The fediverse is just a barnacle on the larger Internet at this point. It has to become more - we need to make our own web

Ok, let’s be real here. A charger can last a decade even if the charging speed slows…a cord will not outlast a phone. If it does, there’s a serious issue

Morality is definitely relative, there’s just some common overlaps

Sometimes the answer is just the same no matter what (coherent) moral framework you examine it through… Sometimes it’s just that simple

Recently, a bunch of people on tik tok found this “bug” in their banking app where you can write a bad check, then withdraw the funds before it clears… Then started crying about it when their balances updated

Dude definitely thought he discovered a cool new life hack

I find it’s about size. A small organization can be good or bad, depending on the members. At some point, you reach a size where the orgs focus shifts to perpetuating itself

Damn straight. I don’t fear AI, I fear an even more uneven playing field

Would you give a few hundred dollars and couple dozen hours of learning? Because this is a very achievable goal

When an organization as problematic as the world Bank won’t work with you…

I mean, they kinda don’t. Companies are entities made out of policies guiding how people split up objectives into smaller parts. The more people involved and the more indirect it is, the less coherent it gets

Legal says you need one popup for compliance. Marketing or analytics say you need more users to log in. Elon wants to remind people to call it Twitter.

By the time it filters through managers to the devs, they probably know it’ll be a horrible experience, but what are they going to do? It’s not their job. They’ll get brushed off. There might even be a compelling reason to do it in this way - with this in particular, annoying and intrusive popups are malicious compliance with the EU cookie laws. But everyone seems to be doing it this way - that’s probably what legal is going to recommend rather than interpreting the law themselves

So the problem is the structure. If you want a hierarchy of obedient replaceable cogs, you’ve made sure no one sees the full picture

So this isn’t a compelling argument because it sounds outlandish and the implications (while serious) are indirect

Every major power, and some companies, have population simulations. It’s not that hard to build one - we’ve been using them for decades, and they start yielding useful results even when they’re pretty simple. Individuals are complex, but populations can be boiled down with statistics pretty easily

Let’s say I want to increase stochastic violence in America. I rate the traits of as many people as I can across as many useful criteria as I can measure. I could then tweak an algorithm to show something I think would radicalize people to a test group, and measure again. I then take what I learned, and polish my approach until I’m ready to go live

You can do this to whatever end you like - and browsing habits can only tell a human so much, but this is what big data does. It finds associations humans wouldn’t see through math

This probably sounds like I’m wearing a tin foil hat, but this is a real thing. This is how foreign election interference works - astroturfing blindly only does so much, and modeling a population isn’t difficult (depending on what you’re trying to do)

Now as for browsing habits - like location data or Facebook friends, with enough data points you can find out things about a person they don’t know themselves. It may or may not make sense to a human, but big data is all about finding associations through blind math.

If you provide a set of data points, you contribute. It may or may not influence you, but either way it improves the ability to influence those around you.

I don’t know how much opera collects, I don’t know how much of that data is exfiltrated to China. I know I don’t want anyone to have too much of that data, but I also have to live my life.

It’s a matter of harm reduction - educate yourself on your choices, listen to people who dive deeper than you’re willing to, and do what you can to make the most ethical choice based on where you are right now. There’s no perfect choice

Sodium batteries are a lot cheaper, and the materials are easier to come by

You could look at it another way… Britain kept its investments. The colonies all use English common law, they pay their debts, and they stopped dumping tea into the harbor

You guys are circling around the answer

Aero looks, better menus (I refuse to believe nested drop downs are peak layout, but ribbon stuff looks pretty, at the cost of useful organization)

And finally, make it look good in dark mode. We aren’t a print-first culture anymore, and I prefer my retinas intact

I’m sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Could you explain it in assembly?

I did that, then started up a new playthrough to check out the updates. That’s a sign of a good game IMO

Embracing lack of meaning is nihilism talk!

Take in existence as it comes and laugh at the absurdity of it all

That’s true too, it can give you examples to get you started, although it can be pretty hit or miss for that. Most models tend to be very clinical and conservative when it comes to mental health and relationships

I like to use it to actively listen and help me arrange my thoughts, and encourage me to go through with things. Occasionally it surprises me with solid advice, but mostly it’s helpful to put things into words, have them read back to you, and deciding if that sounds true

Psychiatrists don’t generally do therapy, and therapists don’t give diagnoses or medication

Therapy is a bunch of techniques to get people talking, repeating their words back to them, and occasionally offering compensation methods or suggesting possible motivations of others. Telling you what to think or feel is unethical - therapy is about gently leading you to the realizations yourself. They can also provide accountability and advice, but they don’t diagnose or hand you the answer - people circle around their issues and struggle to see it, but they need to make the connections themselves

I don’t give AI too much credit - I give myself credit. I don’t lie to myself, and I don’t have trouble talking about what’s bothering me. I use AI as a tool - these kinds of conversations are a mirror I can use to better understand myself. I’m the one in control, but through an external agent. I guide the AI to guide myself

An AI is not a replacement for a therapist, but it can be an effective tool for self reflection

Talking to a rubber duck or writing to a person who isn’t there is an effective way to process your own thoughts and emotions

Talking to a rubber duck that can rephrase your words and occasionally offer suggestions is basically what therapy is. It absolutely can help me process my emotions and put them into words, or encourage me to put myself out there

That’s the problem with how people look at AI. It’s not a replacement for anything, it’s a tool that can do things that only a human could do before now. It doesn’t need to be right all the time, because it’s not thinking or feeling for me. It’s a tool that improves my ability to think and feel

Idk, I mean I think this is more honest and practical LLM advertising than what we’ve seen before

I like to say AI is good at what I’m bad at. I’m bad at writing emails, putting my emotions out there (unless I’m sleep deprived up to the point I’m past self consciousness), and advocating for my work. LLMs do what takes me hours in a few seconds, even running locally on my modest hardware.

AI will not replace workers without significant qualitative advancements… It can sure as hell smooth the edges in my own life