Few things drive home the fact that I probably don't belong in tech any more is the fact that whenever some of the smartest people (like, actually smart) chat online I basically end up disagreeing with everything from the underlying premise up to the high-level observations.

And if you are wondering what a breakdown in global shipping looks like, a good place to start is thinking about net food importers. Our World in Data has a handy map:

this is so funny. If AI disappeared tomorrow I'd save five minutes a day of clicking "report phishing" on slop emails, and half an hour a day of arguing with my children about why you should not "ask Chat" for eg a brownie recipe when Nigella's Domestic Goddess is RIGHT THERE

Alexander Glass@alexanderglass.bsky.social · 12h ago

I have one answer.

if you suffer from motion sickness with first-person games, please try one of our "motion reduction overlays" in Big Walk — crosshair, frame, or both. this is experimental, but we really want to improve this accessibility issue. give it a bit of time (if you can) then report back!! here's "both":

in case you aren’t sure about the absolutely wrong, misogynistic and demeaning KNITTING VIDEO hank green put out and you know i don’t call just anything “misogyny.” it genuinely is demeaning to hundreds of years of women artisans & inventors

Scientist and Knitter reacts to SciShow's knitting video

YouTube video by Kristine Vike

youtube.com

Replacing the dumb speech recognition in my phone with an extremely smart LLM is working out spectacularly

The rust stands out in the greenery. #Iceland #photography #naturephotography #nature #landscape #landscapephotography #countryside #rural #abandoned #decay #rust

“Cease normalising the AI hype and the lies which are prevalent in the technology industry's framing of these technologies.” 1/

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · 2d ago

Open Letter: Stop the Uncritical Adoption of AI Technologies in Academia It's been a year & people tell me they've changed their mind, feel safer now to sign, etc. So I'm sharing it again for them. We're almost at 2k & anybody from anywhere can add their names. openletter.earth/open-letter-...

Haters focusing on Liddle's violence toward his pregnant partner, his galloping racism, or his repeated defences of paedophilia, should remember to mention he was also one of the worst writers to ever do it. A calorie-free hack of the first water. Just absolute dogshit, back to front.

Something Americans don't realize about ourselves: when we travel abroad and are asked about ourselves, we instead talk about our careers.🤦🏿‍♂️ "Tell me about your husband!" Is met awkwardly with "He's a doctor!" Or "He's in corporate finance!" That tells me absolutely nothing about *him*.

this is not true. there was no conspiracy. it didn't matter whether the streetcars were publicly owned (seattle, detroit) or private (los angeles, atlanta). a thread (because i wrote a whole-ass book on this): 1/?

David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 3d ago

Is everyone aware of the General Motors streetcar conspiracy? In the mid-20th century, auto and oil interests bought up electric streetcar systems across the US and systematically replaced them with bus routes and paved roads, funneling commuters toward private cars.

He also seemed to have the same pedo tendencies as the rest of his ilk. Of course the TERFs are singing his praises.

This you? 🚮

I have no idea what to do with this Covid revisionism. It feels like the bad kind of group therapy where you help each other ignore facts. We don't have to go *that* far back in the social media timelines to prove how fucked up it was. We were so scared we were scrubbing eggs and baking the mail.

It’s important to understand that when 1.2 million Americans are dying from a disease, any government action is excessive and tyrannical, but if a dozen trans women want to play soccer no government action can go far enough

LLM inference (the thing most users do with those things) is a statistical test and "agents" often perform many such inferences during a single task.

Æ.@aesthr.com · 2d ago

In statistics there's a really important thing called error multiplicity, aka the multiple testing problem. It describes how when you do multiple inferences, the error rates compound and p values in trials must be adjusted to compensate for this.

I forgot to address one type of person that also exists, those who say "don't care so much, if you can, since it makes you sick" — I hear you, and I will ask you just one thing... don't stand in our way when we fix this and don't claim you helped when you just told us to not be so soft. 1/2

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · 3d ago

If useful, here's my attempt to process my feelings about how I feel sadly kinda — or rather very — sick from all this AI fascist nonsense as an academic. 😶‍🌫️ I'd be pleased if even one person finds something useful because there's something to be said for processing this all together, so, um, enjoy?

Want to practice your Welsh over the summer? Perhaps learn some new words? Try my interactive fiction game and lead Rhiannon from Cardiff to Barry Island, without dying or getting turned into an owl along the way! Free to play. Suitable for intermediate+. https://ymestyn.cymru/interactive-fiction/

Can we normalize mocking Denmark?

That thing where you read a sort of interesting blog post but the context is unclear—it’s a critique that be either conservative or progressive—so you check the other posts and, no, it’s a “women’s role in society is to manage the households” site Yikes. And nope. Very much nope. No link

"Our role as academics is to protect this one institution. This is why we receive tax money; why we're basically civil servants. The role of the university is even lost on many, so bears repeating: produce knowledge and educate at the highest level. AI destroys both at their core"

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · 3d ago

If useful, here's my attempt to process my feelings about how I feel sadly kinda — or rather very — sick from all this AI fascist nonsense as an academic. 😶‍🌫️ I'd be pleased if even one person finds something useful because there's something to be said for processing this all together, so, um, enjoy?

Periodic reminder: The integration of generative AI models into every sector of society is the installation of ideological and epistemic choke points, regardless of who made the model.

World Politics Review@wpr.bsky.social · 3d ago

The spread of Chinese AI models with built-in censorship mechanisms could quietly shape the global information environment for the worse.

YouTube shorts has always been a bit shit but all of a sudden the quality of the recs/algorithm has dropped like a rock. Filled with bullshit videos like “AI” narration over a social media screenshot.

Some people read this as if people using "generative AI" don't know what's up. But these lines just show how the "AI" industry keeps cycling through terms hiding the same systems in order to not have to admit that the invest and outcome don't match.

conputer dipshit@davidcrespo.bsky.social · 3d ago

lots of neat stuff but this one is amusing if you see the phrase “generative AI” as a bit of a tell about the speaker

If useful, here's my attempt to process my feelings about how I feel sadly kinda — or rather very — sick from all this AI fascist nonsense as an academic. 😶‍🌫️ I'd be pleased if even one person finds something useful because there's something to be said for processing this all together, so, um, enjoy?

Anxiety

Reasoning (and crying) my way through fascist AI-induced anxiety.

olivia.science

An added wrinkle to this debate and one reason why so many of us are super-sceptical about managers and executives who seem to mostly be saying the right thing is we all remember how reasonable the 37 Signals guys sounded before they decided that fascism was a better strategy

Baldur Bjarnason@baldurbjarnason.com · 3d ago

Anyway, since I’m always annoying my own brain by trying to come up with clearer and more specific wording for my own opinions: I reject the notion that LLMs can be deployed “responsibly” at scale and believe that anybody claiming otherwise is fooling themselves, conning you, or possibly both

That EU nations are aggressively turning on and threatening each other at every opportunity and refuse to come to each others aid during crises, right as Icelanders are preparing to vote on a referendum on whether to reopen EU application negotiations, sure is great timing /s

Took this photo last week. Shows why you sometimes need rain gear when hiking around town even when there isn't rain.