Notices by Kathy Reid (kathyreid@aus.social)

After decades of being "nice" and a "people pleaser" it's been really interesting to see how people respond to me setting much tougher personal boundaries.

The level of entitlement to my time, energy and attention that some folks have is unbelievable. It's definitely been a learning journey.

@Ashedryden I would diagrams.io

For people who are into #physics, #complexity, #ecology, #biology, the Santa Fe Institute #podcast has launched a new season, and has incredibly interesting guests. Worth a listen!

https://www.santafe.edu/culture/podcasts

First Languages #Australia are looking for a #communications specialist with knowledge of the value of #languages #linguistics to #CulturalHeritage

https://www.firstlanguages.org.au/news/mq8g2wv7k41mdz0ec4m7idpag04b5i

#FediHiring

Really interesting report on #research being conducted at #USyd around #ClimateChange and the body's ability to adapt to #heat and #humidity - the long-held wet bulb limit of 35C may actually be much lower in many circumstances

Report by #TyneLogan

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-02/deadly-heat-limits-tested-in-world-first-human-experiment/104242788

Great interview with @Mer__edith in @WIRED from @agreenberg talking @signalapp, #surveillance, #privacy and #sustainability

"Signal is a nonprofit because a for-profit structure leads to a scenario where one of my board members goes to Davos, talks to some guy, comes back excitedly telling me we need an AI strategy for profit. Or another one of my board members comes in, gets really nervous that our revenue model, whatever it is, isn’t bringing in something that meets our goals and says, “Well, maybe we can start collecting metadata. Maybe we can reduce the focus on privacy, because of course our primary objective function, as a traditional for-profit, is revenue and growth.” And privacy in an economy powered by surveillance will necessarily hamper those."

https://www.wired.com/story/meredith-whittaker-signal/

Why does #Microsoft want to implement #Recall? It's not about *images*. It's about modelling what workers do on Windows, and then replacing them.

The most expensive part of a computer is the fallible feelings-filled unpredictable meat sack that operates it.

Google has YouTube, Google Photos, Maps, and a bucket load of search data, Google Analytics, advertising, as well as it's #GCP data (e.g. #STT transcriptions). And a bunch of data from Android services. From this data they can model speech, model videos and model advertising systems, and how humans respond to them.

But they can't model what people do on computers.

Amazon has Prime data, and a bucket load of compute. But no operating system data. They can build models based around e-commerce and advertising systems.

But they can't model what people do on computers.

Meta has *waves hands* enough analytics to model human behaviour in the Metaverse.

But they can't model what people do on computers.

Microsoft has GitHub.
Microsoft has LinkedIn.
Microsoft has SharePoint.
Microsoft has Teams.
Microsoft has Dynamics.
Microsoft has O365.
Microsoft has Windows telemetry data.

Microsoft can model what people do on (Windows) computers. Like fill out spreadsheets.Write emails. Synthesize web pages of research. Interact with colleagues on Teams. Create and edit documents.

Microsoft wants #MicrosoftRecall data so they can model what people *do* with operating systems.

Then replace them.

Imagine a CoPilot that doesn't just write buggy code. Imagine one that also does spreadsheets. That creates documents on SharePoint. That communicates with colleages on Teams. That has a customer pipeline on Dynamics.

That's what Recall is about - 360 degree surveillance of the worker, to model their functions, make them fungible, replicable - and replaceable.

In the most glorious "fuck you" I have seen in a while, you know the book that Cumberland City Council banned because they're homophobic bigots - Holly Duhig's "A focus on Same Sex Parents"? Well, the publisher, BookLife Publishing, have made a PDF version of the book available for free.

Sure be a shame if it was shared far and wide now, wouldn't it?

Every time you ban a book filled with hope and kindness, and care and love, we will resist.

https://www.booklifepublishing.co.uk/a-focus-on/same-sex-parents/

#CumberlandCityCouncil #SameSexParents #BookBans #Bookstodon

Like many other technologists, I gave my time and expertise for free to #StackOverflow because the content was licensed CC-BY-SA - meaning that it was a public good. It brought me joy to help people figure out why their #ASR code wasn't working, or assist with a #CUDA bug.

Now that a deal has been struck with #OpenAI to scrape all the questions and answers in Stack Overflow, to train #GenerativeAI models, like #LLMs, without attribution to authors (as required under the CC-BY-SA license under which Stack Overflow content is licensed), to be sold back to us (the SA clause requires derivative works to be shared under the same license), I have issued a Data Deletion request to Stack Overflow to disassociate my username from my Stack Overflow username, and am closing my account, just like I did with Reddit, Inc.

https://policies.stackoverflow.co/data-request/

The data I helped create is going to be bundled in an #LLM and sold back to me.

In a single move, Stack Overflow has alienated its community - which is also its main source of competitive advantage, in exchange for token lucre.

Stack Exchange, Stack Overflow's former instantiation, used to fulfill a psychological contract - help others out when you can, for the expectation that others may in turn assist you in the future. Now it's not an exchange, it's #enshittification.

Programmers now join artists and copywriters, whose works have been snaffled up to create #GenAI solutions.

The silver lining I see is that once OpenAI creates LLMs that generate code - like Microsoft has done with Copilot on GitHub - where will they go to get help with the bugs that the generative AI models introduce, particularly, given the recent GitClear report, of the "downward pressure on code quality" caused by these tools?

While this is just one more example of #enshittification, it's also a salient lesson for #DevRel folks - if your community is your source of advantage, don't upset them.

Periodic reminder that I run the Fediverse AU #Mastodon server for #Australian #NZ #research and #university organisations who don't have a home on Mastodon.

https://fediverse.au

And here's a piece I wrote on why universities are reluctant to run their own Mastodon servers (recently updated with information on referrer tracking and social media platform support)

https://blog.kathyreid.id.au/2023/07/18/why-are-universities-reluctant-to-join-mastodon-and-the-fediverse/

#universities #SocialMedia #HigherEd #Fediverse #FediverseAU

I am setting up Windows on a spare computer, and OMG EVERYTHING IS GEARED TOWARD COLLECTING AND TRACKING YOUR DATA.

Everything.

The OS wants to track my browsing, my geo-location, my telemetry data. Everything.

No. Absolutely The F*ck No.

#SurveillanceCapitalism

This is a fantastic primer of a larger body of research from @tamaranopper and Eve Zelickson for @datasociety, focusing on the yoking together of employee #health, data, labour rights, surveillance and control under the logic of #WellnessCapitalism.

If you're into #STS or #SurveillanceCapitalism, this might be your jam.

https://datasociety.net/library/wellness-capitalism-employee-health-the-benefits-maze-and-worker-control/

Given how well #OpenAI has respected the copyright of the texts it has scraped for #GPT3 and #ChatGPT, and similar for the speech data used for #Whisper, I look forward to seeing how much they invest in #OpenSource code to assure their #SBOM. </sarcasm>

https://twitter.com/sama/status/1638635717462200320

Good evening :fediverse: ! In this evening's #ConnectionList #introduction, where I try to connect folks across #Mastodon, please meet;

@algfutures and @AlgFuturesLab - our first two accounts on https://fediverse.au ? The Algorithmic Futures Podcast is hosted by @eltwilliams and @ZenaAssaad and if you missed my post this morning, it covers topics like #algorithms #justice #systems #complexity and #cybernetics.

@upulie is into #nanotechnology and #molecular #biology and they are looking to connect with other #science #scientist folks ?

For folks in #AI and #ML #machinelearning, you may want to follow @NeuripsConf for all the #NeurIPS2022 goodness

@alexkidman is a #tech #journo #journalist and host of the Vertical Hold #podcast. Loves #coffee (ohai!! ☕ )

@kgt Kathryn is a #Nyungar #technologist and #activist who works with EFA and the Overland Journal

@PatrickNunn is an #academic #researcher #Professor of #Geography at University of the Sunshine Coast. He's an #author of two books - "The Edge of Memory" and "Worlds in Shadow".

@danielnazer is a #lawyer with @mozilla and I'm incredibly appreciative of his work on #IP #intellectualproperty

@MagdaSzubanski needs no introduction. Someone I admire from far for her openness, as a fellow fat, and for teaching me that compassion goes a long way.

That's all for this evening, I've got some work to do tonight, but please post your own #ConnectionList ?