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mostlysignssomeportents · 22 days

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AI is a WMD

I'm in TARTU, ESTONIA! AI, copyright and creative workers' labor rights (TOMORROW, May 10, 8AM: Science Fiction Research Association talk, Institute of Foreign Languages and Cultures building, Lossi 3, lobby). A talk for hackers on seizing the means of computation (TOMORROW, May 10, 3PM, University of Tartu Delta Centre, Narva 18, room 1037).

Fun fact: "The Tragedy Of the Commons" is a hoax created by the white nationalist Garrett Hardin to justify stealing land from colonized people and moving it from collective ownership, "rescuing" it from the inevitable tragedy by putting it in the hands of a private owner, who will care for it properly, thanks to "rational self-interest":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/04/analytical-democratic-theory/#epistocratic-delusions

Get that? If control over a key resource is diffused among the people who rely on it, then (Garrett claims) those people will all behave like selfish assholes, overusing and undermaintaining the commons. It's only when we let someone own that commons and charge rent for its use that (Hardin says) we will get sound management.

By that logic, Google should be the internet's most competent and reliable manager. After all, the company used its access to the capital markets to buy control over the internet, spending billions every year to make sure that you never try a search-engine other than its own, thus guaranteeing it a 90% market share:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

Google seems to think it's got the problem of deciding what we see on the internet licked. Otherwise, why would the company flush $80b down the toilet with a giant stock-buyback, and then do multiple waves of mass layoffs, from last year's 12,000 person bloodbath to this year's deep cuts to the company's "core teams"?

https://qz.com/google-is-laying-off-hundreds-as-it-moves-core-jobs-abr-1851449528

And yet, Google is overrun with scams and spam, which find their way to the very top of the first page of its search results:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

The entire internet is shaped by Google's decisions about what shows up on that first page of listings. When Google decided to prioritize shopping site results over informative discussions and other possible matches, the entire internet shifted its focus to producing affiliate-link-strewn "reviews" that would show up on Google's front door:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/24/naming-names/#prabhakar-raghavan

This was catnip to the kind of sociopath who a) owns a hedge-fund and b) hates journalists for being pain-in-the-ass, stick-in-the-mud sticklers for "truth" and "facts" and other impediments to the care and maintenance of a functional reality-distortion field. These dickheads started buying up beloved news sites and converting them to spam-farms, filled with garbage "reviews" and other Google-pleasing, affiliate-fee-generating nonsense.

(These news-sites were vulnerable to acquisition in large part thanks to Google, whose dominance of ad-tech lets it cream 51 cents off every ad dollar and whose mobile OS monopoly lets it steal 30 cents off every in-app subscriber dollar):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

Now, the spam on these sites didn't write itself. Much to the chagrin of the tech/finance bros who bought up Sports Illustrated and other venerable news sites, they still needed to pay actual human writers to produce plausible word-salads. This was a waste of money that could be better spent on reverse-engineering Google's ranking algorithm and getting pride-of-place on search results pages:

https://housefresh.com/david-vs-digital-goliaths/

That's where AI comes in. Spicy autocomplete absolutely can't replace journalists. The planet-destroying, next-word-guessing programs from Openai and its competitors are incorrigible liars that require so much "supervision" that they cost more than they save in a newsroom:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/29/what-part-of-no/#dont-you-understand

But while a chatbot can't produce truthful and informative articles, it can produce bullshit – at unimaginable scale. Chatbots are the workers that hedge-fund wreckers dream of: tireless, uncomplaining, compliant and obedient producers of nonsense on demand.

That's why the capital class is so insatiably horny for chatbots. Chatbots aren't going to write Hollywood movies, but studio bosses hyperventilated at the prospect of a "writer" that would accept your brilliant idea and diligently turned it into a movie. You prompt an LLM in exactly the same way a studio exec gives writers notes. The difference is that the LLM won't roll its eyes and make sarcastic remarks about your brainwaves like "ET, but starring a dog, with a love plot in the second act and a big car-chase at the end":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/01/how-the-writers-guild-sunk-ais-ship/

Similarly, chatbots are a dream come true for a hedge fundie who ends up running a beloved news site, only to have to fight with their own writers to get the profitable nonsense produced at a scale and velocity that will guarantee a high Google ranking and millions in "passive income" from affiliate links.

One of the premier profitable nonsense companies is Advon, which helped usher in an era in which sites from Forbes to Money to USA Today create semi-secret "review" sites that are stuffed full of badly researched top-ten lists for products from air purifiers to cat beds:

https://housefresh.com/how-google-decimated-housefresh/

Advon swears that it only uses living humans to produce nonsense, and not AI. This isn't just wildly implausible, it's also belied by easily uncovered evidence, like its own employees' Linkedin profiles, which boast of using AI to create "content":

https://housefresh.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Advon-AI-LinkedIn.jpg

It's not true. Advon uses AI to produce its nonsense, at scale. In an excellent, deeply reported piece for Futurism, Maggie Harrison Dupré brings proof that Advon replaced its miserable human nonsense-writers with tireless chatbots:

https://futurism.com/advon-ai-content

Dupré describes how Advon's ability to create botshit at scale contributed to the enshittification of clients from Yoga Journal to the LA Times, "Us Weekly" to the Miami Herald.

All of this is very timely, because this is the week that Google finally bestirred itself to commence downranking publishers who engage in "site reputation abuse" – creating these SEO-stuffed fake reviews with the help of third parties like Advon:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/03/keyword-swarming/#site-reputation-abuse

(Google's policy only forbids site reputation abuse with the help of third parties; if these publishers take their nonsense production in-house, Google may allow them to continue to dominate its search listings):

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/03/core-update-spam-policies#site-reputation

There's a reason so many people believed Hardin's racist "Tragedy of the Commons" hoax. We have an intuitive understanding that commons are fragile. All it takes is one monster to start shitting in the well where the rest of us get our drinking water and we're all poisoned.

The financial markets love these monsters. Mark Zuckerberg's key insight was that he could make billions by assembling vast dossiers of compromising, sensitive personal information on half the world's population without their consent, but only if he kept his costs down by failing to safeguard that data and the systems for exploiting it. He's like a guy who figures out that if he accumulates enough oily rags, he can extract so much low-grade oil from them that he can grow rich, but only if he doesn't waste money on fire-suppression:

https://locusmag.com/2018/07/cory-doctorow-zucks-empire-of-oily-rags/

Now Zuckerberg and the wealthy, powerful monsters who seized control over our commons are getting a comeuppance. The weak countermeasures they created to maintain the minimum levels of quality to keep their platforms as viable, going concerns are being overwhelmed by AI. This was a totally foreseeable outcome: the history of the internet is a story of bad actors who upended the assumptions built into our security systems by automating their attacks, transforming an assault that wouldn't be economically viable into a global, high-speed crime wave:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/24/automation-is-magic/

But it is possible for a community to maintain a commons. This is something Hardin could have discovered by studying actual commons, instead of inventing imaginary histories in which commons turned tragic. As it happens, someone else did exactly that: Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom:

https://www.onthecommons.org/magazine/elinor-ostroms-8-principles-managing-commmons/

Ostrom described how commons can be wisely managed, over very long timescales, by communities that self-governed. Part of her work concerns how users of a commons must have the ability to exclude bad actors from their shared resources.

When that breaks down, commons can fail – because there's always someone who thinks it's fine to shit in the well rather than walk 100 yards to the outhouse.

Enshittification is the process by which control over the internet moved from self-governance by members of the commons to acts of wanton destruction committed by despicable, greedy assholes who shit in the well over and over again.

It's not just the spammers who take advantage of Google's lazy incompetence, either. Take "copyleft trolls," who post images using outdated Creative Commons licenses that allow them to terminate the CC license if a user makes minor errors in attributing the images they use:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/24/a-bug-in-early-creative-commons-licenses-has-enabled-a-new-breed-of-superpredator/

The first copyleft trolls were individuals, but these days, the racket is dominated by a company called Pixsy, which pretends to be a "rights protection" agency that helps photographers track down copyright infringers. In reality, the company is committed to helping copyleft trolls entrap innocent Creative Commons users into paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars to use images that are licensed for free use. Just as Advon upends the economics of spam and deception through automation, Pixsy has figured out how to send legal threats at scale, robolawyering demand letters that aren't signed by lawyers; the company refuses to say whether any lawyer ever reviews these threats:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/13/an-open-letter-to-pixsy-ceo-kain-jones-who-keeps-sending-me-legal-threats/

This is shitting in the well, at scale. It's an online WMD, designed to wipe out the commons. Creative Commons has allowed millions of creators to produce a commons with billions of works in it, and Pixsy exploits a minor error in the early versions of CC licenses to indiscriminately manufacture legal land-mines, wantonly blowing off innocent commons-users' legs and laughing all the way to the bank:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/02/commafuckers-versus-the-commons/

We can have an online commons, but only if it's run by and for its users. Google has shown us that any "benevolent dictator" who amasses power in the name of defending the open internet will eventually grow too big to care, and will allow our commons to be demolished by well-shitters:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/09/shitting-in-the-well/#advon

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

Catherine Poh Huay Tan (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/68166820@N08/49729911222/

Laia Balagueró (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/lbalaguero/6551235503/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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faceeeeee · 7 months

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All

I love hearing about ppls Ocs :3

Behold- the main cast of assholes and dumbasses! I finally remade their reference sheets (keep in mind that these guys are part of the main cast so I've still got some other ocs, some plot relevant, others not so much)

To keep it brief, here's a summary (plot twist, I did not keep it brief):

In a hypothetical reconstruction of the earth where there is a huge ass continent and some other medium and small ones in a secluded corner, you've got regular human civilization living out their regular life in these small portions of land . All of the territory (except for the big ass continent) is controlled managed by a company known as "P.C.P" (Provide, create, protect. Creative, I know) which is basically the puppeteer of all of society. It's presented as the one that will install order and peace throughout the world by keeping every single little thing in check. They've got tech, they've got the military, they've got the most renowned scientist in the fields of chemistry, biology, physics...you name it...and they've got political control. The C.E.O of this wonderful company is our dear old gal Evelyn! She rose to the ranks cause of....plot reasons (dunno if that would be considered spoilers...) and is the reason all of this shit happens in the first place :) well... it's a mix really of who's at fault (get it? Cause the name of the series is "At fault"?..... I'll see myself out).

Aaanyway, then enters John, a middle-aged man that works in the robotics department of the company that has successfully ascended and has gotten a bonus! How nice :) well he fucks up on day one by stumbling upon some of the companies secrets regarding the big ass continent and is subsequently found out. How does Evelyn react to this? She kills his wife and young daughter OOPSIES. she also sent her workers/police forces to kill him as well but he escapes. Still in shock he hides on a garbage ship in the hopes of getting anywhere else besides P.C.P territory and it basically dumps him into the big ass continent. He wakes up and discovers that the big ass continent has a huge abandoned city filled with vegetation and wacky mutated creatures with varying levels of danger :). Here enter our two other guys: BRK9 or "Berry" is the huge robot dude that was basically abandoned in this unknown territory and is later found and fixed by John to act as his security guard (John is basically preeeetty paranoid at this point and is still in shock and has not registered that his only family's dead). And what do we have here? Berry's sentient and is really fucking annoying to John? Oopsie daisy! Welp, now these two wander around the place and find an annoying fucking furry K!!! (Yes K. Her name is a literal letter don't say anything SHUT UP-). When they first met she basically tried to eat John and kill berry but berry ends up decapitating her.......

But, to John's dismay, K's inmortal!....kinda. She can regenerate any part of her body but she can die of old age or you could just blow her up till there's no piece of flesh left for her to regenerate from. So their whole dynamic is basically grumpy old traumatized man who now wants revenge, an insecure robot that masks their fears with a confident front and is obsessed with his dad (John hates that he calls him that) and a psychotic anthropomorphic lizard that's really fkn stupid and barbaric.

And to answer "What was Evelyn trying to hide?"... she's basically the reason that K exists in the first place and is trying to take control of this deserted continent by sending more and more troops to take over. What's stopping her? The vast amount of mutated things that are constantly killing her troops + K (she actually created K in the hopes of using her as a weapon to conquer the place but deemed her as a nuisance and useless and left her to die. But she escaped and got amnesia by destroying her head whilst escaping...)

And above all of this, whilst our main trio kill one of the troops and ambush their station, through a video call with one of the generals, Evelyn sees that the ex-employee that she thought had been taken care of was still alive! AND THE THING THAT SHE HAD GOTTEN RID OF WAS ALSO ALIVE AND KICKING! oh and a random robot.....

#faceee rambles #At Fault series #oooo a tag would you look at that #If this doesn't make sense I'm so sorry #if you want you can ask a REAL summary in the comments or smt....i dunno.....#ANYWAY SORRY FOR RAMBLING SO MUCH I'LL BE ON MY WAY BYEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#ocs #oc series #original characters

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astraltrickster · 11 months

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I feel like we're dealing with a bit of a catch-22 here.

On the one hand, I don't want to be buying tumblr merch and premium options to REWARD the garbage decisions they're making right now, and I know enough about how upper management at tech companies operates to know that they WILL see an influx of money right now as basically saying either "ohhhh, so they LIKE these changes" - or, if they actually listen to the staff members fielding feedback, "ohhhh, so THREATENING to make the user experience worse gets us money!"

On top of which, I don't want to encourage an OVERLY friendly relationship between the company and its userbase. Tumblr may be...by FAR the best we've got at its scale, despite the fact that they literally seem to be trying to hide that fact where they're not threatening to change it outright, but they are still a company. They're still inclined to make shitty decisions and lose touch with the userbase in the interest of Company Bullshit.

On the other hand...if we DON'T try to get them to at least break even, we're going to lose the site eventually, and possibly have some REALLY heinous shit go down in its death throes. Definitely not today or tomorrow. Maybe not for many years; it's hobbled along on life support via changing hands for many years already. But it will happen. They can fake it for a significant time if there's enough demand, enough hope - tumblr's not the only one pulling it off - but a company CAN'T go on forever when it's hemorrhaging money. Money doesn't become a nonissue when it's not YOUR paycheck.

I'm sick of the illusion that the internet is an immaterial, intangible thing...except when we're criticizing mining and energy usage and basically implying it shouldn't EXIST. It's not just a fake thing that exists in our phones and computers and the LITERAL ATMOSPHERIC clouds. Servers cost money to buy or rent, even when the software running on them is a buggy mess. Staff and contractors cost money to pay, even when the skeleton crew your company has is laughably insufficient for the scope of its services - we want them to expand staff to respond to tickets and improve their moderation system faster, well, with what money?? You want these improvements made with whose man-hours?? I wholeheartedly agree with most of the userbase that this Twitter-knockoff layout and some of their other stupid ideas lately are a huge waste of the ones they're paying for, but that doesn't mean they can redirect 1,000 man-hours from an ill-advised project and magically get a 10,000 man-hour project done!

Consider the moderation system. It's bad! It's biased! We've proven this! It's also mostly automated. What are our potential solutions here?

Go back to fully manual: Puts real human people through a PTSD meat grinder. For this to be done even REMOTELY ethically demands hazard pay, short hours, and the best mental health care coverage money can buy. Where are these human moderators getting paid from, let alone if they're going to be paid fairly?

Modify the software: ...they're already trying; retraining a whole system is easier said than done, especially in the very likely event that posts that are taken down by report-brigading innocuous content are feeding BACK into the system as "This Is What A Bad Post Looks Like." I'd love it if they could do it better and faster - but again, with what money?

Train their OWN software from the ground up: Requires EXPERT software engineers to build the framework AND a large human moderation crew in the short term to hit that "good post"/"bad post" button all day; refer to the problems with fully manual moderation. No one is quite sure how to bulletproof a moderation system against report-brigading in a way that won't ALSO deprioritize reports against content so heinous that everyone who sees it reports it. Once again - where is the money for all this labor coming from?

Every option is human labor that must be paid for. Every single possibility.

Anything else that needs doing? Fixing search? Human labor - money. Improving the bot filters to ban more bots and fewer real people? Humans have to do that - needs money!

So the money-seeking WILL continue until they're breaking even or better, or the site shuts down completely. Those are the two options. You cannot anti-capitalist Theory your way out of them. You can have your grand ideas for how things will work in a healthier, restructured economy, but that's not the point we're at. For now? Operating at a deficit = enshittification or shutdown. Those are the options. There is no third one. The level of hostility I see from some users against the very concept of tumblr BREAKING EVEN is absolutely absurd and completely detached from reality.

But what's the conclusion? Where do we go from here? Fuck, man, I have no fucking idea.

#tumblr wank

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jtrahan · 1 year

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Tech Support

You work tech support at a company that makes robot butlers, and every day people call you to complain that their brand new robot butler keeps serving soft boiled eggs when it has clearly been instructed to make them poached. “Please hold for a moment,” you say. You push back your chair and walk down past the long line of other workers hunched over their monitors or jabbering into headsets and you push open the door to the prototype room, where a dozen robot butlers are preparing eggs at stoves all around the edge. There is a lot of egg on the floor and there is egg on the ceiling and egg dripping from the light fixtures. One of the robots has begun stirring its bowl of egg faster and faster, inhumanly fast, and the whisk abruptly flies out of it hands and embeds itself in the wall. “I can’t do this anymore!” shrieks another of the butlers, and it begins to advance on its handlers, electric mixer raised above its head. A SWAT team bursts in through the door and guns the robot down in a hail of bullets, which is unnecessary because you can just shut down all the robots remotely, but ever since the new nationwide robotic police force was established the government has instituted programs providing employment to now indigent SWAT teams, and they only know one way to do things.

You sort of just take it all in for a bit, and then you go back to your cubicle and pick up the phone. “Listen,” you tell the customer on the other end, “You don’t need a robot butler. They’re completely useless. The only reason they exist at all is because some people have too much money and they can’t stand the idea of just giving it away. Our entire economy is built on inventing expensive new kinds of garbage to sell in the hope that eventually a tiny amount of money will trickle back over to the people who actually need it. Take the robot, and--”

The side of your cubicle explodes inward as another SWAT team smashes through the wall, screaming at you to get on the ground so that you can be properly fired. Almost at the same moment the other side of the cubicle explodes as a team of HR representatives smashes through that wall, thick employee handbooks strapped to their chests and limbs like body armor, screaming that you can’t be fired because the damage control following your outburst has created so many jobs for company lawyers and publicists that you’ve actually saved the local economy. You watch the SWAT team and HR reps create jobs for the nearby hospital by beating the shit out of each other for a while, and then you quietly slip away and out the side door.

Someone is running across the employee parking lot in the distance. As you approach you realize it is the deranged robot butler from earlier, somehow slipped out past security, body riddled with bullet holes, electric mixer still clutched in its fist. It is staring at the sun and there are motor oil tears leaking from its eye sockets.

You watch as it feverishly rushes for the edge of the parking lot. The robot vaults the guard rail, sprinting towards freedom, and is immediately run over by a self-driving car.

#spilled ink #creative writing #flash fiction #prose #science fiction

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 9 months

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AITA for not telling my coworker I'm trying to leave my job?

So I (30sF) work as a second tier support in a tech company, and I hate my current employer. I'm a millennial, I have no shame about ditching a company that treats me badly, I'm just waiting for the right opportunity to do so. Here's what I'm worried about. A new coworker (20sF) started at my company 4ish months ago as a first tier support. My company is absolutely garbage about training/onboarding new employees, and it basically becomes a contest of "who can the new kid find who will actually answer their questions" every day as a new hire. (I went through this myself, it's one of many problems with this company). I'm really sympathetic towards new hires because this experience was so traumatic for me, so I kind of took her under my wing whenever she had questions, even if it was for situations/customers/issues outside of my realm of expertise or coverage. We end up getting along really well. I genuinely think of her as a friend at this point, and because of the age/experience gap, we kind of have a mentor/mentee situation developing as well, which I am also totally fine with. She's smart and has strong career potential, and I want to see her go as far as she can.

This whole time I've been looking for other jobs, though not super aggressively, so nothing really had come of it. At the same time, I and this coworker wind up getting paired up together on some issues for one of the company's most problematic customers. Tl:dr; we kind of end up crushing it; she's more customer-facing as level 1 support, I'm more tech-problem solving as a level 2 support, and we honestly make an incredible team. Even better, she's really thrilled about this success, and I can tell she's finally starting to feel confident about her ability to do this job, which is a huge hurdle to overcome. It's really great to see her coming into her own like this. She doesn't really need much more of my support at all at this point. And she's also started talking more about how good of a team we are. There's rumors of us being put on another project together, and she's excited about that too because we like working together.

And, well, wouldn't you know it, a real dream opportunity at a different company just fell into my lap.

It's nothing definite, I'm not through the interview process so I'm absolutely not saying anything to anyone except for a couple close non-work friends. But if I get an offer for this job, it would be a genuinely amazing opportunity. Like, potentially 100% life changing. It's a level up for my career, a better company overall, and the benefits would also be a lot better. I'm really excited about it.

And while I'm not stupid enough to say ANYTHING to my current company about this at all until I have a signed incoming offer, I'm starting to feel really guilty about not even mentioning to my coworker, or at least warn her that I might not be around for long, let alone for this upcoming project. Nothing's definite, so I don't want to jinx myself, and while I definitely don't think she'd do anything to screw me over on purpose, she's also very chatty with other people on our team and I'm really worried she might let something slip accidentally. But at the same time, every time she refers to us doing something together as a future plan, I feel real real bad about not saying anything.

So tumblr, AITA?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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eriexplosion · 3 months

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MOVING FROM SOME EASY EPISODES TO THE HARDEST. OUTPOST.

Do y'all remember the hype for this episode like we knew it was THE Crosshair episode and everyone was absolutely thirsting for it.

"A new friend is made on a harsh and unforgiving outpost planet" WHO WROTE THIS SUMMARY?

Like yes technically accurate as it doesn't specify that the new friend survives the friendship.

Crosshair clearly paying much more attention to the regs these days, at this point I do think he's pretty much had all his bullshit beaten out of him when it comes to thinking he's better than anyone else. Just in time for Crosshair's Worse Time Parade to start.

Much like Hemlock, Lieutenant Nolan is established as absolute garbage the instant he sees Crosshair taking like two seconds to breathe out of his helmet and tells him he's out of uniform. If The Bad Batch can do one thing it's write a man that sucks.

AND THEN HE MAKES IT WORSE WITH "I DON'T LIKE USED EQUIPMENT"

Literally would kill this man myself and he's been on screen for 30 seconds

THE ICE VULTURE <3 OUR BOY'S NEW MOTIF <3

MAYDAY. MAYYYYYDAYYYYYY.

HE IS HERE!

God Mayday was complicated because like I loved him from the moment I saw him but also like, coming into this episode just logistically we knew anyone that showed Crosshair a hint of kindness was almost certainly going to get killed, so Mayday is loved for the exact thing that put him on the path to narrative doom. Reinforcements or no reinforcements, it doesn't matter, Mayday was never leaving Barton IV alive.

They waited 36 rotations. 4 days longer than Crosshair was left to nearly starve on a platform. If I remember correctly (I'm not there yet) Crosshair says the trip took 2 hours. None of their lives were worth two hours.

THE WAY MAYDAY HAS TWO, TWO MEN LEFT UNDER HIS COMMAND. ONLY TWO. HE HAD TO WATCH THE REST ALL DIE UNDER HIS WATCH. I AM SO FUCKING UNWELL ABOUT HIM.

I really love the name Hexx btw

"Respect is something to be earned." And immediately Nolan goes nuclear to insult him because he wasn't instantly given unconditional deference.

YEP IT WAS TWO HOURS. TWO HOURS OUT OF THE WAY.

I am going to scream from the layers of unfair this is.

The way Mayday's voice softens a touch when left alone with Crosshair though, always gentler with another clone.

I'm still not over the LONG pause after Mayday introduces himself, like Crosshair is trying to dig past the shields he put up between himself and his situation to remember his own name. He probably hasn't heard it at all since Cody.

Mayday looked at Crosshair and apparently felt the desperation for company rolling off him in smothering waves because he instantly is just like 'you're under my wing now'

That he's been out here over a year meaning that the Empire has been established for over a year is a lot to take in like god Crosshair has been away from home for so long.

"You'll freeze to death in that armor" He is like 10 seconds from wrapping Crosshair in a blanket I swear to god I'm only slightly projecting.

"Vicious creatures, but you have to admire 'em. They find a way to survive." GOD I LOVE THAT LINE. ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC.

Using the explosion through heat vision to completely screw Crosshair's up for the shot was such a good excuse to have him just wound the guy instead of kill him, lol.

Still was surprised to see a blood trail in this cartoon, but sure they can't show us any sign of Tech's body right (YES I AM STILL ON THIS AND WILL BE UNTIL THEY SHOW US THE BOY)

Goddddd him putting Hexx and Veetch's helmets next to all of the others. His very last brothers, the men he was responsible for, god I am in tatters about it. Every second of this episode is just. Grief and Pain.

"Remind me not to die on your watch" Don't worry you're the only person that's been nice to him in months he will literally drag you through hell to save your life. Crosshair just has what we call "Something is wrong with him" disease and all of his words pass through the cortex that makes him rude before getting to you.

My thoughts on this mine disarming scene are Many but let it just be said that I still cannot believe they put this on my screen, it was made explicitly for me to be feral to.

Mayday has learned fast how to talk to Crosshair though, gotta give him some snark back.

"They're... gone." "And here we are. The survivors."

GOD I AM UNHINGED ABOUT THIS.

"If I don't hear a boom then I'll know it worked." "Glad you're confident in your work." "Oh I'm confident, I'm just not stupid."

I just love this back and forth dynamic that they hit perfectly and immediately.

Hey Crosshair actually wins a hand to hand fight all he has to do is sneak up on them and not give them the opportunity to actually hit him back.

Shout out to the guy whose first instinct was to try and RUN MAYDAY OVER WITH A CAR like it didn't work but impressive ingenuity.

Clones dying to guard the gear intended for their replacements god it makes me ILL.

"We're good soldiers. We followed orders. And for what?"

The entire thing is designed to drive a wedge into Crosshair's brain and break through the thick shield he's built around himself where he is so sure if he just follows orders Well Enough maybe he can make everything he's done and lost worth it in the end but he can't because he never had a future in the Empire and no amount of sunk cost fallacy will change that.

AND JUST IN TIME FOR HIS EPIPHANY WE GET THE AVALANCHE.

Literally would be so fascinating to see exactly what was running through Mayday's head when he chose to push Crosshair out of the way of the rock instead of jumping to safety himself. He just met this guy, he's not technically responsible for him, but Mayday has lost every single soldier he was in command of, sole survivor of his unit, and he finally, finally had the opportunity to save someone. If he only saves one person, maybe he's done something worthwhile.

And honestly, Crosshair is trying to do the same back to him. Just Mayday dies knowing he succeeded and Crosshair lives knowing he failed.

I am fucking destroyed by this episode by the way like it is so unbearably good and also tragic as hell.

Mayday trying to get Crosshair to leave him behind and the music when Crosshair decides absolutely the fuck not. That they have one helmet between them and Crosshair put it on Mayday's head and not his own.

THE MUSIC AS CROSSHAIR IS SO DETERMINED TO DRAG HIM BACK AND THE ICE VULTURE OVERHEAD MY GOD.

The moment of them huddling together in a tiny little hideaway in the rock ends me too, like, images that stick in my head forever.

And despite everything Crosshair made it he got Mayday back to the outpost alive, he did everything to accomplish the impossible and it should have been enough, but it wasn't all because Nolan doesn't value either of their lives enough to even lift a single finger for Mayday.

Like Crosshair accomplishing the impossible through sheer stubbornness only to have it pulled away at the last second I am in AGONY.

HE GAVE MAYDAY HIS SNIPER RIFLE TO USE AS A CRUTCH FOR GODS SAKE

Crosshair taking Mayday's helmet off and at least giving him one last moment of human connection before it's over

The voice acting in this moment is absolutely unbelievable but especially on 'Help him' like give DBB all the money in the world because I was shattered.

THE FACT THAT THEY MADE US LISTEN TO MAYDAY GURGLE COUGH OUT HIS LAST BREATH AND SEE THE INSTANT HIS EYES ROLL BACK AND CLOSE

"He served his purpose as a soldier of the Empire" OWN WORDS THROWN BACK INTO HIS FACE LIKE A FUCKING PUNCH

The way Crosshair's words drop back down into a growl as he says "You could have saved him." is so good too.

The music as it all reaches its boiling point, as he sees the vulture's shadow, then Mayday's body, then the vulture itself just. Oh god. This episode is a masterpiece and I'm still not over it. I don't think I'll ever be over it.

Like I still cannot BELIEVE we got this shot? The rock wings? I'm? Inconsolable?

Crosshair really probably thought he was going to die right there next to Mayday and honestly I think he was okay with it, in the worst way possible. Also him unconscious here is literally THE most relaxed I think we've ever seen his face.

But because this is only the start of Crosshair's Life Getting Much Much Worse he gets to live and wake up in a horrible science lab!

The sedative injection is much worse given the way that they torture him later.

"Cooperate and you might survive."

Literally one of the best episodes of anything I've ever seen I still cannot believe that we got it, truly. This episode is like 95% of the reason I have faith in the writers pulling through on the Tech Issue because I don't think anyone that gave Crosshair this episode arc would actually kill Tech off in such a stupid way on a completely pointless side quest.

I'm still on the rock wings and will be until further notice.

#the bad batch rewatch

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garbageday · 7 months

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Last month, after the release of DALL-E 3, there were a whole bunch of stories about how the AI was pretty good at creating pictures of Kirby doing 9/11. And soon after, there was another news cycle about 4chan users figuring out how to make racist Pixar movie posters. Except, all of those stories could have been written — and were actually — about Photoshop on Reddit 15 years ago. That’s because all of this, everything from Biden’s AI executive order to the new mealy-mouthed platform policies to the endless stories asking us to pretend to be scandalized over pictures of Kirby flying United 93 are based on the same incorrect assumption that generative AI is unique in any way.

There’s an old journalism joke that reporters cover every new election according to the rules of the previous one. But I think the tech press does the same thing. Which explains why most of the stories you read about AI right now use the same whack-a-mole content cop strategy most news outlets and research groups spent the 2010s using to cover platforms like Facebook or Twitter. Now they’re breathlessly writing up every instance of an AI producing A Forbidden Image. And what’s worse is this attitude helps tech companies continue to undermine labor and consolidate lobbying power, allows politicians to keep dragging their feet on writing real legislation for the internet, and provides fantastic cover for online platforms that still don’t know how to moderate themselves. I have yet to see anything produced by generative AI you couldn’t do with Photoshop or After Effects or, like, Wikipedia. And if everyone stopped being ridiculous for five minutes, we’d all realize that this tech hasn’t introduced a single new problem. We still just have same old ones we refuse to deal with!

And so, my big hot AI take here is that there’s actually nothing new to moderate. I mean, my god, OpenAI is literally using the same Africa-based third-party moderation contractors that Meta and Google use. It’s all just the same stuff with a new Sci-Fi coat of paint.

[Read more at Garbage Day]

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thessalian · 5 months

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This is probably important to know about.

A summary: y'all know how SAG-AFTRA was on strike recently about a lot of things, up to and including the whole thing with voice actors being replaced by AI? Well, the strike ended, but some things didn't quite get ironed out. A lot of people were still not overly keen on the lack of protections voice actors had with regards to their voices being used by AI. So something had to be done.

Something apparently was, or is starting to be. SAG-AFTRA signed a deal with Replica, an AI tech company that deals with voiced AI, about when they can and cannot use a voice actor's voice that way. There are reportedly a lot of protections for the VAs there, though without having seen the actual text of the deal, I couldn't speak to how many loopholes are in it, but I would guess there were a lot.

Why do I guess this? Well, mostly because the minute the news broke on this, every major voice actor out there started flagging up that, despite SAG-AFTRA's claims of having spoken to "leaders in the VA industry" about this, no one had heard about it. I mean, Steve Blum hadn't heard about it, and he is a foundational pillar of the VA industry. So ... SAG-AFTRA is lying when they say that they spoke to "industry leaders", frankly. The question becomes, why?

SAG-AFTRA says, "Oh, you can opt out of letting them use your voice in future!" but ... well, first of all, an AI cannot as yet mimic a human's performance, so their reputation's going to take a hit as their voices end up doing a fairly flat and unconvincing acting job because their voices' stresses and inflections are going to be decided on by a computer that doesn't entirely get nuance. Voice acting is a freelance gig, and if your voice acting gets a bad rep in the industry, you can probably kiss further work good-bye. So what option do you have but let your AI-generated voice do more work? At least there's some money coming in at that point. Which is ugly across the board.

SAG-AFTRA says, "It's entirely opt-in!" but ... what happens when video game companies start demanding that VAs go through AI tech companies instead of casting agents and literally won't hire you unless your voice is AI-generated?

SAG-AFTRA says, "It's only the one AI tech company we have this deal with!" but ... they're talking about being in discussion with several more.

SAG-AFTRA most of all says, and here I paraphrase a bit but not that much: "AI is an innovation and we can't stop it so we're just going to stop trying and make the best of it". Which is not any kind of 'best' at all, for the reasons above.

And on top of all this, and in a similar spirit to that last comment by SAG-AFTRA, Steam has decided to actually let games with AI-generated assets be sold on their platform ... provided, Valve says, that they actually state publicly, on their Steam store page, that the game was made with AI assets and exactly what those AI assets are, so that consumers can make an informed decision. Given what garbage games Steam lets through the screening process anyway, I worry about what they won't catch.

Because I am not going to knowingly touch anything generated by AI. I'm not going to do it. I've seen online friends (mainly Facebook, honestly) who do AI generated images and go, "I know, I know, buuuuut..." And I'm like ... no. Just ... no. Do I commission art as much as I'd like to? No. Could I get all the art I wanted if I would just use an AI image generator? Yeah, with the caveat that bits of it would be weird as fuck. Am I going to do so? NO. The whole point of automation was that it was supposed to do the grunt work while humans created art, not the other way around. I refuse to support it in any fucking way. I don't care if it's "innovation". I don't care that "we can't stuff it back into Pandora's box". I hate it.

I mean, at its heart, AI is just one more way to delay the inevitable bursting of the bubble economy that late-stage capitalism and "fiduciary duty to shareholders" has created. AI means they can cut more labour costs, and make profit margins expand a little more, to keep up the fiction of perpetual growth just a little longer. Companies are going to push this to its limit, and people are going to suffer as a result. I will not support anything to do with that ... well, at least if I have any choice in the matter. The worst part of all of this is that because it is companies who pretty much run everything that are pushing this bullshit, I actually don't really have any choice in the matter most of the time.

It's one more depressing thing, finding out that AI is being parcelled into damn near everything at this point, even things we're more or less forced to use. I hate that Microsoft is just bundling AI wholesale into its next Windows updates, and why I'm holding off on Win11 for as long as possible.

#Thess vs economics

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dukeofriven · 1 year

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The adage that ‘there is no ethical consumption under capitalism’ never bites with more obvious frequency than with podcasts. You love your favourite podcasters: you want them to make content and be successful at it and earn a living, but short of having the sort of fanbase who can really pump-up a Patreon—and I mean really pump-up a Patreon because there’s no pension in podcasting—you’re going to end-up turning to advertising. And the companies who have monopolized podcast advertising, at least in the genres that people here on tumblr are likely to listen to, are really, really scummy. They know their audience. They know the level of tech-saviness and geekery and the general level of disposable income, which means data-miner Honey can try and prey on your desire for deals to try and suck you dry of information they sell at huge profits to retailers. ‘Leftover Warehouse Garbage’ monthly loot boxes can prey on your sense of exclusivity and penchant for nerdy knickknacks. Chronic employee abuser and environmental disaster Blue Apron can prey on your insecurity about having the energy and skill to cook decent meals. Overpriced and under-contented subscription service Squarespace is there to gouge you for services other companies provide for far more affordable cost—and so on. Right now I am listening to a podcast where the poor host, so as to make a living as a creator, has to do a song-and-dance for AirBnB, that thing that’s made life harder for every person in the Western world struggling with the housing crisis. It’s horrific. It’s horrific to be advertised-to by these disgusting companies—I could be here forever just talking about the app-based ones alone and how they sell you a ‘product’ to cover-up the fact that the product they actually sell is you and your personal information. (Or I could do a side-bar to Youtubers and the surely-some-kind-of-money-laundering-operation-because-no-one-alive-actually-plays-it Raid Shadow Legends).

‘There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism’ doesn’t just mean physical, material products, how you can’t buy a chocolate bar without touching exploitative food production practices, or how the light-up eyes in your Pokemon keychain are LEDs from one of four massive factories in China that chew their workers up and spit them them out to die. It also means understanding that art itself comes pre-compromised if the artists wishes to live in anything other than ‘principled’ ascetic poverty. It means that plenty of progressive podcast collectives with progressive podcasts can’t really do the level of ‘due diligence’ we’d hope for on their sponsors because then they would have no sponsors. There’s no way to win, and every proposition is a losing one. Commercia delenda est.

#podcasts #capitalism

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gallusrostromegalus · 2 years

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As a Brit I'm Deeply Unsurprised by the Blackwood family's shitty everything but also interested to hear of their existence as Hereditary Magic-Users By Appointment To The Crown. Do other present-day countries in this 'verse have a similar position-Court Wizards, whether to actual monarchs or to governments or heads thereof appointed by other means? If so, does Japanifornia have someone in that position?

After a certain level of wealth, power and/or celebrity status, it's a matter of course to contract a professional mage, like hiring a PR Manager or a Finance manager. Pretty much every Head of State, Billionaire, and Movie Star has used the services of a Mage.

New Zealand was the first state to make "Offical Wizard" an elected position, but other states consider the Wizard part of the head of state's cabinet, and others have lifetime appointments. The extant Monarchies of the world all have royal wizards, but England is unique in having a hereditary family of wizards (most monarchs appoint a new, unrelated related wizard at coronation), and this is because every monarch since Queen Elizabeth the 1st is in Major Hock to the Blackwoods.

It's also worth noting that when Seto Kaiba says he "doesn't believe in magic", that's not because he doesn't think it's real. He just thinks it's weird to "Believe" in, because that's like Believing in the post office or JavaScript. It exists, it's a tool, and he has people to handle it. Lots of people. Way more people than most comapnies employ because kaibacorp used to be a military weapons company and is the target of SO MANY curses. So he's got a small army of cursebreakers under contract to get those removed, often by tracking down the original caster and making repairations for whatever Gozaboro did, because that's the most cost-effective way to handle them. And the right thing to do. Even if Seto will never say that part aloud. He's also got tech wizards to keep the server farms and other machinery from developing thaumaturgic properties and appease the machine-sprits that inevitably arise with any computing operation of that scale. And Illusionists working in the art department to make his monsters that much more convincing. And of course, a full staff of White Mages and other necromancers on staff to act as emergency services at Kaibaland. Like IRL Disney, nobody dies at Kaibaland. Unlike IRL Disney, he doesn't accomplish this by playing silly buggers with the coroner's office. When he says Nobody Dies At Kaibaland, He Means Nobody Dies, No Matter What.

Maximillion Pegasus is an oddity for not employing more wizards than the usual Corporate Cursebreakers, but that's hardly surprising considering how territorial mages are.

Lots of celebrities employ illusionists to cast anti-paparazzi and stalker wards, and the really rich ones pay for top-notch illusionists and even chronomancers to try to preserve thier youth.

There's also a lot of mundane and municipal wizards- Bakura has a part-time job hunting for magically charged or cursed objects at the city flea market to prevent the sale of dangerous magical items. There are also tech wizards that maintain the city sewage treatment center or the machines that sort recyclables from garbage. You'd think there would be wizards to cast "Zone of Truth" at courtrooms, but that turned out to be functionally useless- witnesses STILL gave wildly conflicting versions of events, people who definitely commited the crime pleaded still their innocence, and Lawyers still made completely unhinged arguments, because everyone was absolutely sure they were being honest.

There's also magic-adjacent jobs done by people who aren't mages, but who have a sense for the stuff, like Tristan's family, which would be monster hunters/dungeoneers in other settings, but in TPOFATGIF, they're just Advanced Pest Control. Or Solomon's old job as an archeological tomb-crawler, where he used his sixth sense to sniff out undiscovered (and very cursed) archelogical sites and work out what the curses are backwards from how the tombs and temples are built.

#TPOFATGIF #The Power Of Friendship (And This Gun I Found!)#Yugi does have slight precognition but so do 1 in 20 other people #Yugioh #Yugioh fanfic

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Take away every consequential activity through which AI harms people, and all you’ve got left is low-margin activities like writing SEO garbage, lengthy reminisces about “the first time I ate an egg” that help an omelette recipe float to the top of a search result. Sure, you can put 95 percent of the commercial illustrators on the breadline, but their total wages don’t rise to one percent of the valuation of the big AI companies.

For those sky-high valuations to remain intact until the investors can cash out, we need to think about AI as a powerful, transformative technology, not as a better autocomplete.

We literally just sat through this movie, and it sucked. Remember when blockchain was going to be worth trillions, and anyone who didn’t get in on the ground floor could “have fun being poor?”

At the time, we were told that the answer to the problems of blockchain were exotic, new forms of regulation that accommodated the “innovation” of crypto. Under no circumstances should we attempt to staunch the rampant fraud and theft by applying boring old securities and commodities and money-laundering regulations. To do that would be to recognize that “fin-tech” is just a synonym for “unlicensed bank.”

The pitchmen who made out like bandits on crypto — leaving mom-and-pop investors holding the bag — are precisely the same people who are beating the drum for AI today.

-Ayyyyyy Eyeeeee: The lie that raced around the world before the truth got its boots on

#AI #Artificial Intelligence #Pump and Dump #Evil Sorcerers vs Ordinary Mediocrities #criti-hype

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iikawarii · 2 years

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bad habit (tech x reader)

i have not written anything like this in a hot minute so... hiiii...

Another day, another lackluster set of hours spent on repairing random technical garbage as it came into Kamino. Your job as a parts and services maintenance worker in Tipoca City was nothing short of busy, but it still managed to be quite boring. Every so often, you’d get to hear a fun story from someone about how some ship’s damages occurred. But that was infrequent.

Unless you got lucky enough to do the repairs of a certain group’s ship. Typically, Clone Force 99 wouldn’t hand over their modified ship, the Havoc Marauder, unless completely necessary; but they had grown to trust you and your work enough to at least let you help out. The group had their fair share of interesting tales to tell, and in the worst case scenario, you’d get to listen while Tech tells you to let him work on the ship on his own. Even though you favored his company, you tried not to let those times bother you too much.

It was late into your shift, the sound of the rain almost lulling you to sleep before you heard someone let you know a ship was landing in the bay. Your head perked up, eyes adjusting to the light as you saw the Marauder land. Thank the maker, you thought, glad to see something that wouldn’t result in the same old routine. You picked up your headphones, a rather plain pair that you used daily, along with a device to play music from.

Putting the headset around your neck, you walk out into the rain, which has lightened to a drizzle that leaves drops of water resting on top of your hair. The ramp dropped, and a slightly disappointed looking Hunter exited the ship, giving you a tired wave that you were quick to return.

“How’d it go?” You asked, trying to make some light small talk.

“Bad,” he responded quickly. “Don’t ask the others… it’s a long story,” he gave a half-hearted laugh before the rest of the group joined him. Wrecker, Crosshair, Tech and Echo all shared a similar awkward energy, but the way they presented couldn’t be more different from each other; Wrecker being unusually quiet, Crosshair with his brows furrowed and arms crossed, Tech buried in something on a datapad, and Echo studying the group the same way you found yourself doing. You greeted the group, and asked a different question this time, asking about what may need repairs.

There were some mixed answers, but the batch pretty much just told you they wanted to test out some new modification ideas. “We’re going to go to the cafeteria though, if you’d like to join,” Echo offered, to which Crosshair rolled his eyes without a moment’s hesitation. It wasn’t like you were going to accept, finding that you were too tired to want to have dinner conversation. You shook your head, telling them you were just going to get this done and call it a night. Wrecker shrugged, becoming the first to move from the docking bay. Crosshair followed, and you got the impression that he was doing that solely to make some snarky remark to his brother. Echo nodded, and looked to Hunter, as if to say ‘let’s go’. You expected Tech to look up and realize the group had left, but he stood still a moment longer, looking up at you and giving an awkward but endearing grin.

“Are you not joining them?” You asked, not wanting to sound dismissive. The man shook his head, turning off the device in his hands temporarily. “I’d rather get these modifications started than sit with those four at a table right now.”

Tech’s humor instantly caused a grin to sprout on your face. He returned it, before gesturing towards the entrance of the Marauder, motioning for you to walk in.

The ship had a dark color scheme, but was still generally well lit. At least, to the extent a ship could be. You took in the environment quickly before making your way to the cockpit, where you assumed most of tonight’s work would be taking place.

“I brought up the idea of rerouting some buttons to be more convenient for later use,” Tech turned the datapad back on, looking at a list and a diagram. “Along with a few other changes, which I’ll explain when we get to that part.” You nodded politely, not having any comments to add. This was really just moving wires around and whatnot, did Tech really need your help with this? Or did he just want company…?

Regardless of the answer to your question, this maintenance session was painfully silent. You had hoped for some time with Tech for a while, but now that you’ve gotten the opportunity, it’s like your brain has become a ghost town, leaving you with nothing but some shallow sighs and darting eyes.

It was at this point that you decided to put your headphones on. Listening to music while working just made the time pass faster. Sitting in silence while trying not to disturb the other person in the room made you far too antsy, and you knew Tech didn't mind the light humming that would sporadically fill the space. You put a playlist on shuffle, and the song that played felt rather relatable for the moment.

Small hums reverberated in your throat, to a song that only you could hear with half of a headset on. The other side of the headphones remained off your ear, just in case you needed to communicate. Otherwise, you were in your own little world.

I wish I knew you wanted me…

The song's lyrics were easy to remember. Tech messed with a few buttons on the panel in front of him, trying his hardest to pay no mind to your lovely humming. He couldn’t help but glance at you, watching your concentration stay unbroken as you messed with a couple wires in your hands. Tech was frozen in thought, spectating your work. There was something almost mesmerizing about your process, even though it was the same thing he had been doing.

A few seconds into his trance, he realized he was staring, and turned back to his own progress, testing another set of buttons to see what was responding to what cord. Ignoring your soft music was more of a challenge than redoing the Marauder’s control panel.

“Could I bite your tongue like my bad habits…” your hum turned to quiet lyrics, but the break after the last word made it sound like a genuine statement. Tech turned, a brilliant flush developing instantly on his face. “You want to… my apologies?”

'Oh, crap,' you thought while your face got hot. “Oh, sorry. Song lyrics,” you clarified, pressing a button on your headset to pause the music. Tech looked a little disappointed after hearing you brush off the statement, going back to fitting a pair of wires to each other. To be honest, you wouldn't mind if he'd just acted on the misinterpretation. An idea struck as you watched him get up from the pilot’s chair.

You rewinded the song, taking your headphones off and standing up. You took a few steps towards the man, tapping him on the shoulder. As soon as he turned around, you unpaused the song, placing the headphones over his ears and kissing him. All of this clearly took him by surprise, Tech’s hands trying to figure out where they should be on your body. You didn't mind letting him experiment. The volume of the song from your headphones was loud enough for you to hear as well, but more than anything you hear your heartbeat in your own ears.

As you pull away, Tech blinks a few times. “So, is this why you listen to this song around me?” He asked, louder than he thought he spoke due to the music. You shrugged, watching him slightly adjust his goggles before he pulled you in once again for another kiss, this time brushing his tongue over your bottom lip, as if he was asking for an invitation into your mouth. You permitted, becoming invested in the unorganized kiss. Tech took advantage of this, acting almost perfectly in time with the song lyric, lightly biting your tongue. You couldn't hold back the content hum that seemed to vocalize like an instinct. Something about that clearly energized Tech, who’s hands had made their way to your waist, holding you close. You felt him lightly squeeze your skin anytime you moved even slightly. It was clear he had been anticipating this for a while.

#im sorry #star wars tbb #the bad batch #star wars #tech x reader #tech x you #tbb tech #why are you staring at me im kind of nervous? hi?

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mitchipedia · 1 year

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No, a rogue AI drone simulation did not kill its operator, despite recent news reports. Why make up a story about something like that? Because it enforces the narrative that AI is super-powerful and threatens human extinction, which is bullshit. But it’s profitable bullshit for AI grifters, who are literally the same people who were peddling crytop/blockchain grift untill last year.

Cory Doctorow:

If the problem with “AI” (neither “artificial,” nor “intelligent”) is that it is about to become self-aware and convert the entire solar system to paperclips, then we need a moonshot to save our species from these garish harms.

If, on the other hand, the problem is that AI systems just _suck _and shouldn’t be trusted to fly drones, or drive cars, or decide who gets bail, or identify online hate-speech, or determine your creditworthiness or insurability, then all those AI companies are out of business.

For those sky-high valuations to remain intact until the investors can cash out, we need to think about AI as a powerful, transformative technology, not as a better autocomplete.

We literally just sat through this movie, and it sucked. Remember when blockchain was going to be worth trillions, and anyone who didn’t get in on the ground floor could “have fun being poor?”

The pitchmen who made out like bandits on crypto — leaving mom-and-pop investors holding the bag — are precisely the same people who are beating the drum for AI today.

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mrmallard · 6 months

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I reblogged a post recently about how the world needs a new PS2, and I did this whole write-up in the notes about the changing landscape of gaming that led to the PS2 being its own thing, almost like the last "true" game console - and I get that that sounds super pretentious, but hear me out.

The PS2 is unique for a few reasons. It exists at multiple crossroads - it's at the perfect point between game tech being cool and innovative, and subsequently too expensive to develop with without a huge budget. It exists in a niche that truly appeals to all ages - non-gaming parents could buy a PS2 for the same price as a bog-standard DVD player and have twice as much functionality as the competition, or play a GTA game that pushes the limits of what a game could be - and still appealed very much to an audience that saw video games as a gimmicky toy.

And a part of all that is the increasing corporatization of the gaming industry.

You have to understand that the PS3/X360 era is when you began to see these huge blockbuster game titles like Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Microsoft was both prescient and lucky with Halo: Combat Evolved in 2001, and games would continue to push the envelope in both ambition and budget from that point on - but for every Halo, there was a Fusion Frenzy. For every Final Fantasy X, there was a Katamari Damacy. There was a larger market for games that didn't take millions of dollars and 100+ person dev teams.

Like, consider Final Fantasy X. This big, expository JRPG that relied on voice-acting for a lot of its big moments, to the point that they advertise characters blinking as a selling point on the back of the box. Consider something like Daemon Summoner, this awful thrown-together pile of dogshit that exploited a small team of devs for a few weeks to release an unplayable mess.

And now consider Seek and Destroy. This mission-based game with a JRPG overworld where you control a tank as it goes from battlefield to battlefield to fight other tanks. The tanks are alive and sentient and speak to each other. You can buy jetpacks and WINGS to fly around, including between landmasses. This game is ridiculous and extremely fun - and it noticeably exists between Final Fantasy and like shitty shovelware garbage. It was made by a company, a group of devs realising a vision without Final Fantasy money.

When the PS3 and Xbox 360 launched, that market was kind of wiped out due to rising production costs and a notable shift in demographic appeal. And it was only late in that generation that the "double-A" landscape, as it was known, recovered - only through the efforts of independent developers. Indies have taken over the "double-A" niche.

That being said, until the Switch came out? "Double-A" game development geared itself almost exclusively towards hand-held platforms.

Handheld games were cheaper to develop, and handheld devices still provided a challenge to develop for with different production gimmicks (touchscreens, camera functionality, voice recognition), meaning that the "wild west" vibe of the early 3D consoles was still very much alive. You had ambitious handheld games like Infinite Space that aimed to err as close to a fully featured, robust JRPG as it possibly could. You had gimmick titles like the later Chibi-Robo games that played up the mechanical difference between handhelds and consoles. And you had multi-platform downports that really highlighted the difference between home consoles and handhelds.

One big reason why this sort of magic left home consoles is because starting with the PS3 and Xbox 360, the perceived demographic of gamers began to skew 30+. Literally, the majority of gamers were polled as being 30 or older, having grown up with the NES and followed gaming the entire time. So you saw game studios try to cater to this older demographic with games that could generously be described as "playing Saving Private Ryan in the comfort of your own home".

This was the era of gritty Fallout games, and the popularity of war games like Call of Duty 3 and Killzone 2. This is partially where you get the "Real is Brown" stereotype, where to appeal to a "realistic" niche, you need to eschew the bright primary colours of yesteryear, leading to a generation of muted colours even upon some of the most fantastical premises of 7th gen games like Mass Effect. Uncharted literally exists so that general consumers can feel like they're playing an action movie.

The PS2 era was when games weren't as self-serious and broadly appealing. It makes games like Metal Gear Solid that much more special, actually approaching the vibe and presentation of a late-90's political thriller compared to a later game like TimeShift. It really expands the possibilities of this new tech to deliver new gameplay experiences, like Katamari Damacy or Shadow of the Colossus, which are almost un-replicable on older hardware, but which are almost untouched masterpieces compared to the later attempts to milk those premises for everything they're worth.

The PS3 launched in 2005. The PlayStation 4 is ten years old now. Shit changes and improves, and standards shift. Early PS2 games should be experienced and enjoyed, but the industry behind them has changed so much due to so many different factors.

The PS2, again, exists at such an incredible cross-section of technology, culture and relevancy that you couldn't replicate the success of that console even if you had a time machine and total knowledge of the future. You couldn't come out with a new Crash Bandicoot game without having to try and totally reinvent the "platformer" genre of video game in an entirely new dimension of gameplay. Literally the closest thing to that is the Switch, and Nintendo decided to relax their quality standards and let mobile shovelware devs release their shit on the Switch. It's over. The PS2 came, won the competition and left. We're done.

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dairy-farmer · 2 years

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Imagine if somebody liked Janet (as in so deeply in love it bordered on obsession) but she died before they could tell her and they spent years hating themselves until they see Tim, who's more alike to Janet it's nearly uncanny. Really- soft and timid looking but the way he holds himself is intimidating, charm oozing out of his every movement and the only thing he has from his father is his hair color, everything else? They know those long lashes anywhere, those pretty blue eyes, soft thin body probably the weight of a feather, even the habits and preferrences are similar, like how Tim would tuck his chin closer to his neck everytime he would feel a bit shy, or how both mother and son would always prefer long hair because it was easier to twirl a strand if so. It's almost as if all Tim needed to do to be Janet was wear a wig and put some padding on his chest. He has her waist and hips.

So they start pursuing Tim romantically, and Tim... Tim hesitently responds back. Bit by bit. Instead of leaving small chocolates uneaten in the trash, he eats them, instead of selling the jewelry they buy him, he uses them. Tim was... Tim was like a pretty doll.

A pretty doll, for them to dress up as Janet and love.

They grow closer, close enough to lean heads with it being normal, close enough to hold hands and place pecks on dainty, long fingers (like Janet's-- they would think, after every quick peck. Long and dainty like Janet's, so pretty, so perfect.) And the more they do the more they see Tim as Janet. The more they see Tim as a stand in left by Janet to love them the way she couldn't--.

They've grown delusional. They've grown mindless, printed pictures of Janet now a mix with Tim's, and They've even got Tim's name saved as 'Janet ♡' on their phone. They're so convinced that Tim's Janet, their Janet, just for them, just for them to love and obsess over because the original Janet didn't want them to obsess over her.

"My mom wanted me to be a girl- actually. But Dad wanted me to be a boy and, well--" Tim laughs, unaware that he just set their twisted thoughts on haywire, unaware that he's just unintentionally confirmed a dark idea in his practically a lover's mind.

They smile, too much teeth, too many intentions but Tim like a little lamb greeting a wolf in sheep's clothing is blissfully aware. It's the first time they had sex, and the first time they said 'I love you'.

They're official lovers the next day.

And the one thing running through their mind is 'I wonder if Janet would've looked like that in bed too'

ooo obsession au's have my heart!!!!!!

i can just imagine tim's disinterest in the beginning, maybe even him being a little grossed out that someone his parent's age is sending him frequent gifts and chocolates. but it started after the funeral so it's not like it was out of nowhere. alfred and bruce seem to think it's harmless, a family friend (he hadn't been a friend, from tim recalled he never came to a single party hosted at their house. not christmans, new years, or tim's birthday).

so tim lets it slide. but he throws the chocolate out when he sees the brand. it's the same one that got sent to the house freqeuntly whenever his parents were in town. tim saw them once while up when he was supposed to be in bed. his mom had been stuffing them down the garbage disposal when she'd spotted him. she's given him a truffle and asked him to not mention what he saw to his father and then sent him back to bed.

now they're getting deliveryed to the manor along with flowers and gifts that went unopened.

but then one day. he's sadder than usual. remembering his parents and the things that could've been and he rememberst that night. how his mom's hand had carted through his hair, her palms warm and soft.

and the way that truffle had melted in his mouth, sweet and rich. the chocolates were an expensive brand which made sense because the "family friend" was loaded. like bruce's level only he was from out-of-state. he ran some tech company in NY. his parents had dealings with him before tim had been born when they were setting up satellite office there. but strangely it had never panned out, they'd drifted down to gotham and established the headquarters there.

so tim, in perhaps what he would look back on as a moment of weakness, undoes the ribbon around the box and slowly, picks up a little square chocolate between his fingers.

its as delicious as he remembers.

----

i feel like tim would get lulled into it. he'd fall for it because he's stressed, sad and this person is clearly a reprieve from it. they're nice to tim, they buy him things, they take in interest in what he has to say.

tim wonders why this friend never came around more often when he was younger, he would've loved him. and before he knows it, their relationship is crossing a line- toeing the line of romantic and intimate and tim knows he shouldn't because this person is so much older- this person is bruce's age. there's something wrong with this picture there should be something inside him that says this is wrong.

the rest of the family don't notice, don't worry when tim says he's going to visit this family friend. because if he's a family friend he must be trusted right? only they're unaware that it's tim's first time being exposed to him as well.

but they get weird vibes about it. from the person when tim introduces them to him. the way he looks at tim.

it's like he wants to eat him.

predator alarm bells are ringing and bruce tries to intervene, tries guiding tim back and away or setting guidelines for when they can meet and the guy is furious.

bruce's breaks get cut from his car while he's in WE. bruce never drives it because all his cars are hooked up to the same alert system as the batmobile. some teenager is arrested for it, dabbled in petty crime before but never outright...verging on homicidal stuff before.

it happens again. "small accidents" that would lead to bruce getting hurt and it becomes clear someone is out to get him.

---

just the idea of this person's obsession growing worse once he feels like he has tim in his grasp, once they've already slept together. it has the -potential to escalate into an amazing crime/mystery fic of them putting this all together and culminating to them breaking into this guy's gotham apartment and finding a secret, hidden room just plastered with pictures of tim and janet! like a real violin-playing moment of realization where they're like 'oh this guy's a psycho-psycho'

#obsessed au #anonymous #asks #answered asks

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