During a keynote speech in New York on Monday from the managing director of Google's Israel business, an employee in the company's cloud division protested publicly, proclaiming “I refuse to build technology that powers genocide.”
The Google Cloud engineer was subsequently fired, CNBC has learned[...]
There was more internal controversy this week, also tied to the crisis in Gaza.
Ahead of an International Women's Day Summit in Silicon Valley on Thursday, Google's employee message board was hit with an influx of staffer comments about the company's military contracts with Israel. The online forum, which was going to be used to help inform what questions were asked of executives at the event, was shut down for what a spokesperson described to CNBC as "divisive content that is disruptive to our workplace."[...]
In recent weeks, more than 600 Google workers signed a letter addressed to leadership asking that the company drop its sponsorship of the annual Mind the Tech conference promoting the Israeli tech industry. The event on Monday in New York featured an address from Barak Regev, managing director of Google Israel.
A video of the employee protesting during the speech went viral.
“No cloud for apartheid,” the employee yelled. Members of the crowd booed him as he was escorted by security out of the building.
Regev then told the crowd, “Part of the privilege of working in a company, which represents democratic values is giving the stage for different opinions."
A Google spokesperson said the employee was fired for "interfering with an official company-sponsored event" in an email to CNBC on Thursday. "This behavior is not okay, regardless of the issue, and the employee was terminated for violating our policies." The spokesperson didn't specify which policies were violated.[...]
Ahead of Google's International Women's Day summit on Thursday, called Her Power, Her Voice, some women filled the company's internal discussion forum Dory with questions about how the Israeli military contract and Google's AI chatbot Gemini are impacting Palestinian women. Some of the comments had hundreds of "upvotes" from employees, according to internal correspondence viewed by CNBC.[...]
Another highly-rated comment on the forum asked how the company is recognizing Mai Ubeid, a young woman and former Google software engineer who was reportedly killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza along with her family late last year. (Some employees and advocacy groups gathered to honor Ubeid in New York in December.)
One employee asked, "Given the ongoing International War Crimes against Palestinian women, how can we use the 'Her Power, Her Voice' theme to amplify their daily struggles?" The comment received over 100 upvotes.
"It's essential to question how we can truly support the notion of 'Her Power, Her Voice,' while at the same time, ignoring the cries for help from Palestinian women who have been systematically deprived of their fundamental human rights," another said.
As the number of comments swelled, Google prematurely shut down the forum.
8 Mar 24
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What is your opinion of AI? Personally, I think that like any technology, it depends on the user and their intentions, but that is just me.
What about you?
1. Theft
The most central issues with AI as it is now is that the programs were trained/are trained with STOLEN art. Stolen visual art, music, writing, etc.
The vast majority of what it has been fed is stolen. As in, the artists behind the work were not ever given the chance to consent nor be compensated for their works being used to feed the machine.
This reason alone is straight up copyright infringement and the optimist in me does believe the long arm of the law is gonna shut these programs down for that. But the long arm of the law is looooooong, and the technology is disrupting people’s livelihoods now. Unlike robots or machinery that was invented and built to expedite assembly line/factory work, this technology is only functional by using other people’s labor. If we didn’t live in a society where you have to “earn” your right to live in it, then this would still be wrong, but it probably wouldn’t be such an existential problem.
There are active class action lawsuits for infringement of copyright. And the private sector has begun filing suits and I’m quite certain they’ll win because again—it’s simply theft. These companies did not make licensing contracts, they’re not paying royalties to the artists they stole from.
So if you consider using ai that generates “art” (whether it is visual, music, writing, etc.) please consider stopping immediately, as you would actively be benefiting from theft (which is wrong imo!!!!)
2. AI in its present form dishonors the human spirit
In my personal relationship with AI technology, I do not use it to generate ideas or ‘art’. I detest the notion to use technology in that way tbh. AI is a form of technology, so it’s difficult to break it down into every specific use it actually has. But here’s an attempt; no to generative AI, okay to certain AI.
There are kinds of AI programming in the programs I use (such as features that help you color in a shape quickly or make a perfect circle). This is useful tech (that requires zero IP theft) and I like it because it helps me by taking care of tedious tasks so that I have more time to spend in the creative and drawing processes. But I still choose the colors, I still draw the images, I still write the stories.
I think the way AI is used right now with a focus on “creative thinking” (where it’s not actually creating anything it’s just churning out other people’s *stolen* ideas and practice) is a total waste. AI being used as an assistant to help humans find information easily can be/has been swell. And requires no theft :D
But for whatever reason (greed, capitalism are my guesses), tech companies are leaning into a direction to replace creativity with AI?? I imagine the people behind this view the practice of art as tedious work because it is challenging??
But the beauty of art and the practice of it is that it allows humans to experience and overcome challenges with little to no stakes.
When society determines that is not a valuable use of human time, then I think we’ll all be significantly more miserable. If we allow a machine to be “creative” and leave us to only experience challenges with stakes—like survival (rent, putting food on the table).
So here are some examples of how I feel about AI uses;
AI to translate languages, find resources, discern malicious malware/spam from harmless messages > 👍🏽
AI to generate ideas/art for you > 🤢 Why??????? Why would you want that…that’s the most exceptional part of the human experience and you relinquish it to a bot trained on stolen ideas? 😭
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⨳ ʾ apps/sites 4 shifting . ♡
hi! this will be long but i made a list of apps/sites that might be helpful for your shifting journey. reminder that you don't need these to shift but they can be helpful with manifesting, keeping track of stuff, etc.
enjoy! divider cr
NOT SPONSORED BTW LMAO
﹒ ⊹ 🝮 OO1: NOTION ✩
description:
basically notion is an app for documents and stuff. i have to say this one's relatively known and it's such a huge life saver and i know that probably everyone knows about it already (as they should) but i'm gonna recommend it once again.
useful for:
scripting
dashboards you can add life goals & stuff here you can look up some templates/ideas and see what i mean LOL
cons:
i personally can not think of any major ones because this app is just that good
you do have to make new accounts for the text ai generating feature but i don't know if anyone would use that
additional notes:
i personally love how customizable it is! like you can make each page have a custom icon & header, add widgets, images, and so much more. it is so so so insanely helpful for scripting i'm telling you. or you can just be basic, that works too.
there's also a bunch of script templates online including specific ones (like a better cr, fame dr, fantasy dr, fandom-specific drs, bla bla bla) and it's literally the only thing shifttok is good for imo. i'm a big fan of shifterium's templates but there's other people who make them as well and i'm sure you can find some recommendations!
★ ₊ ➲ OO2: CANVA
description:
a website + app where you can design stuff from headers down to presentations, posters, covers, etc..
useful for:
album covers for singer/idol drs
book covers for writer drs or something
fake social media posts but there's better apps out there and i'll list them here as well
and much more!
cons:
a lot of things (most of which i think are the good stuff) are paid but you can find similar replicas if you scroll long enough i guess..?? and there's a free trial but i don't know if that helps
additional notes:
definitely my favorite place to go when i need to design something tbh. there's a bunch of templates you can use and the layout is very easy to navigate through! and it's pretty easy to find free alternatives for the paid stuff you do have in there
₍ⁿ⑅..ⁿ₎ ˇ ⩩ OO3: PARROT ❀
description:
parrot is an app where you can record yourself saying literally anything and play it on a continuous loop
useful for:
affirmations (manifesting??)
cons:
i'm pretty sure it's iOS only
additional notes:
personally i haven't used this app (i don't like my voice so i will not be recording myself saying affirmations thank yew) so i can't give it a rating but from the looks of it and based off of recommendations i've seen it's pretty useful. should be a white icon with a pink circle that has a white parrot in it!
≥≤ ﹕ ⤷ OO4: BEHINDTHENAME ◍
description:
a site where you can generate names & even life stories if you choose it (including height, weight, blood type, birthday, nationality and more i think?? at least it gives those for me). you can choose from different cultures and stuff like fantasy & mythology.
useful for:
finding a name & info for your dr self (which is literally you by the way don't forget that!) and potentially other people you'd like to script in
cons:
it really just helps to make a basic profile of a person so the things you can do with it can be a little limited
additional notes:
i prefer using this site for ocs instead but i think it can definitely help with shifting! oddly enough it also shows like a lifespan & cause of death so.. cool i guess!!!!
✦ ﹕ OO5: SOCIAL MAKER/dummy
description:
social maker & social dummy are both apps where you can replicate almost basically anything from the internet from twitter posts to facebook posts, youtube posts, and more!
useful for:
social media stuff especially useful for fame drs, streamer drs, idol/singer drs and so much more
cons:
both apps were deleted so you have to have had installed them before if you want to get them back
social maker is ios only i think?
additional notes:
yeah both apps are deleted but there's alternatives out there like twinote (for twitter) photonote (for instagram) canva (has fake social media templates as i said lol) and others that you can look for (because i personally only use twinote)
⋆ ᶻᶻ OO6: HELLOFACE ﹒ ★
description:
basically an app for ai face swapping
useful for:
seeing what your face claim (if you have one) would look like on for example dances, fancams, interviews definitely useful for idol/singer/maybe fame drs
cons:
uses ai (i'm personally not a big fan of ai)
pretty underground so the chances that you might not like it are not low
✭ ❒︎ OO7: ROOM PLANNER . ♡
description:
basically what the name says. it's a 3d home designer
useful for:
making your dr room/house
visualizing your dr room/house
cons:
has paid stuff
┊ ‧ ⬭ OO8: COMBYNE
description:
an app where you can combine items you like from a wide selection of stuff to make outfits!
useful for:
making outfits for your dr
visualizing said outfits
additional notes:
there's other things you can do on the app like challenges where you can compete to make the best outfit i think?? looks pretty fun i might try it HAHAHA
yuh so i got a little lazy here at the end & i know this is prolly not very helpful because most of these apps/sites are pretty well known but maybe just maybe.. i helped someone out...
HAPPY SHIFTING!!!!!
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