when we try to befriend cats we mimic their meows and get down on the ground to their level and try to gently coax them to interact with us right

that horrifying entity mimicking human noises at us maybe just thinks we’re cool and wants to pet us?

fig in peak combat form (optimal)

An interesting demonstration of how the human brain works.

But also something of a lesson regarding perception, and the unreliability of subjective perspective versus objective reality.

You can be extremely certain about how you perceive the world, your "lived experience," that which you "feel it in my heart." But that doesn't mean it's actually true. And it doesn't mean we have to endorse it, or ignore or outright deny objective reality.

That's a "you" thing, not a "we" thing.

AI models can seemingly do it all: generate songs, photos, stories, and pictures of what your dog would look like as a medieval monarch. 

But all of that data and imagery is pulled from real humans — writers, artists, illustrators, photographers, and more — who have had their work compressed and funneled into the training minds of AI without compensation. 

Kelly McKernan is one of those artists. In 2023, they discovered that Midjourney, an AI image generation tool, had used their unique artistic style to create over twelve thousand images. 

“It was starting to look pretty accurate, a little infringe-y,” they told The New Yorker last year. “I can see my hand in this stuff, see how my work was analyzed and mixed up with some others’ to produce these images.” 

For years, leading AI companies like Midjourney and OpenAI, have enjoyed seemingly unfettered regulation, but a landmark court case could change that. 

On May 9, a California federal judge allowed ten artists to move forward with their allegations against Stability AI, Runway, DeviantArt, and Midjourney. This includes proceeding with discovery, which means the AI companies will be asked to turn over internal documents for review and allow witness examination. 

Lawyer-turned-content-creator Nate Hake took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to celebrate the milestone, saying that “discovery could help open the floodgates.” 

“This is absolutely huge because so far the legal playbook by the GenAI companies has been to hide what their models were trained on,” Hake explained...

“I’m so grateful for these women and our lawyers,” McKernan posted on X, above a picture of them embracing Ortiz and Andersen. “We’re making history together as the largest copyright lawsuit in history moves forward.” ...

The case is one of many AI copyright theft cases brought forward in the last year, but no other case has gotten this far into litigation. 

“I think having us artist plaintiffs visible in court was important,” McKernan wrote. “We’re the human creators fighting a Goliath of exploitative tech.”

“There are REAL people suffering the consequences of unethically built generative AI. We demand accountability, artist protections, and regulation.” 

-via GoodGoodGood, May 10, 2024

people say folks with adhd struggle with "delayed rewards" aka long term goals and as such we tend to focus more on short term rewards. what they don't talk about is that at when we Do accomplish long term goals we don't actually feel anything proportionate to the amount of work we did to achieve it. In my head I suffered for a while and then money spontaneously appeared in my bank account.

would you like a nice glass of

now that i am a real adult i am starting to realise. media lied to me about the availability of rooftops to go hang out on. every day i wish i could be hanging out on a rooftop somewhere looking cool as fuck

My 11-year-old couldn't decide what flavor of ramen to make, so I told her to flip a coin. Heads for spicy chicken, tails for beef.

Taking my advice, she flipped a penny, and when it landed on tails she said "Wait! Wait! I did it wrong!"

I told her that she did it right, because the real reason for flipping a coin isn't to let fate decide for you, but because when the coin is in the air, you will suddenly realize what you wanted in the first place.

I'm sure there's a life lesson there somewhere…

But honestly, I have never known her to pass up spicy chicken.

new animal just dropped

fake horse adventures

he found a poster for a phineas and ferb theme party and just. decided to go. oh my god 😭

hell hath no fury etc.

another reminder to stop buying/watching/reading anything JK Rowling associated

more good news from tiktok: they’ve started blocking celebrities.

they’re calling it block party 2024. just blocking and ignoring countless celebrities who havent said shit about palestine. influencers, actors, anyone who went to the met gala, whatever, they’re getting blocked. and people keep talking about how cathartic it is, how good it feels, how they never realized they could DO that. there was some kind of subconscious law against blocking famous people, but it’s broken, and people are LOVING it. and it’s WORKING. a social media/digital advertising coordinator was talking about how ad companies are PANICKING, because they can’t accurately target anymore. so many big influencers, including fucking LIZZO started talking about palestine the MOMENT their follower counts started going down. and the best part? no one is forgiving them. lizzo posted a tiktok asking people to donate to palestinian families, and all the comments just said you’re a multimillionaire. put your money where your mouth is. blocked.

i feel like i’m witnessing the downfall of celebrity culture, right here right now. people are waking up.

how?? just how?

my love for you was already on its way, flying through the stars