Reblogged abyssus-aeterna
can we reintroduce “disturbing” back into the popular lexicon in place of most uses of “traumatizing”
Reblogged joandidionmuse
— prtygal777
Reblogged
a lot of people don't like AI and that leads them to claim that it can't possibly work, which is silly as they don't have any good reason to believe that and we know for a fact that human-level intelligence is possible because we've seen humans do it.
technically we don't know that superhuman intelligence is possible as we've never seen that before (although we have seen it in specialised domains, like chess, go, general recall and so on), but I have a hunch that there are machines that can think better than humans can as they aren't subject to the same design constraints, can be built from alternative materials, don't need to eat, their brain doesn't need to fit through a human pelvis, etc.
however even if we can only make a machine as smart as Einstein then that would still be pretty cool, I mean Einstein couldn't figure out quantum mechanics but it would be neat to have an Einstein available on demand to tutor you at school or handle your customer service requests or whatever it is you needed.
people who don't like AI also claim that it will destroy the environment, which is unlikely, not least because we know that AI doesn't need to consume more resources than people do and probably a lot less: you should be able to run a couple of Einsteins on your laptop and you're already using that now for sillier things.
another claim is that the companies currently pushing AI will lose money, and that's more plausible as companies lose money on big projects all the time; but it seems like a good outcome for everyone else? let overly optimistic investors fund the research and development of AI while we all get the benefit, that's great!
of course the ultimate fear is that AI works too well and the people who own it now end up owning everything else too, the smug bastards, but wealth disparity is a problem unrelated to AI and one that we should already be trying to fix right now.
it's important not to base your political activism on false claims as they can discredit your platform; the best reason for doing something is ideally true.
we have had ample warning that human-level machine intelligence is coming -- it was inevitable as soon as electronic switches were developed, and Turing's famous paper on the subject turns 75 this year -- but people have resisted the idea in the same way that they resist the implications of humans being assemblages of molecules that can be analysed mechanistically, a resistance that compromises their comprehension of the world and their ability to shape it.
this is one of the stupidest takes i have ever seen about ai, the current ai we're using (LLMs) are not going to ever be capable of human-level intelligence for one very simple reason; they cannot independently create anything new. it's all derivative to some degree. personally speaking i don't think humanity will ever create a human-level intelligence because we've destroyed the fucking planet and won't, as a species, love long enough
internet pro tip: if you read something, and you think they're saying something stupid, like "LLMs will achieve human level intelligence," it's possible that they're actually saying something that isn't stupid, for instance "[AI systems that aren't necessarily LLMs] may achieve human level intelligence"
people do get weirdly dogmatic about what LLMs can't do, considering they've been on the scene for such a short time and are getting regularly updated every few months to do things they couldn't do before; I'm not very enthusiastic about the current algorithms but I can't deny they're way more effective in practice than I ever would have assumed, and I would be reluctant to go out on a limb and say that we've reached the limit of their potential.
Reblogged
but i am sick of climbing / i am sick of crawling on hand and knees and scraping myself along the ground / i am sick of self-help skills and persistence and patience / i am sick of pushing myself and burning out and thrashing about hopelessly / i am sick of being a goldfish in a hot pan / i am sick of reinventing myself every season / i am sick of this feeling / i would claw this out of me if you gave me a sharp enough object / i am sick of feeling unsafe around sharp objects / i am sick of never finding an object sharp enough
i wish you knew the answer and could tell me and pour it down my throat until i gagged on it / i made my therapist cry when i said i had a lacking in me / i told her that a train could drive through the spaces i put into myself / the lacking is what does it, not the wanting, the lack, the dullness / barely-breathing with my teeth clacking in the cold water / it's the same fucking bridge it's the same dream and the same stupid kid / i wish sometimes i had drowned in that pool / i wish i had been different, not even that it was easier but just that i had enough strength to endure it / i wish it went away / i wish i had one good fucking reason
Reblogged jinruihokankeikaku
bro what is this. WHAT IS THIS her lawyer: "We are unaware of her whereabouts and have not been able to contact her. No charges have been filed against Rumeysa to date that we are aware of." they literally don't know where she is. she could be in Gitmo for all we know and like the last two Columbia people targeted (a woman on a student visa who self-deported and a woman with a green card who has lived in the states since she was SEVEN who is currently in hiding while trying to fight the deportation order legally), she wasn't even a high-profile activist. Her activity seems to have consisted of things like advocating for a ceasefire and urging people to recognize the humanity of all people. It's very clear you don't have to be a leader like Khalil to get blackbagged, you just need to piss off the Canary Mission by *checks notes* co-writing an op-ed criticizing Israel and advocating for BDS I'm really glad somebody got video of it (it's at the AP link). Shows exactly how these freaks operate. You can also hear someone (maybe the video taker) questioning the whole thing, including whether the people abducting her are even actually the police given that they are dressed in like sweatshirts and baseball caps and have half their fucking faces covered
free speech is actually dead. everyone is a terrorist, pack it up we're done here
idk why they don't just cut out the middleman at this point and have people arrested by the IDF directly
Reblogged
The best compliments and insults are both just describing the person. Just describe whatever you can clearly observe about them. The distinction of whether that's an insult or a compliment is whether you're saying it with a pleasant tone, or if you're saying that like it's a bad thing.
Children, who make their observations in an utterly deadpan voice as neutral remarks, are capable of obliviously roasting people because they haven't noticed this.
Reblogged cyberpunktech
Reblogged misanthropiccatboy
if you see China trample on someone and feel compelled to justify it on the grounds of anti-imperialism or whatever then you're just making the same mistake as people who see the US trample on someone and feel compelled to justify it on the grounds of liberty or democracy or whatever, everything has to be grounded on the rights of individuals otherwise what's the point of all the fancy words.
Reblogged zytes
via pauloctavious on instagram
Reblogged diabolical-blue
do you think that characters who lost their magic powers ever do weird stuff out of habit? like astronauts who will "drop" things in mid air because they're used to stuff floating at zero gravity?
just imagine an ex-telechinetic staring at their mug of coffee for five minutes when they're particularly sleep deprived before remembering they have to get up to grab it.
or someone who used to be able to fly doing an awkward half jump every time they're startled.
a character turning to speak to spirits they can no longer hear about five times a day.
Reblogged monstrousteaparty
so long as we're back to social justice 101 on this stupid website, u need to be aware of the feedback loop that emerges from disproportionate scrutiny: any social group that is placed under extra scrutiny, regardless of the actual prevalence of any particular behaviour, will appear to engage in that behaviour more often.
you see this most blatantly with racialised groups (more cops in black neighbourhoods = more arrests in black neighbourhoods = "omg look at all the crime in these neighbourhoods!" = more cops in black neighbourhoods etc). even if the rate of crime is the same (putting to one side the criminalisation of poverty which is also an important related factor), one group gets away with it way more often and a new generation of racists is indoctrinated with the crime statistics which "prove" that some groups are simply more criminal in nature. we see a similar phenomenon online with particular groups (trans women being a huge example) being subjected to mass stalking, their every move documented by weirdos and broadcast as representative of the group as a whole.
tl;dr - overscrutinising groups based on existing bigotries creates a recurring feedback loop, reproducing those bigotries across generations and nominally justifying them. this is bad, and you need to remember that you are not immune to it.