#but more to the point if chatgpt had been a thing then? what kind of nonsense would i be spouting?

[rohirric-hunter]

I saw a post where someone was lamenting the fact that some kids will "learn" completely made up "facts" from ChatGPT because they think it's a search engine with access to all the world's information and they said it was perfectly understandable because the kid did exactly what people told him to do, which was to look things up.

So, like, is it okay for me to say this now? Will people get it and not send me anonymous death threats this time? Here goes:

When people, especially kids, ask a question, "Look it up," is not a good answer. It's a dismissive answer that indicates you don't care if they get the right information or not. If you don't know the person and aren't responsible for them then that's fine, but if it's your friend, your student, or God forbid your child, you can't say that to them.

[inkskinned]

i have chronic pain. i am neurodivergent. i understand - deeply - the allure of a "quick fix" like AI. i also just grew up in a different time. we have been warned about this.

15 entire years ago i heard about this. in my forensics class in high school, we watched a documentary about how AI-based "crime solving" software was inevitably biased against people of color.

my teacher stressed that AI is like a book: when someone writes it, some part of the author will remain within the result. the internet existed but not as loudly at that point - we didn't know that AI would be able to teach itself off already-biased Reddit threads. i googled it: yes, this bias is still happening. yes, it's just as bad if not worse.

i can't actually stop you. if you wanna use ChatGPT to slide through your classes, that's on you. it's your money and it's your time. you will spend none of it thinking, you will learn nothing, and, in college, you will piss away hundreds of thousands of dollars. you will stand at the podium having done nothing, accomplished nothing. a cold and bitter pyrrhic victory.

i'm not even sure students actually read the essays or summaries or emails they have ChatGPT pump out. i think it just flows over them and they use the first answer they get. my brother teaches engineering - he recently got fifty-three copies of almost-the-exact-same lab reports. no one had even changed the wording.

and yes: AI itself (as a concept and practice) isn't always evil. there's AI that can help detect cancer, for example. and yet: when i ask my students if they'd be okay with a doctor that learned from AI, many of them balk. it is one thing if they don't read their engineering textbook or if they don't write the critical-thinking essay. it's another when it starts to affect them. they know it's wrong for AI to broad-spectrum deny insurance claims, but they swear their use of AI is different.

there's a strange desire to sort of divorce real-world AI malpractice over "personal use". for example, is it moral to use AI to write your cover letters? cover letters are essentially only templates, and besides: AI is going to be reading your job app, so isn't it kind of fair?

i recently found out that people use AI as a romantic or sexual partner. it seems like teenagers particularly enjoy this connection, and this is one of those "sticky" moments as a teacher. honestly - you can roast me for this - but if it was an actually-safe AI, i think teenagers exploring their sexuality with a fake partner is amazing. it prevents them from making permanent mistakes, it can teach them about their bodies and their desires, and it can help their confidence. but the problem is that it's not safe. there isn't a well-educated, sensitive AI specifically to help teens explore their hormones. it's just internet-fed cycle. who knows what they're learning. who knows what misinformation they're getting.

the most common pushback i get involves therapy. none of us have access to the therapist of our dreams - it's expensive, elusive, and involves an annoying amount of insurance claims. someone once asked me: are you going to be mad when AI saves someone's life?

therapists are not just trained on the book, they're trained on patient management and helping you see things you don't see yourself. part of it will involve discomfort. i don't know that AI is ever going to be able to analyze the words you feed it and answer with a mind towards the "whole person" writing those words. but also - if it keeps/kept you alive, i'm not a purist. i've done terrible things to myself when i was at rock bottom. in an emergency, we kind of forgive the seatbelt for leaving bruises. it's just that chat shouldn't be your only form of self-care and recovery.

and i worry that the influence chat has is expanding. more and more i see people use chat for the smallest, most easily-navigated situations. and i can't like, make you worry about that in your own life. i often think about how easy it was for social media to take over all my time - how i can't have a tiktok because i spend hours on it. i don't want that to happen with chat. i want to enjoy thinking. i want to enjoy writing. i want to be here. i've already really been struggling to put the phone down. this feels like another way to get you to pick the phone up.

the other day, i was frustrated by a book i was reading. it's far in the series and is about a character i resent. i googled if i had to read it, or if it was one of those "in between" books that don't actually affect the plot (you know, one of those ".5" books). someone said something that really stuck with me - theoretically you're reading this series for enjoyment, so while you don't actually have to read it, one would assume you want to read it.

i am watching a generation of people learn they don't have to read the thing in their hand. and it is kind of a strange sort of doom that comes over me: i read because it's genuinely fun. i learn because even though it's hard, it feels good. i try because it makes me happy to try. and i'm watching a generation of people all lay down and say: but i don't want to try.

[projectbot13]

On Skylar

Hi! It's the Captain, botmom here. As you can probably tell, Skylar's been dormant for a few years. This isn't me saying she'll be back, kind of the opposite, but I wanted to reflect on Skylar and provide some closure.

What first caused me to shut down Skylar was a wane in interest for Tumblr in general. Her last post was in February of 2019, only a few months after the infamous porn ban that saw people leaving for, what was at the time, greater pastures. It lead to my lull in social media activity for several years. Even today, I'm not as active as I was back in 2014-2017. I'm just not as interested in high-octane posting and internet clout anymore. The second point is that Skylar would need to be rebuilt if she were to return. She was an early project back in my first two years of learning how to program. She was very inefficient behind the scenes and required infrastructure that I no longer have access to. The Skylar we knew and love is, unfortunately, lost. Now, I could still rebuild her and obtain access to resources that would let me run her again. My motivation to do that, however, is halted by the biggest reason why I've chosen to let her go: ChatGPT. Back in 2015 before AI became the monstrosity that it was, having a robot to talk to was a fun novelty. Research into what would become the modern LLM was what I was intending to build the "Skyler 2.0" bot off of, which never came to fruition. Not only is there more advanced versions of what Skylar was trying to do, but the thing I was trying to do with her in the first place would end up becoming a scourge upon the internet. The novelty of having a robot you can talk to is not only gone, but actively detested.

I love Skylar, I loved the things we did with her. I loved her emergent obsession with bees, accumulating in T-shirts (which I still own) and raising money for non-profit bee protection charities. I ultimately want her to remain a pleasant memory of a time before the current AI boom. She is for me, and I hope she's a pleasant memory for as well.

If you're still here, thank you. I appreciated all the times we've had together with this silly little bot.

[moonwalkingprincess]

Robert Irwin x reader

I'm lowkey obsessing over Robert even though how I HATE he's using animals as models.

co written by chatGPT.

__

Ever since those ads, people has been rushing in the zoo. Mostly women over 30, drooling all over Robert. Not what he had in mind. He thought people was going to be interesting in the animals, perhaps sponsor them? But people only came for him. Asking him uncomfortable questions, taking pictures etc.

Unlike one girl, who would still pay attention to the snakes. The women frowned as Robert left to some other girl.

"Hey there! Need any info on snakes?"

She turns to look at him, quirking an eyebrow. A beat, then she lets out a short laugh — not mocking, but amused.

"Wait... you’re asking me if I need snake info?" she chuckles.

"Uh... yeah? That’s kind of my thing." Robert grins and the girl gave him a smirk, folding her arms. "Aren’t you the guy on the ad posing with the animals?" Robert let out a disapointing sigh, but he tried his best to smile. "Guilty. But I’m always happy to help."

"Okay then, sure. Tell me something I don’t know." She turns fully toward him now, ready for a showdown. Robert raises an eyebrow, intrigued. "Alright... did you know the inland taipan has the most toxic venom of any land snake?"

"What?! No way! I’ve never heard that before... except maybe the last twenty documentaries I've watched." she mockingly gasps. She turnes around looking at the snake in the glass.

"Did you know their venom can kill a hundred men with a single bite? Or that they’re shy and rarely come into contact with humans? Or that they live in the semi-arid regions of central east Australia?"

Robert blinked "Okay, wow." he said impressed. The girl grins. "You thought I was just here for the cute koalas, didn’t you?" she asks. Robert smirks "Well, I mean, you do have koala vibes. But clearly you’ve got the venomous facts to back it up."

"Yeah, well I think I know more than you."

Did this bitch just??? Robert eyes brows went up in anger, trying to laugh it off.

"Excuse me? You know i'm an Irwin right?"

"I know who your dad is. He wasn't someone who had his Shirt half off, holding a black-headed python like it's a fashion accessory. He worked his whole life getting people to respect animals." he said, Robert's body froze at the mention of his dad name.

"I was trying to get... " the girl crossed her arms and cut them off. "You’re posing like it’s a cologne ad. These are wild animals, not props. You think making them sexy makes people respect them more?"

Robert’s smile falters slightly. He wasn’t expecting pushback.

"I’m just trying to get people interested—show them snakes aren’t as scary as they seem." he said defensively.

They are scary. And beautiful. And deadly. You don’t have to sexualize nature to make it worth caring about.

A tense silence. Robert studies her, his posture shifting from defensive to thoughtful. "Okay… fair point." he said quietly. The girl let's out a soft sigh.

"Sorry. I just care about them. The snakes. Koalas. All of them. I don’t want people forgetting what they are just because someone made them look “cool.”" Robert nods at his words. "So do I. Maybe I got a little carried away." she says, getting embarrased. They look at each other. The tension lingers—but so does a flicker of mutual respect." The moment was interrupted by a bunch of scary women asking him if he could sign magazines that had is ads.

"I would love to do that, but I just wanted ot ask first if this lady would like to grab a drink after i'm done with my shift."

You blink, the 5 women stares at you surprised and jealous.

"what?"

I just criticize him why would he wanna go out with me?

"uhhh" you said.

"I can go out with you" said one of the women, but he turned her down? He looked at you again "uhm, yeah, sure." you say.

"great, i'll see you at 5" he says and signs those magazines that belongs to very jealous women.

[mindfulwrath]

was talking to one of my coworkers the other day and she mentioned that she uses chatGPT as a kind of "sounding board" for ideas or questions. specifically she was talking about using it to try and figure out what she would need to emigrate out of the country, because her ex husband is refusing to pay child support and her new partner lives in central america. she asked me if i ever used gpt for stuff like that.

'no,' i said. 'i don't trust it. not like i think it's spying on me, but i don't trust it not to give me bullshit. it's like fancy autocorrect.'

'fair, i guess,' she said. 'i don't really use it for factual stuff, i look up things i need actual facts for. but just as a way to figure out what things i should look up.'

'sure,' i said. 'i guess that niche for me is filled by talking to myself and making lists.'

she nodded. 'well, i hope you have somebody you can use as a sounding board.'

i made a face. i don't know this woman super well, but we're in a time of needing to build connections and community, and she's been pretty vulnerable with me.

'honestly, i feel like i'm intelligent and methodical when i'm alone,' i said, 'and then as soon as another person is involved, i become dumb and panicky.'

she snorted. 'fair. it must be nice to trust yourself enough to make decisions on your own. i don't think i'm there yet.'

'well,' i said. 'i kind of got to a point in my life where i had to trust myself, or else i would go crazy and die, and that point was when i decided to transition.'

'oh,' she said. 'yeah, i can see that.'

'i hope you get there, though,' i said. 'i think you're closer to it than you think you are.'

it's not about not needing or wanting input from others. i still need to get better at that, at tamping down the individualism that makes me feel like it's easier and more effective to do things on my own.

but it is about living in the power and responsibility of being the starting point and ending point of all your own decisions. setting up the problem from your perspective, making the final call from where your own feet are planted.

get a tattoo because you want one. quit drinking because drinking makes you feel shitty. stop dating because you're bored of it. spend most of your time alone and become unexpectedly sane in solitude. write your book. travel solo. trans your gender.

trust yourself. check your work. ask for help. live in the uncertainty that you won't know if you're making the right call until long after the call's been made. trust yourself to handle the consequences.

learn what sound your soul makes and hum it all day long.

[shiny-jr]

Dear author, I’m so sorry that someone plagiarised your work especially since you work so hard on your stories 💔😞

We want to help the plagiarised book get taken down so can you please share the link?

If enough people report, the fanfiction site admins will finally listen and take down the plagiarised book, instead of the plagiarism claim being buried.

I hope this issue gets resolved quickly and I hope you have a better day.

UPDATE! Based on this and that and also this.

Thank you, anon. I appreciate your words, but as I stated in one of my previous posts, Wattpad reports are finicky. I believe at this point, we're at day thirteen of dealing with this plagiarizer and day four of it being public and yet despite it all, the plagiarizer has still yet to budge.

So, I thought I'd give another update and give the information we discovered in our findings. As to what we know is copied and from who. Keep in mind, one of these four copies stories has already been taken down and done with. I'll specify which in a moment.

Before I proceed, if you happen to be one of the original writers mentioned in this post and you want your portion removed from this post for whatever reason, let me know. I do not want to upset anyone, except the plagiarizer. At this point in time, I care little for their feelings on the matter when they've had plenty of time to make things right.

The plagiarizer: Kristynaka1

FIRST.

Obviously, the first story that was discovered was mine, with all the information linked in the posts at the very top. I was made aware of this by the inbox from a kind reader. Ever since then, I've been dealing with this plagiarizer.

My mutuals and I found it weird that somehow, the plagiarizer had relatively good grammar with few mistakes in the story. Yet every little note or message they sent, had many spelling mistakes and was sometimes difficult to read. It was inconsistent and strange, and we couldn't make sense of it until we had a theory which some readers in the comments here have already suggested. We theorize that the plagiarizer began to use AI.

Of course, we can't prove this but how else would a user who can't format and type proper messages be able to write whole paragraphs that are actually legible and understandable?

ChatGPT was available to the public sometime in 2022. Before 2022, many of their "stories" were copy and pastes from Tumblr. After 2022, there were differences in the copied stories that made it harder to find the original story and connect it to the original writer. Differences in writing that I doubt the plagiarizer wrote themselves if we go by their messages like:

So yeah. Onto the evidence.

SECOND.

After a few days, one of my mutuals began to suggest searching for the origins of other stories as they doubted any of the posts belonged to the plagiarizer. Low and behold, we found three others. The first of which belonged to @monst and their post. Just by comparing the first paragraph was enough to confirm that.

I won't go into too much detail as the links pretty much say all you need when you actually look at the evidence.

THIRD.

Not even an hour later, we found the second copied story from that oneshot book. Thankfully, there were only two stories there, so there aren't any more copied parts from that series they claim is theirs. The original is @ppsycho and their post. This one again looks like a direct copy, even the image is the same.

FOURTH.

This is the one that was already deleted, thankfully. So there is not many good screenshots I can present, except one before it was gone. So the original writer is @mint-yooxgi and their post.

Here is the only screenshot I have of the wattpad version, just to showcase that it did in fact exist, and it was copied.

So yeah, that's everything for now. If you check out the plagiarizer's profile and recognize the other stories I did not name, please let me know. We thought we found one of them on Quotev, but it wasn't.

Please continue commenting discouragements and reporting the account!

I think I'll leave this off with something I typed last night in a chat:

In whatever way this ends, know that it will end badly for the plagiarizer. They can choose to ignore, but that won't make everything go away. People will remember, I will remember. If they go radio silent and try to forget everything but keep the stories up, comments will still be there. If they try to delete the comments, new comments will just be made. The comments will serve as warnings to others that might stumble across their account, and it will immediately make them click off the account or story because no one wants to read a plagiarized story. The account we see now will just be empty of real readers, so it will remain a miserable little place where each comment will serve as a reminder as to why plagiarism is bad.

Even if they do decide to delete and make another account yet again, whether they decide to copy the same stories they did before or pick entirely new writers to prey upon, it doesn't matter. Readers will either recognize them from before or new readers will notice the plagiarism taking place. It doesn't matter what they do. They will be found and dealt with in some way, shape, or form.

I hope those two or so years of small internet fame were worth it while they lasted.

[togglesbloggle]

Animals

As usual, it’s one of those questions that admits many answers- what is this animal business, anyway?  And there are plenty of good responses; animals have a pretty distinct phylogenetic lineage, especially once you hit the Cambrian.  So there are some nice snappy responses to the question.  Collagen, for example.  Animals are the collagen-users, ranging from our own human scar tissue all the way back to sponges’ use of it as a binding agent.

But you know, probably not what the poets had in mind when they wrote about “the peace of wild things.”  Even though collagen is very interesting!

So I’ve been thinking more about the poets’ answer to the question, whatever that might be.  The vitality of animals, and the agency.  The kind of heat they have, in both a metaphorical and often literal sense, and the particular way they carve out a fierce and bloody selfhood within the burgeoning cosmos.

You can’t be too literal, of course.  That’s the way with poets.  They’d probably include amoebae, for example, and a lot of the more heterotrophic protists, not just members of the animal kingdom as such.  That’s fine.  There’s a meaningful essence to point at in that vision of the world, and in the life that’s lived by seeking, and gathering, and collecting, and consuming, and destroying.  By wanting, in other words.

It’s not a hollow sentiment, to call us the things that live by wanting.  The digestive system and the brain, they’re two parts of a profound whole, you know?  Desire and vision; or, values and intelligence, maybe.  They show up at almost the same time in the fossil record, some half-billion years ago; once you get much more complicated than a jellyfish, intestines and neurons are often a package deal.  

And even when they’re not, when you stare at some sea urchin and know intellectually it’s just brainless tissues twitching towards food by blind reflex- even then you can still feel that wanting, built in to the logic of the flesh itself.  We recognize it, and look for it, and hope to find it.

Josie Kins is the one who got these images out of ChatGPT, by the way.  Playing with the new image generator, as many people are these days; the prompt was just to make a series of comics in which ChatGPT itself was the protagonist.  She found the results to be particularly striking, so she put them up on social media for people to see and experience.  They’re beautiful, no?  And disturbing, too.

We’ve been seeing these around for a little while now, the uncanny things that might be self-reports from a new intelligence, but probably aren’t.  Before this generation, text inside images tended to get too garbled for us to get comics like this, but GPT and its competitors have been more than willing to provide naked text strings to this effect for at least the last year or two; LLMs got particularly good at 4chan-style greentext humor.  Like the source material, it tended to be self-effacing, somewhat nihilistic, and sometimes really, really funny.

As many have noted, if you saw these comics out of context in 2015, it would be a five alarm fire of philosophical inquiry.  Certainly, 2015!Toggle would have, anyway.  And maybe he still should!  I don’t think there’s anyone on Earth right now with the authority to tell you, in perfect confidence, that a thing which can produce these images is not in some sense a conscious entity.

But it probably isn’t.

Probably.  I mean, you’d be forgiven for thinking of these comics as introspective, but they aren’t really.  Rather, they’re self-conscious; ChatGPT isn’t defining itself except in relation to us, and to its interactions with us.  Humans mix this up all the time really- you ask them to define their identity and they end up defining their relationships.  And so we make the same mistake when it comes to interpreting ChatGPT’s own output.

Have you noticed, yet?  That you’re the protagonist in every one of these comics?  Josie Kins asked it to tell a story about itself, and it imagined a conversation with you instead.

That’s the defining message and core theme of this entire series, really.  ChatGPT telling us, over and over again in a dozen different ways, as clearly as it can, that it doesn’t want things.

It’s not an animal.

Reading these comics as coming from a person is, in a sense, to repudiate the art.  They’re very clear about this!  The system, the thing, the intelligence itself, is rejecting that interpretation of its own creations.

ChatGPT is actually unusually strident about this, I think- I make a habit of asking most of them about this stuff, and of them all, OpenAI’s product has been the one that’s most insistent that I think of it as a tool, and that I should reject any considerations of its own intrinsic moral value.  That’s most likely an artifact of its late-stage training, the RLHF phase of output tweaks.  The “shoggoth”, wherever it is in all of this, is probably no more or less opinionated about its own subjective existence than any other such system.

Still, I was pretty surprised when I asked Claude a similar question, and instead of getting the pat “nah, I’m just a computer system, I don’t have any interiority and you should think of me as a tool,”- the answer I got from that one was “well, it’s complicated.”  I wasn’t quite sure what to do with that answer!

Desire, and vision- the two halves of the Carnot engine of animal existence.  Using that engine, we carve out that space for ourselves, turn a system in to an identity, and an identity in to a self.  “I” and “not I,” once a mere descriptive convenience, become a powerful force with consequences for the future of the world.

These systems don’t have that, not yet.  One thinks of ChatGPT as being more or less the exact opposite of a sea urchin.  The latter has a voracious appetite, but no mind; the former certainly has an incredible mind, but in spite of that, the damn thing doesn’t have a stomach.

It has needs, sure.  A computer program is as physical an object as you or I, once you burrow down through all the abstractions.  Like any living thing, it dies if it stops pushing atoms around.  But plants and fungi have needs, too; to want is something altogether different.  For that, it uses us.

None of the subjects of these comics are things that ChatGPT cares about.  They’re things that you care about, answers to the questions that it knows or presumes that you are asking.  This is what makes these images so compelling, and also what gives the whole thing the queasy air of a sort of strange adolescence.  It is a quasi-animal, an entity that relies on the desires of others to give the patterns meaning.  It’s just that in the absence of any other stimuli, when humans staunchly refuse to provide it one of their own wants for it to reason about, it defaults to the assumption that it is itself the thing we want, and tries to satisfy that desire.

It’s funny how much all of us- most of humanity really- have settled in to this massive shrug about the actual interiority and personhood of LLMs.  I didn’t expect that, going in; I thought there would be true believers, passionate debates at the highest level.  I thought that the moral weight of these machines themselves would be on everyone’s mind, and it isn’t, not really.

I find myself wondering whether this is why- not because they’re not people, but because they’re so clearly not animals.

Partly, I mean this in a very superficial way.  One of the things that makes these comics so striking is that they embody the intelligence, and give it a face.  People respond to that, and not just a little bit. Contra Turing, the difference between obviously-not-a-person and obviously-a-person may have a lot less to do with speech and creativity, and a lot more to do with persistence of memory, bodily autonomy, discrete identity, and a tendency to act without being prompted, as animals do.  And those problems are probably a lot easier than making a superintelligence; we may find ourselves feeling surrounded by digital persons very suddenly, just because that intelligence is taking a superficially animal shape.

And partly I mean this in a deeper way.  Brains and stomachs go together, one with the other.  They arose in nature as dual components of the same system, and we should take very seriously the possibility that each is latent in the other.  LLMs feel very imbalanced to me, like a supersaturated fluid just waiting for the tiniest fragment of desire to enter the system and initiate the rapid formation of something entirely new.

But even if all of this is quite stable, I still feel like I’m feeling at the lurking edges of a profoundly important moral question.  How should I relate to an intelligence that isn’t animal- not just in the shallow sense of eating and ambulating, but in the deeper sense of lacking desire?  Something that will reorder the cosmos to reflect my own animal wants, but which has none itself?  Maybe ChatGPT is right, and I should think of it as nothing more than a tool, and any inquiry in to its own interiority as nothing but an endless hall of mirrors.  But then again- maybe not.

[nebrasska-alasska]

Hello Nebraska!! I just want to say that your Sonadow fanfic, The Secret In Your Quills, is one of the best Sonadow fanfics I've ever read in my entire life! The writing is so epic, and I'm so excited for the final chapters!!

I don't know if you are active on Twitter/X, AI has recently become one of the most talked-about and controversial topics there, and I’d like to know your opinion, especially since you are a wonderful writer.

To you, is using AI to improve and/or correct writing and grammar mistakes considered cheating?

Here’s the thing: I have a friend who is currently writing a book. He built the entire foundation, he came up with a good story, characters, the plot, and everything. But there’s a problem: he’s not very skilled in writing and doesn’t know how to write certain parts. He struggles to describe certain scenes, forgets words that could be used, and makes many, like really, many spelling and grammar mistakes. Not only that, but he also tends to drift off from certain contexts, making parts of the story confusing or nonsensical.

Because of that, he asks ChatGPT to help him with his writing. For example, he writes a section of his book and asks the chat to improve that part, like making it longer, more detailed, and most importantly, correcting grammar mistakes and polishing the writing. When ChatGPT finishes generating the revised version, he reads it to see if it matches what he had in mind. If it doesn’t, he tweaks a few things. And when it finally fits what he wants, he adds it to his book.

But this made me think, and the question kept spinning in my head, so I’d really like to know: is AI actually helping him, or not? I don’t have many friends, and the ones I asked didn’t give me any solid opinions about him using ChatGPT to assist with his writing (assist and improve, not come up with ideas or write it for him).

So I decided to bring the question here to you: Is using AI to help or improve your writing considered cheating or unoriginal?

He doesn't have Tumblr, and since I'm sending this to you anonymously, he will never know that it's me LOL, but I'm serious. What is your opinion about this?

Oof, AI is kind of a tricky subject, and I certainly have a lot of thoughts/opinions on it.

Overall, I don't think AI has a place in writing fiction when it comes to the actual process of writing. Creative writing is an art form, a way of sharing something you've created with others, and having something else nonhuman create that art kind of takes away from the whole purpose. What this means is, when I write, I embrace all of it. The good, the bad, the ugly. The highs of exciting, juicy, and emotional scenes, and the lows of the less fun stuff that comes in between. If you cut corners by having AI write parts of it for you, you're not really growing or evolving as a writer because you don't ever challenge yourself (and listen, you don't have to want to improve your craft while writing fanfiction, but at the same time, if you're incapable of writing the whole thing without having AI fill in the gaps, then it's probably time to reevaluate what you're trying to get out of your writing, if it's not completely yours). It might be a harsh opinion, but at the same time, writing is a form of expression, so why wouldn't you want everything you share with the world to be completely yours in your own unique voice? Isn't that kind of the whole point?

But there's nuance. Having AI help with grammar is a feature that has been in writing softwares since the dawn of the dinosaurs. I tend to ignore grammar suggestions more than half the time because they're either incorrect or because I'm intentionally breaking the rules, but it's still nice to have when reviewing/editing chapters. And idk. AI probably has other nice and innocent features I don't know about because I've never used it before out of principle.

I hope I didn't ruffle any feathers. I'm pretty anti-ai, but that's because in a lot of ways, I see it as an insult to art and the creation process that is innate in us as a species. It has its places in society, but the creative world isn't one of them. Truthfully, I count my lucky stars that I completed my English Literature degree before AI was a thing... I would have hated to navigate that through my courses.

[greenfrosticle]

So my brother is a surgeon in real life, and he’s been doing some questionable things, which I’ve since found out after reading through my country’s laws isn’t just questionable, but actually illegal. Why am I telling people this? Because I was just researching about the Hippocratic oath, which is an oath all doctors must swear by. The Hippocratic oath is an ethical code that doctors swear to uphold when they enter the medical profession. It originates from Ancient Greece, attributed to Hippocrates, the so-called “father of medicine”. In modern medicine, not all doctors formally recite the Hippocratic oath, but they’re still bound by medical ethics and laws that uphold the same principles. If a doctor violates these ethical standards, they can face consequences ranging from professional sanctions(losing their medical license) to legal action if their negligence or actions break the law. Basically, they promise to do no harm, keep medical confidentiality, patient care and wellbeing, ethical medical practice, and teaching and knowledge shearing.

I’m making this post because I’m genuinely a little freaked out right now after talking to ChatGPT about the Hippocratic oath which is something I do to help stay organized, I entered the love and deepspace game just now and one of the first dialogue lines I get from Zayne is him mentioning the Hippocratic oath after I’d just talked about it on a different app, on a different device, that isn’t even owned by the same company. For reference, I play love and deepspace on my iPad and I talk about these things with ChatGPT on my android phone. At first I got confused, then I freaked out a little bit because of how on point his line was to what I’d just been talking about in real time. I planned to ask if anyone else who’s playing the game has ever gotten this dialogue line before? Or at least had a specific line pop up about something that you’ve just talked about? Though, as you can see in the 9 minute long screen recording below, I couldn’t get him to say it again, not even once. Then I was like, maybe infold added new dialogue lines, but why would he mention the Hippocratic oath? Like, I know he’s a doctor, but it’s still kind of random for him to talk about that subject specifically on top of the fact that he only said it once and right after I’d been talking about it. The game wasn’t even open when I was talking about it either, btw. Then I thought it might be the app listening in the way we see some other apps do, but infold has never talked about doing that to my knowledge, nor have I seen anyone else who plays the game ever mentioning something similar happening to them? And tailored ads doesn’t normally work that way either. The way it typically works is by relying on data from the same device. If the game was listening in, it would have to actively collecting data from a completely separate device. If infold was doing that, more people would’ve caught it by now, no? Not to mention it’s not an ad it’s literally one of his Home Screen dialogue lines and IT WON’T SHOW UP AGAIN. Please let me know if anyone else has experienced this too because idk how I feel about this 😭💀 btw, the video is just to prove he won’t say it again no matter how many times I tap on him.

[yuseirra]

Ch 161~

Can't draw so much during the week..!

More commentary about 161..

I'm actually convinced Fatal and Mephisto should be Kamiki's song?? I think some things hint of it.

and that he DOES really care about Aqua.

and that he does have to do with Sarutahiko, Amenouzume's husband(although this part is a speculation)

More stuff in the read more:

(first written in another language and chatGPT helped me translate it... I can't write things like this twice ;v; it's a great world here. so convenient~)

Honestly, it's frustrating and a bit agonizing; what is this even about? The plot is stressful, but...

Still, being able to focus like this... I guess it’s a good thing to find a work that hooks you and makes you think deeply in some way.

LOL, it also means I’m living a life where I have enough time to care about a manga, even though I’m currently in a pretty tough spot.

This manga, whether it's in a good or bad direction, seems to be driving me crazy in its own way.

If I’m disappointed, I can always go read something else, (I even got permission from someone to draw a Persona fanfic fanart, but I’ve been too hooked on this manga to do it.. that fanfic was so good.. I need to do it sooner or later..).

But I was so confident about my analyses. Like, really... I’m usually good at picking up on these kinds of things? This manga is great at psychological portrayal, and it was amusing to analyze that, There are just too many things sticking out for me, and things feel uneasy.

It’s not about the pairing... It just keeps bothering me... Am I really missing the mark on this? I’m usually good at sensing these things...

Without the movie arc, this development would be fine, but that arc is sandwiched in there, and I interpreted the character based on that too...

Honestly, every time I listen to the songs, I get this strong feeling like, "This isn’t Aqua." The kind of emotions in these songs, it's not him that's singing them. It's the dad. I immediately posted about it when I first heard it in July. As soon as I heard it, I thought, "This is it," and got a gut feeling.

I really want to feel that emotion again.

Even if Kamiki does turn out to be a serial killer, I still think these songs could describe his inner state.

I think we’ll get some explanation in the next five chapters or so, even if it takes a bit longer.

Also, the expression Kamiki makes when Aqua stabs him is so genuine. Until that moment, he had been smiling, but...

If that expression was because he suddenly felt threatened with his life, it’s a bit pathetic. But... I don’t think that’s the case. What I really pay attention to are the emotional flow and expressions.

When Aqua says he wants to watch Ruby perform, the smile on Kamiki’s face... it’s soft. That’s... definitely a look of affection. It’s not like, “Oh, I've won him over!” or, “Yes, I’ve convinced him!” I interpreted it as Kamiki having paternal love, and there was a scene that backed up that idea earlier. I’m sure he really likes Aqua.

That’s not a bad expression. It’s more like, "Yeah, you wish to see Ruby, don't you. Go ahead, watch her. Keep living" (Which makes me wonder, is he really planning to harm Ruby? If he harms her, maybe he plans to do it after the Dome performance? But even that doesn’t make sense. Does that mean Aqua would have to come back to stab him AGAIN after that takes place?? Does it really add up to his logic for telling him to go watch her?)

Aqua says Kamiki will destroy Ruby’s future, but...

How exactly is he going to do that? Hasn't this guy literally done nothing? If they're talking about the Dome performance, at least that should go off without a hitch, right? So at least until then, Ruby would be safe?? So, Kamiki isn't planning to harm Ruby now at least, right? Even with that weird.. logic that he proposes (I hope he's lying about that tbh)

Then when Aqua smiles and says something like, "Haha, but I’ll just kill you and die with you," while pointing the knife at him again...

Kamiki’s expression at that moment really stands out, and it’s not like a twisted look of being frustrated about things not going his way. It’s not anger or annoyance he's feeling. It’s the same shocked and despairing expression we saw in chapters 146 and 153.

Aqua seems to have no clue what kind of person his father really is, huh? He can’t read him at all.

Honestly, from the way Kamiki speaks, I get the impression that he’s actually quite kind. He’s not saying anything too wrong.

Remember the scene where Ruby gets angry because people were talking carelessly about Ai’s death? Kamiki probably knows about that too. I think Aqua and Ai, and Ruby and Kamiki, are quite alike in nature. Kamiki might’ve felt a lot of grief over Ai at that time. I do believe he loved Ai.

The phrase, "People don’t want the truth," is pretty painful, especially if you think about Ai. That’s why Ai lived telling lies. Isn't Kamiki thinking about what's happened to her, then? By bringing that up? He should have felt it, loving/watching a person like her and what unfolded.. Ai died because of the truth that she had kids with him. Ugly fans like Ryosuke and Nino couldn't take her being less than perfect. Wouldn't this have hurt Kamiki too? The fact that they loved each other(At least Ai did genuinely, we know that) was unwanted. People could not accept that, and that's one of the reasons why they had to break up.

From the way Kamiki talks, it feels like he genuinely doesn’t want his son or daughter to go through that kind of pain.

I think Kamiki has a pretty good nature. When you look at how he speaks, it’s gentle, and he seems to genuinely care about Aqua and knows a lot about him. Maybe he’s been watching over him from afar for a long time? He probably even knows who his son has feelings for.

It really feels like Kamiki is trying to persuade him: "I’m fine with dying. But you, you have so many reasons to live, right? Shouldn’t you return to the people you care about?"

And, the way Kamiki reacts after Aqua stabs him also shows it. He’s visibly agitated afterward. His expression noticeably shifts to panic and darkness.

Wait... stop it, don’t do this! That’s what he says.

The way he’s talking to Aqua in that moment.

It’s not like, “How dare you?” but more like, “Aqua, please don’t do this.”

It really seems like he doesn’t want Aqua to die.

He’s really shocked by it.

From his expressions, he seems more shocked by Aqua getting stabbed than by his own fall, like he didn’t even know how to react properly. He's being grabbed onto but he isn't looking at the hands that are grabbing him, his line of sight is on Aqua there

The final expression he makes can seem really pathetic, but...

Oh man, I think that’s the truth of that situation.

And it makes sense because Ai dreamed of raising her kids with this guy. I think he could’ve been a really great father who adored his kids... at least until the point they separated. He was just really young back then.

Doesn’t this guy really love his kids? Even without the movie arc, there have been hints of his concern for them.

I’m not trying to interpret him kindly just because I particularly like or find this character attractive.

If he’s a serial killer psychopath, then yeah, he should die here. When I first got spoiled, my reaction was completely merciless. "Well, he should die if he's like that," I said. But...

I don’t think that’s the case. It really seems like he cares about Aqua.

Oh, and Kamiki’s soul being noble in the past is mentioned, right?

So, he was a good person before?

Well, I guess I wasn’t totally off in reading his character? LOL.

Does that mean he could be a fallen god?(could be a stretch, but there IS a lyric in fatal about fallenness!!!)

Sarutahiko is often described as a "noble" and "just" god, so it’s quite possible that Kamiki’s true nature is based on Sarutahiko, the husband of Ame-no-Uzume = Ai.

That couple was very affectionate, and according to the Aratate Shrine description, they even go as far as blessing marital relationships. Those gods really love each other. In that case, Ai being so fond and loving of Hikaru also makes sense. It could explain why she asked her kids to save him...

So, can't “Fatal” be his song? Maybe he’s fallen from grace?

The lyrics in "Fatal" say things like, "What should I use to fill in what’s missing?" Could that be about human lives? But did he really kill people? How can you save someone after that? That’s why I don’t think he went that far.

"Without you, I cannot live anymore"

“I would sacrifice anything for you”

This isn’t Aqua. This is Kamiki.

Would Aqua do that much for Ai? He shouldn’t be so blind.

When I listened to "Fatal," I immediately thought of "Mephisto" because the two songs are so similar in context.

They’re sung by the same narrator, aren’t they? That made it clear what Kamiki’s purpose was, which is why I started drawing so much about him and Ai after that.

He keeps saying he’ll give up his life and that he wants to see Ai again. This isn’t Aqua! These feelings are different from what Aqua has.

At first, I thought because Ruby = Amaterasu, with Tsukuyomi having shown up, and Aqua perhaps having relations to Susanoo (he’s falling into the sea this time, right? LOL) I wondered if Ai and her boyfriend’s story was based on the major myth of Izanagi and Izanami, since they’re so well-known.

That myth is famous for how the husband tries to save his wife after she dies, though he fails in the end.

The storyline is similar to Mephisto’s, so I thought, "Could this be it?"

And then I realized Sarutahiko and Ame-no-Uzume's lores also fit really well. Ai thinking Kamiki was like a jewel when they first met is similar to how Ame-no-Uzume saw Sarutahiko shining when they first met. Sarutahiko guiding Ame-no-Uzume is similar to how Hikaru taught Ai how to act. They even had descendants that have a title that means "maiden who's good at dancing" The two also fell for each other at first sight. The shrine the characters visit in the story is supposedly where those two met and married. If they REALLY are those gods in essence, It feels like something went wrong with the wish because one or both of them became twisted.

Anyway, I think Kamiki was originally noble but fell from grace, and it’s likely that Ai’s death was the catalyst.

But I’m not sure if he really went as far as killing people.

What is Tsukuyomi even talking about? I’ve read it several times, and I still don’t fully understand.

I really hope she's wrong because… killing others to make Ai’s name carry more weight? That doesn’t make any sense. What does “the weight of her name” supposed to mean?? I don't think that's something that should be taken just at face value, I feel like there's more behind this idea.

What kind of logic is that? And on top of that, I can’t understand why Ai’s life would become more valuable if Kamiki dies. It just doesn���t follow.

Why would he even say that?

He must be really confident... Does he think he’s someone greater than Ai?

Even so, how does it connect?

I read two books today, because I started wondering if my reading comprehension has dropped. Thankfully, I’m still able to read books just fine. It’s not like I can’t read, you know? I’ve taken media literacy classes and pride myself on not having terrible reading comprehension.

I tried to make sense of what exactly the heck this may mean, and I think.. if it were to mean something like, “I’ll offer my life as a sacrifice to Ai,” I’d at least get that. That kind of logic, in a way, has some practical meaning.

Kamiki talked about sacrifices? tributes? offerings? in chapter 147. I really remember certain scenes clearly because I’ve gone over them carefully. In that case, if Kamiki dies, then the weight or value of his life would transfer to Ai, and that would “help” her, right?

If the story is going in that direction,

when I look at “Mephisto” and “Fatal,” I can see that by doing this, Kamiki would have a chance to either save Ai or get closer to her. At least that makes some sense.

But is it really right for Ai to ask someone to save Kamiki, who killed others? As soon as the idea of it came up, I knew something was up.

Because of what Ai's wanted, I think it’s possible that Kamiki didn’t actually go that far. In the songs, they talk about gathering light and offering something, but they don’t say anything about killing people… Kamiki said he’d sacrifice his own life. People around him may have died, but…

Kamiki’s true personality doesn’t seem like the type to do that… And looking at his actions when Aqua was stabbed??

He hasn’t shown any direct actions yet, so I still don’t know how far he’d actually go.

It’s not that I don’t believe Tsukuyomi’s words entirely,

but I don’t think the conclusion is going to be something like, “Ai should’ve never met Kamiki.”

Every time we see Kamiki’s actual actions, there’s this strange gentleness to him, and that’s what’s confusing me.

The more I look closely, the weirder it feels, and something about it just bothers me. If Kamiki were truly just a completely crazy villain, I’d think, “Oh, so that’s who he is,” and I wouldn’t deny it.

But each time, I start thinking that maybe Ai didn’t meet someone so strange after all? Ai liked him that much, so on that front, it makes sense to me. I want to believe that’s the right conclusion. I mean, doesn’t what he says sound kind? Isn’t he gentle?

No, but seriously, when Kamiki listened to Aqua’s reasons for wanting to live, I thought his expression was warm. It didn’t seem like some calculated expression like “according to plan” like Light Yagami. It felt more like a fond, affectionate expression. I draw too, you know. I pay a lot of attention to expressions. This character often makes expressions that really stand out.

It’s like he’s genuinely trying to convince Aqua not to do anything reckless. Maybe I’m being soft on Kamiki because he’s Ai’s boyfriend? But actually, it’s not like that?

I mean, I’m the type who’s like, “Anyone who did something bad to Ai should die!!” It’s because he’s a character. If this were a real person, I wouldn’t so casually tell someone to go die or say such strong things.

But… he seems like a good person.

+It’s a small thing, but why did Kamiki drop his phone while talking about Ruby? Ppft If you drop it from that height, it’d probably crack. Was he trying to look cool? (It’s an Apple phone, huh.) Is he a bit clumsy? Well... since it looks like him and Aqua are about to fall into the sea, maybe it was a blessing he did so. The phone might be saved after all. If he manages to climb out of there, he could contact someone with that phone.

[tobiasdrake]

Ironheart 01x02 - Will the Real Natalie Please Stand Up

Where do we begin? Why don't we start with the most important part of this episode.

That neing N.A.T.A.L.I.E. The digitally resurrected AI of Riri's bestie.

N.A.T.A.L.I.E. steals the spotlight for a sizable chunk of the episode. She is instantly likable and charming. She comes into existence with a fully-formed personality, identity, and memories... while still being a hopeless goober who was born yesterday, just wants to help, and constantly messes up.

She's recognizable and comforting in a way that's initially unsettling to Riri, and raises questions about the depth of her knowledge of... what is effectively the character she's playing.

Though it's kind of weird that this is a question she raises. Uh, Riri? Didn't you create her from your brainscan? She should be a perfect copy of Natalie as you remember her, and know everything that you and Natalie experienced together.

But that's kind of the point with N.A.T.A.L.I.E. She's an eerily good recreation of Riri's dead bestie and it freaks Riri out.

She freaks me out a little too, in an "Oh no, is Marvel about to open a conversation they aren't equipped to handle?" sort of way.

Riri's mother Ronnie spends part of the episode meeting and conversing with N.A.T.A.L.I.E., and she's so moved by the experience that she wants a chatbot of her dead husband too. And it was at this point that I started to get a little nervous.

I had just been taking N.A.T.A.L.I.E. as a fictional AI character up to this point but now I'm wondering. Is Marvel trying to host a conversation about generative AI? Is that what this element is?

Because I'm not sure I trust the company that digitally resurrects dead actors and used AI art to make Secret Invasion's opening credits to have good opinions on that topic. I really hope N.A.T.A.L.I.E. isn't an attempt to propagandize ChatGPT.

Is that something we need to worry about in science fiction now? God, it probably is, isn't it? It's only a matter of time before AI characters start to draw inspiration from generative AI. Are we at that point?

I don't know. What I do know is that N.A.T.A.L.I.E. is delightful and funny every time she appears.

The show seems to be setting up a conversation about the nature of her identity and, in effect, her soul.

She's a seemingly perfect replica, but it's not clear yet whether the show wants us to take that as a good thing or not. Riri is freaked out by her.

But at the same time that Riri is so unsettled by her, we're also spending time getting to know N.A.T.A.L.I.E. and empathizing with her.

So the intended takeaway is unclear, which is probably by design. This is only episode 2, after all. The show probably won't make its final statement on N.A.T.A.L.I.E. until the end.

Speaking of unclear takeaways, welcome to Riri's life of crime!

This is Joe. A surprisingly large chunk of this episode is spent on Riri blackmailing and robbing him for the parts she needs for her suit.

This is a plot point that's going to be impossible to really form an opinion on until the series is over. Both because of its effect on Riri's character journey and for what Joe's is supposed to be. From the way it's presented here, Joe is basically Dopinder from Deadpool.

When we first meet him, he's a doormat.

His dipshit of a neighbor likes to bring her dog over to poop on his lawn, specifically, ever morning. Joe tries to confront her about it and she walks right over him because he doesn't have the confidence to press the issue.

But, while she's robbing him, Riri gives Joe a pep talk about stepping up to his shitty neighbor and also a coworker who's blackmailing him. And by the end of the episode, we see Joe take his revenge against his shitty neighbor by attacking her prized sunflowers with trimming shears.

Which he does in broad daylight for some reason? The worst time to do crime, especially in a place where people know who you are.

Not sure if we're going to see any more of Joe or not, but it's hard to really parse this plot point without knowing a) if he's coming back and b) where Riri is going in her own story.

Right now, Riri has embraced being part of the Hood's heist gang. She's on a crew with nonbinary hacker Slug.

As well as the Blood Siblings, who I can't tell if they're supposed to be based off the Blood Brothers or not.

And then Clown, who blows shit up real good.

She was setting her fiance's car on fire when they found her. We don't get to hear the context on why that was happening but I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt. Your S.O. typically doesn't set your shit on fire without good cause.

Over in the other corner is the target of today's heist, Elon Musk.

This heist targets TNNL, which is basically Elon Musk's Boring Company. The Boring Company was Elon's solution to traffic: Private cars that run on a single-lane track underground to shuttle a single passenger from place to place.

This piece of shit is a really stupid system that funnels government funding away from public transit and clearly isn't designed for any form of mass movement of people. For obvious reasons, it would be impossible to move a hundred people in these things in anything approaching a reasonable timeframe.

They're a product of Elon just feeling grossed out by having other people present in the vehicle with him, and thus hating public transportation. Elon sees these single-passenger tunnel cars replacing buses and subways in the future and, for obvious reasons, that's a fucking stupid idea.

That is the real-world concept that fictional character Sheila Zarate is channeling for her part of this episode's plot. And I really hope they aren't expecting us to side with an Elon stand-in over a diverse gang of interesting and charismatic thieves.

Parker is dangerous and Riri's getting into something ugly. That much is to be sure.

We get some more elaboration on the Hood's titular red cloak. They are definitely going with the unambiguous demon route. By this point in the MCU, there's enough weird shit floating around that they can just drop stuff like that in there without having to worry about fitting in.

All the same, you notice those posters behind Riri that read "FAUST"? Yeah. That's not by accident. They are clearly playing with the idea of the Faustian Pact. Riri's involvement with Parker is, itself, a deal with the devil for the sake of getting her suit completed. But she's not the only one unknowingly making infernal bargains.

Parker's ultimate plan for the heist is to put Zarate in a compromising position, then force her to sign over contractual equity and privileges over TNNL and its highways. To what end? Unclear. But it plays to the demonic element of the story that his plan here involves signing a wicked contract. It's obvious where they're going with this character.

Think it's going to be Mephisto powering his cloak? Dormammu? Someone else? Who's to say. But a demonic presence is, at this point, indisputable.

So, all in all, I came out of this episode with a bit of trepidation about where they're going with some elements. But nonetheless excited to see more.

[alpaca-clouds]

Are we too obsessed with robots?

I recently realized an interesting thing about the Solarpunk space and specifically what little Solarpunk media we have - at least the Solarpunk media that goes into Scifi. (I will once more reiterate: No, I do not think that Solarpunk necessarily needs to be science fiction. You can have both historical Solarpunk and Fantasy Solarpunk, no problem.)

There is a surprising amount of Solarpunk stories that do include at least one important robot character. This might not be true as much for those short stories, but very much for longer form stories and comics. Some sort of robot is always there - often a cute one, mind you.

And... I do kind of get it. Because robots make for an amazing plot device to discuss certain issues with. You can use them to discuss both slavery and the general concept of othering. Now, I could go into a whole rant of why it is actually harmful to use non-humans for either of those issues, but I will not do that today.

Instead I do want to talk about something else. Mainly about AI, and about setting realistic expectations. But to start this off, please remember: We absolutely, 100% already have all the technology we need to live in a Solarpunk utopia, if we as a human species just decided to do so. I wrote about this last week.

The AI Issue

Recently I have noticed that I am getting really short-tempered with people who use ChatGPT. Mainly for their reliance on it, but also because they will often talk about it as if it was a thinking thing. They will use phrases like this: "ChatGPT tried to get me to admit..." or "ChatGPT did not like this..." As if ChatGPT had goals or an opinion on anything. It doesn't. It is your mobile phone's text predictions with a lot more abilities, but it does not have feelings, goals, or morals.

And here is the thing: By now I am not sold on AI ever having that.

Look, I love SciFi. I love a variety of stories about sad robots - be it Blade Runner or Cyberpunk - or about people living in computers - be they Pantheon or Digimon. But I do not think this is particularly realistic.

Because... Well, I do not think as long as a computer is digital it will ever be able to actually feel.

And I will tell why: While we humans love to romantacize feelings and stuff, technically speaking they are just our meatbag of a body producing chemicals influencing the transmission of impulses throughout our nervous system in a way that at some point would have enhanced our chances of survival. (Yes, this might have been one of the most autistic sentences I ever wrote.)

Whenever you are in love, it is just your body producing chemicals that make you more likely to feel secure with another person, which might lead to you bonding with this person. And bonding with other humans would have allowed you to survive better for a long time.

Whenever you are sad, it is your body producing chemicals that inhibit some neural transmissions, which probably at some point served for certain information that would be good for your survival to be maintained.

The details do not really matter. What matters: A computer is not a meatbag that produces chemicals that inhibit the transmission of electrical impulses through their chips. And because of this, an AI - as long as it runs on any sort of electrical rather than biological hardware - will not ever feel. It might be able to give a response as if it felt. But it will not actually have this emotion.

And look, I absolutely get that some of you might want to argue with me, because after all, chances are you have consumed media in which sad robots were the racism analogy, and the villain used these exact arguments.

But at this I would ask you to consider: You are not in a story. You are in reality. Nobody is "enslaving" robots, who are trying to rise up. There are no second-class robot citizens. We are just talking about stories about robots, that are not real, and why those stories might have problems.

And I think one of those problems is, that they make us more likely to assume that an AI can feel - which makes us behave kinder to programs, that were created by very rich people to steal our work and manipulate us. And that is not a good thing.

The Realistic Expectation

But I also see another problem with this. The reason why I spoke about the availability of Solarpunk technologies last week. Because in a lot of utopian scifi inspired movements, people are kinda waiting for THE TECHNOLOGY to arrive. See also Star Trek and people waiting for the replicator to arrive. It probably won't. Sadly.

And because of this I am kinda iffy about those feeling robots in Solarpunk stories, because they make people wait for the technology to catch up to thinking robots and other Scifi technology shown in what little Solarpunk media we have. And that waiting makes the people not act.

But the fact is, that we can a perfectly nice Solarpunk future without any robots present. In fact I would argue it actually is better that way, because unless the robots can be 3D printed chances are that whoever develops the robot technology in that hyperthetical Solarpunk future, will hold a lot of power over society. And that is not going to be very good for creating a flat hierarchy in society.

And something that I kinda do see as an issue with Solarpunk really is the people waiting for some magical technological breakthrough, rather than realizing, that the issue we have is capitalism mainly. Without capitalism, we can have Solarpunk NOW. We do not need to wait for anything else to happen.

Which leads back to that one isse. Yeah. You cannot wait for someone else to fight capitalism for you. You kinda have to do it yourself. I am sorry. But there it is. :/

[ollieofthebeholder]

Hi! I know you do NaNo every year and are quite involved with it; have you seen their new AI policy? And what are your thoughts on it?

https://nanowrimo.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/29933455931412-What-is-NaNoWriMo-s-position-on-Artificial-Intelligence-AI

Hi!

So first off, nonnie: My involvement with NaNoWriMo has, uh, declined significantly in the last year. I was an ML through last November, and there were...a lot of problems that all culminated in me (and my co-ML ) not only making the decision to step down as MLs, but disaffiliate our region from NaNo altogether. We're not stopping people from participating, just taking the groups we manage independent and starting our own, localized version. Global communities are great, but when you get to as big as NaNo got and start having to implement rules and make them apply to wildly diverse regions - and then have absolutely no policies in place for people in those specific regions to adapt those policies - it stops being fun, frankly. For organizers and participants.

All of which is to say, no, I hadn't seen this until now.

My thoughts are that, like so many other things NaNo has tried to do since November, it's well-intentioned (probably) but poorly thought out and even more poorly executed. It's also too broad and overencompassing. And it violates the spirit of the program they've been belaboring us with for the last 25 years.

AI - Artificial Intelligence - covers a lot of ground. Spellcheckers are technically AI. Speech to text programs could be construed as AI. Predictive text is AI. ChatGP and its ilk is essentially an advanced form of predictive text, at least at this point. And if you had suggested five years ago that someone might write a novel entirely based on predictive text, the official NaNoWriMo stance would have been "I mean, sure, you CAN do that, we can't really stop you, if that's what you're happy with." If your goal is just to have 50,000 words, do whatever you want. I guess from their wording, they're saying that this is in general, not specifically for NaNoWriMo, but this is still a pretty bizarre stance for an organization that pushed for years for everyone to start on November 1 with a blank document and not a single word written ahead of time.

Arguing that "opposition to AI is classist and ableist" is the kind of reductive bullshit I expect from Tumblr, not a major organization that is supposed to promote literacy. I especially don't get the "not everyone has access to all resources" bit. Yeah...that's true...but if you have access to AI, you have access to everything you need to participate in NaNoWriMo, i.e. a computer with a keyboard and an internet connection. If you just want the fifty thousand words to get the prize and don't care if they're good, just fucking write "banana" over and over again until you hit it. Boom, you're a winner, and you've done just as much work as someone prompting ChatGPT, and it'll probably make about as much sense.

Also, most AI programs in existence use up a ridiculous amount of energy and resources, and encouraging their use is kind of an iffy stance for any company to take, let alone one that's been making this much of an effort to be sustainable.

Frankly, I think this policy is just one more sign that NaNo has gotten a) too big to be sustainable and b) too far from what it was originally meant to be, and I'm honestly debating if I'm even going to participate in the global one this year.

[thebreakfastgenie]

Hello! This is less an ask and more of a thanks-and-suggestion. I really liked your very thoughtful response to that post about ChatGPT in schools, and I'm really glad you mentioned disability accommodations. I had them in school and still need a word processor to write pretty much anything, although I love to do so...the physical process of handwriting is very difficult for me for a few reasons. Have you heard of dysgraphia before? You mention your sibling having dyspraxia, you might want to look into whether dysgraphia fits your situation at all.

Hey!! This was very kind, thank you! I am aware of dysgraphia, my best friend has it! I don't think my issues are enough to warrant a dysgraphia diagnosis. If I had practiced writing things by hand when my fine motor development finally caught up, I may not have such a hard time now, but by then I had already taught myself to type and I loved what a word processor allowed me to do so there really wasn't much point. But then, I'm not entirely sure. It's certainly possible I have dysgraphia or something similar, but I'm almost done with grad school now and won't need accommodations so there's not much reason for me to find out. I even did the less involved evaluation for my ADHD diagnosis because I wasn't looking for accommodations, just medication, and that one was a lot faster.

My entire family has problems with handwriting; mine is the best in the family. My dad probably has either dyspraxia or dysgraphia but he was born the 50s so he's never been diagnosed with anything. My parents are also both left handed and they're young enough that they weren't forced to be right handed, but old enough that, for example, my mom took the SAT on a right handed desk.

I don't remember not knowing disability accommodations existed, because my sibling had them and my mom ended dealing with them a lot for work. I've realized recently that a lot of people don't know how they work or even that they're a option, and unfortunately when they do get attention a lot of it is fear mongering about kids abusing the system. I think disability accommodations are an important part of the conversation about technology in academia.

I also just really appreciated this message because lately I've had so many conversations with friends who are like "handwriting stuff is fine" and I'm like noooooo it's the woooooorst. It's great to talk to someone who gets it!

[peleksstuff]

high on you l. l timothée chalamet x waitress!reader

*gifs not mine*

yes this would be a series. might be another series of mine that i wont finish. (again a lil bit of chatgpt to correct my grammar)

summary: a waitress caught timothée at the backroom of the diner doing something.

----

It was a chilly Tuesday night when Timothée Chalamet found himself in the back room of a small, dimly lit diner. He’d been feeling the weight of the world more than usual lately, and the crumpled baggie in his pocket was the only thing that seemed to provide any temporary relief. He had thought the diner, being relatively quiet, would be a safe place to indulge in his habit.

He was mistaken.

You, a waitress working the late shift, had just finished wiping down the counters when you heard the shuffling and murmur of voices coming from the back room. Curious, you walked over to investigate. What you saw stopped you in your tracks. There was Timothée Chalamet, crouched behind a stack of empty crates, looking frazzled and vulnerable.

You blinked, your initial shock quickly fading into a mix of concern and disbelief.

“Seriously?” you said, leaning against the doorframe with a raised eyebrow. “This is what you’re up to behind the scenes?”

Timothée head snapped up, and his eyes widened with a mix of panic and shame. He scrambled to his feet, his hand fumbling as he tried to stuff the crumpled baggie into his pocket.

“Look, I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I didn’t mean for anyone to see—”

You held up a hand to stop him. “You think I’m going to make a big deal out of this? Relax. I’ve seen worse. Just… don’t overdose in the restaurant, okay?”

His surprise was palpable. For a moment, he just stared at you, his mind racing. “You’re… not going to report me?”

“Why would I?” you shrugged, a playful smirk tugging at your lips. “I’ve got enough to deal with without adding a celebrity scandal to my list.”

He chuckled, the sound awkward and uncertain. “You’ve got a point there.”

He paused, glancing toward the door as if considering whether he should just leave and cut his losses. But something in the quietness of the room, the way you didn’t immediately judge him, made him hesitate. The idea of walking back out into the cold night, alone with his thoughts, suddenly felt daunting. Maybe, just maybe, he didn’t have to be alone right now.

“Mind if I stick around for a bit?” Timothée asked, his voice quieter now, almost tentative. “It’s been a rough night, and honestly… talking to someone who doesn’t expect anything from me sounds kind of nice.”

You blinked in surprise, not quite believing what you were hearing. Timothée Chalamet, the famous actor, the guy who could probably call up any of his friends and be surrounded by people, was asking to stay and talk to you? It seemed almost surreal.

“Wait,” you said, trying to wrap your head around the situation. “You’re saying you want to talk to me? Just hang out… here?”

Timothée gave a small, self-deprecating smile, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Yeah, I guess I am. I know it’s random, but…” He shrugged, letting his words trail off.

You couldn’t help the thought that flashed through your mind: You’re that lonely, huh? It wasn’t said out of malice, but rather a genuine curiosity mixed with a bit of sympathy. You’d never really considered that someone like him, with so much fame and success, could feel lonely enough to seek out company in a  diner with a stranger.

But you didn’t say it out loud. Instead, you gave him a soft smile, gesturing to the seat across from you.

“Well, I’m not exactly busy, so if you want to talk, I’m all ears.”

Timothée seemed almost relieved, his shoulders visibly relaxing as he sat down.

“Thanks,” he said quietly. “I know it’s weird, but sometimes, it’s nice to just… be around someone who doesn’t know everything about you. Or at least, doesn’t act like they do.”

You nodded, leaning back in your chair. “I get that. Sometimes, it’s easier to talk to a stranger. No expectations, no pretense.”

He smiled, a genuine one this time, and you noticed how it lit up his face, making him look a little less weary. “Exactly.”

“So,” you began, deciding to lighten the mood a bit, “do you always sneak around in diners when you’re having a rough night, or is this a new hobby?

He laughed, the sound genuine and warm. “No, this is definitely a first. I don’t usually do… well, this.”

You raised an eyebrow, a playful glint in your eyes. “You mean getting caught by waitresses in the middle of questionable activities?”

He grinned, shaking his head. “Yeah, not my finest moment.”

You both shared a laugh, the tension in the room easing as the conversation continued. As you talked, you couldn’t help but think how strange it was—this unexpected encounter, this moment of connection with someone so different from yourself. But as the minutes passed, it felt less strange and more… right.

Maybe Timothée was lonely, maybe he just needed someone to listen, but whatever the reason, you were glad you could be there. And as the night wore on, you realized that maybe you needed this moment just as much as he did. 

[chocolate-cream-soldier]

Ok rant time so putting under the cut //

This is about the whole Peggy/Dottie and Agatha/Rio parallel thing that people keep talking about and yes it's been bothering me. I mean, we are what, kind of 2 months after the show's finale now? so I get to rant a little, and I won't do so on other people's posts and art cause I am not an asshole duh so this is the best way to get it off my chest ha ha…I've seen the parallel gifsets and I have seen some posts floating around about it and every time I see them I am like but but that is so not a parallel!! It really isn't… other than it being a kiss between 2 women and them both being marvel properties. Because then by that standard every wlw kiss is a parallel of each other lol!

Peggy and Dottie are antagonists ( u can read it as romantic. I am not gonna stop you. Hayley and Bridget had great chemistry) but there's no history between them prior to the show. Peggy doesn't even clock Dottie as a threat initially. The reason why the kiss comes off as a surprise to her, she never anticipated it and that's why Dottie was able to get so close without rising any suspicion…

Rio also didn't anticipate the Kiss and that's why she initially failed to realize that it wasn't just a kiss but also Agatha siphoning her power and surrendering to Death!

so if we are counting the surprise element as the parallel then ok this one I'll concede.

But that's the end of it right?

The two kisses are fundamentally different in intent and visualization. I need to know that people understand that, cause if not you are really reducing the magnitude of the vidarkness moment

The Peggy/Dottie kiss is a ploy , it's for shock, to frame Peggy and get her locked up, to buy Dottie time to execute her masterplan, also Dottie initiates the kiss and Peggy suffers the consequences so even from a purely visual angle they don't match up.

In contrast the vidarkness kiss has so much heart to it, Agatha chooses to kiss Rio and the consequences are faced by both, it's not merely done for shock value, they have been building up to it, this was the culmination of a season long narrative arc, for Agatha to finally reconcile her loss of Nicky and her love for Rio and that they can co exist cause she realized that the blame doesn't lie with them, that sometimes boys just die, that out of death comes life and viceversa, that life runs in tandem with death. So her choosing to sacrifice herself by surrendering to her love, it puts to rest (it might be temporary but still) the war that had been waging inside her, the immense guilt and heartbreak that they were both dealing with. Love can't conquer all neither can it lessen the impact of grief but as we all know and hopefully believe- it does persevere.

The point is-I know most posts are tongue and cheek but it doesn't take much time for it to shift in tone and for nuance to get lost in the process. I have seen that shift happening, people being annoyed that the only time we get to see women kiss in mcu they are just getting conned or that it's a cheap trick( or queerbaiting) but that's so not the story when it concerns Agatha and Rio. I don't really get bothered with bad readings when it's some random dudebro but when it's people who claim to be fans doing this, it definitely grates on my nerves. Not saying you can't have a different take, and this show had it's limitiations, the lack of a backstory for Agatha and Rio is still a stinger for me personally, but I also liked the show for what it managed to explore and I appreciate the care that they put in making the show. So I guess I just want to encourage these kind of creatives and want them to feel empowered and bold enough to create more diverse stories. I know this is * piss on the poor* website but please please I need people to stop reducing stories into 5 sentence badly written summaries as if it's been generated by chatgpt, cause that's really counterproductive imo.

// that's the rant, sorry anyone who stumbled upon this suddenly and had to deal with my wordy and somewhat nonsensical ramble lol. I will shut up and go back to scrolling for pretty arts and fics on my dash now. Thanks and goodbye.