hungry gears.

Anyone who cares about human life, let alone wants to be a writer, should be getting out the EMP tools and burning down capitalist infrastructure right now before it's too late.

[silvereyedowl]

wild rumours from the future

I’m just going to leave this io9 article link here, because it might just be the most hilarious-in-hindsight article they’ve ever posted. (It’s true, all of it.)

Happy 59th anniversary of Doctor Who!

[dancingmusique]

io9: I’m glad you mentioned the intimacy there. Throughout episodes six and eight there’s this frisson of a connection between Osha and the Stranger—there’s fans who have latched on to that connection and dubbed the two of you “Oshamir.” How do you feel about fans not just latching onto that as a potential idea, but do you think it’s something we could see explored as they navigate what this Master-Acolyte relationship is between them?

Jacinto: Mm-hmm! I think it’s definitely a huge, major point to explore if we do get a season two. I think the great part about that dynamic is that it brings in a different type of audience into Star Wars, you know. I think right now, there’s a huge Star Wars fan base, but I think from what people have sent me through texts, they’re noticing people and comments along the lines of “I haven’t seen any Star Wars, but I will it for this,” and, it’s, you know, referencing the Oshamir dynamic. I think that’s such a beautiful thing to be able to bring more people into this franchise, this fanbase. You’ve gotta give the people what they want, and I think there is a lot to explore within that dynamic. Yeah, it’s a really cool one.