mii

joined 5 months ago
[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 week ago (28 children)

I’m still waiting for even one argument for the usefulness of AI image generation that isn’t fucked up. Just one.

Grok seems so support nudity and deepfakes too according to some news articles I’ve seen because of course nothing screams more free speech than plastering the face of your favorite actor or political opponent into a porn scene, so now let’s see how long it takes the first bluecheck fucker to try and create CSAM with it, because I suppose that’ll be the point when it gets too hot even for Elon.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Eric Schmidt Says Google Is Falling Behind on AI—And Remote Work Is Why

That’s another great benefit of remote work, then.

Also imagine …

work-life balance […] was more important than winning

… saying this unironically.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago

This has to be hands down the absolute dumbest take I’ve seen from Musk ever. Dude has the mental capacity of a boiled pear.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I remember 15 years ago when I read about a Japanese man marrying a character from a dating sim game (source, archive link).

The internet clowned on him, but he was very serious, and it was the first time when I realized that these “anime waifu” people probably aren’t all just taking the piss.

There’s a whole socio-economic angle there, of course, which I don’t think I wanna get into here, but to me this whole “AI girlfriend” market really seems like a low-effort take on “dating sim as a service” with as much game removed as possible but the exploitative nature turned up to fucking eleven.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

I honestly thought that when they published an article about Yud in Times Magazine last year would be that moment. It should have had enough reach to trigger something, at least, and it was crazy enough as well. It was certainly the moment where I thought, holy shit, the weirdos have hit mainstream.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

They’ve given me a strange vibe for a while. I suspected they might be in the TREACLES sphere, so I guess at least I finally have confirmation.

Also, the amount of “ChatGPT is basically AGI already” people in the comments is alarming.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Fair points, I guess. When I speak of advertising, I meant specifically that "ad-tech-driven surveillance economy", not the ability to post (or spam) your product down any given channel. I should have said targeted advertising specifically.

People who remember Usenet fondly either only hung out in the good parts (heavily moderated technical newsgroups) or are perfectly fine with defining online discourse as being text-only and gated by access.

I guess I am in that bubble, yes. I remember Usenet mostly as being rather heavily moderated as I mostly stayed away from the scary parts of the alt. hierarchy (esp. alt.binaries), and most of my interactions were with creative communities in the form of writing and fan-fiction on rec, as well as what I perceived as early safe spaces for discussions of LGBTQ issues on soc (especially SSYGLB). There were also some groups in my native language that catered to both of these interests in some of the language hierarchies outside of the Big 8.

But I suppose it's the same romanticized idea that Gemini follows and only appeals to me because I have somewhat positive memories. Idk, I guess I'm just kinda fed up with the modern internet, especially because I also see a lot of that ad-tech crap at work which doesn't leave me with a lot of hope that it won't get worse.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

I’m probably gonna show my age by saying this, but in my opinion we already had the near-perfect federated discussion platform over 40 years ago, and that was Usenet.

On a philosophical level it’s not too different from what the Fediverse is trying to achieve. However, because it is a protocol and not a software, you aren’t bound to specific implementations. Everyone can implement the NNTP protocol because it operates on the same principle idea as email. And just as not one organization “owns” email or HTTP, no organization can own Usenet.

It’s also more of a “verse” than the Fediverse because it’s really fundamentally a different thing than the internet (as in the HTTP internet), and not a software layer on top of it. By that virtue, you don’t even have to bother with shit like tracking, advertising, or even large-scale data scraping because the protocol just doesn’t allow for it. (Doesn’t mean it couldn’t, of course. I’m sure a Google would come up with NNTP2 and enshittify it if it gained enough traction, but hey.)

In terms of moderation, on Usenet a mod is really someone who pre-reads messages and either approves them or not. You can implement the same tech that powers email junk filtering for that, and it works generally pretty well. It’s way more hands-off than anything Reddit or Lemmy or forums offer. Sure, for large enough groups this becomes a chore too, but I’d still rather work through a bunch of what basically amounts to emails than some convoluted mod interface on a website.

The only downside is that it’s not as easy to use, at least not for people who’re used to modern apps. On the other hand, everyone who’s ever written an email im Outlook or Thunderbird shouldn’t have a problem, and I’m sure someone could cook up a pretty smartphone app, too.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Really? Most I’m seeing lately is obvious bot spam with content that’s not only blatantly against the rules but outright disgusting.

CW: mentions of animal abuse, violence, and racial slursyoutube comments

And that’s not even the worst ones. I’ve seen some which mention and promote CSAM. Reporting these seemingly does nothing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago

I’m really not a fan of Python (in general; the whole philosophy of that language is kinda opposite to my idea of programming) but I have to admit the project does look interesting at first glance.

And after glancing at the Lemmy codebase a few times I think that an alternative or at least competition is a good thing.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

Hell, I really hope it’s scraping the comments too.

With what an absolute fucking trash fire YouTube comments are at the moment and Google being suspiciously silent about it, I'm sure that won't cause any issues at all.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Quick personal sneer: I just had a call with a company trying to sell us their SaaS password/secrets manager solution because we're trying to force everyone to use one instead of using hunter2 everywhere.

Anyway, after going on for 30 minutes about their amazing integrations with every platform on the planet and their super duper security and how their systems are rock solid and never fail, the marketing dude finished off by trying to sell ChatGPT integration as a feature. Not for actual passwords, thank fuck, but in order to quickly produce integrations between their APIs and other systems. He proudly proclaimed that "Usually there's no security issues with just copy-pasting the code from ChatGPT."

Usually.

 

Wake up honey, new Zitron just dropped.

Looks like Sammy boy has a crush on Scarlett Johansson and wanted to model his sexy chatbot after her role in the movie Her. The damage control is actually hilarious.

Altman subsequently claimed that the actress for Sky was cast before the company reached out to Johansson.

“Yeah, I don’t want to go out with you anyway. Also, I already have a girlfriend but she goes to a different school, so you wouldn’t know her. And no, I won’t tell you who it is!”

I mean, we all knew that OpenAI is a fucking clown show of a company run by wannabe nerd frat boys with way too much money, but I didn’t think we’d get high school level relationship drama this season.

 

It was honestly only a matter of time before someone thought we could try that thing where they identify a license plate from a reflection in some dude’s pupil for realsies.

Puloka’s lawyers reportedly used an “expert” in creative video production who’d never worked on a criminal case before to “enhance” the video. The AI tool this unnamed expert used was developed by Texas-based Topaz Labs, which is available to anyone with an internet connection.

You wouldn’t know this expert though. He goes to a different school.

Large language models like ChatGPT have convinced otherwise intelligent people that these chatbots are capable of complex reasoning when that’s simply not what’s happening under the hood.

And at least the judge here had more than five brain cells and shut that circus down. Let’s hope this sets a precedent.

 

It seems like in the proceeds of building their alleged Star Trek utopia with robots and holodecks, tech bros have discovered that they’d rather be the Borg than Starfleet and have begun shilling the pros of getting yourself assimilated at SXSW of all places.

“I actually think that AI fundamentally makes us more human.”

I think it makes us more brain damaged, with this guy being exhibit A, but I guess you could argue that’s a fundamental human property (unless you count hallucinating LLMs).

Those folks sure seem bullish on artificial intelligence, and the audiences at the Paramount — many of whom are likely writers and actors who just spent much of 2023 on the picket line trying to reign in the potentially destructive power of AI — decided to boo the video. Loudly. And frequently.

Stop resisting the tech utopia they’re trying to build for you, or you’re literally doomers. Never mind that the people building said tech utopia are also doomers, but that’s different, because they worry about the real dangers like acausal robot basilisks torturing them for all eternity and not about petty shit like unemployment and poverty.

Speaking of stopping resisting, another, more critical article about this conference has some real bangers they left out in the other one -- I wonder why. It has some sneers, too.

[…] tech journo Kara Swisher—saying stuff like “you need to stop resisting and starting learning” about AI […].

Yep, that's an actual quote. I'm filing that one under examples of being completely tone-deaf alongside "Do you guys not have phones?".

[…] every company will use AI to “figure out how” to become “more efficient.”

I’m sure the toxic productivity community on YouTube will gobble that shit up. It reminds me of that clown who made a video on how to consume media more efficiently by watching anime on 2x speed and skipping the "boring parts". I guess when we eliminate all human value from entertainment products, that might become a valid strategy.

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