This is a very good piece. If any writer has tv brain, it is I, and my first piece of advice to literally any TV writer friend who is thinking about trying to write a book is ALWAYS to read a lot of fucking novels, in a wide variety of genres.
Again, I know it feels good to send a donation to someone who is finally going to send Mitch McConnell or Lindsey Graham packing, but you're going to see a *lot* more bang for your buck with less exciting but much more meaningful state legislative races.
This is a great way to do that:
‘This banal blueprint for inhumanity is the embodiment of the notorious words last April from ICE’s acting director Todd Lyons, who said the Trump regime want to make deportation “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.”’
“Confusion” doesn’t begin to describe our emerging predicament. Seventy-two percent of American teens have turned to A.I. for companionship. A.I. therapists, coaches and lovers are also on the rise. Yet few people realize that some of the frontline technologists building this new world seem deeply ambivalent about what they’re doing. They are so torn, in fact, that some privately admit they don’t plan to use A.I. intimacy tools. “Zero percent of my emotional needs are met by A.I.,” an executive who ran a team mitigating safety risks at a top lab told me. “I’m in it up to my eyeballs at work, and I’m careful.” Many others said the same thing: Even as they build A.I. tools, they hope they never feel the need to turn to machines for emotional support. As a researcher who develops cutting-edge capabilities for artificial emotion put it, “that would be a dark day.”
Developers I spoke to said the same incentives that make bots irresistible can stand in the way of reasonable safeguards, making outright abstention the only sure way to stay safe. Some described feeling stuck between protecting users and raising profits: They support guardrails in theory, but don’t want to compromise the product experience in practice. It’s little wonder the protections that do get built can seem largely symbolic — you have to squint to see the fine-print notice that “ChatGPT can make mistakes” or that Character.AI is “not a real person.” “I’ve seen the way people operate in this space,” said one engineer who worked at a number of tech companies. “They’re here to make money. It’s a business at the end of the day.”
But even if companies can curb serious dependence on A.I. companions — an open question — many of the developers I spoke with were troubled by even moderate use of these apps. That’s because people who manage to resist full-blown digital companions can still find themselves hooked on A.I.-mediated love. When machines draft texts, craft vows and tell people how to process their own emotions, every relationship turns into “a throuple,” a founder of a conversational A.I. business said. “We’re all polyamorous now. It’s you, me and the A.I.”
A genuinely alarming piece in the NYT about how the developers, scientists and assorted techbros behind "AI companions"/"synthetic care" do not even know or understand the potential harms of the tech they're developing but they're too greedy to stop themselves from developing it.
Oh wow, I googled this and it’s really cool. I’m not surprised Finland is on the forefront of this given that they’re neighbors with Russia. Any idea if any of their education materials have been translated into English?
Ill be clear about why I am so angry and critical about it: Im seeing a good portion of my students who have imbibed the notion that they dont have to read, think or write for themselves because ChatGPT/CoPilot will do their thinking for them, and its terrifying. It should scare all of us.
Bilbo looking at his phone top on bottom is ChatGPT After all, why not? Why shouldn't I keep it? You're absolutely right — you found it, it's been with you a long while, and it's only natural to feel fond of something that's served you so well, especially when someone like Gandalf suddenly seems to want it for himself.
jaderemedy • 4h ago And now comes the most nauseating part of this whole goddamn mess: the hypocrisy. The same loud-mouthed idiots who spent years screaming about tyranny are suddenly dead fucking silent, or worse, cheering, now that it's their side doing it. "ThEy'Re cOminG fOr OuR gUnS!" "GoVerNMenT oVerReAch!" "ShAll nOt bE inFrinGeD!" All that chest-thumping bullshit evaporated the second armed federal agents started terrorizing people they don't like. Let me get this straight: a civilian gets shot dead by federal agents, and the only thing you brainless cunts can muster is "well, DHS says he had a gun"? THAT'S your red line? Guns are sacred when they're strapped to your waist, but magically become a death sentence when they're used as a post-hoc excuse by the government? Either the Second Amendment applies to everyone, or you never believed in it at all. Fucking pick one and own it. This is exactly what tyranny looks like, by the way. Not jackboots marching in formation, but armed agents roaming neighborhoods, stopping people, killing civilians, and then daring the public to question it. Tyranny is execution followed by a press release. Tyranny is labeling the dead a "threat" so the state doesn't have to explain why someone's life just ended in the street. Tyranny is demanding obedience while shredding due process and calling it order. And all you so-called "freedom lovers" are fucking fine with it, as long as it's brown people, immigrants, protesters, or anyone you've already dehumanized. Turns out "don't tread on me" actually meant "tread on them." You weren't afraid of tyranny. You were afraid of losing dominance. There's a difference, and this moment exposes it completely. "Just comply" isn't a principle. It's cowardice dressed up as common sense. It's the language of people who have already accepted that the state gets to decide who deserves rights and who doesn't. And once you make that deal, don't act shocked when the line moves, because it always fuckin…
Absolute banger of a comment on r/military:
www.reddit.com/r/Military/c...
You have to read this. Firsthand affidavit from one of the women who was there and recording the video. She talks about how Alex Pretti was directing traffic when she arrived. She watched him be killed in front of her. She's afraid to go home, worried she'll be arrested.
For those who can, here are links to donate directly to local efforts on the ground resisting ICE's terrorizing of Minneapolis. Let me know what you donated to where, and I'll match it until I get a panicked call from my bank!
linktr.ee/mplsmutualaid
Democratic Leadership will never cut funding for ICE state-sanctioned terrorism without extreme pressure.
That’s why a coalition of creators (w/ a reach of over 20 million followers) & organizers are presenting them with an ultimatum if they don’t whip their caucuses against this DHS funding bill.
Calling all the PhDs I know to make monumental annoyances of themselves (and honestly, who better)
No Kings is projected on to a mountainside above the town’s lights
Davos, Switzerland, the World Economic Forum.
So far, I am only seeing TPM, Mediaite, and Daily Beast focusing on this.
We live in a world where the president calling an ethnic group "very low IQ" and "bad for our country" while insisting they "ought to get the hell out of here" barely makes headlines. talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-m...
im getting disturbing reports that donald trump is doing exactly what he said he would and the results are exactly as disastrous as everyone said they would be
Plans to sign proposed Ukraine “prosperity plan” worth $800B at Davos were scrapped. Greenland dispute derailed efforts to use the week to finalize security guarantees and reconstruction talks between US, Ukraine & Europe. US officials say no signing date was set and document still needs revision.
New from 404 Media: ICE's facial recognition app, which the agency is using to decide who to detain and deport, misidentified a woman. Twice.
ICE says results of the app are definitive and override a birth certificate; obviously this case shows the app is inaccurate
www.404media.co/ices-facial-...
Minneapolis and Saint Paul have basically mobilized into a war economy of mutual aid and non-violent defense. I’ve never seen anything like it, even during Covid. People who barely vote are guarding their schools from ICE and doing the shopping for neighbors in hiding.
I'm no longer on Twitter.
Just downloaded my archive and will deactivate my account.
If you've previously used that platform to contact me or follow along with my work, check my website for other options or just reach out to me here instead.
New: we've obtained material explaining how an ICE surveillance system, called Webloc, works. Draw shape on a map, see all phones available there, follow them home. All without warrant
“This is a very dangerous tool in the hands of an out-of-control agency.” www.404media.co/inside-ices-...
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tim walz drops from seeking a third term as minnesota governor
Rough vibes on this website today, likely because people feel Hopeless and Helpless Because Can't Stop It and No One Who Is Supposed To Is Trying To So Now We're Fighting Each Other™. I recommend activities such as book, or potentially instrument if you like instrument, or even do talk on phone.
“Be kind, be involved, believe in your art,” he said. “At a time when people tell you art is not important, that is always the prelude to fascism. When they tell you it doesn’t matter, when they tell you a fucking app can do art you say, if it’s that important, why the fuck do they want it so bad? The answer is because they think they can debase everything that makes us a little better, a little more human. And that, in my book, and in my life, includes monsters.”
Love this from Guillermo del Toro
Can't wait for Trump's interview with Tucker Carlson and the hour he'll spend lecturing on "where Venezuela comes from" and whatever Prince Rurik he can slap together from Pre-Columbian Timoto-Cuica culture.
A cucumber sliced lengthwise into five pieces
My own innovation was the Demogorgon cucumber slices (just to stay on theme)
An upside-down hamburger and waffle fries
Ok, I stole this from somewhere else on the internet, but a thematic dinner for finishing Stranger Things 5 vol 2: Benny’s Upside Down Burger and Eleven’s waffle fries!
Good morning to readers; Kyiv remains in Ukrainian hands.
Pokrovsk, birthplace of 'Carol of the Bells', is being destroyed by Russian fire.
That’s where Father Oleksandr built his church while working night shifts in the mines. But today, his city, and his church, are in ruins.
periodically, i post this utterly incandescent essay by @isanchezprado.bsky.social. it reminds me about the kind of work i’d like to pursue, the kind most worth pursuing, i think. and my gooooood, the prose. the prose, y’all.
Yep. This is literally how it goes with popular media. Books, film, television, everything.
The majority of what you put out will break even, be a mild success, or lose money. But you'll have a scant handful of superstars that basically pay for everything else.
