#damien williams

[blackmensuited]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

As of this week, I have a new article in the July-August 2023 Special Issue of American Scientist Magazine. It’s called “Bias Optimizers,” and it’s all about the problems and potential remedies of and for GPT-type tools and other “A.I.”

This article picks up and expands on thoughts started in “The ‘P’ Stands for Pre-Trained” and in a few threads on the socials, as well as touching on some of my comments quoted here, about the use of chatbots and “A.I.” in medicine.

I’m particularly proud of the two intro grafs:

Recently, I learned that men can sometimes be nurses and secretaries, but women can never be doctors or presidents. I also learned that Black people are more likely to owe money than to have it owed to them. And I learned that if you need disability assistance, you’ll get more of it if you live in a facility than if you receive care at home. At least, that is what I would believe if I accepted the sexist, racist, and misleading ableist pronouncements from today’s new artificial intelligence systems. It has been less than a year since OpenAI released ChatGPT, and mere months since its GPT-4 update and Google’s release of a competing AI chatbot, Bard. The creators of these systems promise they will make our lives easier, removing drudge work such as writing emails, filling out forms, and even writing code. But the bias programmed into these systems threatens to spread more prejudice into the world. AI-facilitated biases can affect who gets hired for what jobs, who gets believed as an expert in their field, and who is more likely to be targeted and prosecuted by police.

As you probably well know, I’ve been thinking about the ethical, epistemological, and social implications of GPT-type tools and “A.I.” in general for quite a while now, and I’m so grateful to the team at American Scientist for the opportunity to discuss all of those things with such a broad and frankly crucial audience.

I hope you enjoy it.

+

The “P” Stands for Pre-trained

I know I’ve said this before, but since we’re going to be hearing increasingly more about Elon Musk and his “Anti-Woke” “A.I.” “Truth GPT” in the coming days and weeks, let’s go ahead and get some things out on the table:

All technology is political. All created artifacts are rife with values. There is no neutral tech. And there never, ever has been.

I keep trying to tell you that the political right understands this when it suits them— when they can weaponize it; and they’re very, very  good at weaponizing it— but people seem to keep not getting it. So let me say it again, in a somewhat different way:

There is no ground of pure objectivity. There is no god’s-eye view.

There is no purely objective thing. Pretending there is only serves to create the conditions in which the worst people can play “gotcha” anytime they can clearly point to their enemies doing what we are literally all doing ALL THE TIME: Creating meaning and knowledge out of what we value, together.

There is no God-Trick. There is enmeshed, entangled, messy, relational, intersubjective perspective, and what we can pool and make together from what we can perceive from where we are.

And there are the tools and systems that we can make from within those understandings.

[more]

[mourningmaybells]

so-called "tragedy enjoyer" reads the exorcist and suddenly feels heartbreak instead of catharsis or vindication over seeing a character who was always gonna die in the worst way possible die

[notdamien]

i forgot about the best scene in the entirety of torchwood

[smiledog15578]

Alice human sacrifice is such a good vocaloid song and it fits wkm so well!!! I hope everyone remembers this song cause its a banger

[squeeshh]

Since I drew the Actor, twitter wanted them too ✨✨

[traceyc-uk]

Alvin @acslytherpuff, Charlie Cagney @heyitszev, Damien Evans @theladyofshalott1989, Chris Mongrel @diana-bluewolf, Fifth-Year, Hellendil Melinae @theravenchild, Sunan Saelee @dom1re, William & Elland @lil-grem-draws, Allan Waite @a-usernamelol

Silly AU crossover I drew for lols whilst watching

[ghiertor-the-gigapeen]

WKM: The Last Supper

"I tell you the truth, one of you will betray me."

Comparison/Analysis

- Peter(chef) has a knife in his hand but it's to protect his master, he's not a traitor.

- Judas(Wil) og pic he has a bag includes money earned for betraying jesus, but in this pic Wil's shocked seeing blood in his hand, he's "picked" to be the traitor.

- John(D/A) in og pic he's in shock, but this one the D/A slept through the whole thing, that's why the audience didn't get to see what happened at first.

This one's almost 100% accurate to the og

- Thomas(Abe)need to confirm Jesus’ wounds by touching them with his own hands. Also Thomas(Abe)'s hand gesture's foreshadowing Jesus(actor)'s "resurrection"

- James(Damien)shocked and waiting for an explanation from jesus.

- Philip(Ben) asking, “Lord, is it I?” (it's not, idk why he thought it's him😭)

Jesus in the og pic: “He that dipped his hand with me in the dish, the same shall betray me” in his right hand it's the dish him and judas dipped in

- actor handing Wil a gun while his left hand placing a death tarot card on a table. He knows who's the traitor because he picked the traitor himself.

[deezbignutz]

Ages of Redacted characters cuz why not ig

Sam is 45 years old

Vincent is 44 years old

Avior is 37 years old (coalesced 37 years ago)

Gavin and Aaron are 34 years old

David, Asher and Milo are 31 years old

Lasko and Elliott (kinda) are 30 years old (Elliott was adopted 30 years ago)

Huxley is 27 years old

Caelum and Damien are 25 years old

More stuff under the cut

Sweetheart and Milo met when he was 23

Baaabe and Asher met when he was 25

Angel and David when he was 26

Freelancer met Caelum the he was 18

Lovely and Vincent met when he was 40

Elliott confesses to Sunshine at 26

Freelancer met Gavin when he was 30

William has been a Vampire for around 505 years

Elliott met Brachium when he was around 5 (? i think?)

Will turned Vincent when he was 20

Sam graduated from D.A.M.N. when he was 24

Sam got turned when he was 29

David was 24 when Gabe died

Freelancer met Lasko when he was 26

Freelancer met Damien when he was 21

Freelancer met Huxley when he was 23

Sam confessed to Darlin when he was 42

Inversion happened when Sam was 42, Vincent was 41, Avior was 34, Gavin and Aaron were 31, David, Asher, and Milo were 28, Lasko and Elliott(?) were 27, Huxley was 24, and Caelum and Damien were 22.

Elliott left CloseKnit and met up with Aaron when he was 28 (?) and Aaron was 32

Milo shifted back again when he was 29

Damien and Huxley confess their feelings for each other when Dames was 23 and Hux was 25

David proposed to Angel when he was 29

Baaabe proposed to Asher when he was 30

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk

[cillianmurphyfanatic]

Cillian Murphy photographed by Bryce Duffy at the 32nd Toronto International Film Festival [TIFF](September 9, 2007)

Re: Cillian Murphy as Damien O'Donovan in The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) dir. Ken Loach

[todosmeiape1an]

Illustration I made for a spanish Hooky contest💖

[mourningmaybells]

hm

[pacing around the room like a grizzled, alcoholic detective] I think those two guys fucked

[aimedis]

redacted asmr headcanons pt.1

-when lovely cried around sam for the first time he didn’t know how to react but he was honoured that they felt comfortable enough to be so vulnerable around him

-lovely used to look up to william a lot, when they first turned they went to him for reassurance a lot

-william gave lovely the biggest hug after they turned and he just let them cry into his chest for hours

-william's favourites are vincent & lovely (canon)

-sweetheart says it’s ironic that milo calls them sweetheart when he’s the sweetest person they’ve ever met (milo and sweetheart have arguments about who’s sweeter)

-damien’s singing voice is angelic and so is freelancer’s (they sing the best duets)

-sweetheart tells milo “don’t touch me i have a boyfriend” when they’re bored and milo threatens to beat him (the boyfriend) up

-when freelancer gets into a bad mood they can be worse than damien when he’s in a bad mood (they get pissed off at everything and everyone, even cussing out gavin)

-angel has four brothers (one older, three younger) and they bring out an aggressive side to them that no one else sees from them (angel whenever one of their brothers speak: “can you literally shut the fuck up?”)

-milo and darlin' make fun of each other’s trauma (milo: “that’s why your dad doesn’t fucking love you” darlin': “your dad doesn’t love you either, hoe”)

-darlin’ tried to convince themself to be mad at sam after david confronted them but they literally could not stay mad at him

-milo would call sweetheart "baby girl" (regardless of gender)

-sweetheart calls milo “handsome”

-angel likes to straddle david, like sitting on his hips with their hands on his chest and david likes it too

[asmrrpaddict]

More random head canons. Some funny, some sad, some sweet, some spicy.

Guy and Honey were each other’s first time.

Darlin’ was Sam’s first post turning.

FemSH can’t have kids.

As a human Porter had a dog named Sebastian who he nicknamed Bas.

Vincent’s favorite place hang out as a teen was the arcade.

Freelancer loves Avartar: The Last Airbender and will randomly call the D.A.M.N. crew by the characters, Damian=Zuko, (Iroh if they are training), Hux=Toph and he loves it! Dear soon became Katara, but they make a clear distinction between Aang and the Avatar. They call Lasko Aang for being an airbender, but they call themself the Avatar for using multiple elements. They also call Gavin Appa for the fact he can transport them, but Gavin pointed out that that’s not the only reason. 👀

Lasko surprised the whole crew once by greeting Damian with a Flameo Hotman! Hux and FL laughed for 10 minutes.

Asher belts Adele full volume while driving.

Hush would love pineapple pizza.

At previous Summits, if someone asked Vincent about his life before turning, he would often use plots from 80s movies.

Gavin has a secret love of anime and only Freelancer knows. Although Hux also loves anime, Gavin is still reluctant to talk about it.

Freelancer likes true crime documentaries, but turns them off if Caelum drops in.

Porter and Treasure don’t know that both of them like taking walks in the rain.

One of Angel’s favorite movies is Teen Wolf. David doesn’t know this and is confused when he finds Angel going through his yearbooks to see if he was on the basketball team.

Vega is grateful Warden stayed, but feels like they’ll never fully trust him or care about him. He doesn’t know he’s wrong.

Post Inversion effects head canons for those not in the arena:

Angel doesn’t go to bed until David gets home. They may fall asleep on the couch, but they won’t go to bed without him.

Darlin’ keeps at least one hand on Sam all night.

Baabe wakes up every time Asher gets out of bed.

Lasko, after realizing his friends still care about him and he works on not comparing their traumas, sends random checking in texts to the group chat they share.

William also sends check in texts to Sam, Vincent, and Lovely.

SH will sometimes ask Milo to shift just so they can hug his wolf form. Milo doesn’t understand why, but they love seeing him able to shift at will and is grateful his shifter form was strong enough to break the barrier and save their family.

When Milo starts to panic about anything, he goes back to SH holding him when he had his breakdown. He feels their arms around him. His heart syncing with their’s and he feels better.

Porter watched videos and got updates from William regarding the Inversion, but no matter how much he and Vincent hate each other, he still felt bad for him and Lovely for Lovely’s turning. He was surprisingly grateful Sam was there for them. The first question from his mouth however was if Lovely’s turning was consensual.

One very long sappy one to finish out so the Inversion ones aren’t the last.

When they were younger, right after Darlin’ moved to Daliah Gabe took them, David, Milo, and Asher to a movie, ice cream, and out to a place where they could shift. This gave the kids bonding time both as humans and wolves. He held races and watched Asher show Darlin’ play fighting. It took Darlin’ a while to get the hang of being around wolves their own age, but once they did they had a blast. Darlin’ started running too fast and wasn’t watching where they were going and trip hurting their leg (not bad). David ran to them and through their link kept telling them it was ok. They were ok. Darlin’ was too panicked and shaken to shift back so David stayed in wolf form with them. Gabe watched the whole time to see how David handled it once he realized Darlin’ was fine and not in any danger. David calmed them down by laying next to them and just being there listening to each other’s heartbeats. Milo and Ash on each side checking on their pack mates. Ash gave Darlin’ a little lick on their head which made them smile to themself. After they were better, David nuzzled up under Darlin’s front leg and helped them stand. Darlin’ whined as they stepped, but David had them, reassuring them the whole time as they got back to Gabe who reached into the truck and grabbed sets of clothes for each wolf. David helped Darlin’ into a covered area and once they were stable he left them to change, but came back when they were both dressed to help them to the truck. Gabe had a first aid kit ready. They got back into the truck when the teens started to go silent. Gabe glanced in the mirror to see Milo leaning on Ash’s shoulder and David and Darlin’s heads together, all sound asleep. He chuckled and drove home.

[ricky-tiki-tah]

[ghiertor-the-gigapeen]

Dandy, classy, dapper

Alt version

(It's a study from this pic by JC leyendecker where half of my art style came from)