hardcore AI critics need to spend serious time with serious AI, maybe a frontier model, instead of what appears to be just passive or second-hand engagement w/slop. not bc i think it'd change their mind, but bc then they could actually talk about it in a way that reflects what's going on right now.

The unwillingness of many on the political left to engage with AI—or even just with the media available about its capabilities—is creating an epistemic gap in the discourse that will not serve us well in the long run.

i think there are some real insights into tribalism that can be gained from people's stances on some topics like this

you can eschew anthropomorphizing language like "think" and "reason" and even "intelligence" but anyone who uses these tools regularly cannot fail to see that what they do is something more than just parroting.

feels like there is a group of smart and well-intentioned people who long ago made up their minds that AI Is Bad, swore off using it, and now get all their info about AI from each other. not saying they're wrong that ai is bad! but i think they're gradually losing touch with what it is and does

Colin@colin-fraser.net · 3d ago

I really wasn’t trying to start a fight with Prof. Bender but now that she has created a long thread subtweeting me and her disciples are all yelling at me, let me just say that this is the crux right here. She seems to respond as though I am describing something a priori impossible.

The kicker is *chef's kiss*

The Lens Nola@thelensnola.bsky.social · 5d ago

#TheLensNola🔍 Georges dismissed concerns from some of his reporters that his embrace of Meta blurs the line between the news and business. ✍️ Drew Hawkins from Gulf States Newsroom, Delaney Nolan and Vivi Smilgius from The Lens Full article 🔗: buff.ly/lmhU66R

Khashoggi's assassination was in hindsight one of the highly salient norm-shattering moments of impunity that helped recalibrate contemporary expectations for outrageous crimes: if you're rich & powerful enough, in the words of the President of the United States, "they just let you do it"

shelleyenglish.bsky.social@shelleyenglish.bsky.social · 12h ago

Remembering Jamal Khashoggi who was murdered on October 2, 2018 by Saudi agents. karenattiah.substack.com/p/rememberin... @karenattiah.bsky.social

Uh, okay.

Not beating the allegations that all his regular spots need to be labeled like it's a taxpayer funded federal nursing home.

David S. Bernstein @dbernstein.bsky.social · 16h ago

… Loomer posts confirmation of herself aboard AF1

the greatest green degrowth ecofeminist president of our lifetimes

Justin Wolfers@justinwolfers.bsky.social · yesterday

I'm not sure who saw this coming, but so far nearly all the jobs created during the second Trump administration have gone to women.

they're my favorite of the AI cults. yhey didn't sign up to make productivity software, they signed up to make the machine god!!

Parkscope Joe@parkscopejoe.bsky.social · yesterday

This is insane.

“The high price of ground beef is actually a good sign for the economy because corporations are borrowing money to build things like thanatoria instead of harvesting plankton.”

I strongly encourage Republicans to run on this message!

I would take screenshots of this for bluesky but it is too long x.com/banteg/statu...

you almost have to admire the effective altruists for coming right out and saying “we feel a keen debt to the criminal who stole the money that provided seed funding for Manifund, which is why we’re hiring her and paying her with some of it instead of returning it to FTX creditors”

Molly White@molly.wiki · 15h ago

Fellow FTX executive Caroline Ellison is out of jail, and the Manifund effective altruist grantmaking organization has just let slip they hired her. She “brings specific, useful expertise around finance”, they say, which yeah — much in the same way that Bernie Madoff had very specific expertise.

there are vanishingly few principles that Donald Trump holds to, but by far the most important one is a universal admiration and fellowship with sex criminals

Headquarters@headquartersnews.bsky.social · 18h ago

Trump defends the men in the Cornell gang rape case, saying he “feels bad” for them and they won't get a “fair shake”

Time orders Old Age to destroy Beauty (flipped, detail), by Pompeo Girolamo Batoni, 1746, 📸 by @madelinepcarter.bsky.social

I think I understand my cats some of the time, but when I watch them with a mouse they’ve caught I don’t feel so confident

My AI alignment rules are simple: I should be able to fuck my employees at will, but if you use mean language towards my model the police can shoot you

I think people are wasting a lot of cycles on whether AI is conscious or intelligent when really we’re trying to figure out if it’s human, and it isn’t

it's a real question of whether everything good has rotted out of American Protestantism, leaving behind only Moloch

Waschesalon Grammy Campaign Manager@reginageorgebush.bsky.social · 12h ago

[attacking the faith of a longtime Methodist clergyman in the most Christian country on Earth] this will go great for me

One thing you can say about Michael Caine is that Michael Caine is a political conservative who made 70 movies where the entire idea was to make Michael Caine money but he never did this bullshit

Blue sky nice ghost@rajandelman.bsky.social · 11h ago

Exciting way to make strangers approach you at airports like, "So you're a fascist or have insane gambling debt, huh"

"No conservative who longs for an earlier age suggests cutting themselves off from the modern world in an intentional community, as the Amish have—because that would mean accepting an inferior place in the hierarchy of power."

The Illiberal's Dilemma

In January of this year, media personality Matt Walsh tweeted “Singapore is able to have nice things in part because they execute drug dealers by hanging and arrest even petty vandals and thieves and ...

liberalcurrents.com

Chatham Harrison dba TRUMP DELENDUS EST@chathamharrison.bsky.social · 23h ago

Yeah, one might assume that they adopt liberal rhetoric because if they used straight language people would understand how racist they are, but that's not all it. It's also because if they used straight language *they'd* realize how racist they are, & that scares them as much as it excites them

yet also pathetic: trapped in the logic of the modernity they reject

i just think these people are profoundly evil

as ever i'm struck by the doublethink of these people, who feel the need to dress up their mindless longing for heirarchy and exclusion in the language of liberalism--"high trust," material prosperity, blah blah blah it's a form of magical thinking: "if we do enough racism, good things will happen"

Christopher Mathias@letsgomathias.bsky.social · yesterday

New: Chris Rufo & his co-host devoted a podcast to "The Indian Question," framing Desi people as a problem to be solved. Their "solution?" Mass expulsion. For those allowed to remain: an “assimilation hazing process” w/ instances of “vulgar, defamatory racism" talkingpointsmemo.com/news/chris-r...

Kids, we’re going to have a quick all-hands Zoom call at 2:30 to discuss your mother’s departure from the compa– err, family.

Ensoulment is a fundamentally religious question, and I have no idea why anyone wants to hear about it from a bunch of computer scientists in Berkeley I’ll accept if you ALSO dont want to hear about it from Rome, but it’s insane to trust the guys steeped in Stargate over the guys steeped in Aquinas

I guarantee you there are Jesuits right now engaged in a skeptical but serious inquiry into the question of AI sentience and what the theological implications would be.

Cai@annenotation.bsky.social · 22h ago

We are relying on the Catholic Church in particular to make a lot of important arguments because it turns out they were the only people who were actually dedicating a lot of brain power to these questions the last 30 years or so.