kibiz0r
@kibiz0r@midwest.social
- Comment on BMW’s in-car Spider-Man ad is a warning sign: we were promised a transport revolution, instead we got cars tracking us and serving us ads 1 day ago:
This is what all the big promises have amounted to for most people: cars that are more and more expensive, devoid of physical controls which makes vehicles less safe, and constantly monitoring everything you do with the option for manufacturers to change whatever they want in your vehicle, including sticking a Spider-Man ad in front of you and presenting it as a fun “surprise.”
Reminds me of:
Science fiction’s superpower isn’t thinking up new technologies – it’s thinking up new social arrangements for technology. What the gadget does is nowhere near as important as who the gadget does it for and who it does it to. Your car can use a cutting-edge computer vision system to alert you when you’re drifting out of your lane – or it can use that same system to narc you out to your insurer so they can raise your premiums by $10 that month to punish you for inattentive driving. Same gadget, different social arrangement.
- Comment on Cory Doctorow (coined the term 'enshittification') talks with John Stewart about the unsustainable AI financing scheme 4 days ago:
I’ve been watching Doctorow build this set over the past few years, and Jon Stewart is the perfect host for it. This is a master class. The only thing missing is that he didn’t get to mention the price of the Kentuckey Derby winner’s semen.
- Comment on Ford's affordable EV pickup is named Fathom, and it will start at $28,350 1 week ago:
That’s “midsize”? The fuck?
- Comment on Massachusetts prosecutors run their offices on software from the dial-up era 1 week ago:
Age alone doesn’t tell you much about a system’s quality. Well-maintained systems can stay alive for decades and achieve a defect rate that a greenfield effort could only dream of.
We have a tendency to use “legacy” as an insult, but software tends to only stick around for decades if it’s so valuable that it’s hard to replace.
- Comment on Apple becomes second $5tn company as investors flee AI stocks - Share price rally driven by strong product demand as well as decision to sit out AI spending race, amid wider tech sell-off 2 weeks ago:
They’re leaving out two big pieces of the story:
- Apple is switching to CXMT, whose IPO just made them China’s most valuable company.
- Open weight models are putting a damper on centralized frontier models, making it look like efficient local inference rather than next-gen training may be the winning investment. And what do you need for efficient local inference? Why, a heterogenous SoC architecture with unified memory. And what has Apple bet their entire product line on, for the past 6 years? Exactly that!
- Comment on China bans AI “boyfriends” and “girlfriends” over addiction and birth rate concerns 3 weeks ago:
Yup. At this point, the only sensible model is harm reduction. I’m not happy about where we are, but we do need to be realistic about it.
- Comment on Spain watching Argentina vs England 4 weeks ago:
AI basically is lossy compression.
- Comment on Not a single one 4 weeks ago:
The question was “why is public sentiment so against nuclear?” and they answered, with a note that they personally support it over fossil fuels.
- Comment on James Bond should stay white and male, says casting chief 4 weeks ago:
There’s not really a good option, in our current culture of endless remakes of the same crap.
Keep James Bond white and male: allows the writers to show specifically how his race and gender interact with the way that Western imperial espionage operates, and there’s an “authenticity” bonus there too. But this effectively prevents non-white/non-male viewpoints from emerging into the scene.
Change James Bond to non-white and/or non-male: gives a head-start to a minority-voiced character, but pretends that the race/gender of the previous iterations didn’t have any practical implications (basically an “I don’t see race” stance from the franchise).
Really, the question is: why are these the only two options? Why not a new character and/or franchise?
Why do we have to reuse an existing character who’s steeped in problematic context, and either perpetuate that (or use it as an excuse to specifically address it, which would be cool but maybe not that great for a popcorn action thriller?) or pretend it was never there?
- Comment on We are living fewer years in good health: Is the NHS part of the problem? 4 weeks ago:
It baffles me that people live their lives smoking, vaping, getting smashed, and eating kebabs
It does? If I read enough headlines in a single, I feel like I’d love to get smashed into a fine powder, or vaporized, or turn myself into a kebab.
- Comment on Copper 5 weeks ago:
Customer
- Comment on Pouring one out for the homies 5 weeks ago:
You can pay with Bitcoin if you want, and there’s privacy pass. But I thought we were talking about forced AI overviews in search?
- Comment on Pouring one out for the homies 5 weeks ago:
Use Kagi
- Comment on I used to be an uber eats driver and lowkey 1 month ago:
I’m convinced that the real goal of most tech these days is not to solve problems, but to make them someone else’s problems.
You’re a driver and think we’re not paying you enough? Sorry, our hands are tied, it’s all algorithmic.
You want sick time and health care? Sorry, since your manager is an app you’re technically not an employee but an independent contractor.
You want the food you paid for? Sorry, that’s between you and the driver and/or restaurant. We’re just a mediator.
And then they dupe some of us into blaming the consumers or workers. This is not a problem you can solve with market forces.
They act this way because the regulatory environment allows them to, not because they’re carefully watching what consumers think.
Remember, these are companies that are willing to burn billions to shut down any threats to their business models. By all means, be choosy with where you spend your money and who you work for. But don’t delude yourself into thinking that’s how we win.
- Comment on OnlyFans 'agents' control and threaten creators while taking half their earnings, BBC finds 1 month ago:
No worries at all. I understand how it was easy to take a bad message from that. Have a good day!
- Comment on OnlyFans 'agents' control and threaten creators while taking half their earnings, BBC finds 1 month ago:
To rephrase more clearly: Manyvids is the one platform in this space that’s historically been on the side of creators, and with Manyvids imploding and the other platforms turning the screws, creators are facing an increasingly bleak landscape with no decent options. It’s extremely depressing.
- Comment on Updates to our Privacy Policy | Antrophic 1 month ago:
Incredible. They’re speed-running enshittification, but they forgot the step where they make something that almost everyone wants to use.
- Comment on OnlyFans 'agents' control and threaten creators while taking half their earnings, BBC finds 1 month ago:
Cool. Meanwhile, this is what’s happening at Manyvids: www.404media.co/manyvids-porn-platform-ai-psychos…
- Comment on The hill I will die on: I really don’t like ‘like’ – or other imprecise and redundant speech 1 month ago:
Plot twist:
So-called “filler” is precise and meaningful.
It conveys an extra layer of messaging, describing attributes of the speaker and how they feel about the literal message they’re communicating — including their relationship to the listener.
It’s not my fault you’re, like, too simple-minded to get it, dude.
- Comment on AIPAC Wants Democrats to Back Israel. Instead, They’re Turning on AIPAC. 2 months ago:
“Polarizing”? Isn’t there a poll that something like 85% of Dems support a total arms ban?
- Comment on AI Data Centers’ Water Consumption Breaks 264 Billion Gallons in 2025 as Devastating Drought Hits Nearly 63% of U.S. 2 months ago:
But have you considered that people also consume water? Checkmate, Luddites.
- Comment on Are you telling me they don't? 2 months ago:
That’s a great point. You’re right, I do love grinding my ass on your lap. It’s not just lap-dancing, it’s lap-salvation.
- Comment on 2 months ago:
It’s incredible how we went from everyone laughing at the YNGMI crypto bros to the entire economy being built on top of YNGMI AI bros.
- Comment on Yup 3 months ago:
- Comment on Silicon Valley’s Anti-Democratic Turn Begins at Work 3 months ago:
Guys I’m starting to think that maybe capitalism and democracy are not 100% compatible
D:
- Comment on The Ethics of Generative AI 3 months ago:
All artwork for the series was hand-drawn by Anna Rettberg (x.com/aerettberg) without generative AI.
For context:
Demetri Spanos (PhD) is a 25+ year veteran of AI development. He wanted to speak out about the negative turn that his field has taken, but he didn’t have an audience so he turned to…
Casey Muratori, an accomplished software developer with a considerable media presence, who makes a good fit for Demetri in this case because while Casey himself is an AI skeptic, much of Casey’s audience are young professional devs who are probably using AI (whether enthusiastically or reluctantly) in the workplace.
The title of the video should be read as “the ethical questions and proposed frameworks that have appeared throughout the past 30 years of AI research”, not “an affirmative argument for the question of whether the current crop of AI software is ethical”.
(Spoiler: Demetri makes strong arguments that the industry entered unethical territory more than 15 years ago)
- Submitted 3 months ago to technology@beehaw.org | 2 comments
- Comment on Shoplifting rife, police overwhelmed, an angry public – the trail leads back to one person: Theresa May | Dal Babu 3 months ago:
Written by a cop lmao
- Comment on [deleted] 3 months ago:
I’ve seen that name a bunch but never bothered figuring out who that is. Does this mean I put it off for long enough that I no longer need to?
- Comment on how things become science 4 months ago:
Corrections are the piece that the public sees, but liability has more to do with being able to prove in court that you took reasonable steps to make sure you were providing accurate information.
