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Bradley Gawthrop

@talldarknweirdo.bsky.social

Durham NC. I Hack the Planet for a living, designing open source scientific instruments. The rest the time I'm an arts and crafts weirdo. Obsessions include Music, Scale modeling, Printmaking, Stained Glass, Handweaving, Sculpting, that sort of thing...

511 Posts248 Follower89 Folgt
Bradley Gawthrop@talldarknweirdo.bsky.social · last mo.

They just need something (regulation, deliberate slowdown, etc) to blame for the fact that the technology does not / will not make good on their grandiose predictions. 'We WOULD have had superhuman intelligence AGES ago but we're just being SOOO CAREFUL.' 🙄

Will Oremus@willoremus.com · last mo.

We're all familiar by now with dire warnings from AI gurus. But I wrote about why Dario's latest proposal might actually gain some traction. You don't have to be a doomer to think that AI companies prioritizing safety checks over pure speed is a reasonable idea. www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

Katie Hinde@mammalssuck.bsky.social · last mo.

"The whole “Oh no, our models went rogue” thing … When a bridge collapses, you don’t analyze whether the bridge was ethical or sentient or why it decided to collapse. You ask, who is the person who built this bridge to be so flimsy?" www.wired.com/story/one-of...

One of AI’s Fiercest Critics Says All the Doom Talk Is ‘Meant to Distract Us’

Timnit Gebru argues that AI companies are stoking fears of extinction to avoid discussing actual harms, like autonomous weapons.

wired.com

Radley Balko@radleybalko.bsky.social · last mo.

Here's a gift link to my 9/11 essay in the NYT. Civil libertarians long warned that before giving government new powers, we should consider how an administration with authoritarian ambition might abuse them. We were told that America was too exceptional to elect such a person. Well here we are.

Opinion | Civil Libertarians Knew This Would Happen. We Should Have Listened. (Gift Article)

The civil libertarians’ warnings have come true.

nytimes.com

Evan Greer@evangreer.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I know everything feels terrible and doomy but I've been working on surveillance issues for most of my adult life and I have never seen so much energy, momentum, and concrete VICTORIES happening as what we are seeing right now on Flock cameras and facial recognition in venues. Keep. Going.

Radley Balko@radleybalko.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A Charles Fain Lehman op-ed arguing that some policy will make the criminal justice system “fairer and less punitive” is like a cyclospora op-ed arguing that RFK Jr. will improve public health and reduce parasitic infections. I question the author’s sincerity.

Jared Yates Sexton@jysexton.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I mean, there's really no hiding anymore that the purpose of The Atlantic is to ease centrists into gladly welcoming and accepting the rise of fascism.

The Atlantic - In Defense of Flock: Police cameras can help make the criminal-just system both fairer and less punitive - if we let them. By Charles Fain Lehman
Paul Tobin@paultobin.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I can't stress enough the importance of making shitty things. Shitty writing. Shitty art. Shitty paintings. Shitty films. Shitty songs. Shitty sculptures. Shitty is beautiful, because it's human. There's no glory without shitty. Get out there and shit things up.

ElizabethwithaZ@elizabethwithaz.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I think these people want validation for their choice to use the products. They push an inevitability narrative, talk about "happy medium" and "pragmatism", but critical refusal is a very pragmatic strategy in the face of unethical tech. "Responsible use" is a back door to dependance/integration.

Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Thinking about this again, in the context of a review of our book that wished we'd given advice on "responsible use" in the final chapter, instead of what we did write about resistance, refusal, asking good questions about automation, and ridicule as praxis. >>

Ben Novack@titlecharacter.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Dabbling consistently in a thing with no pretense of achieving actual mastery is such a great grownup joy. Cannot recommend it enough. This thread is “objectively correct” levels of good advice.

Gretchen McCulloch@gretchenmcculloch.com · 2mo ago

One of the great joys of my adult life has been realizing that I can just pick up a new skill every so often, take a fun little class in it weekly for a year or two, and simply enjoy meeting people and getting medium proficient and not attempting to become professional in it at all!

Bradley Gawthrop@talldarknweirdo.bsky.social · 2mo ago

My little apartment is about 10% apartment and 90% makerspace, bristling with tools and materials and products of same. I'm used to it, but today during inspections of the fire suppression equipment, one of the technicians came through the hall, and got big eyes, and went "holy shit!"

Baldur Bjarnason@baldurbjarnason.com · 3mo ago

People keep using the "can't put a genie back in the bottle" metaphor for "AI", even though in the stories they always get back in and current "AI" is more of a "we're spending trillions of dollars and the energy output of a continent trying to keep this bastard out of the bottle" situation

Bradley Gawthrop@talldarknweirdo.bsky.social · 3mo ago

this post is brought to you by my recent efforts in tangible art making. One thing is for sure though, I'm good at 3D printing organizers to keep all my art supplies sorted out, so there's that, at least! :D

Bradley Gawthrop@talldarknweirdo.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I enjoy being new / green /not very good at new skills, and I enjoy the feeling of being good at things, but I really struggle with being unable to assess how good I am at a thing.

Better Things Are Possible@internethippo.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Mainstream Respectable opinion is that people joking about a bad person's death represents a culture of cruelty, but really it represents a culture of impunity. It's a coping mechanism for watching someone do evil their whole life and never seeing consequences

Bradley Gawthrop@talldarknweirdo.bsky.social · 4mo ago

YOU MAY ALREADY BE A WINNER! because famously, real federal prosecutions are typically preceded by vague foreplay form letters with the name written in pen about how you MAY have broken the law. That's how that always works. 🙄

Adam Steinbaugh@adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Here is the "WARNING NOTICE" federal agents hand-delivered. "YOU MAY BE IN VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW" It's the second of these notices I am aware of. If you've received one, please get in touch: fire.org/alarm

WARNING NOTICE YOU MAY BE IN VIOLATION OF FEDERAL LAW U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) is responsible for protecting ICE, its employees, and its facilities against internal and external threats. OPR is responsible for enforcing crimes against the United States as authorized under Title 19 of the U.S. Code and as designated by the Secretary of Homeland Security, including criminal investigations into threats made against ICE personnel. OPR has identified an email sent to Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, which it has reason to believe may constitute a violation of Title 18 of the U.S. Code. Accordingly, OPR is requesting that you promptly remove and/or discontinue the aforementioned behavior. This Notice officially informs you that it is unlawful to threaten to assault, kidnap, and/or murder a federal official or that federal official’s immediate family member with the intent to impede, intimidate, and/or interfere with the federal official’s duties or retaliate against a federal official due to the performance of their duties. 18 U.S.C. § 115(a). You are further advised that knowingly making restricted personal information about a covered person, or their immediate family member, publicly available with the intent to threaten, intimidate, or incite the commission of a crime of violence against that person; or with the intent and knowledge that the restricted personal information will be used to threaten, or intimidate, or facilitate the commission of a crime of violence against that person violates federal law. 18 U.S.C. § 119. Violations of these or related laws could subject you to both federal and state prosecution. OPR has documented the delivery of this Notice to you. Receipt of this Notice will be taken into consideration, should you continue to be involved in any criminal activities described above....