scarabic

@scarabic@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Grok floods X with sexualized images of women and children⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m so out of the loop after deleting my Twitter account a while ago. Is it now just a porn generator instead of a website?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨AI boom could falter without wider adoption, Microsoft chief Satya Nadella warns⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Thing could slow down if its loses velocity. Film at 11.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Majority of CEOs report zero payoff from AI splurge⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  One factor here is that they are all under pressure from their boards and investors not to miss the AI wave and get left behind. All companies are doing some level of AI theater. Some actually believe it. But it’s not like hundreds of CEOs all came to this judgment purely on their own, with no outside influences. It’s a mass craze.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I'm about to get fired. How do I make sure my next job is a better place to work?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  We used to have a print news sheet for job listings in the non profit sector, which is very large in my home city. It would have one or two articles as well but was mostly job classifieds. Wish I could give you a specific recommendation, but I guess I’m saying just find another job?

  It sounds like you want to be in that job sector, but you experienced a disastrous turnover in management at one organization. To be candid it’s a mild story compared to many I have heard. Tyrannical EDs or crazy founders with too much authority, big funding swings, politics up the wazoo… the non profit sector seems to be particularly drama-laden. I’m not sure why. But take the hit and move on. It doesn’t sound like it was about you personally.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Digg launches its new Reddit rival to the public⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  You are absolutely right about that. Passively detecting your location? Fuck that. We are getting into an era where bots are overwhelming and user verification is a valid topic to discuss. I think additional device permissions can be one element in that discussion. But this idea he popped off the dome is a miserable example of such.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Digg launches its new Reddit rival to the public⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s a fair point. Reddit has been openly hostile to its own users these past several years. It might help moderate that to have another alternative on the table, even if it too is a soulless corporate enterprise.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you're a parent, how do you prevent your kid from watching AI slop?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  If you don’t show them better content, they can’t know the difference. Watch YT with them, but put on good stuff made by humans. There’s plenty of that. Also consider accounts - once they have their own account they will tumble down the shit hole that is the algorithm. If you let them use your account, they will have a better established base, and you will easily see what they are watching. If this doesn’t work for you, created a moderated, shared account that you use and populate with good algorithm juju.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I CAN'T go outside without permission - is there any way I can help fight for a better world from the comfort of my bedroom?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  When I was in college there was a big hike in fees as the university system started having financial problems. Naturally, students protested this. There was a general air of unrest on the campus. One day I was in Poetry class and outside the windows we could hear a lot of commotion and see a protest gathering. One of the students raised his hand and asked the professor if we could have permission to go out and join. He said “I don’t recall asking authorities for permission to protest when I was a college kid in the 1960s. You can go, or not, it’s up to you.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do you think a socialist President would win the 2028 election? Would they use the exact methods used by Zohran Mamdani which earned him the office of Mayor of NYC?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Since even the world’s worst dictators still hold sham elections, I conclude that there will be an election, and they will focus on how to cheat to win. If they even need to that is. This is way easier to do and conceal than canceling the election.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there anything like a Beholder monster before 1975?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Did Wikipedia mention that what it sees, Lo Pan knows?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A generation taught not to think: AI in the classroom⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No, I mean: “As Wikipedia cites sources, so do these AI tools.”

  Ie: these tools cite sources, like Wikipedia.

  I realize now that was unclear.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A generation taught not to think: AI in the classroom⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Soy sauce is made from fermented soybeans.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A generation taught not to think: AI in the classroom⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I agree with you that education is not primarily workforce training. I just included that note as a bit of context because it definitely made me chuckle to see these two posts right together: each painting a completely different picture of AI: “so important you must embrace it or you will die” versus “what the hell is this shit keep it away from children.”

  I fall in between somewhere. We should be very cautious with AI and judicious in its use.

  I just think that “cautious and judicious” means having it in schools - not keeping it out of schools. Toddler daycares should be angelic safe spaces where kids are utterly protected. Schools should actually have challenging material that demands critical thinking.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are your technology mispredictions?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It did that, but we had an overly rosy view of what “democratize” meant. We thought that citizen journalists would leaven the bulky corporate media of the time. And they did. But there was also a torrent of bullshit. We have no excuse for not seeing this. The Greeks and Romans spent a great deal of thought on what would happen if the rabble were given a voice. We dismissed their ideas as gatekeeping oligarchy, but it turns out that populism is moatly a dirty word.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are your technology mispredictions?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  When the first dotcom bubble burst, I predicted that big companies would buy up all the major websites for fire sale prices and put them behind subscription paywalls. “Pay $30/month and get access to all 400 sites in the Yahoo network.”

  I underestimated how easy it is to spin up alternative sites. Most of the media brands I thought of as valuable then are shit now, or gone.

  And, like everyone, I didn’t anticipate social media. Even Google was still nascent at the time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A generation taught not to think: AI in the classroom⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The best AI tools will also cite references, like Wikipedia, so you can click all the way through.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A generation taught not to think: AI in the classroom⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  We need to be able to distinguish between giving kids a chance to learn how to use AI, and replacing their whole education with AI.

  Right under this story in my feed is the one about the CEO who fired 80% of his staff because they didn’t switch over to AI fast enough. That’s the world these kids are being prepared for.

  I would rather they get some exposure to AI in the classroom where a teacher can be present and do some contextualizing. Kids are going to find AI either way. My kids have gotten reasonable contextualizing of other things at school, like not to trust Google blindly and not to cite awikipedia as a source. Schools aren’t always great with new technology but they aren’t always terrible either.

  This is an alarmist post. AIs benefits to education are far from proven. But it’s definitely high time for kids everyone to get some education about it at least.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney argues banning Twitter over its ability to AI-generate pornographic images of minors is just 'gatekeepers' attempting to 'censor all of their political opponents'⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Haven’t touched that pile of shit in years.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨China’s ‘artificial sun’ breaks nuclear fusion limit thought to be impossible⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  We killed a lot of people to ensure that oil is bought and sold with dollars around the world. No way we’re going to let that currency crutch just go away.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cloudflare defies Italy’s Piracy Shield, won’t block websites on 1.1.1.1 DNS⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s no way this was Cloudflare taking a stand for liberty and free speech. They are simply choosing to obey one less regulation. Less for them to do. Less to be accountable for. Less to special-case for one country.

  These corporations hate being regulated - it could be by a direct popular ballot, not politicians, and they would still resist. Let’s not mistake corporate obstructionism for libertarianism.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Cloudflare defies Italy’s Piracy Shield, won’t block websites on 1.1.1.1 DNS⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s moderation. When there’s a law against it, that’s censorship.

  Frankly a couple of countries have passed laws against Nazi speech and paraphernalia, and after the Nazis murdered 12 million people after plunging the world into the biggest war ever, I’m cool with that. If that’s the bar: I can live with it. There have always been rational limits on speech.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dell says the quiet part out loud: Consumers don't actually care about AI PCs — "AI probably confuses them more than it helps them"⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I agree. I share my use cases mostly to out the critical thinking behind them on display. I’m sure the crowd here is very savvy. But in the general public I agree that many if not most people would be completely seduced by the obsequious & confident tone of the robot. It can do so many things that it becomes tempting to rely on it. You wish it worked better than it did, and if you let yourself get lazy, you can easily slip into trusting it too much.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dell says the quiet part out loud: Consumers don't actually care about AI PCs — "AI probably confuses them more than it helps them"⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  As time goes by I’m finding a place for AI.

  1. I use it for information searches, but only in cases where I know the information exists and there is an actual answer. Like history questions or asking for nuanced definitions of words and concepts.

  2. I use it to manipulate documents. I have a personal pet peeve about the format of most recipes for example. Recipes always list the ingredient amounts in a table at the top, but then down in the steps they just say “add the salt” or “mix in the flour.” Then I have to look up at the chart and find the amount of salt/flour, and then I lose my place in the steps and have to find it again. I just have AI throw out the chart and integrate the amounts into the steps. I can have it shorten the instructions too and break them into easier to read bullet points. I also ask it to make ingredient substitutions and other modifications. The other day I gave it a bread recipe and asked it to introduce a cold-proofing step and reformat everything the way I like. It did great.

  3. Learning interactively. When I need to absorb a new skill or topic I sometimes do it conversationally with AI. Yes I can find articles and videos but then I am stuck with the information they lay out and the pace and order in which they do it. With AI you can stop and ask clarifying questions, or have it skip over the parts you already know. I find this is way faster than laborious googling. However only trust it for very straightforward topics. Like “explain the different kinds of welding and what they are for.” I wouldn’t trust it for more nuanced topics where perspective and opinion come into it. And I’ve leaned that it isn’t great at topics where there isn’t enough information out there. Like very niche questions about the meta of a certain video game that’s only been out a month.

  4. Speech to text and summarization. AI records all my Zoom meetings for work and gives summaries of what was discussed and next steps. This is always better than nothing. I’m also impressed with how it seems to understand how to discard idle chit chat and only record actual work content. At most it says “the meeting began with coworkers exchanging details from their respective weekends.”

  This kind of hard-and-fast summarization and manipulation of factual text is much easier with AI. Doing my job for me? No. Hovering over my entire computer? No. Writing my emails for me? Fuck off.

  The takeaway is that specific tools I can go to when I need them, for point-specific needs, is all I want. I don’t need or what a hovering AI around all the time, and I don’t want whatever tripe Dell can come up with when I can get the best latest models direct from the leading players.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK the Venezuelans community in the US is not representative of Venezuelans as a whole.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  What? It’s not. The point stands that’s mostly in the US you meet a very select group of people from other countries, usually of more means, usually with some reason why they left. You are working very hard to not understand something pretty basic. It’s like you’ve never known an immigrant:

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK this woman is called Kathlyn Boyle. She is the most powerful woman in Silicon Valley and one of the closest friend of JD Vance.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  How will you make it through life without the ability to criticize a woman’s eyebrows? I leave that grand challenge to you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK this woman is called Kathlyn Boyle. She is the most powerful woman in Silicon Valley and one of the closest friend of JD Vance.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Great then, bad example. It was crystal clear to me - I guess not everyone hears the same jokes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK the Venezuelans community in the US is not representative of Venezuelans as a whole.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  We’re taking about on the scale of their home country. Most Venezuelans couldn’t even manage to get themselves here to be beggars.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK this woman is called Kathlyn Boyle. She is the most powerful woman in Silicon Valley and one of the closest friend of JD Vance.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s amazing trying to convince people that sexism in fact exists. On the one hand, you have the overwhelming reality of the facts on your side. But against you, there is also unlimited head-in-the-sand excuses.

  So I think I’ll just gesture vaguely at everything and let you figure it out.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK this woman is called Kathlyn Boyle. She is the most powerful woman in Silicon Valley and one of the closest friend of JD Vance.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Congrats, one instance found. My question was which do you hear “more” about.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK this woman is called Kathlyn Boyle. She is the most powerful woman in Silicon Valley and one of the closest friend of JD Vance.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No, because that is not part of a systematic program to diminish men and undermine them from occupying positions of power. When women are equally represented in power and comments about women’s appearance are equally random and not 100% fucking predictable then I’ll handle all such comments the same, and not before.

  You’re really far behind here if you don’t understand this, but I don’t expect a lot from someone who would make an openly sexist remark in public, I guess.