#don't rely on ai generated answers

[ophernelia]

the "meanest" thing i'll say today is to please google that question before you send it to me. particularly if it is a general question. like "how do i install tray files?" you can google that. there are youtube videos that show you how to do things like that. even with making cc. there are so many tutorials out there. and it's not to be mean or to just deny you my labor, but encourage you to take advantage of the resources we have at our disposal. there are so many great creators who already have extensive tutorials out there and they're easy to find. please support them. do not take the luxury of being able to do independent research for granted. you need that skill.

[yaekiss]

hearing about how many students/peers my age actually use chatgpt is terrifying

[writingquestionsanswered]

Many artists are wary of AI. I've been using Chat Gpt and come to the realization that with my kids, school and other life obligations I need to use AI in my writing process. No, I'm NOT using the AI's writing or passing it on as mine. It's for plotting, character arcs and to help me get over writers block. I'm conflicted. I just don't have the time to write that I wish I did. :( if I use AI am I not a real writer?

Using AI as a Writer

I want to preface this by saying that we are quite literally in the Wild West when it comes to AI and how it fits into the creative world. The technology is still evolving. The legalities of use are still evolving. Public sentiment and codes of ethics are still evolving... the only definitive answer I can give on the topic of using AI in writing is that you should never use it to write all or part of your story.

Using AI as a tool to help you think through plot problems, flesh out character arcs, and move past story road blocks in and of itself is something many writers and writer organizations have embraced. You're still doing the actual writing, plotting, character arc design, etc. yourself.

However, if you're using AI to generate your entire plot, characters, character arc, etc., it gets into a bit of a gray area for me. Yes, you're still doing the actual writing, but are you a landscape painter if you only do paint by number? I'm not sure. Yes, you're technically moving the brush and making the strokes, but your brain didn't imagine the imagery and your skills didn't know what colors to use or where to put the shadows. So I'm not sure where that leaves writing. And my bigger concern is that you're not putting in the work to improve your craft, so you may get stories or books out there, but you don't have the writing skills to back them up.

What I can tell you is this: people still write when they have kids, and jobs, and school, and various other responsibilities and dependents. They may only write for twenty minutes a day, or once a week for an hour, but they find the time. And some don't... some put off writing until the kids are older or the other obligations let up... either route is fine. I guess what I'm saying is I don't think not having time or energy is a good excuse for using AI or over-relying on it. But, I also don't think you should feel bad if you're simply using it as a tool to help flesh out your own thoughts and ideas. ♥

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[incorrectbatfam]

Alrighty, I'd like to take a minute to address something that's been cropping up recently, which is stuff like this:

I've been getting an increasing number of asks and comments like the one above (I've deleted the Ao3 comments and turned on moderation). Normally, they don't bug me, but when I keep getting them over and over it kinda feels like a moth buzzing around my room that I can't keep ignoring.

Basically, some people have been wondering if I use an AI to create my posts and fics as they are becoming more common.

Let me state for the record: I don't, nor will I ever.

Without getting into the rabbit hole of my personal opinion on using AI for creative works, I started posting consistently for the DC/Batfam fandom on Tumblr and Ao3 in 2018 and 2020 respectively. Many popular programs came out post-pandemic, such as Sudowrite in 2021 and ChatGPT in 2022.

I don't blame folks who may think that, though. Incorrect quotes already tread on thin ice when it comes to some people not perceiving them as actual fan content—tale as old as time. Coupled with that, I often answer asks with an easily digestible format and write fics on a time crunch that aren't planned out in great detail. I'm fully aware the quality is somewhere in the middle. (This isn't inviting people to tell me I'm amazing and transformed their lives—I'm here to give people a quick chuckle as they go about their day.)

The issue is all of this is now within the capabilities of AI and it's getting harder to differentiate, which in turn is altering our expectations of each other. You can't draw characters with wonky anatomy, you have to get every feature right or you're using a generator. You can't post a drabble with bad grammar and overplayed tropes, you have to be the next Great American Novelist or you're relying on an algorithm. Fan creators—who are doing this for free, keep in mind—are being held to increasingly higher standards just to prove they are genuine.

Some of you are probably thinking, "it's just fandom, quit making a big deal." The thing is though, fandoms are built on people with different abilities creating for the love of it. This isn't to deride those who use AI as a tool—you do you, it is a hobby in the end. However, when we ascribe mediocrity to inauthenticity, we're reinforcing the notion that if you can't be perfect, you shouldn't bother trying. It's frustrating and frankly has no business in our community.

[notlycan-this]

A brief lesson on why relying on generative AI for sex ed is harmful:

Okay Google, what the fuck is this?

This is so concerning... The Google Gemini AI overview is clearly so confused by the existence of trans men.

I'm not sure if it's better or worse that Gemini isn't even trying to answer the same question, but rephrased.

The phrasing "some straight women may be looking for something they don't have" rubs me the wrong way. Also, separating queer women from women in general is upsetting.

I'm conflicted on whether or not we should help Google with training Gemini, but considering how many people rely on Google for information, I've come to the conclusion that--for now--it is worth it to always hit the "thumbs down" icon underneath the generations that turn up poorly and describe in detail what's wrong with the result. 👎

After all, when we tell people not to ask offensive questions to transgender people, the usual advice is "Go Google it!"

As distrustful as I am of Gemini's results, most people that I've met are more than willing to accept its responses at face value. At the very least, the average user seems to accept it for a quick and easy surface level response.

The HRC and PFLAG have much better resources on LGBTQIA+ identity and how to support your loved ones.

[sharpth1ng]

"chatgpt writing is bad because you can tell when it's chatgpt writing because chatgpt writing is bad". in reality the competent kids are using chatgpt well and the incompetent kids are using chatgpt poorly... like with any other tool.

It's not just like other tools. Calculators and computers and other kinds of automation don't require you to steal the hard work of other people who deserve recognition and compensation. I dont know why I have to keep reminding people of this.

It also uses an exorbitant amount of energy and water during an environmental crisis and it's been linked to declining cognitive skills. The competent kids are becoming less competent by using it and they're fucked when we require in-class essays.

Specifically, it can enhance your writing output and confidence but it decreases creativity, originality, critical thinking, reading comprehension, and makes you prone to data bias. Remember, AI privileges the most common answers, which are often out of date and wrong when it comes to scientific and sociological data. This results in reproduction of racism and sexist ideas, because guess whats common on the internet? Racism and sexism!

Heres a source (its a meta-analysis, so it aggregates data from a collection of studies. This means it has better statistical power than any single study, which could have been biased in a number of ways. Meta analysis= more data points, more data points= higher accuracy).

This study also considers positives of AI by the way, as noted it can increase writing efficiency but the downsides and ethical issues don't make that worthwhile in my opinion. We can and should enhance writing and confidence in other ways.

Heres another source:

The issue here is that if you rely on AI consistently, certain skills start to atrophy. So what happens when you can't use it?

Im not completely against all AI, there is legitimate possibility for ethical usage when its trained on paid for data sets and used for specific purpose. Ive seen good evidence for use in medical fields, and for enhancing language learning in certain ways. If we can find a way to reduce the energy and water consumption then cool.

But when you write essays with chatgpt you're just robbing yourself an opportunity to exercise valuable cognitive muscles and you're also robbing millions of people of the fruit of their own intellectual and creative property. Also like, on a purely aesthetic level it has such boring prose, it makes you sound exactly like everyone else and I actually appreciate a distinctive voice in a piece of writing.

It also often fails to cite ideas that belong to other people, which can get you an academic violation for plagiarism even if your writing isn't identified as AI. And by the way, AI detection software is only going to keep getting better in tandem with AI.

All that said it really doesn't matter to me how good it gets at faking human or how good people get at using it, I'm never going to support it because again, it requires mass scale intellectual theft and (at least currently) it involves an unnecessary energy expenditure. Like it's really not that complicated.

At the end of the day I would much rather know that I did my work. I feel pride in my writing because I know I chose every word, and because integrity matters to me.

This is the last post I'm making about this. If you send me another ask I'll block you and delete it. This space is meant to be fun for me and I don't want to engage in more bullshit discourse here.

[ryuseiired]

mahiru. 12.

im expecting this to be an answer that requires a read more. go, autism boy, go. talk about mahiru and all the ways people sleep on her character

I LOVE YOU. YOU KNOW ME SO WELL. right. yeah here we go. i Do have thoughts. on this one.

12. what do you wish would be discussed more often about them in the fandom?

ok. well first off. i think we should just talk about mahiru more in general because i love her. but here is my biggest thought on What Exactly Some People, Especially Not On Milgramblr, Are Sleeping On About Mahiru: there's a lot of talk about her murder case, and that's great, but... i think a lot of the things that really draw me to her as a character and to her case tend to slip by people on account of the way milgram likes to- as kazui shows us in cat- keep it simple, victim and perpetrator. but i think trying to understand her better also gives a better understanding of where exactly things did go wrong in the relationship that put her in milgram.

the rest of this answer where i elaborate more will, in fact, be under a cut because you are right that i have an essay locked and loaded on this and actually this turned into a mahiru analysis/theory post by accident i meant to answer mostly normally but unfortunately i'm not normal about mahiru shiina.

let's talk about this is how to be in love with you. can we talk about this is how to be in love with you? i'm dying to talk about this is how to be in love with you. and god, its english name is a mouthful, i understand why some people just go with calling it ai nan desu yo.

obviously (hopefully) we all know mahiru getting guilty voted over this mv was absolutely fucked and unfair. i'm still mad about it. especially because i think that if you look at this is how to be in love with you (and her interrogation questions from its trial) in particular (as well as some other stuff), it says a lot about mahiru as a person, and in turn about her crime.

it's easy to miss underneath how friendly and cheerful she is with the other prisoners, how she seems like such a social butterfly, but... i don't think mahiru actually had a lot of connections other than her boyfriend, and i think this is a big factor in what happened with him. mahiru... seems lonely. like her life is... very empty. and i don't see people focus in on this fact a lot, despite how her first trial voicelines even say as much:

there's nothing left without him, and at least if she's here she can talk to es and the other prisoners. mahiru's interrogation questions paint a picture of someone who doesn't really have a lot in their life. when asked in t1's interrogation if there's someone she can confide in, mahiru's answer is the lady who works at the beauty parlor she goes to. this doesn't seem like the answer of someone who has close friends to talk to instead, at least to me. like. that's not... you'd think if she had friends she felt she could talk to, she'd have mentioned that here, right? that'd be the place to mention any close friends?

in this is how to be in love with you we see her spending days off at cafes alone, and she tells us about having hobbies that are generally solitary, we see her reading in the mv and interrogation reveals that prior to milgram her hobby was watching dramas. she tells us in interrogation that growing up, she was a sheltered girl. she also appears (taken from this is how to be in love with you) to have recently arrived in tokyo, meaning she may not know a lot of people there and has probably moved away from most of her family (though she does mention attending a relative's wedding).

i think part of the problem is that when mahiru meets her boyfriend... she doesn't appear to have much in the way of anyone else. mahiru is social, mahiru loves talking to people, mahiru doesn't really know how to act without copying others... and her boyfriend is the only person she's close with. she appears to be relying on him for almost all of her social connection.

as i just mentioned, she also has the habit of copying others, incessantly. the infamous "i'd smoke if my lover did too" interrogation answer, and again, the text in this is how to be in love with you...

(transcriptions into english from here!)

see the things that jump out here? "even though i'm just copying everyone else in everything. is that the right thing to be doing?", "i thought to buy the same bread he did", "i wasn't really thinking when i blurted out "me too", so now we run together". you can see this in the lyrics too. "i'm going to start relying on you if you're kind to me, so please forgive me!"

i think these are key traits in why her relationship went the way it did. i don't think mahiru is uniquely "toxic" or too needy/clingy in a way that means she can never have a relationship (and god, don't get me started on how i've seen people say this). i think she's obviously a highly social person, and was in a situation where she was relying on one person (assumedly with lower social needs than her) to fulfill all of her need for that. i think she's horribly anxious about losing that connection and having to be alone again, and she doesn't know how to deal with it other than to constantly (and annoyingly, disruptively) ask for reassurance. i think she bases herself on others and ignores her own desires in order to imitate them and/or do what they want, and if her boyfriend also didn't have a particularly strong sense of identity and/or also wasn't the type to stand up for himself, it would be really easy to get sucked into this horrible loop where you're both trying to copy and please each other and now you're both constantly putting aside what you actually like for the other person and neither of you are happy.

except mahiru is happy, or... she thinks she is, because she's happy to give herself up for love. she says as much herself: "we fought sometimes, i was happy to get hurt." but... there's something else in the lyrics, isn't there? "i pretended to be a good girl, i don't want to be "ok"". my take is that mahiru isn't getting what she wants/needs out of the relationship, and knows it on some level. but she isn't going to leave him, either, because she's decided this is true love and also if she did that she'd be alone again. so she hopes something will just change instead, or convinces herself that she is satisfied. but she's not. near the opening of this is how to be in love with you: "i guess we can just say that this feeling is happiness, i can't stop feeling like there's something missing." so she keeps pushing, she keeps trying, and... well. we know how that ends.

so after all this rambling, what's my point, exactly? i don't think either mahiru OR her boyfriend were any sort of perpetrator. nor were either of them a victim. i don't think the relationship fits neatly into that framework, even though milgram judged mahiru a murderer and her boyfriend to be her victim. i think there's a reading that doesn't need any of that: two people who seemed to get along well and have similar interests who got into a relationship, and who were actually incompatible in their deeper needs in a relationship. mahiru clings to this relationship despite this, because she needs it. because she can't be alone again. because having a boyfriend who fails to fulfill what she wants/needs is better than having nothing.

neither of them are bad people, nor (from what we can see and from my opinion on it) did either of them do anything particularly wrong. what makes the most sense to me is a competing access needs sort of situation. mahiru needs reassurance and a lot of attention/interaction (especially from a romantic partner, something she idolizes having because of how special you're supposed to be to each other!), while her boyfriend needs more space than what she's giving him... but mahiru, at least, definitely doesn't want to break up. so eventually, they end up in a situation where he feels there's only one way out.

i think this lens can be supported by what we see in i love you, too! note lyrics like "this can't go on, something's got to give", "why won't you just accept me", "mon-mon-monstrous, cuz i love you so much". and...

here's something else she says in i love you: "i don't need anyone else, as long as i have you." but the truth is... mahiru does need other people. the truth is that one person can't fix the underlying issue that mahiru is desperately lonely and has very few connections in her life. the truth is that it's incredibly unfair to rely on one person to fulfill all of your needs and to desperately insist upon staying in a relationship just to avoid being alone, and mahiru realizes this too late.

so. um. i've never really seen anyone else talk in too much detail about an interpretation of the character/situation like this. i see a lot of "they were both toxic" but i think that's a kind of weak simplification of it, you know? what is "toxic". it's bad, obviously. do we think they're bad people doing bad things, or just that the relationship was bad? is that "toxicity" inherent to them as people, or could things have gone better in a different relationship? are they both "toxic" or are they just both stuck in an incompatible relationship where neither of them are wrong but they are unable to meet each others' needs?

i don't know. it's 4am and i've been writing this for two hours and i'm honestly not sure if it's coherent or not. but to end this here's another footnote of something i cant stand people sleeping on about mahiru: she is so stupid forgiving of literally everything and it kind of kills me and i dont really see anyone else point this out as being a bad thing that could get her really hurt. like. she forgives kotoko for almost killing her and says she doesn't resent anyone for anything. she puts up with anything, as seen by what i mentioned about her desire to stay in the relationship with her boyfriend even though it was obviously not giving her what she needed and it was hurting her too! i think if mahiru had ended up in a relationship with a different guy, it would be entirely possible for her to be in an abusive relationship and refuse to leave it because of this particular tendency. and i don't see this mentioned much. probably because, again... mahiru's framed as a perpetrator. she killed her boyfriend, right? so obviously she's not the one who'd be hurt in a relationship.

ok. i'm done now i promise i am so done with this for real. um. if you read this whole thing thank you. i'm sorry it's so long or if it's incoherent in places. i just have a lot of thoughts about mahiru shiina

[whumpsmith-participates]

AI-less Whumptober 2024

Day 15 - waterboarding

Tags/CW: torture, inexperienced whumper, begging

Charles Breckenridge was kidnapped again. Or, actually, this was one of the first times, as it happened earlier on the timeline than the last time I told you about Charlie. This time he wasn't knocked out in a sudden car wreck. Instead, he knew exactly what was going on before it happened, only he was unable to get away in time after he realised it.

This time, the driver who claimed to be filling in for a co-worker who had come down with the flu turned out to be his kidnapper, driving him into a secluded alley and suddenly assaulting him with a syringe filled with some kind of sedative...

They kept him tied to a chair and blindfolded. In hindsight that made sense. Charlie would also want to protect his identity if he was doing something illegal like kidnapping someone and holding them hostage for ransom. Either way he could only really rely on sounds, which did tell him quite a lot.

There was only two of them. And it was obvious which of the two was in charge. He was older, more cruel, and generally unpleasant. The other one wasn't exactly better. He sounded younger, got pushed, smacked and ordered around by the older one, and somehow seemed okay with it all.

Charlie never learned their names. They were careful to refer to each other specifically by something that wasn't easy to identify. The older one just demanded to be called 'sir' and he just called the younger one 'kid.'

Charlie spent most of his time with the kid. He didn't really make for a lot of interesting conversation. Avoiding answering almost all his questions, but when he did they just concerned Charlie about the kid's wellbeing...not to mention his own.

He warned Charlie how bad his partner could treat people. Seemed to almost relish in describing some of the horrific things he could do, but Charlie couldn't see his face, so he wasn't too sure how accurate that observation was. Besides, if the kid enjoyed all of it, why would he give advise on how to avoid getting hurt?

It happened after his first night with them. The kid was escorting a blindfolded Charlie back to his chair after a bathroom visit, both of them overhearing the older one on the phone.

"Change of plans? What do you mean change of plans? .....No of course I'd rather keep the cops out of this, but if I can't chop anything off, what else am I supposed to send? ......of course I now a way, just know it'll cost ya extra!"

Charlie stopped walking as he was starting to get an idea of what was being discussed.

"W-what is he talking about?"

"Hush. You'll be okay." the kid just said, "Chair's behind you. Just sit down."

"Will I?" Charlie asked quietly, carefully lowering himself until he was sure he was indeed sitting on the chair. "Because it sounds like he wants to torture me!"

"Just don't make any smart comments," the kid said, his voice barely a whisper, "stick to 'no sir' or 'yes sir' and he'll go easy on you—"

"Kid..."

Charlie couldn't help but to jump as the older one was suddenly standing a lot closer to them. He could hear the click of a lighter, followed by the penetrative scent of smoke and tobacco.

"What'd I tell you about too much chatting with the hostage?"

"You always have a lot to say about that— Ow!"

It sounded like the older one settled the kid with a decent smack, and it got him to quiet down while the older man stepped closer to Charlie from the smell of it.

"Aren't you the lucky one, Mr Breckenridge?" he said, "Apparently someone tipped off the police, so we need to give your parents a lil nudge, but my client insists you don't have to sacrifice any digits just yet."

"P-police?" Charlie stammered, paling at the man's words, "T-they wouldn't tell! This has to be a mistake!"

"It doesn't matter who snitched," the man said, "someone did and now it's up to you to inspire mommy and daddy to transfer the cash faster. Understood?"

Charlie wanted to protest more, but he remembered the kid's advise and decided to play along in the hopes that he would just have to film a ransom video.

"Y-yes, sir..."

"Attaboy!" the man said, thankfully stepping away. "Grab the ropes, kid. We're tying him to the table— Oh and get the jacks from the van."

"...sir?"

"You'll see what we'll use them for. Go on."

"W-what are you going to do to me?" Charlie shakily asked, "I-I thought we would just film me talking to the camera..."

"We'll do that after," the man said, "gotta make sure the tears are real first."

"I-I can get you real tears!" Charlie pleaded, "J-just give me a second!"

"You'll get plenty of seconds." The man said, "Besides, it's a good teaching moment. Now get up."

"T-teach what?" Charlie asked breathlessly.

The man didn't reply. He simply grabbed a painful hold on Charlie's arm and forced him to stand up, yanking him—presumably—towards the table.

"About time. Help me tie him to the table."

"N-no! Please!" Charlie shouted, starting to sob a bit.

"Oh look, you can cry on command," the man said.

"What are you going to do to him?" the kid asked, having apparently returned.

"We are going to tie him to the table and then you are going to learn something new," the man said.

"S-sir...?"

"Shut up and hold him down for me."

It seemed Charlie's struggled and protests were completely ignored as the rope tying is wrists behind his back was cut and he was promptly manhandled onto the table. His hands were forced above his head, large hands pinning him down, carefully replaced by smaller hands.

Charlie tried to struggle, desperately trying to pull his arms free so they wouldn't do whatever they had planned for him. But after a moment a new, coarse, rope was wrapped around his left wrist and pulled tight, before it was yanked towards one of the corners of the table. Then they repeated the process on his right hand, spreading his arms from one corner of the table to the other.

"Okay, now stop him from kicking."

"Easy for you to say..."

Feeling the kid's hands on his legs, Charlie instinctively began kicking, managing to get a lucky hit in. He only vaguely registered his foot colliding with the kid's stomach, but he was too busy sobbing and pleading to apologise as he pulled against the ropes binding his wrists.

"Really?" the older man commented as the kid appeared unsuccessful in pinning their hostage down.

After a deep sigh, his large hands caught and pressed down on Charlie's knees, reducing his kicking before landing a painful blow to his thigh with his elbow, probably leaving a nasty bruise.

"Knock it off!" he snapped, only just audible over Charlie's pained cry. "Don't just stand there, tie his legs!"

"P-please! Just let me go!" Charlie begged as his legs were slowly pulled apart and stretched towards the remaining corners with coarse rope wrapped around his ankles.

"That's not how this works, you know that," the man said mercilessly.

"I did everything you asked!" Charlie pleaded, "I behaved! Why are you doing this?!"

"Because it's never your own actions that influence your life now, is it?" the man simply replied, before stepping away and tightening the four ropes holding Charlie in place.

Charlie tried to struggle, but the more he pulled against the ropes, the more they dug into his skin. Bruising his delicate wrists to the core, though that was the least of his worries right now. The man and the kid seemed to ignore him for now. The former being too busy bossing the latter around.

"Okay, now I'll lift the table on this side, and you're gonna put the jacks underneath each leg. We want him at an angle."

"Why, sir?"

"So he doesn't die."

"DIE?!" Charlie sobbed.

"You're not gonna die." the man said, "No on my watch at least..."

"I-I don't believe you!" Charlie cried, "Just let me go!!!"

"Can't we gag him for this?" the kid suddenly piped up, much to Charlie's chagrin.

"Unfortunately not." the man said, beginning to use the jacks to lift the table further, until Charlie felt like he was about to slide off.

"Okay, that should do it." the man decided, "Now we'll need a cloth and water."

"Oh..." the kid slowly said, as if something only now dawned on him, "that's what you wanna do."

"No," the man said, "that's what you are going to do."

The kid groaned in response, his footfalls slowly subsiding as he walked off.

"W-what are you having him do?" Charlie asked, his voice not much more than an anxious whimper.

"You'll see— In a manner of speaking, of course."

Charlie whimpered and weakly pulled against the ropes, hoping there would finally be some give, but all he accomplished was to tighten them, pulling them deeper into his raw skin. Though, soon that was the least of his worries, as it sounded like the kid returned with the requested supplies. All but literally dragging his feet.

"Do I have to?" he asked.

"Did I tell you to do it?" the man countered.

"Y-yea, but—"

"No buts. You do as you're told and that's final."

"Yes, sir..."

"P-please...please don't do this..." Charlie begged.

"Ignore him," the man instructed, "you know he'll be fine if you do this right."

"But I've never done this before," the kid argued, not instilling a lot of confidence.

"You've seen me do it plenty of times," the man said, "see one, do one, teach one — as they say in medical school."

"They don't teach waterboarding in medical school..."

"W-WATERBOARDING?!" Charlie sobbed loudly, only to be ignored once more.

"Stop stalling and do as you're told," the man said.

"N-no! Please! Let me go!"

"It'll be over before you know it," was the only comfort the kid offered, before draping something soft over Charlie's face. Then he clamped his hand over his mouth, keeping him still and silent while the older man gave further instructions and pointers.

"It's better if you grab him by the hair to hold him still. And then you just pour until he needs a breather."

"H-how do I know when he needs a break?" the kid asked, switching his grip from Charlie's face to his hair.

"P-please...."

"You can take an educated guess," the older man just said.

Charlie could feel the grip on his hair tighten, before cold water was suddenly poured over the cloth covering his face. He promptly stopped protesting, pressing his lips together as he could feel the water dribble through the cloth. He writhed anxiously in his bonds, breathing carefully through his nose, only to realise that he was just sniffling up more water. He sputtered, coughed, and inhaled more water. Enough to choke him up, but not enough to flood his lungs to drown him.

After what seemed like an eternity, the cloth was suddenly lifted off his face, allowing him to breathe again. Charlie coughed violently between gasps of air, unable to form any coherent words, though he wanted to plead and beg.

"You could've gone a little longer," the man said, "but not bad for a first attempt."

The kid didn't respond to him. Not verbally at least. Charlie couldn't really bring himself to care. He just wanted it to stop.

"Please..."

He pleaded weakly, before descending into a coughing fit again.

"Now rinse and repeat, kid."

"N-no wait—"

The cloth and the water returned, as did Charlie's coughing and sputtering. He thrashed and writhed, but the ropes tying him down and the hand gripping his hair prevented him from fighting back too much.

Please! he thought, Please let it be over soon...

"That's enough. You don't want him to suffocate."

Sweet salvation. Charlie coughed so violently he finally managed to at least wrench his head free, lifting it up so he could try and cough up the bits of water he'd inhaled.

Please let that be it... Please let that be it... Please—

"I think once more for good measure," the man said, "and another time for fun."

"I'm not having fun, sir."

"I am~"

"P-please....not again..." Charlie weakly begged.

"Hasn't he had enough?" the kid asked.

"Do you want me to take over? I could go all day."

"N-no, sir, I'll do it!" the kid quickly said, "Just two more..."

It almost sounded as if those last words were supposed to be some kind of reassuring as he weaved his fingers through Charlie's damp hair before grabbing a tight hold and pulling his head back whilst putting the cloth back over his face. The thought of going through that again filled Charlie with dread, despite the attempt at comfort from his younger captor.

"No no no...."

@ailesswhumptober @lavndvrr for the dynamic duo ;)

Charlie belongs to @illustriousshadow

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Based on an RP I did with my homie.

[trashyandtiredsol]

UPDATED: December 23rd, 2024

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Multi-Fandom Blog (Don't be surprised when you follow me for one thing then I post about another thing).

My name's Sol or Solstice! (On here that is, not my actual name, tho I wish it was sometimes :/)

17 (Birthday's May 2nd, 2007 !!)

🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 Demigirl and Queer! 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

Recently found the term demigirl and I quite like it for myself so- ye I'm adding it here :3

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(70+ Follower DTIY) so far it's only Blue from the foodie au ( participant's: 01 ) Deadline: December 1st, 2023 (only adding a deadline so I don't end up forgetting about this after 2 months)

(Finished)

(100+ Follower DTIY) for my Life Death and Love au

( participant's: 00 ) Deadline: None

(Permanently Ongoing I Guess? )

[erlanmizu]

Quite long read under the cut. It's just my personal opinion on some aspects regarding AI, especially generative AI.

Aight so, I saw a post on my dash and felt that it was time to finally drop my two cents on the topic.

I study artificial intelligence. It's more or less my major. I started studying it before GPT or Midjourney came out, so I'm not ashamed of having chosen this path because I didn't do it to follow the trend or hop on the bandwagon (or as we say in Italian, hop on the winner's chariot, which sounds way cooler in my opinion. Anyway.)

I also used Midjourney quite heavily when it came out in 2022. I was quite eager to try it out, and I did so while also trying out other services, including a sort of DIY small neural network which was actually super cool (and showed just how complicated and big models like Midjourney must be in order to produce such realistic images).

I continued using it throughout the first half of 2023 because I had started relying on it for a personal project, and the sunken cost fallacy had my hands tied. However I was already starting to become deeply unhappy with the way that generative AI was being used, but most of all, commercialized and/or published.

Anyway I completely lost the fil rouge of this Tumblr post I was making, which is something else entirely.

I'm a writer and a programmer, so I have to fight against people who use genAI for writing stories (somewhat rare, acceptable) and for coding (EXTREMELY annoying, I have to deal with it on a daily basis since I'm a compsci engineer). I'm working on a project right now which requires both these things: writing code and writing human text. So, after a bit of back and forth I decided to try Copilot, to see what, if at all, it could contribute to the project. Well, the answer was pure, unfettered manure. More precisely, it produced hardly readable, inefficient, very nonsensical, non-following code. The generated text was instead extremely repetitive, dull, superficial and lacked a goal, or an objective or an aim in what it generated.

Now, I understand one very common layman's justification that comes up now and then. "But I'm no drawer/writer! I couldn't come up with something nice because I simply don't have the expertise!" And this is where I need to draw a distinction between text generation and image generation (video generation is atrocious and basically only used for deepfakes for now, so I won't get into that).

As for image generation, I agree that not everybody is an artist. In this case I feel like the decision to use or not to use genAI is ultimately individual. For example, one may refuse to engage with it on the basis that art is also inseparably about the struggle to produce an end result, and about every element of that struggle and effort summing up and being visible on said result. Thus using genAI would take away that manual effort, and make it so that what little effort is left (i.e. scouting for the best prompt or for fruitful prompt words) still cannot be spotted and told apart in the final product. Producing an image using a random prompt, then producing another after hours and hours of trials and tribulations on the prompt, will typically yield two almost equally beautiful and "well done" images. It can be argued that this is not what art does, or not how art is supposed to "behave". One counterpoint to this is art pieces that intentionally look like they took little effort, like a plastic chair that looks like it has a wood texture slapped on it.

ANYWAY I FUCKING DIGRESSED AGAIN ARGHHH FUCKING HELLL

I seriously need to get checked out

So my point. MY MAIN POINT. The point that started all this post.

Was using genAI for writing. That was what I wanted to talk about all along.

And now that I've finally reached the topic it's 1:43 AM so I really need to go to sleep.

Awesome. But I'll definitely continue the post tomorrow!

[eggyfictions]

Hi, my name is Boykie. I am the one attempting to write a boy love story as a series with episodes.

♣︎Why am I doing that? There isn't really a deeper reasoning behind it. I've always loved the idea of creating something. Either it be a drawing, a sculpture, a piece of music, or writing a book. I've always loved the fact that I am creating something new, something from my own mind. The unfortunate part being, I can't sing, and I know nothing about art, but atleast I can write. That's why I wrote.

♣︎ Why this story? With Beneath the Surface, there is a great personal influence. A lot of the story's direction and events are pulled from my personal experience as a once closeted gay boy, struggling to understand himself while everyone around you seems to have discovered who they are. Most of my high school days have been that, really. I was pulling away from everyone and everything because I was afraid that being open in front of everyone would've raised questions. Questions that I didn't have answers to yet. So rather keep to yourself. But I've also added elements of mystery in there, think Heartstopper meets Gravity Falls, for Non-straight black boys living in a South African township.

♣︎ What's the end goal? I don't know really. I normally hear from other well established writers say, you should have a direction of where your work is heading to. I don't, I am writing this, because I love to write. I don't have a string of episodes waiting to be published, I am building it as I go, and I love that process. The dream, maybe, would be seeing people read it, and maybe like it. I am not expecting it to be the best thing ever, no, but I want it to be fun, and well received. I just want to create something that someone will find fun.😁

♣︎ The illustrations: For those of you who know technology can easily tell that all the illustrations I've used for the episodes are AI generated. Yes, it's true. Since I cannot yet illustrate them or even afford to pay someone to draw the illustrations for me, I rely on ChatGPT to generate the closest possible image to what I envision my characters to look like. Sometimes ChatGPT doesn't do it right, for example the illustration on the last episode, looks notuing like that of the previous episodes, but what can I do really I work with what I have. Personally, I love illustration, and I love design, but currently I don't have the means or ability to do so. However, one thing about me, I love to learn, I'll sketch up something ugly and work on it until it becomes what I want. As long as I can get my hands on the relevant tools, I'll learn and do it myself (help is also welcomed, wink, wink, nudge, nudge😉😉.)

♣︎ What I'd appreciate from you? Honestly speaking, your likes, your comments, and your input will go a long way. I just want to see that someone out there took 10 minutes of their time to read an episode (Yall read way too fast, my episodes are too short for yall.) Maybe going forward, I'll stretch them a little more and cover more in a single episode. I don't know, we will see. But ultimately, I just want to see people reading it and liking it. So please do comment and tell me what you think.

I don't know if I said it all, but yeah, that's it. Your support will be greatly appreciated, and I hope we can have fun with it. Let's have fun with it. I've attached the link to the blog at the bottom for anyone who might want to check it out. Lol😅 Marketing 🤣🤣🤣.

Thank you.

PS: I've never used Tumblr before, so I don't know if people will even read this whole thing 😅

[samarashoot]

two long essay posts sitting in my likes rn. one is about ai art ethics and the other is about the fast-fashion-ization of crafting and i think they're kind of the same thing

i've recently gotten into crochet. i don't have a ton of money to spare on artisanal hand-dyed natural fiber yarns, so i've been using the cheap acrylic stuff. without doing any research i can fairly safely assume that everything i am using, in addition to shedding plastic microfibers into our waterstreams and bloodstreams, was made by exploited people in a hazardous factory setting because that is the state of most global manufacturing today. if i continue to buy that yarn, am i directly responsible for the ocean pollution and worker exploitation involved in its production? non-rhetorical question, i don't think there's a simple yes or no answer.

same thing with ai. personally i don't think there's any kind of inherent evil to using publicly hosted artwork as training data (so many of my favorite art practices – from collage to readymades to drag lipsync tracks to music sampling to being 14 and tracing my favorite manga panels – rely on "stealing" the work of other artists without permission). but even if ai image generators were fundamentally exploitative in their sourcing, would their usage by random everyday people be any more inherently evil than me using unethically sourced yarn for my crochet projects?

idk. i do personally feel put off by most ai art i see (including the dunes video that sparked a lot of this buzz among my mutuals) because i find it aesthetically uninteresting and i can't stand the nft tech bro types who seem to gravitate towards it, but i am working on separating my moral judgements and my aesthetic judgements, which is much easier said than done. yesterday i saw someone say "ai is gross and scary" which like yeah it is! but that doesn't make it inherently evil, it is simply a tool

i don't believe in corporate sanctioned copyright laws or the almighty power of intellectual property and originality, nor do i ascribe much importance to ill-defined concepts like "human creativity" (inb4 hello i am a professional ~traditional~ artist and art teacher). but also i don't like to lean too hard on "no ethical consumption under late capitalism" as an easy way out to just do whatever regardless of the consequences. whatever to do!

[mollytranscribes]

[Profile picture transcription: An eye shape with a rainbow flag covering the whites. The iris in the middle is red, with a white d20 for a pupil. End transcription.]

Hello! This is a blog specifically dedicated to image transcriptions. My main blog is @mollymaclachlan.

For those who don't know, I used to be part of r/TranscribersOfReddit, a Reddit community dedicated to transcribing posts to improve accessibility. That project sadly had to shut down, partially as a result of the whole fiasco with Reddit's API changes. But I miss transcribing and I often see posts on Tumblr with no alt text and no transcription.

So! Here I am, making a new blog. I'll be transcribing posts that need it when I see them and I have time; likely mainly ones I see on my dashboard. I also have asks open so anyone can request posts or images.

I have plenty of experience transcribing but that doesn't mean I'm perfect. We can always learn to be better and I'm not visually impaired myself, so if you have any feedback on how I can improve my transcriptions please don't hesitate to tell me. Just be friendly about it.

The rest of this post is an FAQ, adapted from one I posted on Reddit.

1. Why do you do transcriptions?

Transcriptions help improve the accessibility of posts. Tumblr has capabilities for adding alt-text to images, but not everyone uses it, and it has a character limit that can hamper descriptions for complex images. The following is a non-exhaustive list of the ways transcriptions improve accessibility:

They help visually-impaired people. Most visually-impaired people rely on screen readers, technology that reads out what's on the screen, but this technology can't read out images.

They help people who have trouble reading any small, blurry or oddly formatted text.

In some cases they're helpful for people with colour deficiencies, particularly if there is low contrast.

They help people with bad internet connections, who might as a result not be able to load images at high quality or at all.

They can provide context or note small details many people may otherwise miss when first viewing a post.

They are useful for search engine indexing and the preservation of images.

They can provide data for improving OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology.

2. Why don't you just use OCR or AI?

OCR (Optical Character Recoginition) is technology that detects and transcribes text in an image. However, it is currently insufficient for accessibility purposes for three reasons:

It can and does get a lot wrong. It's most accurate on simple images of plain text (e.g. screenshots of social media posts) but even there produces errors from time to time. Accessibility services have to be as close to 100% accuracy as possible. OCR just isn't reliable enough for that.

Even were OCR able to 100%-accurately describe text, there are many portions of images that don't have text, or relevant context that should be placed in transcriptions to aid understanding. OCR can't do this.

"AI" in terms of what most people mean by it - generative AI - should never be used for anything where accuracy is a requirement. Generative AI doesn't answer questions, it doesn't describe images, and it doesn't read text. It takes a prompt and it generates a statistically-likely response. No matter how well-trained it is, there's always a chance that it makes up nonsense. That simply isn't acceptable for accessibility.

3. Why do you say "image transcription" and not "image ID"?

I'm from r/TranscribersOfReddit and we called them transcriptions there. It's ingrained in my mind.

For the same reason, I follow advice and standards from our old guidelines that might not exactly match how many Tumblr transcribers do things.

[wumblr]

let's have a hard talk. these insufferable takes on AI are not advancing the discussion. the discussion was miles beyond this "takes work from artist" "consumer boycott must be the answer" dead on arrival poor substitute for an analysis, years ago, when timnit gebru got fired from google, for making what is now, because of her, the trivially obvious observation that large datasets may be too large to manually analyse for bias.

like congratulations. you have hit upon the point of capek's RUR, origin of the word robot, from a hundred years ago. were you going to take another point from back before the dust bowl or was that it? it's not just automation that takes surplus value from labor, it's any increase in efficiency. this is the first textbook feature of the economic model we're living under. luddites genuinely had more sense for nuance when the loom threatened to extract value from their labor at a pace never before seen. this is not that. luddites were producing textiles that people actually bought. you aren't.

aside from that, the implication that this is on par with like, a museum heist, or art forgery (both of which are, by the way, through a lens that includes class analysis, badass) is laughable. you are not selected for exhibition by making posts online, you are participating in a social medium where your continued pageviews are the source of advertising revenue. you are not bourgeoise, you are proletarian. your deviantart was search engine optimized to the point that it was trivial to pull five billion carbon copies of you off google images with like a two-line API call. you are not unique, you are one drop in a lost generation's renaissance. maybe if you don't want your work "stolen" you shouldn't be posting an endlessly reproducible digital copy to the world wide web? it's been seven years since twitter killed vine for trying to set the precedent that collective action can produce wage, can we bring back that level of foresight yet? or are you happy settling for tiktok because they deign to curate a ""creators fund"" for white heterosexuals? go buy a lottery ticket

i've said it before but this is a structured argument, presented to you with two neatly-collimated "sides," one that says every possible piece of data should be available for free for capitalist class to build automation out of it, and one that says pirating endlessly reproducible goods belonging the capitalist class should have harsher punishment. this is intentional, not unique, not new. it's the perverse dialectic of capital. you can only argue a side that benefits it.

the absence of nuanced intersectional perspective here is embarrassing. beyond that it's painfully obvious people are taking it personally, as if you had any chance to make rent as an artist, regardless of what procedural generation or neural networks might do. it's a selfish, blindly individualistic, mass manufactured wholesale bargain basement opinion, one that does not serve to advance any collective good, because it's based in the pipe dream of suddenly jumping three tax brackets to become bourgeoise. beyond that, doesn't it cheapen your art to only ever make saleable products? beyond that, it's painfully obvious none of you have ever tried using a neural network. from computer science or statistical perspectives, these constructs are novel and fascinating (or, the advent of cheap processing power sufficient to allow decades-old theory to flourish, which let's be honest, this power relies on an exploitative global network of rare mineral resource extraction and high precision manufacturing, which is yet one more topic i haven't once seen broached in the months this stultifyingly dull conversation has been ongoing.)

blaming a novelty for the ills of capitalism is nonsense, and it's not why luddites opposed the loom.

and let me just tell you, working with a code construct also does not improve your chances as an artist, which is the main point i wish i could get across. aside from the absence of intersectionality there's also an absence of class analysis, in which context it's, again, painfully obvious that no capitalist has ever cared one whit about art. even when they deign to take on a patronage it's as a backhanded PR stunt, like the unpaid notre dame roof pledges, to offset the ill repute they've accrued from extracting value for personal gain, while contributing nothing except the directive power their birthright of wealth gave them. this is the main critique i had about age of surveillance capitalism -- zuboff seems to think a return to ford-era capitalism, where the rich bothered to endow museums (to curate what they exclude) or pay a livable wage (in order to recapture it as sales), would solve the fundamental problem of value extraction from labor and natural resources for the barefaced sake of the profit motive. unremarkable and unsurprising for tenured faculty of harvard, how else would she sell books? but for some foolhardy reason i expected better from my peers.

your aspirations of small business aren't going to flourish if you suddenly got everything you claim to want and they banned every code construct from competing with you. you are not in competition with capital. you are nothing to it, it will kill you in total indifference without blinking, surely you ought to know this by now, it will bus in scab slave labor from prison to ramp up production despite a boycott in solidarity with a strike, and it's going to remain this way as long as capital survives. whether or not an algorithm or a network or an artifice is involved is irrelevant to the fundamental problem that it's a winner-takes-all game that ended before you were born. unless and until you want to start challenging the police that uphold the state or the insurance trust that pays to replace its points of failure, you're doing surface level armchair analysis on a problem that only the extremely online care about. arguing over what color of icing is on the cake you're never going to be eating while you starve for lack of bread.

and like... i get it. after the pandemic that we're still going through, you want to refocus on the things that really make you happy. but i've got to say, refocusing on art until you starve because you didn't manage to figure out self-sufficience during a recession is a sad way to die. perhaps you should consider the necessity of survival as a precursor to contentment. and to be clear i am saying this specifically because i care whether you survive and because i am interested in the artworks you are making or in your future potential. but you can't focus on that to the exclusion of all else, dog eat dog world and that means every day i have to see someone get ate. now for the last time, for god's sake can you stop yelling "this is because of code constructs" every time a dog eats your purported art commission revenue because it's really hurting MY purported small business revenue, selling products of code constructs,

[acourtofmishapandmistakes]

Do you support AI art?

That's a very complicated question, and one that I don't want to avoid answering given that it's a very real and present debate right now.

In short, no, I don't personally support AI-generated art as it currently stands.

While I'm open to the idea of using AI as a tool to enhance learning and creativity and generally believe that the increasing use of AI can create a more accessible world, I feel that AI art, in its present form, operates with too few restrictions. I’ll be the first to admit that I haven't done extensive research into all the nuances of the debate. However, as fast as AI is advancing, I believe we need to have open conversations about it and be willing to learn. Based solely on what I've seen and read—particularly from artists who have spoken out on this issue—I believe AI-generated art, at this point, can be harmful. AI often relies on existing artworks as input, producing works that utilize techniques or styles of actual creators without giving proper credit or compensation to the source material. This strikes me as deeply unethical and is something I'm growing increasingly concerned about.

I also want to acknowledge upfront that I'm likely guilty of sharing AI-generated art unintentionally in the past. I’ve been making an effort to be more mindful and seek out sources for the art that I share, so I can directly support the artists rather than contributing to algorithms that can exploit them.

I understand that AI has made it much easier for people to bring their fantasies and dreams to life, which is fantastic. The ability to visualize complex and imaginative ideas more easily than ever is a significant advantage, especially for those who may not have the financial means to commission an artist directly. However, this often comes at the expense of creators, whose work is being used without permission or compensation to fuel these AI visions. This raises serious ethical concerns about the origins of these works and the impact it has on the creative community. I see it as a double-edged sword—imagination becomes more accessible, but at the cost of the artist. Personally, I avoid using AI art altogether, choosing to support artists over the instant gratification that AI might provide. That said, I’m not one to judge or blacklist someone who uses AI, as long as they’re not reposting and claiming the art as their own.

I also recognize that AI can be a useful tool for artists, particularly when it comes to generating reference images for body proportions, poses, or movements—things that can be difficult to find through a simple Google search. I know a few artists who have used AI art generators for this specific purpose as they continue to learn and grow. I don't feel it’s my place to decide whether this is right or wrong. For many growing artists, AI can serve as a valuable resource in developing their skills. As AI technology evolves, I can see it becoming a powerful teaching aid, potentially helping artists refine their craft in ways that weren’t possible before. However, at this point, I believe AI art is doing more harm than good.

I’ve definitely seen AI art that has left me in awe of its composition and detail. However, I remind myself that this art was created by drawing upon the work of someone real, living, and working—often without their permission. This makes the issue feel morally complex and, frankly, a bit uncomfortable.

Ultimately, this is a complicated issue and a moral dilemma that we all need to grapple with. I don't denounce those who use or appreciate AI-generated art, but given my very limited understanding of the full scope of the debate, I feel it isn’t my place to make definitive judgments. As I continue to learn more, I hope to develop a more nuanced perspective and back up my views with solid research. For now, these are my messy, complicated feelings.

If you're interested in exploring this topic further, here are some articles discussing the ethical implications of AI that I've read in the past:

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: What can I do in these situations? I realized I feel very fearful, even phobic about the internet now, by seeing how is talked about the way big companies manage private data, the thing of devices being vulnerable to any cyber attack and the way AI is being used to harass people and scam.

I feel… very terrified by all of this, I don't feel at ease even at my own home by living with smart devices. Is there a way I can make this more tolerable? I know we all need technology in our lifes now, but I don't want to feel spied on and vulnerable by it. It feels… very apocalyptic to me, and has made me fall in a pit of existential despair.

Then I started to think about my forgotten accounts, which made me VERY panicked. What if something happened to them and I didn't know? What if they're used for terrible things?

This worry has become so magnified in my mind, that I fear crumbling down when facing daily life things, and then even become bed ridden by the immense anxiety. I was bed ridden through many years by anxiety before so, this has become a huge concern.

I'm INFJ btw. Thank you very much!

-----------------------

Your anxiety sounds serious enough that I would strongly recommend getting professional help for it.

Phobias are considered irrational because they are based on faulty reasoning, distorted beliefs, or circular overthinking. For example:

1) Phobics exaggerate negative possibilities because they treat mere "probability" as near "certainty". This is often a problem of being bad at math or logic.

For example, the odds of dying by drowning are about 1 in 1000. What does that really mean, though? Does it mean that if you go swimming 999 times, you'll certainly die by the 1000th? No. What if you rarely go swimming? What if you are an Olympic-level swimmer? What if you only swim in recreational pools with other people and never alone in the sea? There are so many contextual factors that could affect the odds of drowning that trying to calculate the odds is basically meaningless when it comes to making life decisions.

2) Phobics envision mainly negative possibilities and overlook positive ones. This is a problem of distorted perception that then leads to distorted beliefs.

Let's say you read a statistic that car accidents are one of the leading causes of death. Because of this, you developed a fear of driving and thus always have to rely on others to transport you everywhere. Unfortunately, you don't live in a very walkable city, so this dependence on others causes you to lose a lot. You lose time because you often have to take indirect or slower routes. You lose energy because you always have to plan your outings very carefully. You lose opportunities because you can't always get to every place you need to go on time. You may even lose relationships because of being too dependent on people to come to your rescue when stranded.

If you were to objectively compare what you lose by not driving against what you could gain by being able to drive yourself, being able to drive is the better option. Furthermore, the fact of the matter is that you still need to be in a car on the road, but not driving yourself means that you have far less control over the outcome. Generally speaking, feeling less in control only exacerbates fear.

.

From these examples, it becomes more obvious why the best way to overcome phobia is to confront it and learn to master it, rather than give in to it. Just as not driving doesn't keep you out of vehicles and off the road, in 2024, there's no way to live life properly without accessing the internet. If you must do something you fear doing, the answer isn't to look for ways to avoid doing it but to learn how to do it to the best of your ability.

E.g. You can learn effective ways to protect your privacy. You can learn how to avoid getting scammed. You can learn how to use social media constructively. You can improve your judgment and be less naive or gullible.

You believe your fear is an indication of a dangerous world out there but, actually, your fear is an indication of your own low self-confidence. People lack self-confidence when they lack the knowledge and skill necessary to meet challenges and solve problems. The world is constantly changing and life will keep throwing challenges at you. The best way to cope is by being a good learner and adapting to change with new knowledge and skills.

Since phobias are irrational, an important aspect of overcoming them is becoming a more rational person, which means it's necessary for you to improve your critical thinking skills. For example, which option is more rational: 1) Avoiding the internet and living in a state of ignorance and anxiety, which basically means your life comes to a standstill? or 2) Learning how to use the internet more wisely, which means you can live your life confidently and fully?