Notices by Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)

@inthehands I mean...
These companies are also, largely, the same ones *already going to court* for addiction-related harms to users...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-media-addiction-lawsuits-court-rules/

@dalias

Yeah. It is worth noting that the “GPT” came well before the “chat,” but it was the latter that shoved OpenAI into public consciousness and its current stratospheres of investment.

We should take seriously the possibility that the dependence and psychological spiral in the QP are not just an accident, but the result of conscious product design on the part of AI vendors.

Capitalism’s two favorites business modes are (1) systemic capture and (2) addiction. We know AI corps are aiming for (1); that’s their explicit investor pitch. Consider the possibility that they’re aiming for (2) as well. Cigarette companies worked hard to make their products more addictive. Do we really think these companies with trillions of dollars of investor pressure on them aren’t doing the same?

There’s a lot of ways machine learning could create a different psychological experience for product users — and right now, vendors are pointedly not choosing those alternatives.

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RE: https://mastodon.social/@brettcodes/117078528407227619

So many notes in this story sound familiar, echo posts that have crossed my TL:

- initial skepticism
- mandate for management who got swept up in the hype
- “it honestly felt magical”
- hard not to just use it for everything
- just used it for everything
- delivered a whole project without knowing how it worked
- embarrassing mistake from over-reliance
- “realized the AI chat was making me delusional”
- hamster wheel feeling
- loss of motivation, hints of depressive symptoms
- creeping sense of purposelessness, existential dread
- creeping realization of quality loss
- creeping realization of ethical disaster
- creeping realization of hidden human and environmental costs
- re-finding joy and sense of purpose / self in doing work by hand
- fuck it, I’m out

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@uncomfortable_plateau @sundogplanets

I should mention — and perhaps this may help your memory — that the tail was not a thin line but a broad triangle, a delta letting out into the stars.

@uncomfortable_plateau @sundogplanets

I said “at least a third of the sky” in my post so as to try to be strictly factual, but honestly there were moments I convinced myself I could see the tail almost reaching the opposite horizon. Its faint blue blended into the Milky Way — the multicolored, thick, vibrant Milky Way that really did look like a river of milk — so that it was hard to tell where the tail ended. It was beyond what my Brian could really process well, so yes, I can understand how one would come to doubt the memory! Thank you for sharing yours.

@Yendolosch

That word also has a similar etymology and semantic drift. It now means “dabbler.”

@ferrix @sundogplanets

I always took Halley to be a star for historical significance, not looks.

@datarama

I never read it at all normally, but checking a referrer brought me there to remind me why I don’t.

@miss_rodent

The latter, just in general.

Dammit, I read some of the comments on Hacker News. Thank you all for being so much better than that cesspool. Yeeeesh.

Where is the best, most incredible, most perspective-shattering night sky that you've ever seen?

For me, it was the Tekapo dark sky reserve in New Zealand a few months ago (I got up at 1am both nights I was there specifically so I could get some mostly satellite-free skies to enjoy).

Second place: Mojave desert many years ago (before megaconstellations) or winter skies about an hour outside Regina, when the nights are long and there are no sunlit satellites due to geometry.

The world would be a much better place if everyone had easy access to infinity's doorstep, to realize how small we are, how unique and fragile our pale blue dot is.

You don't need a trip on a billionaire's rocket to get the "overview effect." You can do it by finding dark sky access, which is becoming harder and harder to get, partially due to billionaires' rockets.

@sundogplanets

Cayonlands, UT, spring 1997. Backpacked about 2 days in. No moon.

Comet Hale-Bopp.

The comet’s tail spanned probably 1/3 the width of the visible sky.

@rzeta0 @david_chisnall

And the tool won’t work, not really, but that’s not the point. The point is to be able to say that you used it and wash your hands of the responsibility. Of course this puts Microsoft the hook, but they can afford to crush any legal complaint that actually makes it that far.

@rhempel

eep!

RE: https://cosocial.ca/@dyckron/117063352945883006

Moose are terrifying. Beautiful and goofy too, but terrifying.

@fullywoolly

She is indeed!

Last I talked to her about it, she manually repositioned every photo in Photoshop every day. Don't know if her process has changed in the last 20 years!

It immediately reminds me of this classic from Ahree Lee, an excellent person I worked with ages ago (and yet somehow still before the start of this video!):

https://www.ahreelee.com/work/me

cc @catsalad

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RE: https://infosec.exchange/@catsalad/116533835056567254

Wonderful!

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