@izzy - Bluesky. This is funny.

Billions spent on AI, and this is the sort of garbage we get! #Google

people talk about the propaganda of the deed but we also gotta acknowledge the glow-up of the deed

I dunno what to tell you folks right?

Even if I concede that the problem is FASCISM, not CAPITALISM, the capitalism is what empowers the fascists and connects them all together even across faux "ideological" lines.

For profit media is an unreliable narrator precisely because they are OWNED by rich capitalists, and rich capitalists have clearly decided that burning the world/killing billions is better than ending the capitalism killing us and the way they accomplish that IS fascism.

👀 Study Finds Consumers Are Actively Turned Off by Products That Use AI
—@Futurism

"When AI is mentioned, it tends to lower emotional trust, which in turn decreases purchase intentions," said lead author and Washington State University clinical assistant profess of marketing Mesut Cicek in a statement. "We found emotional trust plays a critical role in how consumers perceive AI-powered products."

https://futurism.com/the-byte/study-consumers-turned-off-products-ai

#ai #aihype #marketing

My friend Jenni was beaten brutally for being trans in Oklahoma. She's raising money to get out of that state ASAP.

https://bsky.app/profile/jennig.bsky.social/post/3leq4hjrdmk2y

https://ko-fi.com/jennig1968

#MutualAid #trans #transgender #Violence #Assault

A lot of the current hype around LLMs revolves around one core idea, which I blame on Star Trek:

Wouldn't it be cool if we could use natural language to control things?

The problem is that this is, at the fundamental level, a terrible idea.

There's a reason that mathematics doesn't use English. There's a reason that every professional field comes with its own flavour of jargon. There's a reason that contracts are written in legalese, not plain natural language. Natural language is really bad at being unambiguous.

When I was a small child, I thought that a mature civilisation would evolve two languages. A language of poetry, that was rich in metaphor and delighted in ambiguity, and a language of science that required more detail and actively avoided ambiguity. The latter would have no homophones, no homonyms, unambiguous grammar, and so on.

Programming languages, including the ad-hoc programming languages that we refer to as 'user interfaces' are all attempts to build languages like the latter. They allow the user to unambiguously express intent so that it can be carried out. Natural languages are not designed and end up being examples of the former.

When I interact with a tool, I want it to do what I tell it. If I am willing to restrict my use of natural language to a clear and unambiguous subset, I have defined a language that is easy for deterministic parsers to understand with a fraction of the energy requirement of a language model. If I am not, then I am expressing myself ambiguously and no amount of processing can possibly remove the ambiguity that is intrinsic in the source, except a complete, fully synchronised, model of my own mind that knows what I meant (and not what some other person saying the same thing at the same time might have meant).

The hard part of programming is not writing things in some language's syntax, it's expressing the problem in a way that lacks ambiguity. LLMs don't help here, they pick an arbitrary, nondeterministic, option for the ambiguous cases. In C, compilers do this for undefined behaviour and it is widely regarded as a disaster. LLMs are built entirely out of undefined behaviour.

There are use cases where getting it wrong is fine. Choosing a radio station or album to listen to while driving, for example. It is far better to sometimes listen to the wrong thing than to take your attention away from the road and interact with a richer UI for ten seconds. In situations where your hands are unavailable (for example, controlling non-critical equipment while performing surgery, or cooking), a natural-language interface is better than no interface. It's rarely, if ever, the best.

Jagmeet Singh points out that Jordan Peterson's Poilievre interview was sponsored by PreBorn!, a US evangelist anti-abortion group:
"PreBorn!: Help save 11,000 babies from abortion
Media Partner: Thank you for donating to PreBorn!"
#cdnpoli #abortion

It occurred to me that rather than trying to convince #aikidoka to join the fediverse, I can try and convince the fediverse to try #aikido. So here's my pitch.

Do you have a new year resolution to try and get in shape? Do you want to try a #MartialArt?

#Aikido is a non-competitive art of Japanese origin practiced around the world. There is a saying "aikido is for everyone". Training consists (generally) of paired practice where you and your partner work through a kata that was demonstrated by the sensei. The goal is to improve your (and your training partner's) ability, not to "win". There are (wooden) swords and short staffs and disarmament that you get to play with.

So why shouldn't you try it? The only thing I've got is that we're still in an ongoing multi-year pandemic and, unfortunately, the number of people still masking largely reflects the rest of society. If that's a deal breaker for you, you might need to wait until someone invents public health and the airborne virus is controlled through ventilation.. aikido is largely based on trying to blend with an attacker's energy and redirect it to control the situation. It is hard to do without a partner.

If you can, I still think you should try a class (or watch one) at your local dojo. If your idea of martial arts comes from Hollywood or you think there's inherent competition in the concept you might be surprised. I'm sure there are bad dojos, but I haven't seen many. Most have a warm and welcoming atmosphere and it's a great way to get in shape.