Beth Rennie

Well said!!

Nightshade, the free tool that ‘poisons’ AI models, is now available for artists to use The tool's creators are seeking to make it so that AI model developers must pay artists to train on data from them that is uncorrupted.

And on the subject of #realartatters: AI poisoning tool NIGHTSHADE is now free for artists to use: venturebeat.com/ai/nightshad...

Trans women threatening this dynamic, not because we were "raised men" or whatever but because we infiltrated men's social spaces from birth and have enough examples of the contrary to prove the lie.

Being a trans author is fucking weird right now. Hell is actively unfolding all around us but I still need to be like, "hey, everyone, wanna buy my silly little queer book? It won't make anything better, but it's kinda fun?"

So....hey, everyone, wanna buy my silly little queer book?

(Someone who barely has a mind) large language models are mind blowing

People forget that lesbians were the subject of locker room panics as recently as 2002: www.chicagotribune.com/2002/12/18/l...

The gender-conservative project is one of declaring queer existence obscene, of hounding us out of public life because we are sexualized by bigots.

Blocking Access to Harmful Content Will Not Protect Children Online, No Matter How Many Times UK Politicians Say So The UK is having a moment. In late July, new rules took effect that require all online services available in the UK to assess whether they host content considered harmful to children, and if so, these services must introduce age checks to prevent children from accessing such content. Online...

When politicians pass laws restricting "pornography," this is what they actually restrict:

video games
romantasy
drag
sex education
healthcare
LGBTQ+ sites
young adult novels
sexual assault resources
dating apps
contraception
social media
Wikipedia
wifi access

Folks talking about if different things are art and it'd be rude to jump into their discussions with my personal definition of "art", but I'm reposting it here because I feel like it and I need the gremlin out of my head:

Art is perspective expressed through a medium.

That's it.

[quoting a tweet by fractalcounty that reads, “today I learned that there are actual people irl who get genuinely upset if they catch you using chatgpt. like they view it as a serious moral failing in certain circles”]

If you're using AI to write essays, eulogies, a text to your wife, I do think less of you as a person. Ceding your mental and creative abilities to a machine is an embarrassing thing and people should be ashamed to admit doing it in public.

As for validity, well.

My 'preferred' pronouns, & my 'chosen' gender, and my 'dignity & respect' aren't much good on their own.

I need HRT.

I need access to civil society, without harassment & violence.

I need legal recognition.

I have material needs validity does not touch.

It's a platitude.

@chrismoise.ca I am a resident of Toronto Centre. I broke both my arms in 2021 due to a lack of safe cycling infrastructure. Why are you wasting time and tax dollars installing decals when you could be working towards safer streets? If the streets were safe people wouldn't ride on the sidewalk.

to the people that would go "if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to worry about": plenty of people have harmless things they need to hide from the state, b/c the state will mistreat them over it, and, our actual government is currently calling everyone who dislikes this law a child abuser

Nice! Monogram is on my list of places to visit when I'm in Calgary next week

Bringing this back to LLMs:

An LLM is incapable of lying.

It is also incapable of being honest.

Both of those are intentions.

An LLM outputs words, with no regard for whether they are true or not. Such a regard is beyond its scope and capabilities.

I’m Starting To Worry This Industry Has No Respect For The People Who Work In It Once your stock options were fully vested, did you sell off all the shares in your humanity?

I wrote this column and I'll just say that the original headline was much meaner. The piece itself, though, is still very angry and very mean, I assure you.

We ran a randomized controlled trial to see how much AI coding tools speed up experienced open-source developers.

The results surprised us: Developers thought they were 20% faster with AI tools, but they were actually 19% slower when they had access to AI than when they didn't.

Donate to Support Aria's Gender Affirming Surgery, organized by Aria Balraj Hi! My name is Aria, and I'm trying to raise funds so I can finally fix up my face… Aria Balraj needs your support for Support Aria's Gender Affirming Surgery

So, I've put this off for a while (I've spent the better part of the last decade trying to not be deported so I'm very broke) but I desperately need FFS. This would be life changing and life saving for me. Any little bit helps me, so please consider helping out ❤️
gofund.me/306ebd2b

do you believe me now that the new york times is and always was your enemy

do you FINALLY believe trans women about the times

This is really important. Email - like RSS is an open standard. This is good for both writers and readers, like RSS is good for podcast makers and listeners. Spotify and YouTube are attempting to enclose audio, and Substack is trying to do the same with writing. Don't let them.

HOMEWORK MACHINE The Homework Machine, oh the Homework Machine Most perfect contraption that's ever been seen. Just put in your homework, then drop in a dime, Snap on the switch, and in ten seconds' time, Your homework comes out, quick and clean as can be. Here it is — "nine plus four?" and the answer is "three." Three? Oh me ... I guess it's not as perfect As I thought it would be.

shel silverstein on the LLM, 1981

bad news: the study was on both american and danish mbas, it's pretty large

also bad news: "technically there's still water in poisoned well" not the intellectual riposte you had hoped for

fun facts:

mbas don't increase profit or returns, they just cut wages

in fact, ceos tend to be more self serving than other people, and this correlates to childhood exposure to pollution

'superfund ceos' tend to get promoted more too, even though unionised places perform better in stock market

Congratulations on being good at your job! As a reward, please enjoy all the tasks your coworkers are bad at!

As someone at a recent protest said (paraphrased) "we need to get rid of this word, 'valid'. A parking ticket is valid, until it isn't. Something is valid until it's invalidated by the people in power. Validity isn't what we should be striving for, human dignity is."

BUT DID YOU KNOOOOOOW

It's not illegal to discuss salaries.

Most companies prohibit (often illegally) and discourage it (not illegal) because they want to maintain unequal wages.

Companies that are transparent (very few) have pay gaps...vanish.

If you make a wage, you need to know.

just because something is clever and technically interesting does not mean you should fucking do it. This is how you get nazi rocket scientists.

👀👀👀 damn

"Death before detransition"
Seen in San Diego, California

I've heard good things about "The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)" @astrokatie.com