Notices by Joanna Bryson, blathering (j2bryson@mastodon.social), page 4

@taiyo happy new year!

Heavy rains expected through the end of January”

It’s weird how we act like we aren’t already dying in the #ClimateCrisis.

Kenya floods: Death toll almost doubles

Having just emerged from the worst drought in decades, Kenya is now battling incessant rain and flash floods associated with the El Nino phenomenon.
https://www.dw.com/en/kenya-floods-death-toll-almost-doubles/a-67579962?

I'm microblogging it on Xitter, I'm sorry. But that's where I get the most real time interaction. https://twitter.com/j2bryson

NOW! Hybrid!! AI & Economy esp labour & autocracy https://www.ifw-kiel.de/institute/events/conferences/artificial-intelligence-and-the-economy/

@pettter Hanlon?

@pettter It went back as far as there was media on Twitter https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/08/19/twitter-deletes-all-user-photos-and-links-from-2011-2014/

@pettter I agree there's no specific targetting, and the law requires that. But how do you know there's no intent? What better way to mask intent than to obliterate an entire network of information that many people are calling "Musk's new toy"?

Can people who know more than I do about cultural genocide #culturalGenocide weigh in on whether this counts: removing the only private digital archive many people immersed in the #arabSpring had available?

1) An uproar could reverse this "accident."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/08/19/twitter-deletes-all-user-photos-and-links-from-2011-2014/

2) looks like the current definition is a) unsettled but b) rather focussed on the physical world and harming specific ethnicities–in the digital era specific harms are easily caused by wider acts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_genocide

@taiyo I only read that Iraq story once, but it was somewhere good I think the FT, and I've never since heard anything inconsistent with it.

@taiyo yes, the Oppenheimer movie said Hitler had called quantum physics a Jewish science; I assume that's something they would have fact checked for that film, but this is a very different spin on the DE scientists. The DW story reminds me of the (incredibly brave!) Iraqi physicists who were apparently lying to Hussein about restarting Iraq's WMD program but really not, which is why IAEA & the CIA had such different takes–the CIA knew what Hussein THOUGHT he knew, the IAEA knew the truth.

Wow, I'd never heard about Fall Hall. I wish Putin or his advisors would read this and take away the right messages. And AMAZING final line about current German politics, maybe the edgiest thing I've seen from @dwnews yet (which is tbf not very edgy)

Why didn't the Nazis beat Oppenheimer to the nuclear bomb?

https://www.dw.com/en/why-didnt-the-nazis-beat-oppenheimer-to-the-nuclear-bomb/a-66540463?

This is really serious.

Netherlands: Computer glitch leaves rail passengers stranded

The technical glitch caused an outage that brought major international and domestic train services to a halt. Hundreds of passengers were left stranded overnight.
https://www.dw.com/en/netherlands-computer-glitch-leaves-rail-passengers-stranded/a-65826190?

@pettter I think she meant the fine art industry, I agree art as expression & participation/ recognition is individual and utterly universal. But few can live off it. Few try to unless they or their families are fairly secure.

@pettter Palantir isn’t similar? Also, I feel more likely to influence Palantir, & to learn stuff that might help gvern them & their less-engaged competitors.

I left the US in 2002 partly to avoid working with the US military on “battlefields of the future”, but I’ve wound up working with them a little anyway, including accepting funding https://joanna-bryson.blogspot.com/2016/04/why-i-took-military-funding-myth-of.html
This feels a bit like that but I’m still not sure about either. The only thing I really shun is RT (since 2018) https://joanna-bryson.blogspot.com/2018/12/who-do-we-talk-through-tentative-policy.html

I was impressed by the chair of the first panel (mine was the second & last of the day) which was on the impact of creative AI on art, who said we needed to be honest, that art was fundamentally exclusive. I love art with a passion, but I wonder if it's more ethically objectionable of me to generally invest so much time & money patronising publicly funded "high art" or to have my name associated with a Palantir event. 2/2

Last night I participated in a panel on CPT & AGI at a major international art event in Leipzig. Several of the other panelists had been flown in from California. The art event is partially funded by Palantir, and thus is being boycotted. There were about 50 people in the audience. On the way to dinner, we passed a street performer with a styrofoam dog on a stick that had a crowd of about 300. Even without the boycott, I doubt our panel would have had 200 people. 1/2

@taiyo oh, you got to see those guys. I met them in Berlin, but they wouldn’t let me participate in the part of their programme I cared about. Anyway, the EU AIAct matters more. Say hi to Bratton for me.

I'm not TOO worried about bad AI generated writing making us all stupider. I'm more worried about losing new voices because no on reads stuff from people they've never heard of.
(gift article)
He wrote a book on a rare subject. Then a ChatGPT replica appeared on Amazon. https://wapo.st/3VGYF2v

There is no “need to fly”, cut the BS KLM. You are favouring business now over business (& life) in the future. Let’s hope the Dutch government tries again and follows procedures this time, or appeals.

The decision is a blow to efforts to reduce CO2 emissions and noise pollution.
https://www.dw.com/en/dutch-court-blocks-plans-to-cut-schiphol-airport-flights/a-65235774?

@pettter @alasaarela @drdelle I mostly love your vision, but don't forget that companies are made of people and the vast, vast majority of them are dedicated to mostly creating great products or services and paying their staff decent salaries. Even large corporations are mostly OK, it's the supersized ones (or just dominant in a particular sector) that we know we have to regulate through antitrust, but that process got seriously derailed in the 1990s. We're trying to restore it.