Mark Mounts @markmounts@qoto.org

If Apple integrates AI technology from OpenAI or Google, it could pose a privacy nightmare. I truly hope Apple includes simple toggle options to disable these AI features. I don't want OpenAI accessing my personal data; they are not trustworthy. I want a simple phone that does calls, texts, and a few apps. I have zero use for shity openai llm. I don’t wish to have AI on my phone. Please keep these fancy features as an option. Please don’t force them like Microsoft.

Every time I see any story about how fucked scholarly communication is my first reaction is a) yall know you can just make your own websites right, b) yall know you can just review each others work without a journal giving you permission right, and only then do I arrive at c) ok there are systemic problems but seriously have you considered (a) and (b) and how this is all entirely optional

Via @tomstoneham

"All this seems to be based on an article of faith; namely, that all that is needed to create superintelligent machines is (a) infinitely more data and (b) infinitely more computing power. And the strange thing is that at the moment the world seems to be taking these fantasies at face value."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/13/from-boom-to-burst-the-ai-bubble-is-only-heading-in-one-direction"

WHERE THE WEB IS GOING: The convergence of LLMs and web advertising will lead to "ads" consisting of several hundred gigabytes of javascript containing a (weighted) neural network designed to generate unique per-user video advertisements—generated on your computer at your expense to ensure the imagery is unique and evades AI-based ad-blockers.

"AI spam" is an entire AI, squatting on your CPU and making it glow dull red as it works out how to capture your attention.

Welcome to the spamularity.

We need a movement for conscientious objection to ReCaptchas. I don’t want to be forced to participate in training machine learning models to identify sidewalks, crosswalks, buses and cars in order to go about my daily life digitally.

I don’t want driverless cars on my city streets. I don’t believe the fiction that this technology will ever be safe.

I do not consent to using my own cognitive labor to train the models that will mow down people on foot or bikes later with no accountability.

Some fundamental theorems in mathematics. ~ Oliver Knill. https://people.math.harvard.edu/~knill/graphgeometry/papers/fundamental.pdf #Math

'Typewriters — the manually powered writing machines once made by Remington, Underwood and Royal — are wondrous things.

To see their magic in action, try this trick: Set a typewriter out on a table with a sheet of paper pre-rolled into its carriage, and wait. Nearly every child, and many adults, will be drawn to the beauty and specificity of the machine. They will just have to type something. A thought. A complaint. A poem. A wish.'
- Tom Hanks
(Image from Wiki Commons, Communication dans Musée des Arts et Métiers).

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/22/books/review/tom-hanks-reviews-a-tale-told-by-a-typewriter.html

Not only could we not rid ourselves of PDFs but now we're inventing ways to talk to them

I don't know if AI is going to replace programmers or not but there will be a lot of jobs just to delete AI generated code.

Privacy tip: When you sell or trade-in a vehicle, remember to erase all of your data from the in-car electronics. The car dealerships will NOT do this, although they should be required to.

This wasn’t done for the last few vehicles I’ve purchased. I know one previous owners name, where she lives, what her taste in music is, where her dad lives (and how often she visited him), and what restaurants she often went to. In the wrong hands, this is dangerous as hell.

#Automobile #Privacy

Far more frightening than anything I’ve seen thus far on the #disinformation infiltration & indoctrination of #MAGA #Republicans

#Trump voters tell #VaughHillyard of #MSNBC that ‘#Russia is not our enemy’ & #Putin is taking back what’s his in #Ukraine.

#ForeignInfluenceCampaign #RussianDisinformation #Trump #Strongman #authoritarianism #autocracy #TuckerCarlson #propaganda
https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/watch/trump-voters-tell-nbc-reporter-that-russia-is-not-our-enemy-205044805866

The traits that are associated with ‘AI’ — intelligence, professionalism, power — are those that the white racial frame ascribes to white people. White people overrepresented in the ‘AI’ workforce are designing a set of servants who would let them avoid interacting with people who aren’t white. The whiteness of ‘AI’ is dehumanizing because the white racial frame itself is dehumanizing to anybody who is not ascribed whiteness —

Emily Bender
https://faculty.washington.edu/ebender/papers/Bender-2024-preprint.pdf

The Disturbing Impact of the Cyberattack at the British Library #britishlibrary #librarians #history
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-uk/the-disturbing-impact-of-the-cyberattack-at-the-british-library

Meditation, it works.

Currently reading an enjoyable book where literature and maths intersect:

"We often think of mathematics and literature as polar opposites. But what if, instead, they were fundamentally linked? In her clear, insightful, laugh-out-loud funny debut, Once Upon a Prime, Professor Sarah Hart shows us the myriad connections between math and literature, and how understanding those connections can enhance our enjoyment of both. "

#book #mathematics #literature #sarah_hart

Brian interviews Ken
#UNIX

https://youtu.be/EY6q5dv_B-o?si=Z135MGCxkPuEroAL

Hi guys, it’s me, your local angry ER doc!

Iowa GOP Senate passed a bill allowing 14 year olds to work night shifts. I have worked countless night shifts. I’ve worked 24 and 36 hour call, and I’ve had to go to lectures or meetings after many of these. I can tell you with certainty that kids who work night shift aren’t learning at school the day after. Night work also increases risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer, among other ill effects. Kids should never work nights. Ever.

AI image detectors are labeling real images from the conflict between Israel and Hamas as faked which some people are calling a second layer of disinformation.

This cuts across two of my regular themes. First of all, systems that claim to detect AI generated text or images are snake oil. They are guessing and will often guess wrong.

Secondly, it’s difficult to figure out what the facts are in the middle of a war. Treating it as a tech or moderation problem isn’t enough

https://www.404media.co/ai-images-detectors-are-being-used-to-discredit-the-real-horrors-of-war/

"This report argues that consumer technology reviewers have failed their basic nominal purpose of critiquing tools. Instead, inspired by values introduced by Apple in the late 1990s, the tech review industry prioritizes aesthetic lust as the primary critical factor for evaluating objects. The reification of these values in their scoring system is transmitted to consumers and manufacturers alike. Like other prurient things, the objects designed within this paradigm are optimized not for usefulness but for photogenic and telegenic properties, a framework that finds its fullest realization in YouTube reviews and unboxing videos. There, even the intimation of critical rigor within tech reviewing vanishes, the smartphone becomes the center of gravity, and manufacturers are even further incentivized to design products for end consumers who are less users than viewers."

https://components.one/posts/the-new-pornographers-tech-reviews

#consumerism #technology

Emissions from computing are apparently higher than for air travel, and that’ll only go up in the coming decades.

“As a society we need to start treating computational resources as finite and precious, to be utilised only when necessary, and as effectively as possible. We need frugal computing: achieving our aims with less energy and material.”

https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.06642

#ClimateChange