Powderhorn
@Powderhorn@beehaw.org
Editor and tech enthusiast
At some point, I have to admit neither is true. Let’s see …
Wage slave and vandweller.
- Comment on Block ditches 4,000 staff, because AI can do their jobs 11 hours ago:
I’m relatively certain most of the masses you describe are still unaware they’re being used.
They hear words they like, which come along with actions they can’t even put in their reality, so they must be fiction. I’ve been in an abusive relationship. It’s rather like classic Star Trek: No matter how traumatic an experience was, you wake up in the morning, and it’s all been reset. You pretend it didn’t happen, because if you start seeing a pattern, you suddenly see the problem, which is a very human response.
- Comment on Block ditches 4,000 staff, because AI can do their jobs 12 hours ago:
I’m pretty sure there haven’t been hippie CEOs since Ben and Jerry.
- Comment on Callers to Washington state hotline press 2 for Spanish and get AI-generated accented English instead 17 hours ago:
- Comment on Block ditches 4,000 staff, because AI can do their jobs 18 hours ago:
Because 90% accuracy is acceptable for financial institutions …
- Submitted 20 hours ago to technology@beehaw.org | 24 comments
- Submitted 1 day ago to technology@beehaw.org | 0 comments
- Hackers Expose The Massive Surveillance Stack Hiding Inside Your “Age Verification” Checkwww.techdirt.com ↗Submitted 1 day ago to technology@beehaw.org | 7 comments
- Submitted 1 day ago to technology@beehaw.org | 10 comments
- Submitted 1 day ago to technology@beehaw.org | 4 comments
- Comment on Keen bosses, strange mistakes and a looming threat: workers on training AI to do their jobs 1 day ago:
Going to have to challenge the math here … 20% of 10 is two, not four. Granted, HR may cull four anyway, but in terms of what LLMs can currently do, HR is a perfect thing to replace. Literally all they do is follow rules to benefit the company. Sounds a bit like coding to me …
- Keen bosses, strange mistakes and a looming threat: workers on training AI to do their jobswww.theguardian.com ↗Submitted 1 day ago to technology@beehaw.org | 9 comments
- Submitted 3 days ago to technology@beehaw.org | 0 comments
- Comment on Amazon blames human employees for an AI coding agent’s mistake | Two minor AWS outages have reportedly occurred as a result of actions by Amazon’s AI tools 1 week ago:
I’m reminded of a time I was in a bar in Georgia at a conference. It was in the hotel, and a high-ranking editor for the then-reputable Washington Post bought me a beer. He let me take a sip before launching into how much “immature shit [I] need to get out of [my] system” before being ready to be “Post material.”
Where is any industry going to be in a decade, when no one’s been mentored?
- Submitted 1 week ago to technology@beehaw.org | 0 comments
- Submitted 1 week ago to technology@beehaw.org | 11 comments
- Stone, parchment or laser-written glass? Scientists find new way to preserve datawww.theguardian.com ↗Submitted 1 week ago to technology@beehaw.org | 0 comments
- 12-hour days, no weekends: the anxiety driving AI’s brutal work culture is a warning for all of uswww.theguardian.com ↗Submitted 1 week ago to technology@beehaw.org | 9 comments
- Comment on Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is boring and dangerous 1 week ago:
I never got a degree! I got roped into the college paper, and from there, well, I didn’t really care about my studies. Why worry about semantics and semiotics when you can tell 18,000 people what to think?
(yeah, I meandered into news after cutting my teeth in opinion)
- Comment on Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is boring and dangerous 1 week ago:
Sure. That’s a specific use case and not likely a useful one.
When we start getting into utterances, though, we’re firmly in linguistics. Unless you’ve been passing bad checks.
- Comment on Semantic ablation: Why AI writing is boring and dangerous 1 week ago:
As a former linguistics major, I find this to be horseshit.
Really, we optimize for the least possible amount of communication necessary. With a spouse, you don’t ask full questions. Early on, you might have to shoot a look, but later on? This is now ingrained. They’re offering the solution before you express the problem.
- Submitted 1 week ago to technology@beehaw.org | 14 comments
- Comment on Words Without Consequence 1 week ago:
I would hazard a guess that you’ve spent less time in a newsroom than I have.
- Comment on Words Without Consequence 1 week ago:
So that I fully understand your argument, it is that other automation proves that what I posted is LLM output? Let’s sit with that for a moment. Your bullshit detector is accurate, but mine is not. This is essentially your thesis.
I’d workshop this for a bit.
- Comment on Words Without Consequence 1 week ago:
What, you saw a couple of em-dashes and reached that conclusion? I would argue – emphatically – that people are using the wrong methods to attempt to unmask LLMs. They’re literally trained on prose written by humans. We still know how to write.
- Comment on No swiping involved: the AI dating apps promising to find your soulmate 1 week ago:
I have thoughts on this, but your mileage will definitely vary.
I met my first wife on OKCupid in 2004. We were something like a 97% match. And, indeed, we shared politics, musical tastes, geeky senses of humour … it felt like the algorithm had done its job. We got married in 2007. We got divorced in 2010.
But before meeting her, there was another one. Just weeks earlier. She shot me down, and I accepted that.
Without realizing I was attempting to connect with the same woman for a second time, I reached out to her new profile. She’s the sort of manic-pixie alt type that has no problems finding guys. And I am decidedly average in looks. She was a 34% match.
And yet … I didn’t wake up in my first wife’s bed last month.
I personally believe in soulmates, but I don’t think the concept is usually construed correctly. It’s not how it’s popularly portrayed; rather, it’s a matter of feeling incomplete without that body against you. I’m not sure my life has been improved by that knowledge.
- Submitted 1 week ago to technology@beehaw.org | 10 comments
- Submitted 1 week ago to technology@beehaw.org | 6 comments
- Comment on News Publishers Are Now Blocking The Internet Archive, And We May All Regret It 1 week ago:
I have thoughts about this, but I’ll be civil. Let’s just say I was in a budget meeting with Len Downie.
- Comment on News Publishers Are Now Blocking The Internet Archive, And We May All Regret It 1 week ago:
When I took on a job as an editor for a paper in a tourist town, one of the first things I told the publisher was “what is going on with this map? This road doesn’t exist!”
Well, me being me, I decided we needed entirely new maps, and I was going to be the one who did them.
- Comment on Drink Whole Milk, Eat Red Meat, and Use ChatGPT 1 week ago:
It’s got what plants crave!