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How much does a creator's worldview influence whether you use their tech or consume their media?
  • When it comes to creative stuff (non-essential goods), I try to only support people with good conscience.

    I have cut Netflix because of what the CEO has said. I have boycotted Ubisoft and Activision games because of the continued harassment issues in the company.

    There are things I want to watch or play. But if this means supporting shitty people, I would instead prefer to use those resources to support the people I like. After all, its not like there are lack of entertainment in this world.

    For essential goods (supermarket chains, goods made in less developed countries with labour issues, etc.), I am less strict because....well sometimes they are impossible to avoid.

  • OpenAI CEO Altman: future AI depends on energy breakthrough

    >Speaking at a Bloomberg event on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Altman said the silver lining is that more climate-friendly sources of energy, particularly nuclear fusion or cheaper solar power and storage, are the way forward for AI.

    >"There's no way to get there without a breakthrough," he said. "It motivates us to go invest more in fusion."

    Right, surely the energy intensive AIs will make the world invest in climate-friendly energy instead of just burning more fossil fuels as they always did.

    Also shows how unsustainable the current neoliberal system is.

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    Why is AI Pornifying Asian Women?
  • Looking at some of the replied that tried to dismiss the issue and the general lack of concern from moderators against aggressive replies from AI apologists (in this thread but also other AI related threads) are disheartening.

  • Fancy trying non-monogamy in your relationship? Here’s EYKTK
  • A great article for everyone. 

    Even if you are not interested in non-monogamy relationship, the part about discussing feelings, setting up boundaries are very useful.

    I feel like even monogamy couples should learn more about those, like, just because the other has free time doesn’t mean you are entitled to all their free time - people need time alone too.

  • Where have all the websites gone?
  • I used to have a personal website which I am seriously considering making one again.

    But self hosting is something I don't want to work on right now. Neocities maybe one of the options.

  • www.theverge.com I’m sorry, but I cannot fulfill this request as it goes against OpenAI use policy

    “Our [product] can be used for a variety of tasks, such [task 1], [task 2], and [task 3], making it a versatile addition to your household.”

    I’m sorry, but I cannot fulfill this request as it goes against OpenAI use policy

    >On Amazon, I searched for “OpenAI policy” and boy, did I get results! I’m not entirely sure what this green thing is but I’ve been assured that it will “Boost your productivity with our high-performance [product name], designed to deliver-fast results and handle demanding tasks efficiently, ensuring you stay of the competition.“ Phenomenal! Unfortunately, there are no customer reviews — yet, anyway!

    The Verge article made reference to this thread:

    >At this point Amazon is like generative AI for products - you can just make up ideas and some alphabet soup company will drop ship a low quality version of it to you

    Welcome to the New World, powered by AI Overlord

    3
    OpenAI says it’s “impossible” to create useful AI models without copyrighted material
  • People hate them not because it is fashionable, but because they can see what is coming.

    Tech companies want to create tools that would replace million of jobs without compensating the very people that created these works in the first place.

  • OpenAI says it’s “impossible” to create useful AI models without copyrighted material
  • Yup. I said it in another discussion before but think its relevant here.

    Tech bros are more dangerous than Russian oligarchs. Oligarchs understand the people hate them so they mostly stay low and enjoy their money.

    Tech bros think they are the savior of the world while destroying millions of people's livelihood, as well as destroying democracy with their right wing libertarian politics.

  • arstechnica.com OpenAI says it’s “impossible” to create useful AI models without copyrighted material

    "Copyright today covers virtually every sort of human expression" and cannot be avoided.

    OpenAI says it’s “impossible” to create useful AI models without copyrighted material

    Apparently, stealing other people's work to create product for money is now "fair use" as according to OpenAI because they are "innovating" (stealing). Yeah. Move fast and break things, huh?

    >"Because copyright today covers virtually every sort of human expression—including blogposts, photographs, forum posts, scraps of software code, and government documents—it would be impossible to train today’s leading AI models without using copyrighted materials," wrote OpenAI in the House of Lords submission.

    >OpenAI claimed that the authors in that lawsuit "misconceive[d] the scope of copyright, failing to take into account the limitations and exceptions (including fair use) that properly leave room for innovations like the large language models now at the forefront of artificial intelligence."

    193
    www.thedailybeast.com Who’s Killing All These Stories About a Controversial Tech Mogul?

    A tech guru is waging a war on major media outlets across three continents, hiring a “media assassin” law firm to kill stories connecting him to “hacks-for-hire” controversy.

    Who’s Killing All These Stories About a Controversial Tech Mogul?

    Since this billionaire doesn't want us to learn about what bad things he did, I figured we should let as many people know as possible:

    >In a move that has press freedom campaigners troubled, Rajat Khare, co-founder of Appin, an India-based tech company, has used a variety of law firms in a number of different jurisdictions to threaten these U.S., British, Swiss, Indian, and French-language media organizations.

    >On Nov. 16, Reuters published a special investigation under the headline “How an Indian startup hacked the world,” detailing how Appin allegedly became a “hack for hire powerhouse that stole secrets from executives, politicians, military officials and wealthy elites around the globe”

    >Khare retained the powerhouse “media assassin” firm Clare Locke LLP, which boasts on its website about “killing stories,” to send Reuters several legal threats over the past year about the story

    >Across the pond, Khare had his name removed from a joint investigation between The Sunday Times and the nonprofit Bureau of Investigative Journalism, titled, “Caught on camera: confessions of the hackers for hire.” Three paragraphs that reported on Khare were removed from both publications following legal threats on his behalf

    Lets spread the word!!!

    16
    Must Watch Video on why the Star Wars Fandom Hates LGBTIAQ+ People

    Amazing video produced by Jessie Gender along with a group of creators whom many of them are from the ** LGBTIAQ+ community** .

    I knew from my anthropology class many years ago that George Lucas borrowed concept from the The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

    What I did not know is that the author, Joseph Campbell is:

    1. A misogynist
    2. An antisemite
    3. Didn't research properly

    This explains why the hero must be a (white) men.

    Carl Jung's theory about collective unconsciousness and archetypes are also outdated and discarded by psychology.

    The archetypes reduce women to "mother", "Goddess". etc. but never the hero.

    Also, since Jung's theory categories people neatly into archetypes, those who does not fit social norm (LGBTQIA+ people) were never represented.

    When the creation is based on such shaky foundations, no wonder the Star Wars fandom turns out to be racist and misogynist.

    Btw, do you know who else's book borrows heavily from Jung? Jordan Peterson.

    45
    Japanese Unicorn SmartNews failing in the US because the CEO went down the QAnon Rabbit Hole
    restofworld.org Japan’s SmartNews was growing fast in the U.S. What went wrong?

    Former SmartNews employees point to failed product launches and far-right obsession of former CEO.

    Japan’s SmartNews was growing fast in the U.S. What went wrong?

    The investors might want a refund after seeing what the money were used for.

    Notable quotes:

    >Several employees pointed to Suzuki’s research into the American far right, which included him presenting on QAnon during a company wide all-hands meeting and attending Donald Trump rallies using company funds.

    >This mission would, at times, lead Suzuki down far-right rabbit roles, according to several former employees. “[He] really wanted to get inside QAnon and figure out what’s going on there,” one former employee told Rest of World, saying Suzuki’s interest in its conspiracy theories only heightened during the Trump administration. “We were worried for him.”

    >The trips often included visits to rallies for Donald Trump, multiple employees said. “Why would I want to give up one week of my life showing some guy from Tokyo around a Trump rally?” recalled one employee who declined an invitation to join the road trip in 2020. “The whole premise of the idea was very bizarre.”

    Yeah, not exactly a good working environment.

    7
    www.vice.com Tech Billionaires Launch Fund to Create New Libertarian Societies

    The Balaji Fund, backed by Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and other wealthy tech players, aims to fund “Network States” free of overbearing regulations.

    Tech Billionaires Launch Fund to Create New Libertarian Societies

    More efforts from tech bros to build Rapture.

    Interesting quotes:

    >it had backing from tech heavyweights such as billionaire Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, AngelList co-founder Naval Ravikant, and venture capitalist** Fred Wilson**, a Coinbase board member who sold his shares in the company for $1.8 billion after it went public in 2021.

    >“Bitcoin, if it wins, completely changes the world, because it changes the ability of centralized states to do what they’ve been doing,” Srinivisan said in a presentation delivered to a Bitcoin conference in Amsterdam in October.

    >The Bitcoin-based Network State will be based on “internet values” such as “open source” and “peer-to-peer,” Srinivasan has written.

    An utopia run on Bitcoin? What could possibly go wrong?

    61
    Great video on why throwing our trans brothers and sisters under the bus will never work

    Great video by Caelan Conrad who dissected the anti trans movement from their origins.

    I didn't know TERFs existed even back then at Stonewall. It was such a great lesson in history.

    The video also went on to show gays and lesbians who tried to be assimilationists and why it wouldn't work. i.e. Leopards eat their faces too.

    A must watch for everyone who are interested in LGBTQIA+ communities. I honestly need to read more books about it.

    3

    While there are a bit of stereotype against Vtuber in Japan, I can say that Nornis is probably the best Vtuber singing unit out there.

    They are so good that Netflix use their song for one of their animes.

    Nornis already held a live concert in Osaka and are reaching more people.

    0
    Leaving the Planning and Video to A.I.! Ah, I'm Done For!

    (Video has full English subtitle if you turn it on)

    Okay...as expected, the AI revolution has already reached Hololive. First using ChatGPT for script in previous episode, now AI tools to generate video...

    0
    PSN login Captchas are hilarious!!
    www.resetera.com Is it normal that the PSN website captchas are harder than Sony's first party game puzzles?

    I just wanted to login to the playstation website and i'm getting professor layton ass puzzles you have to do this shit 10 times, if you fail ONCE you have to restart and do it 10 times again This shit is ridiculous man, it's a playstation account, not the keys to the nuclear codes

    Is it normal that the PSN website captchas are harder than Sony's first party game puzzles?

    This is too funny to not share!

    Some of the requests like listening to multiple songs and type in the number which changed instruments are genuinely difficult.

    The 3D puzzles can be very tricky as well. Whose genius idea is this??

    11
    Safety and Research were Sacrificed for Profit under Altman
    www.theatlantic.com Inside the Chaos at OpenAI

    Sam Altman’s weekend of shock and drama began a year ago, with the release of ChatGPT.

    Article from The Atlantic, archive link: https://archive.ph/Vqjpr

    Some important quotes:

    >The tensions boiled over at the top. As Altman and OpenAI President Greg Brockman encouraged more commercialization, the company’s chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, grew more concerned about whether OpenAI was upholding the governing nonprofit’s mission to create beneficial AGI.

    > The release of GPT-4 also frustrated the alignment team, which was focused on further-upstream AI-safety challenges, such as developing various techniques to get the model to follow user instructions and prevent it from spewing toxic speech or “hallucinating”—confidently presenting misinformation as fact. Many members of the team, including a growing contingent fearful of the existential risk of more-advanced AI models, felt uncomfortable with how quickly GPT-4 had been launched and integrated widely into other products. They believed that the AI safety work they had done was insufficient.

    >Employees from an already small trust-and-safety staff were reassigned from other abuse areas to focus on this issue. Under the increasing strain, some employees struggled with mental-health issues. Communication was poor. Co-workers would find out that colleagues had been fired only after noticing them disappear on Slack.

    Summary: Tech bros want money, tech bros want speed, tech bros want products.

    Scientists want safety, researchers want to research...

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    www.theguardian.com Sam Altman ‘was working on new venture’ before sacking from OpenAI

    Company behind Chat GPT said to be in turmoil as top staff join exodus

    Sam Altman ‘was working on new venture’ before sacking from OpenAI

    Now we know why Open AI's board fired him. Honestly can't fault them. If Altman was going to leave with key staff anyway, why don't just fire him? Its a lost cause.

    6
    Don't let the AI apocalypse scares you

    I have seen so many articles, tweets, posts, etc. in the past few months about AI eradicating all jobs or something along the line, and robots eliminating all needs for human labour.

    And then I look at all the jobs that I have worked on.

    Good luck using AI to get through government bureaucracies. I am sure ChatGPT get help you navigate all the regulations, apply to all the licenses automatically, comply with regulations etc. I am sure when a company is fined millions they can just say "but...ChatGPT say this can work!"

    Good luck telling the CEO to use AI assistant. I am sure the 70-years-old CEO would prefer shouting to a phone which may tell them the idea does not work instead of shouting to a group of employees who would nod nervously and then implement the ideas while ignoring the bad parts.

    Good luck replacing humans with robots. The maintenance costs of hardware and software on an army of robots which needs fuel and electricity and probably internet connection MUST BE lower than hiring labour at minimum wages. Right? Did I forgot to mention that human can takes care of themselves?

    Remember that the society is run by humans. Even the rich and the powerful are human and have human needs. They would want other people to work for them.

    What if a singularity AI took over the world? I mean if that is possible and the society fail to prevent such an event from happening then humanity deserves to perish anyways. Also please don't tell me you believe in Roko's basilisk.

    Stop worrying and start living your life!

    14
    Citrus by Kei Sugawara 菅原圭 - シトラス (Official Video)

    I strongly recommend this indie singer songwriter. I can feel the emotion every time to their song.

    (FYI. Kei Sugawara is non-binary.)

    4
    These people who think God spoke directly with them terrifies me
    www.theatlantic.com The Woman Who Bought a Mountain for God

    The country’s fastest-growing Christian movement helped fuel Trump’s rise—and is gearing up for spiritual battle.

    The Woman Who Bought a Mountain for God

    No Paywall: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fideas%2Farchive%2F2023%2F06%2Fchristian-movement-new-apostolic-reformation-politics-trump%2F674320%2F

    >The reformation meant recognizing new apostles—men and women believed to have God-given spiritual authority as leaders. It meant modern-day prophets—people believed to be chosen by God to receive revelations through dreams and visions and signs. It meant spiritual warfare, which was not intended to be taken metaphorically, but actually demanded the battling of demons that could possess people and territories and were so real that they could be diagrammed on maps.

    >It meant portals: specific openings where demonic or angelic forces could enter—eyes or mouths, for instance, or geographic locations such as Azusa Street in Los Angeles, scene of a seminal early-20th-century revival. It meant the rise of the Manifest Sons of God, an elite force that would be endowed with supernatural powers for spiritual and perhaps actual warfare.

    >Most significant, the new reformation required not just personal salvation but action to transform all of society. Christians were to reclaim the fallen Earth from Satan and advance the Kingdom of God, and this idea was not metaphorical either. The Kingdom would be a social pyramid, at the top of which was a government of godly leaders dispensing biblical laws and at the bottom of which was the full manifestation of heaven on Earth, a glorious world with no poverty, no racism, no crime, no abortion, no homosexuality, two genders, one kind of marriage, and one God: theirs.

    Reading this article feels terrifying.....by the sheer ignorance of the people covered. They believe they are acting on behalf of God, literally. It feels like a doomsday cult.

    16
    Twitter's lost 13% of its daily users and its rebrand has failed
    www.bigtechnology.com Exclusive Data: Twitter Is Shrinking Under Elon Musk

    Twitter's lost 13% of its daily users and its rebrand has failed. But those remaining on the app are still engaged, according to new data from Apptopia. Threads, meanwhile, is a nonfactor.

    Exclusive Data: Twitter Is Shrinking Under Elon Musk

    >The new data — comprehensive and definitive — should put to rest the countervailing narratives over Musk’s management of the app. Under his stewardship, X’s daily user base has declined from an estimated 140 million users to 121 million, with a widening gap between people who check the app daily vs. monthly. X’s remaining daily users are engaged similarly as before. But the pool is shrinking. Apptopia pulls its data from more than 100,000 apps on iOS and Android, along with publicly available sources.

    So apparently it lost only 13% of daily users? Thats a smaller number than I thought. Still bad news for Twitter though.

    On the other hand, it shows the power of content creators and niche communities. I used less Twitter but cannot delete it because it is literally how I connect with my niche community on there.

    142
    Brave appears to install VPN Services without user consent

    From article:

    If you have the Brave Browser installed on your Windows devices, then you may also have Brave VPN services installed on the machine. Brave installs these services without user consent on Windows devices.

    More reason to ditch the crypto bro browser.

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    LGBTQ+ YouTube Channels

    Instead of focusing on bad news, why don't we share some good YouTube channels made by LBGTQ+ creators to celebrate them?

    Let's share what you watch and why! I will start:

    Alexis and Lilian https://www.youtube.com/@AlexisLilian/videos

    A channel by lesbian couple Alexis and Lilian. Very cool. Offers lots of useful advice.

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    www.rockpapershotgun.com Payday 3 requires an internet connection, even when played solo

    Payday 3 is 'always online' and will require an internet connection, even if you're playing alone with AI, say its developers.

    Payday 3 requires an internet connection, even when played solo

    Another "always online" game that forces people to connect to internet while playing single player.

    Even though most people do have internet access these days, it is still not a good development when you consider some places have less stable internet than others. And also what happens to the game when the server shuts down.

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    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)SC
    sculd @beehaw.org
    Posts 20
    Comments 431