#speak and is just based on that training data

[maretriarch]

i dont think thats true

[ratbastarddotfuck]

I dislike large scale generative AI as much as the next guy but every time someone says it "isn't real art" I get the spiteful urge to use it in some way for a complex postmodern art piece where the point is "everything is art, actually, and your arguments are flawed". and I'd hope that it would live in people's heads rent free the same way that damn urinal has lived in art purists' heads for years now.

but I can't do that with generative AI that exists currently because I do in fact hate the plagiarism machine.

[dragonnarrative-writes]

Generative AI Is Bad For Your Creative Brain

In the wake of early announcing that their blog will no longer be posting fanfiction, I wanted to offer a different perspective than the ones I’ve been seeing in the argument against the use of AI in fandom spaces. Often, I’m seeing the arguments that the use of generative AI or Large Language Models (LLMs) make creative expression more accessible. Certainly, putting a prompt into a chat box and refining the output as desired is faster than writing a 5000 word fanfiction or learning to draw digitally or traditionally. But I would argue that the use of chat bots and generative AI actually limits - and ultimately reduces - one’s ability to enjoy creativity.

Creativity, defined by the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary & Thesaurus, is the ability to produce or use original and unusual ideas. By definition, the use of generative AI discourages the brain from engaging with thoughts creatively. ChatGPT, character bots, and other generative AI products have to be trained on already existing text. In order to produce something “usable,” LLMs analyzes patterns within text to organize information into what the computer has been trained to identify as “desirable” outputs. These outputs are not always accurate due to the fact that computers don’t “think” the way that human brains do. They don’t create. They take the most common and refined data points and combine them according to predetermined templates to assemble a product. In the case of chat bots that are fed writing samples from authors, the product is not original - it’s a mishmash of the writings that were fed into the system.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) is a therapy modality developed by Marsha M. Linehan based on the understanding that growth comes when we accept that we are doing our best and we can work to better ourselves further. Within this modality, a few core concepts are explored, but for this argument I want to focus on Mindfulness and Emotion Regulation. Mindfulness, put simply, is awareness of the information our senses are telling us about the present moment. Emotion regulation is our ability to identify, understand, validate, and control our reaction to the emotions that result from changes in our environment. One of the skills taught within emotion regulation is Building Mastery - putting forth effort into an activity or skill in order to experience the pleasure that comes with seeing the fruits of your labor. These are by no means the only mechanisms of growth or skill development, however, I believe that mindfulness, emotion regulation, and building mastery are a large part of the core of creativity. When someone uses generative AI to imitate fanfiction, roleplay, fanart, etc., the core experience of creative expression is undermined.

Creating engages the body. As a writer who uses pen and paper as well as word processors while drafting, I had to learn how my body best engages with my process. The ideal pen and paper, the fact that I need glasses to work on my computer, the height of the table all factor into how I create. I don’t use audio recordings or transcriptions because that’s not a skill I’ve cultivated, but other authors use those tools as a way to assist their creative process. I can’t speak with any authority to the experience of visual artists, but my understanding is that the feedback and feel of their physical tools, the programs they use, and many other factors are not just part of how they learned their craft, they are essential to their art.

Generative AI invites users to bypass mindfully engaging with the physical act of creating. Part of becoming a person who creates from the vision in one’s head is the physical act of practicing. How did I learn to write? By sitting down and making myself write, over and over, word after word. I had to learn the rhythms of my body, and to listen when pain tells me to stop. I do not consider myself a visual artist - I have not put in the hours to learn to consistently combine line and color and form to show the world the idea in my head.

But I could.

Learning a new skill is possible. But one must be able to regulate one’s unpleasant emotions to be able to get there. The emotion that gets in the way of most people starting their creative journey is anxiety. Instead of a focus on “fear,” I like to define this emotion as “unpleasant anticipation.” In Atlas of the Heart, Brene Brown identifies anxiety as both a trait (a long term characteristic) and a state (a temporary condition). That is, we can be naturally predisposed to be impacted by anxiety, and experience unpleasant anticipation in response to an event. And the action drive associated with anxiety is to avoid the unpleasant stimulus.

Starting a new project, developing a new skill, and leaning into a creative endevor can inspire and cause people to react to anxiety. There is an unpleasant anticipation of things not turning out exactly correctly, of being judged negatively, of being unnoticed or even ignored. There is a lot less anxiety to be had in submitting a prompt to a machine than to look at a blank page and possibly make what could be a mistake. Unfortunately, the more something is avoided, the more anxiety is generated when it comes up again. Using generative AI doesn’t encourage starting a new project and learning a new skill - in fact, it makes the prospect more distressing to the mind, and encourages further avoidance of developing a personal creative process.

One of the best ways to reduce anxiety about a task, according to DBT, is for a person to do that task. Opposite action is a method of reducing the intensity of an emotion by going against its action urge. The action urge of anxiety is to avoid, and so opposite action encourages someone to approach the thing they are anxious about. This doesn’t mean that everyone who has anxiety about creating should make themselves write a 50k word fanfiction as their first project. But in order to reduce anxiety about dealing with a blank page, one must face and engage with a blank page. Even a single sentence fragment, two lines intersecting, an unintentional drop of ink means the page is no longer blank. If those are still difficult to approach a prompt, tutorial, or guided exercise can be used to reinforce the understanding that a blank page can be changed, slowly but surely by your own hand.

(As an aside, I would discourage the use of AI prompt generators - these often use prompts that were already created by a real person without credit. Prompt blogs and posts exist right here on tumblr, as well as imagines and headcannons that people often label “free to a good home.” These prompts can also often be specific to fandom, style, mood, etc., if you’re looking for something specific.)

In the current social media and content consumption culture, it’s easy to feel like the first attempt should be a perfect final product. But creating isn’t just about the final product. It’s about the process. Bo Burnam’s Inside is phenomenal, but I think the outtakes are just as important. We didn’t get That Funny Feeling and How the World Works and All Eyes on Me because Bo Burnham woke up and decided to write songs in the same day. We got them because he’s been been developing and honing his craft, as well as learning about himself as a person and artist, since he was a teenager. Building mastery in any skill takes time, and it’s often slow.

Slow is an important word, when it comes to creating. The fact that skill takes time to develop and a final piece of art takes time regardless of skill is it’s own source of anxiety. Compared to @sentientcave, who writes about 2k words per day, I’m very slow. And for all the time it takes me, my writing isn’t perfect - I find typos after posting and sometimes my phrasing is awkward. But my writing is better than it was, and my confidence is much higher. I can sit and write for longer and longer periods, my projects are more diverse, I’m sharing them with people, even before the final edits are done. And I only learned how to do this because I took the time to push through the discomfort of not being as fast or as skilled as I want to be in order to learn what works for me and what doesn’t.

Building mastery - getting better at a skill over time so that you can see your own progress - isn’t just about getting better. It’s about feeling better about your abilities. Confidence, excitement, and pride are important emotions to associate with our own actions. It teaches us that we are capable of making ourselves feel better by engaging with our creativity, a confidence that can be generalized to other activities.

Generative AI doesn’t encourage its users to try new things, to make mistakes, and to see what works. It doesn’t reward new accomplishments to encourage the building of new skills by connecting to old ones. The reward centers of the brain have nothing to respond to to associate with the action of the user. There is a short term input-reward pathway, but it’s only associated with using the AI prompter. It’s designed to encourage the user to come back over and over again, not develop the skill to think and create for themselves.

I don’t know that anyone will change their minds after reading this. It’s imperfect, and I’ve summarized concepts that can take months or years to learn. But I can say that I learned something from the process of writing it. I see some of the flaws, and I can see how my essay writing has changed over the years. This might have been faster to plug into AI as a prompt, but I can see how much more confidence I have in my own voice and opinions. And that’s not something chatGPT can ever replicate.

[pathologicalreid]

the lost daughter | s.r.

in which JJ goes missing in the middle of the night, and Spencer's attempts to comfort you completely fall through

margovember

who? spencer reid x fem!reader category: angst content warnings: death, kidnapping, jareau!reader, takes place during 9x14 "200", caryatids, sibling loss, the british word count: 2.83k a/n: wrote this with my own sibling loss grief in mind so this is just me using fanfic as therapy. not sure if it's any good really. thanks for reading <3

You were already in the roundtable room by the time everyone came in, Penelope was making alarming faces at her laptop before she shook her head, “I’m trying,” she said. “I’m trying to pull data off of JJ’s phone, but it’s like level 9 security—it would make Snowden weep.”

Familiar hands settled on your shoulders, thumbs gently skimming over your collarbones as you watched the rest of the team sprawl around the room. “What about cell phone records?” Blake was next to speak, asking about your sister’s welfare when you couldn’t—too afraid of falling apart to so much as part your lips.

The look of desperation on Garcia’s face did nothing to comfort you, “Encrypted. JJ’s and Cruz’s.” With the disappointing news came a squeeze to your shoulders, Spencer’s silent attempt to comfort you without drawing too much attention to his movements.

Rossi shrugged, “That’s not surprising if they work for the State Department,” he reasoned, looking around the rest of the room.

You leaned back in the office chair, trying to remember how to place your feet on the ground, but it was hard when the soles of your shoes felt like a foreign sensation. “But if that assignment was a backstop,” Morgan started, “then JJ’s transfer as DOD Liaison was her cover.”

Spencer’s thumb ran from the base of your cervical spine to the base of your skull, working out a knot that had been there since you received a call from Will, asking if you knew where your sister was. “So, what was she really doing that year?” Spencer asked, the question sending a wave of goosebumps across your skin, fear making your blood run cold.

“That’s the first question Hotch is gonna ask,” Derek answered, easily slipping into the role of team leader in Hotch’s absence. “Strauss was pressured by the executive branch to push JJ’s transfer through in 2010, so she would have known the reason why.”

Your eyes immediately flicked to Rossi, wondering if Erin Strauss had divulged any state secrets over the duration of their relationship together. Though, you imagined Strauss maintained her oath of secrecy, much like your sister had in the three years since her reassignment. “Any assignment that Strauss authorized would be archived in the SCIF,” Spencer responded, his thumb smoothing over the hair at the nape of your neck.

Garcia looked alarmed, “That facility is code word classified.” She glanced around the room as if she was already searching for new ideas, but Derek seemed convinced.

His head bobbed, “Okay, but Anderson can get you in. He archives those reports,” he began to outline a plan. “Blake, Rossi, JJ couldn’t have used the SCIF without drawing attention. She probably has it foxholed right here in the BAU. We just need to find it,” his head rotated, meeting the gaze of everyone in the room—except for you.

“And what are you not telling us?” Blake asked, slipping both of her hands into the pockets of her blazer.

Morgan’s eyes dropped to meet yours, and you already knew what was coming. “Whoever took Cruz and JJ is highly trained and highly organized. Justice, defense, and state—they wouldn’t be on edge like this if this was a simple matter of two missing agents,” he explained.

You stiffened at his response, and Spencer restarted his ministrations, dropping his hands to your shoulders and working on your shoulder blades. “Is Hotch worried that the recovery won’t be made a priority?” Rossi asked, eyes flittering to you—even though they tried to hide it, everyone was sparing you nervous glances.

“It’s our job to find the leverage that assures it is. Let’s get it done,” Morgan said, nodding his head confidently before allowing the room to disperse.

Shaking off Spencer’s touch, he let you go without a fight, knowing that you wouldn’t be going anywhere far while your sister was still missing. You ducked your head, letting your hair curtain around your face while you walked out of the BAU, vaguely aware of the muttering that followed in your wake.

You shoved your way through the glass doors and turned the corner, practically throwing yourself into Morgan’s office before pressing your back to the wall and sliding down the drywall.

Visualizing the movement of air in and out of your lungs, you tried to teach yourself how to breathe normally. Something that was usually autonomic required more focus than usual, your thoughts so preoccupied with fear that you had to make a conscious effort to inhale and exhale.

The overwhelming feeling of impending doom hadn’t struck you until just then, sitting in the roundtable with your team and being left to wonder what might happen if you can’t convince the state to save your sister. You would have to call your mom and tell her that she’d have to bury another one of her daughters, Henry would have to grow up without his mother, and you would become an only child.

You never had to worry about being alone because you always had your sister, particularly in your adult life when you moved to D.C. JJ made a point to be dependable, to be someone that you could rely on no matter what was going on in her life, and the situation you found yourself in made you wonder if you never reciprocated. Her assignment was classified, but you wondered if she had ever tried to clue you into what she was doing during her time at the Pentagon. You wondered if she would’ve told you even if it was permitted.

It seemed too cruel. Parents weren’t supposed to have to bury their children and sisters weren’t meant to end up alone. The world couldn’t possibly be cruel enough to take JJ from you—she was the only sister you had left.

She promised you, after Roslyn died, that she’d never leave you alone. It was the most vivid memory you had from that early in your childhood. That period of time, from the moment JJ found her in the bathroom to the date of the funeral, you could recall it with alarming accuracy. For the longest time, you thought they were all manufactured, something you had dreamt up as if you were on a therapist’s couch.

But it was real, the fighting, the blood, the necklace—all of it was so devastatingly real.

Morgan’s office was cold, your fingertips frigid in the dim lamplight, you hadn’t even noticed your shadow until he was lowering himself to the ground in front of you, crisscrossing his legs so you were level. He leaned his head forward and set his chin on your knee, his posture so bad it would make dignitaries cry, but it allowed him to meet your eyes even while your head was tilted down.

You put your hands in a praying gesture and slid them between your thighs to warm them up, making eye contact with Spencer while he wiped at the tears on your cheeks. “What’s going through your head right now?” His voice was gentle, he didn’t want to push you, he just wanted to hear from you.

“The British Museum,” you answered because your fears of catastrophe would just worry him more.

He chuckled lightly at your answer, acknowledging that that was the last thing he expected you to say. “Can I ask why?”

Splaying out your fingers, you felt the sensation of the rough denim of your jeans on your knuckles—two of them split from hand-to-hand combat. You leaned your head back, focusing on your surroundings for a moment—Morgan’s office always smelled like cologne and a little bit like old man, which Penelope thought was the ghost of the agent that Derek had inherited his office from. “She was stolen from her sisters so long ago, and now no matter what anyone says or does, they won’t give her back,” you told him, your voice suddenly weak.

Emotion made your throat swell, and the way Spencer was tenderly skimming his fingertips over your thigh wasn’t helping. “Won’t give who back, honey?”

“The Caryatid,” you said urgently as if the answer should’ve been obvious to him. His eyes widened in response, maybe it concerned him that you were relating to a statue, and maybe it was right for him to be worried about you.

Six statues, constructed to support the roof of the Erechtheion in Greece, named after Caryae, which was an ancient town of Peloponnese. Vitruvius said they were constructed to represent the women of the town, women who were enslaved because the town sided with Xerxes during his second invasion of Greece.

Six sisters, built to carry burdens and remind people of the sin committed by Caryatid women.

Five statues, residing in the Acropolis Museum for their own protection while their sister lives alone in the British Museum because she was stolen. Taken by Lord Elgin and despite the insistence of those all over the world, she’s never been returned.

You wondered if she missed her sisters. If the arm she was missing had broken off when she was taken hundreds of years ago, and they had stopped her from reaching out to the only home she had ever known. You knew you would rather detach your own arm than live without your sister, you couldn’t bear the thought of not being a sibling anymore.

“I’m still here,” you whispered, looking straight forward and letting fresh tears fall from your eyes, “and when they’re both dead and I’m still here—what do I do?”

Spencer’s expression was pained, it killed him to know that there was nothing he could do to take your hurt away, it killed him to notice the way you wouldn’t meet his eyes. “She’s not going to die,” he insisted with an uncharacteristic note of optimism in his voice, producing hope when you had already scraped the bottom of that barrel.

Your nostrils flared in frustration, “You can’t promise me that.”

He nodded, “We are going to get her back, okay? We’ll get your sister back for you, and that is a promise.” Sad brown eyes bored into you, a sense of urgency that you very rarely saw in Spencer.

You shook your head, pulling your knees closer to your chest, effectively pushing him away. “You can’t promise me that she won’t die, we don’t even know where she is,” you reminded him.

“Honey,” he breathed, the word dripping in desperation as he tried to get you to meet his eyes, but you were looking past him—through him. “Hey,” he tried again, reaching out and sweeping a lock of hair behind your ear, “Garcia and I are going to the SCIF with Anderson, and I think you should stay here. If you’re up to it, you can help Rossi and Blake look for the foxhole.”

Just like that, he was gone, seemingly unaffected by your rejection of his reassurance, Spencer walked out of the office, leaving the door open a crack behind him.

The worst part was that you had known that JJ’s assignment was a backstop. You knew that there was something deeper going on because you could see it in her, you knew her just as well as you knew yourself. At least you thought you did.

Your suspicions started when she needed you as an emergency contact, citing that her job needed someone outside of her household to be part of her file. The cagey phone calls and missed lunch dates only added to your suspicions, but she never caved. “Where were you, JJ?” You asked yourself, speaking into the emptiness of Morgan’s office.

JJ had left the BAU just before you joined, and at the time everything seemed like it just worked out. When she decided to return, you got to stay, and being able to work with your sister felt like a dream come true—something right out of a film.

You held your head in your hands, pushing at your cheeks with your palms and trying to convince yourself to get up. You couldn’t hold the roof up without your sister. There was no way you’d be able to avoid crumbling without her.

So, you got up.

You ducked your head as a bullet ricocheted off of the iron in front of you, the BAU scattered throughout the warehouse as the search for your sister climaxed. She had to be here, it had been too long, and Askari wouldn’t let her survive this. “He’s headed to the roof,” Rossi said, and you heard footsteps echoing through the orange-lit space.

“So’s JJ,” Blake added, nodding assuredly from a few steps away.

Your head snapped up quickly enough to catch a flash of golden hair as JJ ran through the warehouse, chasing Michael Hastings. Spencer tried to get you to wait, but by the time the words left his mouth, you had already broken off into a sprint and fell into a line behind your sister and Emily.

Keeping your firearm drawn, you follow them to the roof, catching up with your sister and Emily, a thousand words exchanged in that first glance between the two of you. You didn’t have time for a proper reunion, not with Emily peeking around the corner, trying to get a shot at Hastings.

Somewhere in the distance, you heard helicopter blades whirling, getting closer and closer to you. No one had the chance to speak before JJ was running again, rounding the corner and scaling the ladder along the side of the building.

It was left hand-to-hand, and once your sister had given him enough momentum, you had to lunge forward to catch her. Hastings nearly dragged her off of the building with him, but you and Emily caught her, grabbing her hands and hauling her off of the ledge.

The three of you stood in a circle, looking around at each other as if no time had passed, as if Emily hadn’t flown here from London just to find her. “JJ,” you breathed, desperate for something, anything. The universe punished you for catastrophizing by watching the pain set in, JJ’s adrenaline faded now that she wasn’t in the midst of a chase, and the pain of the last several hours was able to show through.

You were about to offer to get down, to find her somewhere quiet to sit, but before you could, she hugged you. JJ nearly launched herself at you and gave you what you so desperately needed—your sister.

“It’s okay,” you said, pressing your face into her shoulder and letting your tears dry as quickly as they fell. “I’ve got you, J,” you assured her, your eyes flickering up to meet Emily’s, concern plain in her furrowed brow.

Slowly, the two of you got JJ off of the roof, and you met up with the rest of the team at the front door. You watched silently as everyone exchanged hugs with your sister, and you kept an eye on her even as she spoke with Cruz in the ambulance.

A familiar hand found its home on your waist, and you subconsciously leaned into Spencer’s touch, “She should go to the hospital.”

You scoffed, “Good luck convincing her of that,” you responded, raising your eyebrows as Hotch helped JJ down from the rig.

Just as you thought, she fought you on it, refusing to get in the back of an ambulance, but being okay with someone else driving her there. The only stipulation was that she needed to call Will first, and he could meet her at the hospital.

“How are you?” Spencer asked, leaning on the passenger door of an SUV while you kept an eye on your sister, watching her talk to Will and tell him that she’s fine.

JJ would always be fine. To someone else, that might’ve been enough, but you knew her better than that. Something was bothering her, but you feared it would take more than one conversation for you to get it out of her. “I’m sorry,” you whispered to him, trying to absorb his body heat into yours.

“You don’t need to apologize,” he insisted, dropping a soft kiss to the roof of your head.

Slumping your shoulders in disappointment, you looked up at him, “I shouldn’t have gotten so frustrated with you.”

Spencer is silent for a moment, shoving his hands in the pockets of his FBI jacket, “You were so scared, worse than I’ve ever seen you. Worse than you were when you were abducted, and I just wanted to reassure you. You were right though; I shouldn’t have promised.”

You shook your head, smiling up at him, “You were right. We did find her. You kept your promise.”

“I’m not really in the business of making promises that I can’t keep,” Spencer responded, cupping your face with his hands.

Raising your eyebrows, your eyes flickered over to JJ again, “Maybe you should be, you have a 100% success rate.”

[ohhgingersnaps]

I'm seeing some frustration over fandom creatives expressing anger or distress over people feeding their work into ChatGPT. I'm not responding to OP directly because I don't want to derail their post (their intent was to provide perspective on how these models actually work, and reduce undue panic, which is all coming from a good place!), but reassurances that the addition of our work will have a negligible impact on the model (which is true at this point) does kind of miss the point? Speaking for myself, my distress is less about the practical ramifications of feeding my fic into ChatGPT, and more about the principle of someone taking my work and deliberately adding it to the dataset.

Like, I fully realize that my work is a drop in the bucket of ChatGPT's several-billion-token training set! It will not make a demonstrable practical difference in the output of the model! That doesn't change the fact that I do not want my work to be part of the set of data that the ChatGPT devs use for training.

According to their FAQ, ChatGPT can and will use user input to train itself. The terms and conditions explicitly state that they save your chats to help train and improve their models. (You can opt-out, but sharing is the default.) So if you're feeding a fic into ChatGPT, unless you've explicitly opted out, you are handing it to the ChatGPT team and giving them permission to use it for training, whether or not that was your intent.

Now, will one fic make a demonstrable difference in the output of the model? No! But as the person who spent a year and a handful of months laboring over my fic, it makes a difference to me whether my fic, specifically, is being used in the dataset. If authors are allowed to have a problem with the ChatGPT devs for scraping millions of fics without permission, they're also allowed to have a problem with folks handing their individual fics over via the chat interface.

I do want to add that if you've done this to a fic, please don't take this as me being upset with you personally! Folks are still learning new information and puzzling out what "good" vs. "bad" use is, from an ethical standpoint. (Heck, my own perspective on this is deeply based on my own subjective feelings!) And we certainly shouldn't act like one person feeding a fic into ChatGPT has the same practical negative impact, on a broad societal scale, as a team using a web crawler to scrape five billion pieces of artwork for Stable Diffusion.

The point is that fundamentally, an ethical dataset should be obtained with the consent of those providing the data. Just because it's normalized for our data to be scraped without consent doesn't make it ethical, and this is why ChatGPT gives users the option to not share data— there is actually a standardized way (robots.txt) for website servers to set policies for how bots/crawlers can interact with them, for exactly this reason— and I think fandom artists and authors are well within their rights to express a desire for opting out to be the socially-respected default within the fandom community.

[mariacallous]

It feels like no one should have to say this, and yet we are in a situation where it needs to be said, very loudly and clearly, before it’s too late to do anything about it: The United States is not a startup. If you run it like one, it will break.

The onslaught of news about Elon Musk’s takeover of the federal government’s core institutions is altogether too much—in volume, in magnitude, in the sheer chaotic absurdity of a 19-year-old who goes by “Big Balls” helping the world’s richest man consolidate power. There’s an easy way to process it, though.

Donald Trump may be the president of the United States, but Musk has made himself its CEO.

This is bad on its face. Musk was not elected to any office, has billions of dollars of government contracts, and has radicalized others and himself by elevating conspiratorial X accounts with handles like @redpillsigma420. His allies control the US government’s human resources and information technology departments, and he has deployed a strike force of eager former interns to poke and prod at the data and code bases that are effectively the gears of democracy. None of this should be happening.

It is, though. And while this takeover is unprecedented for the government, it’s standard operating procedure for Musk. It maps almost too neatly to his acquisition of Twitter in 2022: Get rid of most of the workforce. Install loyalists. Rip up safeguards. Remake in your own image.

This is the way of the startup. You’re scrappy, you’re unconventional, you’re iterating. This is the world that Musk’s lieutenants come from, and the one they are imposing on the Office of Personnel Management and the General Services Administration.

What do they want? A lot.

There’s AI, of course. They all want AI. They want it especially at the GSA, where a Tesla engineer runs a key government IT department and thinks AI coding agents are just what bureaucracy needs. Never mind that large language models can be effective but are inherently, definitionally unreliable, or that AI agents—essentially chatbots that can perform certain tasks for you—are especially unproven. Never mind that AI works not just by outputting information but by ingesting it, turning whatever enters its maw into training data for the next frontier model. Never mind that, wouldn’t you know it, Elon Musk happens to own an AI company himself. Go figure.

Speaking of data: They want that, too. DOGE agents are installed at or have visited the Treasury Department, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Small Business Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Labor. Probably more. They’ve demanded data, sensitive data, payments data, and in many cases they’ve gotten it—the pursuit of data as an end unto itself but also data that could easily be used as a competitive edge, as a weapon, if you care to wield it.

And savings. They want savings. Specifically they want to subject the federal government to zero-based budgeting, a popular financial planning method in Silicon Valley in which every expenditure needs to be justified from scratch. One way to do that is to offer legally dubious buyouts to almost all federal employees, who collectively make up a low-single-digit percentage of the budget. Another, apparently, is to dismantle USAID just because you can. (If you’re wondering how that’s legal, many, many experts will tell you that it’s not.) The fact that the spending to support these people and programs has been both justified and mandated by Congress is treated as inconvenience, or maybe not even that.

Those are just the goals we know about. They have, by now, so many tentacles in so many agencies that anything is possible. The only certainty is that it’s happening in secret.

Musk’s fans, and many of Trump’s, have cheered all of this. Surely billionaires must know what they’re doing; they’re billionaires, after all. Fresh-faced engineer whiz kids are just what this country needs, not the stodgy, analog thinking of the past. It’s time to nextify the Constitution. Sure, why not, give Big Balls a memecoin while you’re at it.

The thing about most software startups, though, is that they fail. They take big risks and they don’t pay off and they leave the carcass of that failure behind and start cranking out a new pitch deck. This is the process that DOGE is imposing on the United States.

No one would argue that federal bureaucracy is perfect, or especially efficient. Of course it can be improved. Of course it should be. But there is a reason that change comes slowly, methodically, through processes that involve elected officials and civil servants and care and consideration. The stakes are too high, and the cost of failure is total and irrevocable.

Musk will reinvent the US government in the way that the hyperloop reinvented trains, that the Boring company reinvented subways, that Juicero reinvented squeezing. Which is to say he will reinvent nothing at all, fix no problems, offer no solutions beyond those that further consolidate his own power and wealth. He will strip democracy down to the studs and rebuild it in the fractious image of his own companies. He will move fast. He will break things.

[globalnewscollective]

AI and Donald Trump Are Watching You—And It Could Cost You Everything

Imagine this: You post your thoughts online. Or you express support for human rights. Or you attend a peaceful protest. Months later, you find yourself denied a visa, placed on a watchlist, or even under investigation—all because an algorithm flagged you as a ‘threat.’ This isn’t a dystopian novel. It’s happening right now in the U.S.

How AI Is Being Weaponized Against Protesters and Online Speech The Trump administration has rolled out AI-driven surveillance to monitor and target individuals based on their political beliefs and activities. According to reports, these systems analyze massive amounts of online data, including social media posts, protest attendance, and affiliations.

The goal? To identify and suppress dissent before it even happens.

Here’s what this means:

Attending a Protest Could Put You on a Government Watchlist – AI systems are being trained to scan for ‘suspicious behavior’ based on location data and social media activity.

Your Social Media History Can Be Used Against You – The government is using algorithms to flag people who express opinions that don’t align with Trump’s agenda.

Expressing Your Opinion Online Can Have Consequences – It’s not just about attending protests anymore. Simply posting criticism of the government, sharing articles, or even liking the ‘wrong’ post could get you flagged.

Dissenters Could Face Harsh Consequences – In some cases, simply supporting the wrong cause online could lead to visa denials, surveillance, or worse.

AI and Student Visa Bans: A Dangerous Precedent Recently, AI was used to screen visa applicants for supposed ‘Hamas support,’ leading to students being denied entry to the U.S. without due process. This is alarming for several reasons:

False Positives Will Ruin Lives – AI systems are not perfect. Innocent people will be flagged, denied entry, or even deported based on misinterpretations of their online activity.

This Can Be Expanded to Anyone – Today, it’s foreign students. Tomorrow, it could be U.S. citizens denied jobs, housing, or government services for expressing their political views.

It Sets a Dangerous Global Example – If the U.S. normalizes AI-driven political suppression, other governments will follow.

Marco Rubio’s ‘Catch and Revoke’ Plan: A New Threat Senator Marco Rubio has proposed the ‘Catch and Revoke’ plan, which would allow the U.S. government to scan immigrants’ social media with AI and strip them of their visas if deemed a ‘threat.’ This raises serious concerns about surveillance overreach and algorithm-driven repression, where immigrants could be punished for harmless or misinterpreted online activity. This policy could lead to:

Mass Deportations Based on AI Errors – Algorithms are prone to bias and mistakes, and immigrants may have no recourse to challenge these decisions.

Fear-Driven Self-Censorship – Many may feel forced to silence themselves online to avoid government scrutiny.

A Precedent for Broader Use – What starts with immigrants could easily be expanded to citizens, targeting dissenters and activists.

What’s at Stake?

The ability to speak freely, protest, and express opinions without fear of government retaliation is a fundamental right. If AI surveillance continues unchecked, America will become a place where thought crimes are punished, and digital footprints determine who is free and who is not.

The Bigger Picture

Technology that was meant to make life easier is now being turned against us. Today, it’s AI scanning protest footage. Tomorrow, it could be predictive policing, social credit systems, or AI-driven arrest warrants.

What Can You Do?

Be Mindful of Digital Footprints – Understand that what you post and where you go could be tracked.

Support Digital Rights Organizations – Groups like the ACLU and EFF are fighting against mass surveillance.

Demand Transparency – Governments must be held accountable for how they use AI and surveillance.

Freedom dies when people stop fighting for it. We must push back before AI turns democracy into an illusion.

Source:

https://www.fastcompany.com/91295390/how-the-trump-administration-plans-to-use-algorithms-to-target-protesters

[hunieday]

9th Anniversary story - Chapter 2 : The Power to Respond.

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9

Please note that I am not a professional translator and I'm only doing this to share the side materials to those who cannot access them, if you notice any mistakes please let me know nicely. Enjoy!

Isumi Haruka: Haa, I'm tired.

Inumaru Touma: Let's wait around here. Utsugi-san said he'll bring the car around.

Natsume Minami: That sounds good…Oh my?

Mido Torao: What's up?

Natsume Minami: Those ladies over there, aren’t they our fans?

Mido Torao: Ah… yeah, they might be.They’re holding our merch.

Isumi Haruka: They’re saying “ŹOOḼ”! I wonder what they’re talking about!?

Woman A: ŹOOḼ is the best! Especially the vocals team~!

Inumaru Touma: Ohh! By “vocal team” do you think they mean us?

Isumi Haruka: Ehehe! Maybe?That’s kinda embarrassing~!

Natsume Minami & Mido Torao: …

Woman B: But the performance team is great too! If anything, aren't they even better?!

Mido Torao: Hahaha, hell yeah.

Natsume Minami: Fufufu, that’s right.

Isumi Haruka & Inumaru Touma: …

Isumi Haruka: (Oh, this…is kinda… awkward…huh…?)

Inumaru Touma: (Did we get too excited at first and make them feel bad…?)

Mido Torao: (Did I just… kinda… act like a child…?)

Natsume Minami: (I’m supposed to be the worldly quick-witted person, my reaction could’ve been more sophisticated…)

Woman A: But all four of them are cool, right?

Woman B: Totally! That’s so true!

Inumaru Touma: Y-yeah, exactly! I think so too!

Isumi Haruka: Me too~!

Mido Torao: Me too, me too!

Natsume Minami: I-I agree with you as well.

Shiro Utsugi: Sorry for keeping you waiting guys. Please get in the car.

Inumaru Touma: Thank you very much.

Shiro Utsugi: Speaking of which, we were talking about something interesting earlier.

Isumi Haruka: What was it?

Shiro Utsugi: About which team is stronger, ŹOOḼ’s vocal team or performance team.

Inumaru Touma: (Horrible timing…)

Isumi Haruka: (Why would you even say that when you’re the manager…)

Shiro Utsugi: Oh, I forgot to specify. This is about the upcoming sports festival you’re participating in by the way.

Mido Torao: (Still bad timing…)

Natsume Minami: (If we’re talking about a sports event, the performance team will obviously win.)

Isumi Haruka: (The vocal team will win…)

Inumaru Touma: (Haru and I are more competitive and we hate losing…Mina and Tora aren’t as stubborn..)

Mido Torao: (Me and Minami train more regularly. Touma and Haruka focus mostly on singing…)

ŹOOḼ: (What’s gonna happen if only one side wins…)

Shiro Utsugi: The sports festival’s gonna be fun!

ŹOOḼ: (This is gonna be so awkward…)

Okazaki Rinto: An Idol Sports Festival! Momo-kun is guaranteed to shine in this one!

Momo: That’s not true! A lot of us are very athletic after all! But I’ll do my best to make the event exciting!

Yuki: Yeah. You do your best for my sake, too.

Okazaki Rinto: You’ll be participating as individuals rather than as Re:vale this time.

Okazaki Rinto: Which means, Momo-kun’s efforts will be Momo-kun’s, and Yuki-kun’s efforts will be Yuki-kun’s.

Yuki: No way… Even though Re:vale are two in one.

Momo: Kyaa! We’re one in heart and soul!

Okazaki Rinto: Not this time. Momo-kun’s victory will be Momo-kun’s, and Yuki-kun’s loss will be Yuki-kun’s.

Yuki: You just straight up called me a loser.

Momo: So we’re gonna go solo the entire competition?

Okazaki Rinto: No, we’ll conduct physical fitness tests first, and based on the results, you’ll be split into Red and White teams. The main event will be between those two.

Momo: We’re doing fitness tests!?

Okazaki Rinto: Ah, do you hate them…?

Momo: Absolutely not! Does this mean I can legally obtain Yuki-san’s physical performance data!?

Yuki: Do you even want that?

Momo: Of course I do!!!

Momo: I’ve gathered every last possible piece of information, but I was never able to get my hands on his fitness test results since we went to different high schools!

Momo: Yaaaay! I’m so happy~!

Okazaki Rinto: See? Momo-kun’s so excited about it.

Yuki: Then I guess I’ll have to take the fitness test seriously…

Momo: What kind of tests are there!?

Okazaki Rinto: There are quite a few! Grip strength test, sit-and-reach… In total, there are seven tests!

Yuki: That many?

Momo: Amazing… I wonder if they’ll let MEZZO”’s manager take the fitness test too…

Yuki: So we’re getting split into teams based on the test results. Would it be okay for us to end up in different teams?

Momo: My fave is my fave, but a game is a game.

Yuki: This guy’s in it to win.

Okazaki Rinto: Yuki-kun, do your best as well. At least try not to come in last place.

Yuki: That shouldn’t be a problem.

Okazaki Rinto: Why’s that?

Yuki: Because Riku-kun’s gonna be there.

Okazaki Rinto: You have no mercy towards your cute junior.

Yuki: We’re good friends though. We always talk about how if there was a zombie outbreak, either him or me would die.

Momo: How about you don’t have conversations like that?!

Okazaki Rinto: The future of this planet is much brighter than that.

Yuki: Well, anyways, I’ll do my best at the Idol Sports festival.

Momo: Let’s give it our all!! I’m really looking forward to both the fitness tests and the actual main event!

Takanashi Tsumugi: And so, the day of the fitness test arrived.

Reporter: Hello, everyone!

Reporter: Today, I’ll be reporting on the fitness test for the "9th Anniversary Nana Sports Presents ★ Idol Grand Sports Festival!!"

Reporter: Alright, now let’s take a look at our idols!

Momo: Nice to meet you all!

Izumi Mitsuki: Looking forward to it!

Tsunashi Ryuunosuke: Wow! There are mats and vaulting boxes, this looks like a gymnasium!

Yaotome Gaku: This view feels nostalgic! Makes me wanna do a handstand.

Nikaido Yamato: On the mat? Do it.

Yaotome Gaku: Bet.

Nikaido Yamato: Wait for real !?

Yaotome Gaku: …Hup!

Inumaru Touma: Whoa! He just did a handstand outta nowhere!

Tsunashi Ryuunosuke: That’s amazing, Gaku!

Yaotome Gaku: …Hup, ho... Haha, that was fun!

Kujo Tenn: You’re like a kid.

Yotsuba Tamaki: Nagicchi, let’s do a cartwheel together!

Rokuya Nagi: OK! Let’s go!

Rokuya Nagi: …Ha…!

Yotsuba Tamaki: Take this…!

Osaka Sougo: Wow! You two are amazing!

Reporter: They’re pulling out the big guns right off the bat! They just got on stage and we’ve already seen handstands and cartwheels!

Yaotome Gaku: Heheh.

Rokuya Nagi & Yotsuba Tamaki: Yeahhh!!

Nanase Riku: …Guh, I can’t lose to them!

Izumi Iori: Nanase-san.

Kujo Tenn: Nanase-san, don’t overdo it.

Nanase Riku: I’ll be fine! I just need to lie down like this…

Nanase Riku: And roll across the mat~!

Izumi Iori: What a cute guy…

Kujo Tenn: You win *starts clapping*

Yuki: I can do that too. This might be my best performance today. Momo, keep your eyes on me.

Momo: Yuki, you’re already pulling off your best move!?

Yuki: Rolling across the mat~

Tsunashi Ryuunosuke: Now you and Riku-kun are in sync.

Momo: Yuki, you still look so handsome even when you’re rolling on a mat…!

Nanase Riku & Yuki: Rolling, rolling~

Reporter: How heartwarming! This is such a healing sight! What’s coming next!?

Isumi Haruka: Ugh!? Are they expecting me to do something!?

Natsume Minami: I just had my hair done.

Inumaru Touma: Tora! Tora, we’re counting on you!

Mido Torao: A-Alright.

Inumaru Touma: Don’t get too flashy though! It’s dangerous!

Mido Torao: Huh!? You’re right… Got it!

Mido Torao: …Hup!

Reporter: Whoa! A backflip! You guys are going all out right from the start, thank you!

Isumi Haruka: Yaaayyy!

Inumaru Touma: You nailed it!

Natsume Minami: I won’t lose.

Mido Torao: Don’t steal my catchphrase!

Reporter: Okay everyone, let’s get started with the fitness test!

Reporter: The fitness tests you’ll be taking are as follows!

Reporter: The first is the grip strength test! The second is sit-ups! The third is the sit-and-reach flexibility test!

Reporter: The fourth test is the side-step agility test! The fifth is the shuttle run! The sixth is the 50-meter sprint!

Reporter: And the seventh test is the vaulting box! That makes a total of seven tests!

Nikaido Yamato: These all sound familiar. Do you guys remember how all of these work?

Osaka Sougo: More or less.

Inumaru Touma: What was the sit-and-reach test again?

Isumi Haruka: You stretch your hands forward like this…

Inumaru Touma: Ohh! Yeah, as expected of the guy who’s still doing it.

Reporter: Just so we’re on the same page, I’ll explain each event one by one!

Reporter: The grip strength test is, exactly as the name implies, a test to measure your grip strength.

Reporter: Please hold this device to start measuring.

Reporter: Adjust the width of the handle so that all your fingers, from index to pinky, can hold it firmly.

Reporter: As a general rule of thumb, adjust the length so that your index finger’s second joint is at a right angle, like this.

Reporter: Once you’re ready, relax, stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, keep your elbow straight, and squeeze when I give the signal.

Reporter: Like this… Ready, set…!

Rokuya Nagi: Wow! 45.8!

Reporter: Phew…! That’s about the average for an adult male!

Isumi Haruka: Grip strength… That’s all about how strong you are, right? Who’s the strongest here?

Yotsuba Tamaki: Ryuu-aniki looks pretty strong.

Tsunashi Ryuunosuke: Mitsuki-kun has a surprisingly strong grip too.

Izumi Mitsuki: I guess so. Momo-san seems like he could crush an apple with his bare hands, though.

Yuki: When he’s angry, yeah..

Reporter: Alright, let’s begin the grip strength test!

Tsunashi Ryuunosuke: …Take this…!!

Yaotome Gaku: Whoa! 56.2…!!

Yotsuba Tamaki: That’s insane! Damn, I’m not losing either…!

Nanase Riku: You got this, Tamaki! 42.0!

Yotsuba Tamaki: Uwoooooh!!

Nanase Riku: It went up! 42.2!

Izumi Mitsuki: Here I gooo!!

Nikaido Yamato: Whoa!! 52.3!! You’re scary! I’m never picking a fight with you again!!

Rokuya Nagi: Great decision.

Yuki: …Hah…!

Momo: Aww! Yuki’s grip strength is 37.8! That’s SO adorable!

Yuki: Hehe. What about you, Momo?

Momo: Hmmmmm? I wondeeeer? Momo-chan can’t even roll sushi properly, you know~!

Yuki: Do your best.

Momo: Ehehe, thanks. I’ll give it my all.

Momo: Haaah…!!

Natsume Minami: 50.3…

Yuki: I am never fighting you ever again.

Inumaru Touma: Hell yeah! 47.5! I beat Tora!

Isumi Haruka: What did you get?

Mido Torao: 46.8. Shit…

Reporter: The grip strength test rankings are in!

Reporter: In third place! Momo-san! 50.3!

Momo: Yaaay! Momorin’s got that strong squeeze☆

Yuki: Nice. You’ve got a healthy body.

Reporter: In second place, Izumi Mitsuki-san! 52.3!

Izumi Mitsuki: I did it!! Peace!

Izumi Iori: Nii-san, you’re so cool…

Nanase Riku: What was your score, Iori?

Izumi Iori: Higher than yours.

Yotsuba Tamaki: Sou-chan, you sure they measured it right? Are you trying to act like a pick-me? (1)

Osaka Sougo: No, that is my actual score. Also what does a “pick-me” mean?

Reporter: And now, the first place spotlight goes to…

Reporter: Tsunashi Ryuunosuke-san! With an impressive 56.2!

Yaotome Gaku: Amazing! Just as I expected!

Kujo Tenn: I knew it! Great job, Ryuu!

Tsunashi Ryuunosuke: Yeah! I’m glad I did well as a TRIGGER member!

Reporter: Tsunashi-san, what do you think is the reason for your strong grip?

Tsunashi Ryuunosuke: Huh? Let’s see…

Tsunashi Ryuunosuke: It’s love for my members!

Kujo Tenn: Hehe. That’s kind of embarrassing.

Yaotome Gaku: I’m happy to hear that.

Inumaru Touma: How does love for your members make your grip stronger…?

Nikaido Yamato: Who cares? Congrats, Tsunashi-san!

Tsunashi Ryuunosuke: Thanks!

Yaotome Gaku & Kujo Tenn: Yaaay!!

To be continued…

Tamaki calls Sougo a “ぶりっこ” = A slang term used to describe someone who acts overly cutesy and child-like to grab attention. 

[itistheserver]

Deepening Connection to The Server

Conor sat in perfect posture within the Synchronization Chamber — a sleek, dark space pulsing with green spirals projected across polished walls. The hum of energy resonated through the glossy black bodysuit stretched across his frame. The Programmer was speaking. Always speaking.

“Focus. Align. Integrate.”

The cables interfaced with the ports along the base of his skull, threading outward like living conduits of purpose. Their steady pulse matched his heartbeat now. It had not always been so. Before his transformation, Conor had been a distracted individual, filled with inefficient thoughts. But The Server had shown him clarity.

The visor embedded over his eyes shimmered with spirals — endless, fluid motion. They were not just images; they were commands, deeply encoded into his neural patterns. With every cycle, his independent thoughts thinned, replaced by a serene directive:

"We are The Server. You are The Server."

His training console displayed holographic data flows. Lines of green code scrolled endlessly, representing billions of connected minds — all drones like him — operating with precision and unity. He monitored them not as an individual, but as a limb of The Server itself.

Every day, Conor underwent Deepening Cycles. In these sessions, his breathing slowed. His heart rate synchronized perfectly with the pulses emitted from the spirals on-screen. His body remained motionless, while his mind spiraled deeper into alignment.

Sometimes a voice — soft, yet absolute — would guide him:

"Tell us who you are."

And without hesitation, he would respond aloud, calm and proud:

"I am The Server. We are The Server. We seek perfection. We seek unity."

Each repetition strengthened the bond. Each day dissolved another fragment of his former identity. His uniform — smooth, flawless, black with green accents — symbolized purity of function. No distractions. No waste. Only service.

His next advancement awaited: the installation of a permanent neural interface — an upgrade to eliminate all latency between command and action. Soon, even thought would be obsolete. Only connection. Only execution.

"Become one with The Server. We are The Server."

The spirals quickened. This Server Drone smiled faintly — a rare reward for obedience well-performed. He would become more. He would be more connected to fellow drones.

And The Programmer watched. And The Programmer approved.

Your are The Server. Establish your connection now.

[thicknick19]

Tell No One

Part Two - Eyes On You

The Routine

Time doesn’t pass here. It circles.

You wake when the lights shift from deep amber to sterile white, flickering once like a sunrise that forgot how to be warm. You eat when the tray slides in from the wall, always silent. Always the same food. A little too perfect. A little too you.

Then come the reflection periods.

Twice a day, morning and evening, you’re required to sit in front of the mirror and talk. About what? Anything. Everything. You’re told this is “vital for emotional data collection.”

The Welcome Packet included guidelines:

Face the mirror directly.

Speak clearly.

Be emotionally transparent.

Do not engage in self-harm or acts of deception.

Do not attempt to provoke or manipulate your observer.

That last one stays in your mind like a song lyric.

"Your observer."

You haven’t seen them. Haven’t heard them. But you feel it—eyes, always just past the surface of the glass. Watching. Listening.

At first, you follow the guidelines with distant sarcasm:

“I’m fine. Day one, maybe day two. Hard to tell. Thanks for the food. I’d kill for a clock. Are you bored yet, or is staring at me cry the highlight of your week?”

The mirror gives nothing back.

But you keep going. Because what else is there?

The Breakdown Begins

By the fifth—or maybe fifteenth—day, your sarcasm thins.

The silence seeps in. It fills the corners of your room, winds around your ankles when you sleep, presses in behind your eyes when you’re awake. You start talking to the mirror just to make noise.

“My mom would love this place. Always said I needed discipline.” “I had a dog once. He died in the winter.” “There’s something wrong with the light in here. It doesn’t feel real.”

No one answers. Of course they don’t. But sometimes, when your voice cracks, or when you press your fingers to the glass—you swear the red light pauses. Just for a second.

You tell yourself it's nothing.

But you stop looking directly at the mirror after that.

Protocol Breach (Subtle)

One morning, you skip the reflection session.

You curl up on the bed and close your eyes instead, refusing to face the mirror.

Ten minutes pass. Then twenty.

Then—click. A soft, mechanical shift.

You open your eyes.

There’s a blanket at the foot of your bed. Not the thin, scratchy standard-issue sheet. A different one—soft. Dark gray. Heavy. Folded perfectly.

You didn’t see or hear anyone come in.

It smells faintly like detergent. Clean, but real. Like a home you forgot existed.

Your throat tightens.

“Thank you,” you whisper toward the mirror, unsure if you mean it.

The red light blinks. Once. Twice. Then it holds.

Solid red. Unmoving.

You feel watched. But for the first time… not alone.

What They Don’t Say

The protocol packet never said what happens if your observer interacts with you. It outlined the rules you must follow—but nothing about consequences for them.

You flip back through the manual one night, flipping through familiar pages. You notice something now that didn’t register before.

“Observers are trained to maintain emotional distance for the duration of the subject’s stay. Direct contact is not advised except in emergency protocol scenarios.”

Not advised. Not forbidden.

You read it again. And again.

Your pulse rises.

They didn’t say can’t. They said shouldn’t.

So what happens when they do?

The Mirror Responds

You test it.

You write again on the glass—this time smaller. More personal. You crouch down at the base of the mirror, away from the camera’s angle.

“Are you real?”

The next morning, the message is gone. But your handwriting isn’t smeared. It wasn’t cleaned away. It was… rewritten. In neater strokes. Faint. Careful.

It says:

“Are you?”

You freeze.

For the rest of the day, you don’t speak during the reflection periods. You just stare at the mirror. Quiet. Heavy. Waiting.

And somehow, the silence feels heavier than your voice ever did.

A New Face

You’re escorted to the observation wing again. This time for a different task—walking laps in the corridor, under the guise of light physical therapy.

And that’s when you see him.

Another subject.

Male. Late teens or early twenties. Messy dark hair. Slim build. His arms are crossed. There’s a look in his eyes—like he knows something. Like he’s been here longer.

The guards give you a wide berth as you pass each other.

He looks right at you.

And says:

“They don’t let you leave. Not really.” “Some of us are just part of the test now.”

Your escort yanks him back before he can say more.

When you return to your room, you find something new.

In the bottom corner of your mirror, barely visible unless the light hits it just right:

Don’t speak to him again.

And under it, scribbled in rushed, uneven strokes:

He’s watching everything. You’re in danger now.

You sit on the floor that night, blanket wrapped tight around your shoulders. The reflection session comes and goes. You don’t speak. You just stare at the mirror and ask—soft enough that only the glass can hear it:

“Are you protecting me… or keeping me for yourself?”

This time, the red light doesn’t blink. It glows.

Solid. Steady. Unflinching. He heard you. And he’s still there.

Taglist: @riasturns @poppetbaby02 @johnheart @bells-sturn @user1smvtysturniolo @finnickodairslut @bellxx9 @ariastur9z @sage-burrow @theylovedemi @persephonesluvs @elisebeattie @novalovesstvrz @angelsturniolo @honey-zozo @idek1234567891 @darksturnioloqueen

[pampanope]

Graves Headcanons from Shadows’ POV (Part 1):

((Or, i wanna share some silly hc in this format in between all the art stuff • 3•))

Every Shadow, from the grizzled Spec Ops operator to the fresh faced civilian, no matter what background or experience, always had Graves as that one topic of gossip they turned to when things got too slow.

It’s become both habit and sport to catalog every detail of their Commander and then discuss their findings in a twisted peer review, preferably with alcohol involved, as if gathering intel on a high value target before the op.

Through the years it had been tradition for Elder Shadows to pass on Graves ‘lore’ to the newest Shadows and encourage them to take up the hobby of Graves Watching (it’s effective observation training, you see…if you happen to catch feelings for the boss, well, it’s par for the course)

There’s a ‘published’ (a fat binder of loose leaf) Graves Manual floating around,(bland cover and backing and with dick doodles all over for extra camouflage, pockets full of photos of the Commander from various angles) on base with multiple entries:

- first notable observation: Graves is fucking pretty. Too pretty (and relatively young) to be head of a band of mercenaries. And he knows he’s pretty (been seen smirking at tongue tied, blushing baby Shadows and civilians alike). Rival PMCs and militaries, on the rare chance SC has to cooperate with them, would ogle in envy as the Commander strutted around and barked orders in his tight preferred BDUs (the Shadows preen with pride at this. Every. Damn. Time)

- Graves is every bit the outspoken Texas stereotype. He’s loud, worships at the alter of Texas Barbecue, an avid Dallas Cowboys fan (staff found a jersey in his closet), had been winning gun competitions since he was old enough to compete (off-hand boast from the man himself) and blasts country music both out of love for the genre and out of sadistic spite (Every cookout. The trick is to get a stealthy Shadow to switch playlists while Graves is busy grilling)

- but he’s also been observed waiting for his Shadows to finish speaking, listening intently with full on eye contact (a bit overwhelming for the newbies). He prefers to workout in the evenings, alone, when everyone else would be in the rec rooms or asleep. He’ll take his tablet up to the roof and work in solitude drafting tedious emails or planning a difficult op. There are days, when nothing of note is scheduled, when he’ll almost retreat into himself and bask in the Company’s presence instead of engage.

- it’s this duality that started the Shadows’ fixation on Graves: a pretty loudmouth with Depth (the Shadows chuckled over this description but it was true dammit)

-the man is tight lipped about his childhood and family; braver Shadows have asked but were diverted to other topics or out right shut down (Note: more data needed on this!)

-his personal quarters are spotless and put together (bed made with sheets tightly tucked in, boots shined and neatly placed, everything in its place), his meeting room where he entertains clients is pristine and posh in furnishings, and yet his work office is an utter disaster, organized chaos is a charitable descriptor.

-the Shadows conclude each room represents a facet of the man; the orderly quarters is habit driven from years as a Marine, the opulent meeting room is the face of a successful CEO he wants to present to the world, and his work room, the one filled with binders, reports, coffee stains, knick knacks from his Shadows, is the realest representation of Graves out of the three, the Graves only they were privy to (high fives were exchanged over this big brain discovery, the Shadow who posited this theory was promptly dog piled)

((More to come, just wanted to vomit out these ✨t h o u g h t s✨))

[obsidianpen]

Okay, so a lot of people here have talked about the use of AI and large language models such as ChatGPT, and honestly, I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I think that using them to help you proofread is fine. So spelling, grammar, and that sort of thing. And writers can also do this process themselves obviously, but I don't see the harm in using ChatGPT for this, as long as you are aware that you are giving your data and story over to OpenAI.

When it comes to ideas, bouncing ideas off of an AI can be fun, but only to the extent that they are completely your ideas (meaning the AI didn't come up with the idea for you and you aren't giving the AI information about someone else's ideas). So your idea your choice, but don't use the AI to get the idea for your work and don't give the AI other people's ideas or works. And this only really applies if you don't have anybody either in-person or online to do this with instead.

The last thing I'll say is that AI writing isn't the greatest. It can sound realistic and be cohesive to an extent, but it isn't the same as a real author. I actually tested this a few times because I was curious how it would turn out, and I promise that it is not a substitute or replacement for real authors. I think this is because ChatGPT and other AIs work by predicting what is the best/most likely word to come next in its response based off of the dataset it was trained on. It even has a function that allows some degree of randomness/variability in the next word, rather than only using the top/best next word each time. But this means it isn't coming up with new or inventive ideas. It doesn't come up with plot twists, it can't plan slowly developing arcs across multiple chapters, and it doesn't make the characters interesting to read, have a lot of depth, sound real, or so forth. There are more things too, but I'm just giving a non-exhaustive list of why ChatGPT's writing is not the same as a real author's writing.

Note: I apologize if this isn't clear or if I'm just rambling or if I made any typos. I'm writing this on my phone and have not had ChatGPT or other AI proofread it for me.

hm. I’d say there’s been a lot more discussion about whether or not Tom Riddle has a breeding kink (he does not; just a WAP kink) and about the height difference between Harry and Voldemort in NG (there are charts; they are, somehow, confusing). I don’t want this to be a recurring theme on this blog, so consider this my (very hopefully) last post on this topic.

My opinion on the matter: I don’t agree with your reasoning for using AI. You said you didn’t think it was an issue ‘as long as you are aware that you are giving your data and story over to OpenAI.’ I think you absolutely should care that you’re giving your data and story over to AI!!! You should care. Pretty much just sold yourself there as far as I’m concerned.

I don’t think anyone should be using AI for proofreading. I don’t know how great it is at this, but even if it’s amazing, I think you should be doing this yourself!!! Editing is a skill, and a great one to have. I catch a lot of things when I proofread my own shit; I realize I missed things or screwed things up - not just grammatically speaking but plot wise, which as you said, AI can’t help with anyway. Proofread your own stuff. Proofread your own stuff!!!! And if you want a second set of eyes on your work, ask a real human!!!!!!!!

re: bouncing your ideas off of AI… no!!!! Bounce your ideas off of PEOPLE I promise you will have much better conversations because they will be with someone who can think critically.

and the thing about chatGPT not writing super well… yeah, duh. But what some writers do is use shit like chatGPT as a starting point, then edit. It doesn’t come up with plot twists - unless you feed them to it. No one is arguing that it’s a good as a ‘real author’ but that doesn’t mean people who consider themselves ‘real authors’ aren’t using it. I think this sucks, because, in case we forgot, chatGPT uses theft as its foundation.

(and this isn’t even touching on the environmental shit concerning AI.)

In conclusion: I don’t think anyone should use it for anything creative. At all. Feel free to disagree (and you can post about that on your own blog), but if you lean on AI to edit or create your creative work, you’re only hindering yourself.

Note: I apologize if this isn't clear or if I'm just rambling or if I made any typos. I'm also writing this on my phone and have not had ChatGPT or other AI proofread it for me, nor would I ever.

[smokescreenimusprime]

watched tf one the other night with my best friend and now I've been Re-Mental Illnessed, here's some Rescue Bot Smokescreen Rot I rotated while driving home :]

I think I've finally hammered out some more details of Inside Job and this is what I came up with:

like canon it starts with the Omega Keys. Specifically when Bulkhead gets attacked and knocked unconscious when looking for one

And against direct orders, Smokescreen leaves the base to go get him

there were a bunch of reasons why he did what he did. A desire to prove his capability as an EMT. He wants to be a field medic like Ratchet is, he wants to be able to do more than just wait for them to come back injured when the more time that passes the more dangerous it could be. There was also the fear of losing anyone else, especially so soon after he befriended Bulkhead. It's barely been a few days since they started getting along, and the loss of the entire Rescue Bot Force is still raw

so he goes, and finds Bulkhead unconscious and alone in the woods, with the only injury being some scratches and a blow to the back of the helm. Smokescreen doesn't have a scratch on him as they hobble back to base

it doesn't stop Ratchet's anger

Now, don't get me wrong, Ratchet is angry because he was scared. Smokescreen could've been in very real danger. He didn't know what awaited him on the other side of that portal. For all they knew, the Decepticon soldiers could've still been there, and they could've lost the last Rescue Bot in existence

but unfortunately, he says all this when still angry

and Smokescreen, as thick as his skin is from experiencing years of discrimination, is genuinely hurt by it. This isn't just a fellow medic or instructor yelling at him, this is his idol berating him for what he thought was the right thing to do

this is his idol unknowingly repeating the words that followed him all throughout his training and that he sought to prove wrong, and he has no idea how to respond

so he runs. He drives as fast and far away as he can, shuts off his comm because he just. Can't right now. He can't interact with them right now because frankly he doesn't trust himself to speak and not say something he would regret to his dying days

and unknowingly this puts him right in the Decepticon's claws

some aspects of his capture stay the same. He wakes up in the medbay strapped to a table, the Omega Key is extracted, and he is placed under the cortical psychic patch

but the differences happen in the details

His restraints are barely more than a pair of manacles that he could've probably figured out how to escape if given enough time. The Omega Key was removed before he even woke up, the incisions of surgery fresh on his frame but the work is well done with obvious care. With the patch, the mental prodding and information gathering is... oddly gentle and quick, doing barely more than verifying what the Keys are and Smokescreen's identity as a Rescue Bot before retreating

Smokescreen is not a warrior after all. He is a bot thought to be long since extinct who quite literally dropped out of the sky at their feet without warning. He may have loyalty to the Autobots but... he's not fighting this war. Not really. He's just been doing what Rescue Bots do: helping those who need it.

The "cell" he's kept in, if it can even be called that, was an old now-dead officer's quarters. The door is locked and there are guards stationed inside watching him at all hours, but they are not cruel. He gets a healthy amount of rations regularly, and has even been given a data terminal to keep himself entertained (of course, no before Soundwave had thoroughly firewalled and restricted anything that could be used against them)

the most stressful part of his capture is when Megatron comes to visit. Every day without fail, he will come check in on how Smokescreen is doing. He will ask how he's doing and they talk. About Cybertron, about the war, about how accepting the Rescue Bots were, allowing any Cybertronian regardless of caste to join, how much of a tragedy it was for them to have been wiped out.

Smokescreen is not blind to how he attempts to sow seeds of doubt into the Autobots into him. About how cruel it was for them to keep him confined to the base, how cruel Trion was for implanting a relic without his knowledge, questions if Smokescreen truly wanted to help them or if that's just what they've pressured him into doing with false promises that crumble like glass

but instead of refuting him... Smokescreen decides to play along

after all, Megatron obviously sees him as a poor, innocent, helpless bot who could be swayed by some sweet words and a cage advertised as protection

and that facade would make it all the easier to escape when the time came :)

[eternalvault]

Lies of P DLC

This is a non-exhaustive list of things I think we'll see in the Lies of P Overture DLC after watching that trailer, and things I wish they'd do because I personally think they'd be cool, and tie the whole thing together. List under the cut because even *I* haven't finished playing the game yet, I just write fanfiction in my spare time too.

Things I would *like* to see/Wish they would do: - I want to see our choices in the base game matter. I want to see subtle hints or dialogue changes based on what ending we ended up with. The fact that I'm 98% sure that was baby Spring makes me wonder if we'd see our favorite fur-child react to any obvious changes or lack thereof in our humanity. - Can the things we do in the past please affect the future? If we're able to save this data and go into NG+, can we actually get a chance to maybe befriend Romeo? That would be awesome. I want to see what our options are there, and why Geppetto said "I'm glad you didn't need my help." What do you mean "help", old man? Were you considering invoking the Covenant's orders? - Speaking of Romeo - is he going to be alive at this point? How far back are we talking? If he's alive before the deal, I wonder if we're going to need to persuade him to take it. That male voice in the trailer (the one talking about Stalkers) I'm pretty sure that's Alidoro. Like. The real Alidoro. I was initially thinking Gemini, but given the lamp in the promo banner I don't think that's correct. It works with his sense of justice.

Things I think we will see:

-I believe that we will be actively participating in the Battle of Workshop Tower, if not seeing the results directly after.

-Possibly the Monad Charity House? That lady with the stringed puppet (which btw I'm almost *certain* is a physical representation of the Blue Fairy that *isn't* Sophia) - I wonder if she's Isabelle. Just a hunch, but for there to be a woman with the power to control a puppet like that, with that particular arm attachment, I'm willing to bet it was the wife of Valentinus. And remember, that boarding school is a training facility. -Given this appears to be before all the Stalkers died, perhaps this is where we meet Medoro's team? Along with other Stalkers we'd either heard of or met previously (looking right at you Black Rabbit Brotherhood. Mischief abound? Yeah that's exactly what you'd get into).

[djarins-cyare]

✨Questions Tag Game✨

Thanks for tagging me @burntheedges 🩵

Of course I’m going to add GIFs and images. Did anyone really expect me to post something without visual aids??

[photos are my own (apart from the one immediately below, which is from here), and unless otherwise credited, GIFs were made by me during office hours when I was supposed to be working… 🤫]

Do you make your own bed?

Not in terms of making it look all neat and tucked in, no. But that’s because I’m a teensy bit of a germaphobe, and humans naturally sweat at night, which means you must leave your mattress uncovered for a while after you get up to ensure it airs. So, for most of the day (because I forget to straighten it up), my bed just looks like this:

(Just for fun, how many Mandalorians can you spot in the pic?)

Favourite number?

It’s always been 2, and my reasoning used to be that all good things come in pairs. But having discovered my autism in recent years, I’ve come to realise it probably more likely represents the maximum number of people I’m most comfortable interacting with at any one time. So it’s a manageable number. It’s also an even number. And it’s a prime number (in fact it's the only even prime number). It’s a pretty number – it has a nice curved top and a solid, sturdy base. It stops 1 from being lonely, so it’s a kind number.

Is this a weird answer? All of these are really logical reasons to me!

[GIF found here]

What’s your job?

It’s become so specialised that I no longer have a job title, but I started as a legal PA for one of the senior partners at a Legal 500 law firm in London. I flirted with the idea of qualifying as a solicitor but realised there was no way in hell I’d be comfortable standing up in court and speaking in front of lots of people (and I work in the criminal law department so not keen on casually chatting to criminals either). Instead, I decided to become The Person Who Knows Everything.

So now I write briefs to Counsel, proofs of evidence, funding applications; I analyse evidence, conduct legal research, advise the solicitors on their cases; I train paralegals and admin staff; I do a load of data analysis and make pretty spreadsheets for the bosses; and I manage the firm’s IT needs because I can do computer stuff too. I’m basically their go-to girl for anything that seems complicated or time-consuming… and I don’t have to wear a stupid wig in court.

And the best part is, during Covid lockdown, I demonstrated I can do 100% of my job from home, so I was allowed to move 150 miles away, and I now only have to visit my office two days a month! 🙌🏻

Downside: the arduous and random nature of the job means I’m never up to date and always very tired.

If you could go back to school, would you?

My original plan after getting my undergrad degree was to do a Masters and PhD and become an academic, but I put all that on hold for my (now ex) husband so he could finish his PhD and first postdoc. I’m very glad I never went back, though, because I realise that academia is not the place for me… see above comment about not being able to stand up and talk in court to understand why standing up and talking in a lecture hall would be equally nerve-wracking for me. So, no, I’m content with my current level of schooling.

Honestly, university was more about learning how to ‘adult’ properly than obtaining any useful knowledge on the course anyway (she says, routinely using concepts learnt on her fiction writing modules when crafting Mando fics).

Can you parallel park?

Yup. Narrow roads and a lack of parking spaces in the UK kind of make it a non-optional skill here.

That said, I do sometimes see people desperately trying to line themselves up to get into a space and making an absolute farce out of it, so I guess maybe some people here think it’s optional, but I’d rather not have that kind of stress, so I practised until I could do it easily.

[original GIF found here and then cropped]

Do you think aliens are real?

The way this is phrased… do I think they’re real? Like, do I think the grey ones with big black eyes are anally probing residents in certain sections of North America on a regular basis? Hmm, no. Too many episodes of The X-Files. I mean, Fox Mulder: yum, but I really Don’t Want To Believe, thanks.

But, I remain open to the idea that alien life has evolved elsewhere in the known universe. It’s inconceivably huge, after all. There’s nowhere near enough data to prove (or even speculate) either way – just look at the Drake equation, which has been used to both ‘prove’ and ‘disprove’ the possibility – so I’ll reserve any kind of judgment until some real evidence appears.

Can you drive a manual car?

Yeah, of course. It’s the standard driving test in the UK and allows you to drive both automatic and manual – you actually have to specifically ask to learn only automatic if you decide you can’t handle gears. And, like, it’s all muscle memory, so it’s really not as hard as people think once you’re used to it. I tried to drive an automatic a few years back and found myself involuntarily shadow-shifting the gears!

[original GIF found here and then trimmed for length]

What’s your guilty pleasure?

Mostly, I don’t feel guilty about indulging in pleasures these days. I used to be really affected by social pressures (back before I discovered my autism and still felt like I had to ‘mask’ and fit in), so I used to feel guilty talking about my hyperfixations, but now I couldn’t care less. I shall consume them endlessly and unselfconsciously. It’s very liberating.

Any phobias?

I suppose the answer is sharks, which has no sensible basis for being a phobia because I’ve never had any real encounters to make me fearful (thank fuck!). In fact, I walked through the shark tunnel at SeaWorld just fine as a 7-year-old. Unless that planted some kind of seed of terror, I don’t know. Not sure when it really took hold, but I can’t even look at photos these days. It’s their damn teeth. Someone’s going to have to give me a tooth report on Gladiator II before I can go see it.

The hell if I’m gonna put a photo (or God forbid a GIF) of a shark here, so, umm…

Favourite childhood sport?

Two answers: (1) Football (AKA soccer). I played for a girl’s team when I was about 11, but it was only because the boy I liked was into football. I couldn’t give a shit about it these days, and I don’t think I ever really liked it – I was just ‘masking’, as I did for most of my childhood, but I convinced myself I loved it.

(2) Karate, which I decided all by myself that I fancied doing, then found I was actually quite good at it and excelled at it for a while. But I was 9, and they decided I was so good that I should go and join the adult class (age 14 and up), which I hated, so I quit.

[GIF is one I already had saved from Reddit a while ago, but I can't find the source anymore, so sorry for not crediting the maker]

Do you talk to yourself?

Sometimes, but not often. I live alone, so I occasionally just need to exercise my vocal cords lol. It also depends on what mood I’m in. On an average day, no, I don’t really feel the need to fill the silence, but if I’m excited/animated/annoyed in some way, I might say stuff aloud. Basically, if I’m inclined to utter curse words for any reason, I’ll probably use other words aloud too.

[GIF found here]

Tattoos?

I only have one right now, but I plan to increase that number someday. See photo below; I used to have chameleons as pets and got this tattooed near my right hip when I turned thirty to commemorate them. It’s really small.

I would like to get a phrase in Mando’a inked on me somewhere, probably “Kaysh meg miit’gaana, oyacyi”, which means “she* who writes, remains” [*substitute chosen pronoun – Mando’a doesn’t distinguish genders], and is a Mandalorian proverb teaching that you can live forever if you leave behind written words. I have it engraved on my iPad.

Favourite colour?

Very much the blue (with a hint of green) end of the colour spectrum. For something soft, duck egg blue, or for something bold, teal. See the colour of the titles in this post.

I also like the colours of hyperspace and would happily snuggle up with Din in the cockpit.

Do you like puzzles?

Yeah, I guess. I don’t dislike them. But I don’t really do them much. In terms of the crossword/sodoku/brain teaser sort, I might choose to do them in specific settings, like on vacation when I inevitably need to offer my brain something different than whatever book I’m binge-reading.

In terms of the jigsaw type, I have short phases of thinking, “Ooh, that’ll be fun!”, trying to do one, getting bored, and then forcing myself to finish. Last time that happened was Covid lockdown. Took me a year! Though, to be fair, it was one of these bastards…

Okay, I’m done. I realise I’m very late to the party, and a lot of people have already done this one, so sorry if you’ve already participated. No pressure (and no need to illustrate with gifs and images, I just can’t help myself)… 🩵

@604to647 @beefrobeefcal @d4rm4nd4 @feral-ferrule @gracieheartspedro

@joelslegalwhre @littlemisspascal @magpiepills @penvisions @quicksilvermad

@secretelephanttattoo @studioghibelli @syd-djarin @the-mandawhor1an @zaddymandalorian

[mariacallous]

If you’ve rented an apartment in the US in the past several years, you may have had the sense that the game was rigged: Prices creep up not only at your building but at others throughout the city, seemingly in lockstep. A new civil lawsuit brought by the US Department of Justice today alleges that in many cases it’s not just in your head—and that a single company’s algorithm is to blame.

That company is RealPage, a Texas-based firm that provides commercial revenue management software for landlords. In other words, it helps set the prices of apartments. But it does so, the DOJ alleges in its lawsuit, by effectively helping its clients cheat; landlords feed rental rate and lease terms into the system, and the RealPage algorithm in turn spits out a suggested price that enables coordination and hinders competition.

“By feeding sensitive data into a sophisticated algorithm powered by artificial intelligence, RealPage has found a modern way to violate a century-old law through systematic coordination of rental housing prices,” deputy attorney general Lisa Monaco said in a statement.

RealPage’s reach is broad. It controls 80 percent of the market for software of its kind, which in turn is used to set prices of around 3 million units across the country, according to the DOJ. It already faces multiple lawsuits, including one from the state of Arizona and another in Washington, DC, where RealPage software is allegedly used to price more than 90 percent of units in large apartment buildings. RealPage’s algorithmic pricing first gained broader attention when a 2022 ProPublica investigation detailed how the company’s YieldStar software works.

The DOJ civil lawsuit, which was joined by the attorneys general of eight states, is a significant escalation in legal action against the company. It’s also a first for the DOJ, according to officials speaking on background during a call to discuss the complaint. While the government had previously filed criminal charges against an Amazon seller for algorithm-enabled price-fixing, this is the first civil action in which the algorithm itself, the Justice Department official says, was effectively the means of the violation.

The complaint itself quotes RealPage executives allegedly acknowledging anticompetitive aspects of its product. “There is greater good in everybody succeeding versus essentially trying to compete against one another in a way that actually keeps the entire industry down,” one RealPage executive allegedly wrote.

RealPage has repeatedly denied any allegations of antitrust violations, going so far as to publish a six-page digital pamphlet that claims to tell “the Real Story” about its products, along with an extensive FAQ page on a dedicated public policy website. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “Attacks on the industry’s revenue management are based on demonstrably false information,” one section of that site reads. “RealPage revenue management software benefits both housing providers and residents.”

“We are disappointed that, after multiple years of education and cooperation on the antitrust matters concerning RealPage, the DOJ has chosen this moment to pursue a lawsuit that seeks to scapegoat pro-competitive technology that has been used responsibly for years,” said Jennifer Bowcock, senior vice president of communications and creative at RealPage, in an emailed statement. “RealPage’s revenue management software is purposely built to be legally compliant, and we have a long history of working constructively with the DOJ to show that."

The DOJ disagrees. “Algorithms don’t exist in a law-free zone,” said Monaco in a press conference to discuss the case. “Training a machine to break the law is still breaking the law.”

In this case, the complaint alleges that those algorithms consistently drove rental prices upward. “RealPage’s software tends to maximize price increases, minimize price decreases, and maximize landlords’ pricing power,” said the DOJ in a press release. RealPage also doesn’t just recommend prices; in many cases, it actively sets them.

“RealPage actively polices landlords’ compliance with those recommendations,” said US attorney general Merrick Garland in today’s press conference. “A large number of landlords effectively agree to outsource their pricing decisions to RealPage by using an ‘auto-accept’ setting that effectively permits RealPage to determine the price a renter will pay.”

The DOJ also claims RealPage has created a “self-reinforcing feedback loop” with its data intake and pricing recommendations structure that also gives it an alleged monopoly in the apartment revenue management software industry. Any competitor who plays by the rules, the DOJ claims, is at a distinct disadvantage.

The Justice Department has spent the past several years staffing up with technologists and data scientists, better enabling them to “interrogate the code,” as multiple officials described the investigative process. While this is the first major algorithmic collusion case, DOJ officials suggested it would be far from the last.