Notices by Alex Hanna (alex@dair-community.social)

When Elon bought Twitter, we saw an immense migration from that platform to here.

When Trump got elected, I've seen nothing but increases to BlueSky.

The Fediverse really missed a window.

AI and Fascism go hand-in-hand. New newsletter post.

https://buttondown.com/maiht3k/archive/the-aifascism-nexus/

Hilarious that someone from a queer-centric instance reported me for transphobia and ableism for calling out white trans women and right-wing tendencies.

A brown, neurodivergent trans woman calling out your bullshit means y'all are part of the problem.

What kind of residue will the AI bubble's popping leave behind? New newsletter post from me.

https://buttondown.email/maiht3k/archive/the-grimy-residue-of-the-ai-bubble/

"But writers are dangerous because they are also political actors.In a conflict that so often appears to hinge on disputes about whose ‘version’ of history is correct, narrative is powerful. The Palestinian narrative has never gone away, despite the best efforts of its enemies."

🔥 from @deccamuldowney

https://newint.org/art/2024/singing-dark-times-cultural-resistance-palestine

With all the recent reporting on AI sucking up so much energy, I wonder if Jeff Dean and all the folks at Google who swear that the AI consumption of energy will "plateau and then decrease" because that seems like a patent lie with the existing data.

See this newsletter about false promises of tech companies, by @emilymbender:

https://buttondown.email/maiht3k/archive/on-the-energy-demands-of-ai/

"I’m no longer interested in encouraging the design of more human-centered versions of these murderous technologies, or to inform the more humane administration of complex algorithmic systems that separate families, bomb schools and neighborhoods..."

Destroy AI, by @ali

https://ali-alkhatib.com/blog/fuck-up-ai

Apropos of nothing this Friday: a reminder to never use Google Scholar for correct citations! They are wrong for everything except arXiv papers! And even then it's dicey! It's a shit product!

If anything, use DOIs and Zotero!

For instance, one way I assume that someone hasn't actually read Ruha Benjamin's Race After Technology, despite citing it, is that the citation is to a Social Forces review of the book, which says the publisher is Wiley, and not Polity.

Holy shit. Google fired 28 workers for protesting against its $1.2 billion contract with the IDF. Solidarity with these workers of conscience.

https://medium.com/@notechforapartheid/statement-from-google-workers-with-the-no-tech-for-apartheid-campaign-on-googles-indiscriminate-28ba4c9b7ce8

Horrid new report from @972mag on an "AI" system called Lavender and "Where's Daddy?" used by the IDF. Has a 10% error rate, and acceptable "collateral" from 15 to 100 civilians per target.

This is sick and the future of AI warfare for US Empire.

https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/

Our local instance is getting absolutely bombarded with spam. Ugh. Can someone else us out? Trying to play whack-a-mole with banning instances but is there a better option?

@pettter @emilymbender It'll just be us for this one. We have *opinions*.

Lying in bed brainworm: why didn't the Arabs also create NULL while also creating zero.

Alternative formulation: what's the history of NULL values

What started as a smack-talking group chat with @emilymbender now has 25 thousand downloads and an amazing producer in Christie Taylor!

Thank you all for listening! If you like the pod, please rate and review us on Apple and Spotify, and donate to @DAIR at https://dair-institute.org/support/

Sigh so I guess Twitter is down

@inquiline it's not clear whether I should waste time here or the blue place or both

When we talk about not relying on machine translation by Big Tech, this is what we mean. When machine translations from Arabic, a language spoken by hundreds of millions of people, still produces dross like this, the necessity of community-oriented tech is made very plainly.

https://www.404media.co/instagram-palestinian-arabic-bio-translation/

New from @emilymbender and I in @sciam on the junk science powering "AI" research and circular citation networks:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/we-need-to-focus-on-ais-real-harms-not-imaginary-existential-risks/

Two new episodes of Mystery AI Hype Theater are up! First, episode 9 on the rise of AI Doctors and other quack stories.
@emilymbender

#aihype #salami

https://peertube.dair-institute.org/w/cDct9r1KJX7KgpnV8o71R2

@emilymbender Second, episode 10 on AI lawyers with special guest @kendraserra!

@emilymbender #aihype #salami

https://peertube.dair-institute.org/w/o6sb7f7RwapWBJd9VC61t4