ABrockwell @aebrockwell@qoto.org

My friend the brilliant author Rachel Pollack is coming to the end of her life. She won the Nebula, World Fantasy and Arthur C Clarke awards. She is a world renowned expert on Tarot, and her books on Tarot are still regarded as the good standard. She created the first trans superhero, in Doom Patrol in '93. I will miss her very much when she goes. I am writing this at the request of her wife Zoe, to let her friends know that the end is soon, and to let the obituarists know too.

Sorry, James. Silicon Valley Bank went broke, not woke. The term now means anything Republicans don’t like or want to criticize. Like their party, it is without true meaning or value.

#ChatGPT #LLM #AI

As far as I can see, ChatGPT is basically ELIZA on steroids.
The reaction of people seems to be very similar to people's reaction to ELIZA in the 1960s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA

"While ELIZA was capable of engaging in discourse, it could not converse with true understanding. However, many early users were convinced of ELIZA's intelligence and understanding, despite Weizenbaum's insistence to the contrary."

#Arizona #GOP created a phone number, 602-771-3500, to report inapproriate school lessons. How about a few thousand folks give them a call on Monday and and teach them about appropriate education? Nice that they provided a phone number to reach them directly. The Internet knows how to handle this.

#USpol #USPolitics #antifa #Education #Facism #TransRights #Racism #Gaslighting

@pieist Yea sadly we are one of very few with federation we leave up to our users.

The bullying of instances that block seems to be a growing problem.

I hope ?I can get UFoI soon and bring some sanity to all this.

OK, so the Alt-Right regime at the BBC has cancelled a 96 year old national treasure. THE national treasure. Lifelong naturalist and broadcaster, who introduced most of the country to a love for the natural world in their childhoods. For the capital crime of a nature program covering damage to ecosystems. In the final series of his lifetime of service

Remind me, which side of the political spectrum does cancel culture? 🤬

#IStandWithDavidAttenborough

I never thought I could develop such rage for an overused word but damn 😅

#phdlife #phdchat #xp #AcademicChatter #phdvoice #AcademicTwitter

One conflict between me and some people who follow me on social media: I think it's difficult to describe what Fox is, they think it's easy.

Propaganda. Entertainment. Angertainment. Pro Wrestling.

My current description of Fox:

The commercial arm of a right wing political movement, specializing in strategic resentment and aggregated grievance in the attention economy, while behind the scenes it tries to be a kingmaker and party boss, riding the tiger of manipulated rage.

#uspol #journalism

A superb column that eviscerates Big Journalism (political division) for its endless normalization of Trump and his dangerous cult, by @JenRubin of the Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/03/06/trump-cpac-media-gop-failure/

(Unfortunately she stopped posting in the fediverse after a brief dalliance here last year. I hope she'll realize that feeding Musk's Trumpish site is a bad idea.)

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

― Bishop Desmond Tutu

The way the tech industry gets worse faster and faster as we approach the singularity is the spaghettification of enshittification.

I posted a rant about how annoying virtually everything "AI" is (call directors, roombas, LLMs advertised as though they said true things...).

https://ceoln.wordpress.com/2023/03/04/ai-is-terrible-at-almost-everything-a-rant/

#AI #LLM #roomba #intuit #rant

One cool thing about #JonStewart going viral again for another basic, research-grounded interview with a genuinely malice-driven "traditional-values" neo-Nazi cretin is that it gives 98% of journalists another 101 lesson in the actual good work they could do if they didn't have to worry about "losing access" to disingenuous shitsacks they 100% know to be lying in order to make America a shittier, more violent reactionary cesspit than it already is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCuIxIJBfCY

What is consciousness? What is intelligence?

Over the millennia the ink spilled on these two words have produced more smoke than mirrors making all the sturm and drang and pearl clutching and about “artificial intelligence” so incredibly laughable. AI has truly put the “hype” in hyperventilation.

Please read this slightly older opinion that makes the case.

https://science.thewire.in/economy/tech/ambitious-predictions-about-the-future-powers-of-computers-keep-flopping-why/

@aebrockwell

We provide a csv file of fediblock that one can import to block this servers rather quickly. See here if you'd like to use it.

But yes if your getting harassed, report it or we can act.

https://qoto.org/@freemo/109303687938265107

@peterdrake

Has anyone seen this organized anti-trans campaign? I've been seeing a bunch of posts with:

- An anime girl avatar
- A short, violently anti-trans message
- A huge list of unrelated hashtags (which is why I'm seeing them)
- A video

I block the instances as I see them, but that doesn't help much as each seems to come from a new instance.

What defense does Mastodon have against such an attack? The only tactic I can think of is pre-screening instances before federating with them, which would be a problem for all small instances.

#ThisIsWhyWeCantHaveNiceThings

Here is your must-read article for the day, a profile of @emilymbender, and her efforts to deflate the ridiculous hype around large language models such as ChatGPT.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/ai-artificial-intelligence-chatbots-emily-m-bender.html

The reason TikTok is such a threat is because it's not a Chinese platform, it's a global platform controlled by China. Theoretically at any point China could use it to drag foreign users into their sphere of influence. Twitter was a threat for the exact same reason. The difference being it's not a theoretical future problem. Its owner is already actively spreading Russian propaganda, amplifying fascists talking points, and openly admitted to manipulating the algorithm for his own personal gain. You currently have hundreds of millions of international users under the influence of a far-right pro-Russian Autocrat. If I was in charge of banning social media platforms for national security reasons I'd be watching TikTok very very closely, but I'd be holding a Defcon1 five alarm 5 meeting about banning Twitter right now.

Encouraging all supporters of #highered to take a stand against authoritarians dictating who can teach at public universities and what they can teach. Please consider signing this joint statement by the American Association of University Professors, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Coalition Against Censorship:
https://actionnetwork.org/forms/florida-bill-would-destroy-higher-education-as-we-know-it/

#StopHB999 #academia @academicchatter @academicsunite