Notices by Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me), page 2
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Tuesday, 23-Apr-2024 17:35:08 JST 
Per Axbom
And whenever people wonder about trackers I always want to play them the sound from @bert_hubert@fosstodon.org’s googerteller:
https://axbom.com/the-creepy-sound-of-online-trackers/ -
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Wednesday, 27-Mar-2024 15:24:34 JST
Per Axbom
Fediverse appreciation post.
I don’t know about the apps you’re using but at no point in the Fediverse have I lost track of a post I was reading because the feed auto-refreshed against my will.
Which happens to me regularly on LinkedIn. (And I remember happened on the other platforms I’ve left.) Which should make you acknowledge – if you haven’t done so already – how that is a design feature on the other platforms, not a bug. -
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Tuesday, 12-Mar-2024 17:08:10 JST
Per Axbom
If your concern is that humans are standing in the way of technological progress, your understanding of the purpose of tech should perhaps be the subject of consideration. -
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Saturday, 02-Mar-2024 01:27:59 JST
Per Axbom
Okay, here is my take on Nielsen's latest post.
"Accessibility has failed as a way to make computers usable for disabled users." Thus begins a newsletter by Jakob Nielsen. And had it not been written by someone a great many people take seriously in the UX industry I likely would just have dismissed it. But seeing how harmful I consider the post to potentially be, I would like to nip this in the bud. My reflection is that the published post is misleading, self-contradictory and underhanded. I'll walk you through the whole of it and provide my commentary and reasoning. 👇
https://axbom.com/nielsen-generative-ui-failure/
#accessibility #a11y #ux -
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Monday, 19-Feb-2024 19:57:10 JST
Per Axbom
Giving a shoutout to UX Copenhagen. I spoke at this amazing conference in March of 2020. Conference curator extraordinaire Helle Martens was able to move the entire event online, amidst reports of a quickly spreading virus, and still deliver a stellar experience for speakers and attendees.
I’ll myself be attending online this year for the 10th(!) installment of UX Copenhagen. The theme for 2024 is “Degrowth and Consumerism”:
> "For far too long, we have been living in a world that applauds and encourages continuous growth, expansion, selling, and manipulation. It’s a world of over production and over consumption, but we’re running out of resources. Business as usual will not cut it anymore."
There are tickets for on-site, live-stream and groups, There are still tickets available and I’d urge you to to check out the speaker lineup and workshop topics. If you want to contribute to universal wellbeing, this is a good place to find your energy.
I’m myself very much looking forward to Dr. Videha Sharma’s talk on how to consume less and live more.
https://uxcopenhagen.com/ -
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Saturday, 17-Feb-2024 18:21:19 JST
Per Axbom
The electricity and water use required by data centres is becoming cause for concern. Iowa and Ireland are calling for moratoriums on new development projects. Microsoft’s global water consumption grew 34% from 2021 to 2022. And estimates say that around 80% of content in data centres could be stuff we never use again, stored by default to consume energy in perpetuity for no purpose at all.
Generative video: Hold my beer. -
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Wednesday, 10-Jan-2024 01:41:48 JST
Per Axbom
It's funny how my main issue with the reality of the Fast and Furious franchise is Dom's love of Corona. 😁 -
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Tuesday, 09-Jan-2024 15:40:12 JST
Per Axbom
Paper. Accidental Wiretaps: The Implications of False Positives By Always-Listening Devices For Privacy Law & Policy, by Lindsey Barrett and Ilaria Liccardi.
Abstract
Always-listening devices like smart speakers, smartphones, and other voice-activated technologies create enough privacy problems when working correctly. But these devices can also misinterpret what they hear, and thus accidentally record their surroundings without the consent of those they record, a phenomenon known as a ‘false positive.’ The privacy practices of device users add another complication: a recent study of individual privacy expectations regarding false positives by voice assistants depicts how people tend to carefully consider the privacy preferences of those closest to them when deciding whether to subject them to the risk of accidental recording, but often disregard the preferences of others. The failure of device owners to get consent from those around them is exacerbated by the accidental recordings, as it means that the companies collecting the recordings aren’t obtaining the consent to record their subjects that the Federal Wiretap Act, state wiretapping laws, and consumer protection laws require, as well as contravening the stringent privacy assurances that these companies generally provide. The laws governing surreptitious recordings also frequently rely on individual and societal expectations of privacy, which are warped by the justifiable resignation to privacy invasions that most people eventually acquire.
The result is a legal regime ill-adapted to always-listening devices, with companies frequently violating wiretapping and consumer protection laws, regulators failing to enforce them, and widespread privacy violations. Ubiquitous, accidental wiretaps in our homes, workplaces, and schools are just one more example of why consent-centric approaches cannot sufficiently protect our privacy, and policymakers must learn from those failures rather than doubling down on a failed model of privacy governance.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3781867
#DigitalEthics -
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Sunday, 31-Dec-2023 17:36:05 JST
Per Axbom
How do you say "We have no idea how our product works", without saying those exact words.
OpenAI: "Training chat models is not a clean industrial process. different training runs even using the same datasets can produce models that are noticeably different in personality, writing style, refusal behavior, evaluation performance, and even political bias,"
They can say 'refusal behavior' and get away with it.
https://businessinsider.mx/chatgpt-accused-of-getting-lazier-2023-12/ -
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Friday, 29-Dec-2023 18:34:06 JST
Per Axbom
He had me at "egg".
"[AGI] interprets the Turing Test as an engineering prediction, arguing that the machine “learning” algorithms of today will naturally evolve as they increase in power to think subjectively like humans, including emotion, social skills, consciousness and so on. The claims that increasing computer power will eventually result in fundamental change are hard to justify on technical grounds, and some say this is like arguing that if we make aeroplanes fly fast enough, eventually one will lay an egg."
From the book Moral Codes - Designing Alternatives to AI, by Alan Blackwell
https://moralcodes.pubpub.org/ -
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Thursday, 21-Dec-2023 04:57:37 JST
Per Axbom
Recommended listen:
Paris Marx is joined by Tim Schwab to discuss why the story we hear about Bill Gates and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation doesn’t reflect their real impact on education and health around the world.
Tim Schwab is an investigative journalist and the author of The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire.
Tim Schwab: ”I mean, the problem is that this one side of reporting, it’s ended up producing what is essentially misinformation. It’s a lot of fictions really: this idea that Bill Gates is giving away all his money. That’s not true. His personal wealth is nearly doubled. During his tenure as a philanthropist. You go to the Gates Foundation’s website, and you’ll see lots of pictures of Black and Brown women and children, the so-called targets of the Gates Foundation’s charitable giving. But if you follow the money, almost all of the foundation’s charitable gifts go to rich nations like the United States, Switzerland, the United Kingdom. So, once you start to really peel back the layers, you realize that a lot of this sort of prevailing news coverage of Gates is telling a story that’s not just one-sided, but just it’s wrong.”
https://pca.st/episode/817eb328-4f14-4179-bb14-89c2187b7bec -
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Thursday, 14-Dec-2023 16:59:30 JST
Per Axbom
The dystopian world of an entirely AI-generated newsroom means that privileged men can continue to own and control everything but still give the appearance of diversity.
"News anchors" can be of all ages and backgrounds, and there can be 50% women presenting. The men in control can of course also give each woman exactly "the personality they want" and decide what they wear.
The men will definitely be applauded for their diversity efforts.
When I say in my talks that much of this forward motion is bringing us back in time, this is the type of "innovation" I am referring to. -
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Thursday, 14-Dec-2023 07:38:06 JST
Per Axbom
@HistoPol Haha, that post left the building before it got fully dressed. 😁 -
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Thursday, 14-Dec-2023 05:52:12 JST
Per Axbom
If you choose to -
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Friday, 08-Dec-2023 18:49:21 JST
Per Axbom
Many people appear to be very stressed about the idea of "AI", worried about getting left behind, not learning fast enough and being confused by how to best use it.
Stop. Take a step back. Look at this state of mind from a distance.
If this is how it is making people feel, how is it helpful?
Creating fear and self-doubt is a sales technique. Notice and acknowledge when people are doing this to you, even as they are listing "50 AI tools you should be using today!"
I believe that by learning to ignore unhelpful assertions and claims designed to break down – rather than build – your confidence, you can improve your wellbeing. -
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2023 22:54:09 JST
Per Axbom
My podcast colleague @Beantin alerted me to how Spotify have started attaching automated transcripts to our episodes.
And of course the automated tool gets my name quite wrong: "Hello I'm Pat Axbul".
So I had to check. How can I change that? As it turns out, I'm not allowed to. According to Spotify: "It's currently not possible to edit your transcripts in Spotify for Podcasters."
In my case it's a small thing, but now imagine what harmful faulty text may make it into transcripts and be attributed to a person who has said nothing of the sort. And they are not allowed to change it.
Don't you just love living in this time and age where foresight is 0/0?
(P.S. It got James' name wrong too) -
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Wednesday, 29-Nov-2023 15:35:17 JST
Per Axbom
If you're struggling to get a diverse speaker lineup for your conference, just generate some fake names, photos and titles of female speakers…
Managing trust is going to be a huge issue over the next decade.
https://futurism.com/tech-conference-ai-generate-fake-women-speakers -
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Tuesday, 28-Nov-2023 07:01:15 JST
Per Axbom
When technology becomes faster it can also steal time from moments of value.
Imagine a computer taking 90 seconds to start up in the morning. You press the on switch and during the wait you naturally take a moment to exchange pleasantries with your colleagues, ask them about their families, hobbies or more immediate concerns. They reciprocate with a smile.
Fast forward two years and the same computer takes 7 seconds to start. You have barely enough time to sit down and adjust your seat.
Now there’s no need to talk to your colleagues. No need to smile. Because technology has just saved you so much time. Almost 6 hours per year. Per employee
I guess someone somewhere is smiling. -
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Thursday, 16-Nov-2023 16:45:45 JST
Per Axbom
I truly didn't think this would finally happen in a significant way, but some companies are actually paying good money for me to come and tell them to behave and treat people better.
While I get into a lot of "how", the next step is obviously "do".
One step at a time… -
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Per Axbom (axbom@axbom.me)'s status on Wednesday, 15-Nov-2023 03:50:16 JST
Per Axbom
There is no "we" in AI.
All GNU social JP content and data are available under the