Brian Beach has moved @bwbeach@qoto.org

"Air Canada's chatbot gave a B.C. man the wrong information. Now, the airline has to pay for the mistake" https://bc.ctvnews.ca/air-canada-s-chatbot-gave-a-b-c-man-the-wrong-information-now-the-airline-has-to-pay-for-the-mistake-1.6769454 #AI #chatbot #liability #law #hallucination

@KimPerales Everyone likes to blame it on social media but car-centric city design and a lack of spaces where you can just exist and hang out without paying are a big part of it too - and that was a problem before social media. We don’t make it easy to just hang out and meet people in much of this country.

I am crying I am laughing so hard at the #AI generated colours from @janellecshane 's blog: https://www.aiweirdness.com/new-ai-paint-colors/

I think it's bad form in journalism to punctuate your headline with "Really" when the story isn't true.

“But here's the thing: being able to say, "wherever you get your podcasts" is a radical statement. Because what it represents is the triumph of exactly the kind of technology that's supposed to be impossible: open, empowering tech that's not owned by any one company, that can't be controlled by any one company, and that allows people to have ownership over their work and their relationship with their audience.”

https://www.anildash.com//2024/02/06/wherever-you-get-podcasts/ by @anildash (found via @topstories)

—
#podcasting #web

I was in a discussion about AI regulation, and I got angry about it as I sometimes do, but I feel like "computers aren't magic", "words mean things" and "people matter" are reasonable positions to hold strongly.

https://exple.tive.org/blarg/2024/02/06/echoes-of-the-i/

Good morning! It’s the first Tuesday in February, and so you’re all invited to look through Wikipedia’s List of common misconceptions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions) per xkcd custom.

I can speak to the motive for my beliefs, back when I believed that our system was inherently just, that racism was a conquered thing of the past best examined in history’s rearview mirror, and that polarization was a more present threat than injustice.

My motive was comfort.

if it doesn’t have an export button, it’s a trap

@shortridge actually, I take it back, this is my favorite bug story of all time

https://www.teamten.com/lawrence/writings/coding-machines/

The writing is incredible, the twist is beyond absurd. The full implications of it are profound and potentially disturbing

It's not a read for the lighthearted, it'll take a while, but it's absolutely worth it

Trump and Biden are both old.

Trump is a lunatic, rapist, traitor, and wannabe dictator who tried to overthrow the government to stay in power and can’t distinguish fantasy from reality and revels in inflicting cruelty on other humans.

Joe Biden is a middle of the road politician who despite his many flaws on the whole ACTUALLY has done good things for America and especially American workers.

Voting for Joe Biden over Trump is literally the easiest choice in my lifetime. #biden #trump

A cool lil training station where you can practice mounting your bike to a bus in peace.

@targetdrone @pluralistic
Also there are a few credit unions that have a solar financing program. Like everything credit unions do, it's better than the rest of the financial industry.

the struggle was real

In the United States, women ONLY had 50 years of bodily autonomy and personhood. I am 60.

Town planning used to be an Olympic sport. That was an unexpected and delightful thing to learn. 25 minutes and one podcast episode ago, I did not know that town planning and architecture and painting all used to be Olympic sports. Now I am bereft to live in a world where they no longer are.

https://www.everythingisalive.com/episodes/connor-painting

#Podcast
#EverythingIsAlive

“These are not poor misguided but otherwise very nice people: they're fascists, and Donald Trump is where he is because he's giving them what they want to hear, while promising them social supremacy and vengeance. They WANT the end of Democracy.”

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1748758784686850292.html

You know what is always cool? Books and libraries. The original subscription free entertainment

Half of recent US inflation due to high corporate profits, report finds

The report, compiled by the progressive Groundwork Collaborative thinktank, found corporate profits accounted for about 53% of inflation during last year’s second and third quarters. Profits drove just 11% of price growth in the 40 years prior to the pandemic, according to the report.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/19/us-inflation-caused-by-corporate-profits

A thing I wrote in a recent draft:

"...on the team side, the reality of team practices that claim to be autonomous at large organizations is that supposed independence of action is frequently sustained by senior members or managers “protecting” their teams from external dependencies and taking on the work of advocacy as individual responsibility (Moe et al., 2019; Hicks, et al 2023)."

I think this is a big point with large psychological implications although software journals, alas, did not