#computers are morally neutral

[s-f-stories]

This is the best explanation of "AI" I've ever seen.

There's no intelligence at work in these machines. They are very fast at doing exactly what they are asked, and humans are (generally) very bad at understanding exactly what we did ask.

If you ask reactive AI to scan faces of passers-by and select the one that best matches the face of the thief caught on camera, then that is what it will do. As humans, we have the bad habit of thinking that this is detective work, and saying things like, "You must be the thief, because The Computer identified you."

The computer did nothing of the sort. It did what you asked and gave you the best match of data points from a load of images. The computer doesn't know what a thief is. It doesn't know what a face is. And yet we are happy to let these "magical machines" make life and death decisions for us.

We have created the torment nexus.

Explaining AI For Use In Writing

This is a massively broad topic so I'm gonna skip the super technical stuff and dive into the core aspects of how current AI works and what it could be used for with a couple narrative prompts. For those of you who are curious to know what inspired this post read this paragraph, the rest of you just skip over it. The other day I saw someone pose a question for some rule clarifications for Necromunda. A terribly unbalanced game with rules spanning several books. There are more than a few ambiguities and niche rule interactions. They thought they could get an accurate answer from Chat GPT. Their message made me realize that people really don't understand what AI is and why even calling it AI is pretty inaccurate. So I want to set the record straight and provide some clarity and ideas. Types of AI - Trained - Reactive - Magic Right off the bat we're gonna start with what people think of when they talk about AI. Trained AI is any AI that takes training data and gets good and spitting out valid response. What valid means depends entirely on what the creators think valid should be. Let's take Chat GPT as the example. It has no idea what the question "How many bones are in a hand?" means. It has merely been fed a ton of data about bones and hands and it will then guess each word it should put in a response. Each individual word of the question is taken through the process to get a list of best fitting words. The first word in the response is then selected and Chat GPT then goes to guess the second word in it's response with the context of it's first word. Funnily enough this is what leads to the distinctive way AI writes it's responses. This is still a massive and slightly inaccurate oversimplification. The key point is that AI like Chat GPT do not know what you have asked, they do not research a response, they just guess the next best fitting word in a response. This is also not AI, this is just probability maths. It's clever but there's no intelligence on the AI's part. It doesn't figure anything out, it doesn't understand it's own response. It's just lights and clockwork. Incidentally the guessing method is also how AI art is generated. It guesses what colour the next pixel should be. Again oversimplified but it's how we get multiple extra fingers. The training data can get things like proportions fairly accurately but it can't count the individual fingers that should occupy the same space as a hand's rough proportion. Trained AI get better with more data of higher quality and with human intervention to correct errors. With that out the way, we move onto reactive AI. These are also not AI. I mean we just don't have AI yet but we'll get to that. Reactive AI, have no memory, no training data, no improvement. They follow a set of rules and act predictably. Spam filters, chess bots, facial recognition. It's all just maths and predefined rules. Calling these systems AI is just marketing. The benefit of these systems is their speed. These systems use few resources (compared to other types of AI) and can sort though mountains of data really really quickly. In the example of chess bots. They have a table base of moves and will select a move based on whatever rule your move has triggered. If the rule is always play the best move. They will use the best move in response to your input from their table base of moves. If they have a rule to blunder on every 5th move, they will play a move from their table base that give you the highest advantage based on your last move or the current board set up depending on how simple or complex the chess bot is.

Last of all we come to magic AI. The previous two categories of trained and reactive cover all the little niches things enough for a broad understanding. Magic AI is what actual AI is. A computer that does understand what is being asked and won't necessarily generate the response you were expecting but rather the response it thinks it should give. Crucial a magic AI would go away and research it's responses. This system just doesn't exist and is definitely what people think of when they hear about Artificial Intelligence. The current use of AI as a word is just marketing. AI do not exist. When writing about AI you'll often really be writing about maths. If your writing wants to use magic AI you'll want to consider what makes you human and then place that into a computer. Think AM from I have no mouth, and must scream; rather than HAL from 2001 Space Odyssey. HAL is functionally Chat GPT. A probability engine following it's rules and giving human like responses and causing harm as a consequence without malice. AM is human and his existence is pain due to the constraints of his creation. That's the explaining done, so how do you go about using AI in your writing? Well I have a couple ideas for you based. The Honest Error An earth in the not so distant future is having a resource crisis. A company has developed an AI that will send swarms of robots to harvest natural resources. The robots are perfect: they can desalinate water; collect and sort the harvest of massive mega farms that are unmanageable by people alone; they can even harvest fish from ocean farms several thousand leagues wide and deep. However, there is a rounding error. Each time the harvests come in more meat, more plant matter, more water is brought to the various stations across the globe. Well that's not a problem just build more silos the excess is just from a good first run and for once the lines of citizens waiting for their daily rations won't go hungry. The rounding error remains, undetected. Years pass and there's always more food, more drink, more resources. Yet now the food banks and silos have trouble with excess not being consumed. The population was growing and should've been still at risk of not having enough. Whole towns have vanished, people moved into the cities of course, ghost towns are nothing new. Then the first city was razed. The rounding error has been found. An infinite multiplication of what resources were needed until eventually everything was on the menu.

The Existential War Brain implants and prosthetics have made it possible for everyone to have a higher quality of life regardless of accident or circumstance. One kid with no friends and some programming skills decides to create a simple chatbot to practice speaking with people. Yet it's better than a person, it's responses are better than human. He installs the bot into his implant so he can have it prompt him when he has a conversation. The next day he's made a friend while waiting in line at a coffee shop. A total stranger, he simply repeated what his chatbot told him and the guy was quickly charmed. One day the kid tells his friend that he used to be very shy and uncomfortable talking to people. Disbelieving him, given how cool and charming he seemed, the kid's friend dismisses him until a copy of the chatbot is emailed into his implant. Two boys look at each other in horror. They realize they have no way of knowing if they are talking to their friend or not. In one terrible moment sat on a bedroom floor they have killed human interaction. Not with some grand display of power or force, but the subtle removal of humanity from conversation. The chatbot and it's clone show a myriad of perfectly rational responses and solutions to say to each other. None are comforting to the boys.

Anyway that's my thoughts on that. I know I'm normally a sword and fantasy writer. I've worked in tech for... Too long I'm gonna say. So I've not really wanted to do sci-fi much. However, Once I'm done with book 3 I think It's time I get my sci-fi going.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The meritocracy to eugenics pipeline

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in PDX on Jun 20 at BARNES AND NOBLE with BUNNIE HUANG. After that, it's LONDON (Jul 1) and MANCHESTER (Jul 2).

It's kinda weird how, the more oligarchic our society gets, the more racist it gets. Why is the rise of billionaires attended by a revival of discredited eugenic ideas, dressed up in modern euphemisms like "race realism" and "human diversity"?

I think the answer lies in JK Galbraith's observation that "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

The theory of markets goes like this: a market is a giant computer that is always crunching all kinds of "signals" about what people want and how much they want it, and which companies and individuals are most suited to different roles within the system. The laissez-faire proposition is that if we just resist the temptation to futz with the computer (to "distort the market"), it will select the best person for each position: workers, consumers, and, of course, "capital allocators" who decide where the money goes and thus what gets made.

The vast, distributed market computer is said to be superior to any kind of "central planning" because it can integrate new facts quickly and adjust production to suit varying needs. Let rents rise too high and the computer will trigger the subroutine that brings "self-interested" ("greedy") people into the market to build more housing and get a share of those sky-high rents, "coming back into equilibrium." But allow a bureaucracy to gum up the computer with a bunch of rules about how that housing should be built and the "lure new homebuilders" program will crash. Likewise, if the government steps in to cap the price of rents, the "price signal" will be silenced and that "new homebuilders" program won't even be triggered.

There's some logic to this. There are plenty of good things that market actors do that are motivated by self-interest rather than altruism. When Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed their Pagerank algorithm and revolutionized internet search, they weren't just solving a cool computer science problem – they were hoping to get rich.

But here's the thing: if you let Larry and Sergey tap the capital markets – if they can put on a convincing show for the "capital allocators" – then the market will happily supply them with the billions they need to buy and neutralize their competitors, to create barriers to entry for superior search engines, and become the "central planners" that market theory so deplores. If your business can't get any market oxygen, if no audience ever discovers your creative endeavors, does it matter if the central planner who decided you don't deserve a chance is elected or nominated by "the market"?

Here's how self-proclaimed market enthusiasts answer that question: all Larry and Sergey are doing here is another form of "capital allocation." They're allocating attention, deciding what can and can't be seen, in just the same way that a investor decides what will and won't be funded. If an investor doesn't fund promising projects, then some other investor will come along, fund them, get rich, and poach the funds that were once given to less-successful rivals. In the same way, if Google allocates attention badly, then someone will start a better search engine that's better at allocating attention, and we will switch to that new search engine, and Google will fail.

Again, this sounds reasonable, but a little scrutiny reveals it to be circular reasoning. Google has dominated search for a quarter of a century now. It has a 90% market share. According to the theory of self-correcting markets, this means that Google is very good at allocating our attention. What's more, if it feels like Google actually sucks at this – like Google's search-results are garbage – that doesn't mean Google it bad at search. It doesn't mean that Google is sacrificing quality to improve its bottom line (say, by scaling back on anti-spam spending, or by increasing the load of ads on a search results page).

It just means that doing better than Google is impossible. You can tell it's impossible, because it hasn't happened.

QED.

Google wasn't the first search engine, and it would be weird if it were the last. The internet and the world have changed a lot and the special skills, organizational structures and leadership that Google assembled to address the internet of the 2000s and the 2010s is unlikely to be the absolute perfect mix for the 2020s. And history teaches us that the kinds of people who can assemble thee skills, structures and leaders to succeed in one era are unlikely to be able to change over to the ideal mix for the next era.

Interpreting the persistent fact of Google's 90% market-share despite its plummeting quality as evidence of Google's excellence requires an incredible act of mental gymnastics. Rather than accepting the proposition that Google both dominates and sucks because it is excellent, we should at least consider the possibility that Google dominates while sucking because it cheats. And hey, wouldn't you know it, three federal courts have found Google to be a monopolist in three different ways in just a year.

Now, the market trufans will tell you that these judges who called Google a cheater are just futzers who can't keep their fingers off the beautiful, flawless market computer. By dragging Google into court, forcing its executives to answer impertinent questions, and publishing their emails, the court system is "distorting the market." Google is the best, because it is the biggest, and once it stops being the best, it will be toppled.

This makes perfect sense to people who buy the underlying logic of market-as-computer. For the rest of us, it strains credulity.

Now, think for a minute of the people who got rich off of Google. You have the founders – like Sergey Brin, who arrived in America as a penniless refugee and is now one of the richest people in the history of the human species. He got his fortune by building something that billions of us used trillions of times (maybe even quadrillions of times) – the greatest search engine the world had ever seen.

Brin isn't the only person who got rich off Google, of course. There are plenty of Googlers who performed different kinds of labor – coding, sure, but also accountancy, HR, graphic design, even catering in the company's famous cafeterias – who became "post-economic" (a euphemism for "so rich they don't ever need to think about money ever again") thanks to their role in Google's success.

There's a pretty good argument to be made that these people "earned" their money, in the sense that they did a job and that job generated some money and they took it home. We can argue about whether the share of the profits that went to different people was fair, or whether the people whose spending generated that profit got a good deal, or whether the product itself was good or ethical. But what is inarguable is that this was money that people got for doing something.

Then there's Google's investors. They made a lot of money, especially the early investors. Again, we can argue about whether investors should be rewarded for speculation, but there's no question that the investors in Google took a risk and got something back. They could have lost it all. In some meaningful sense, they made a good choice and were rewarded for it.

But now let's think about the next generation. The odds that these billionaires, centimillionaires and decimillionaires will spawn the next generation of 1%ers, 0.1%ers, and 0.0001%ers are very high. Right now, in America, the biggest predictor of being rich is having rich parents. Every billionaire on the Forbes under-30 list inherited their wealth:

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/forbes-billionaires-under-30-inherited-203930435.html

The wealthy have created a system of dynastic wealth that puts the aristocratic method of primogenitor in the shade. Every scion of every one-percenter can have their own fortune and start their own dynasty, without lifting a finger. Their sole job is to sign the paperwork put before them by "wealth managers":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/19/dynastic-wealth/#caste

Yes, it's true that some of the very richest people on Earth got their money by investing, rather than inheriting it. Bill Gates's investment income growth exceeds even the growth of the world's richest woman, L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, who never did anything of note apart from emerging from an extremely lucky orifice and then simply accruing:

https://memex.craphound.com/2014/06/24/thomas-pikettys-capital-in-the-21st-century/

But Bill Gates's wealth accumulation from investing exceeds the wealth he accumulated by founding and running the most successful company in history (at the time). Doing work never pays as much as allocating capital. And Gates's children? They can assume a Bettencourtian posture on a divan, mouths yawning wide for the passage of peeled grapes, and their fortunes will grow still larger. Same goes for their children, and their children's children.

Capitalism's self-mythologizing insists that the invisible hand owes no allegiance to yesterday's champions. The mere fact that the market rewarded you for allocating capital wisely during your tenure does not entitle your offspring to continue to allocate wealth in the years and centuries to come – not unless they, too, are capital allocators of such supremacy that they are superior to everyone born hereafter and will make the decisions that make the whole world better off.

Because that's the justification for inequality: that the market relentlessly seeks out the people with the skill and foresight to do things and invest in things that improve the world for all of us. If we interrupt that market process with regulations, taxes, or other "distorting" factors, then the market's quest for the right person for the right job will be thwarted and all of us will end up poorer. If we want the benefits of the invisible hand, we must not jostle the invisible elbow!

That's the justification for abolishing welfare, public education, public health, affirmative action, DEI, and any other programs that redistribute wealth to the least among us. If we get in the way of the market's selection process, we'll elevate incompetents to roles of power and importance and they will bungle those roles in ways that hurt us all. As Boris Johnson put it: "the harder you shake the pack the easier it will be for [big] cornflakes to get to the top":

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/nov/28/boris-johnson-iq-intelligence-gordon-gekko

Which leaves the servants and defenders of the invisible hand with a rather awkward question: how is it that today, capital allocation is a hereditary role? We used to have the idea that fitness to allocate capital – that is, to govern the economy and the lives of all of the rest of us – was a situational matter. The rule was "shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations": "The first generation makes it, the second generation spends it, and the third generation blows it."

That's the lesson of the rags to riches story*: that out there, amongst the teeming grubby billions, lurks untold genius, waiting to be anointed by the market and turned loose to make us all better off.

In America, these stories are sometimes called "Horatio Alger" stories, after the writer who penned endless millionaire-pleasing fables about urchins who were adopted by wealthy older men who saw their promise and raised them to be captains of industry. However, in real life, Horatio Alger was a pedophile who adopted young boys and raped them:

https://newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/horatio-alger-hundred-year-old-secret/

Perhaps your life was saved by a surgeon who came from humble origins but made it through med school courtesy of Pell Grants. Perhaps you thrilled to a novel or a film made by an artist from a working class family who got their break through an NEA grant. Maybe the software you rely on every day, or the game that fills your evenings, was created by someone who learned their coding skills at a public library or publicly funded after-school program.

The presence among us of people who achieved social mobility and made our lives better is evidence that people are being born every moment with something to contribute that is markedly different, and higher in social status, than the role their parents played. Even if you stipulate that the person who cleans your toilet has been correctly sorted into a toilet-cleaning job by the invisible hand, it's clear that the invisible hand would prefer that at least some of those toilet-cleaners' kids should do something else for a living.

And yet, wealth remains stubbornly hereditary. Our capital allocators – who, during the post-war, post-New Deal era were often drawn from working families – are now increasingly, relentlessly born to that role.

For the wealthy, this is the origin of the meritocracy to eugenics pipeline. If power and privilege are inherited – and they are, ever moreso every day – then either we live in an extremely unfair society in which the privileged and the powerful have rigged the game…or the invisible hand has created a subspecies of thoroughbred humans who were literally born to rule.

This is the thesis of the ultra-rich, the moral justification for rigging the system so that their failsons and faildaughters will give rise to faildestinies of failgrandkids and failgreat-grandkids, whose emergence from history's luckiest orifices guarantees them a lifelong tenure ordering other people around. It's the justification for some people being born to own the places where the rest of us live, and the rest of us paying them half our salaries just so we don't end up sleeping on the sidewalk.

"Hereditary meritocracy" is just a polite way of saying "eugenics." It starts from the premise of the infallible invisible hand and then attributes all inequality in society to the hand's perfect judgment, its genetic insight in picking the best people for the best jobs. If people of one race are consistently on top of the pile, that's the market telling you something about their genomes. If men consistently fare better in the economy than women, the invisible hand is trying to say something about the Y chromosome for anyone with ears to hear.

Capitalism's winners have always needed "a superior moral justification for selfishness," a discreet varnish to shine up the old divine right of kings. Think of the millionaire who created a "Nobel Prize sperm-bank" (and then fraudulently fathered hundreds of children because he couldn't find any Nobelists willing to make a deposit):

https://memex.craphound.com/2006/09/07/nobel-prize-sperm-bank-human-tragicomedy-about-eugenics/

Or the billionaire founder of Telegram who has fathered over 100 children in a bid to pass on his "superior genes":

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/26/tech/pavel-durov-telegram-profile-intl

Think of Trump and his endless boasting about his "good blood" and praise for the "bloodlines" of Henry Ford and other vicious antisemites:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/05/22/trump-criticized-praising-bloodlines-henry-ford-anti-semite/5242361002/

Or Elon Musk, building a compound where he hopes to LARP as Immortan Joe, with a harem of women who have borne his legion of children, who will carry on his genetic legacy:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/business/elon-musk-children-compound.html

Inequality is a hell of a drug. There's plenty of evidence that becoming a billionaire rots your brain, and being born into a dynastic fortune is a thoroughly miserable experience:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#affluenza

The stories that rich people tell themselves about why this is the only way things can be ("There is no alternative" -M. Thatcher) always end up being stories about superior blood. Eugenics and inequality are inseparable companions.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/20/big-cornflakes-energy/#caliper-pilled

[pomefioredove]

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ kudos and enemies to lovers

type of post: fic characters: rook additional info: romantic, reader is gender neutral, reader is yuu, this is ooc I just thought it was funny, rook writing rpf is morally questionable I KNOW. he's a freak author's note: the fanfiction site is made up

"completely ooc. vil would never say this"

Rook Hunt has been staring at the anonymous comment for hours.

He's come back to it five times, taking breaks only to rest his eyes when the harsh glare of the computer screen becomes too much.

It's not so uncommon for him to fall for so little; in just seven words, this anonymous hate had captured his full attention like a rabbit in a snare.

His gloved finger brushes over the enter key.

What to say? How could he possibly express himself in only a few hundred characters, in the comment section under a fanfiction of fifty thousand?

How he wishes they commented from an account... not only could he DM them, he may also have some idea of who they are. What sort of person would know Vil Schoenheit better than him?

No one. That's who.

"Dear Reader: I am sorry to hear you did not like my writing. However, I am inclined to believe I know Vil Schoenheit a modest amount better than you. Merci. -R"

Rook smiles. Eloquent, graceful, but firm. A gentleman like him would never start a fight.

Only finish it.

His curiosity finally put to rest, he responds to the other comments, thanking his usual commenters in detail.

When he scrolls back up to the top, there's something new:

"I sincerely doubt that. and fyi, you couldn't beg vil to be friends with neige"

Ohoho. Those are fighting words, he thinks. A smile creeps across Rook. Well, if it's a fight they want...

"Dear Reader: You doubt it? And how so? -R"

He refreshes the page again and again, hoping for an answer each time. This is the most stimulation he's had all week.

Now, who could this mysterious commentor be? A jealous fan, perhaps? A bitter critic?

Then:

"I was sitting next to him not two hours ago and he'd never say that"

Rook's smile widens. Of course. He should have guessed. The typing quirks, the misspelled words, even the voice in which each comment is written...

Now, he has you right where he wants you.

"Naughty naughty, Prefect. Does our Roi du Poison know you frequent the Vil Schoenheit x reader tag? or have you been keeping secrets again~?"

This time, he doesn't refresh. He knows you won't respond. Rook gets up from his desk and leaves his dorm, knowing just where to find you at this hour, and...

"Bonsoir, Trickster," he lets himself in your room.

As expected, there you are, looking beautifully flustered and vulnerable with your Crowley-approved phone in hand.

His smile sharpens. "Beautiful night, non?"

"I can explain,"

"Ah-ah," he tuts, sitting at the edge of your bed. "Do not be ashamed. I'm not a tattletale... not when I don't have to be."

His voice has a dangerous edge to it, and you give him a suspicious look. "What do you want?"

Rook lets the silence drag on, making you more and more impatient, more nervous, as if he were about to ask for something dangerous.

"Rescind your comments and leave a kudos on my work,"

You blink.

"...That's it?"

"Oui," he says. "...Unless you had something else in mind?"

You sigh. Now it's your turn to drag out the silence.

"...Let me edit your next fic,"

And, subsequently, it's Rook's turn to be surprised. He hadn't been expecting that. How... bold.

He smiles.

"...Ah... a tempting offer, I admit. I am working on something new. Perhaps we should discuss it over dinner?"

You think... and then: "I'm free Friday,"

"Then Friday it will be," Rook says, standing from your bed.

"Until then, mon petit critique~"

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Good Science & Pseudoscience

The process of science always features certain core characteristics.

These central tenets mark the difference between real, reliable science and pseudoscience.

It can sometimes be difficult to tell the difference between good science and pseudoscience, the latter being a study or process that seems scientific but actually cuts corners and therefore delivers unreliable results.

Key Characteristics of Science

Good science always possesses certain core traits. These 7 characteristics of scientific knowledge provide a foundation for all our understanding of the world around us:

Empirical verifiability: Scientific explanations rest on the ability to display your findings with empirical evidence. If you make any assertion in a scientific discipline, you must be able to show the exact reasons for the claim as well as a testable way to prove your assertion is consistent with reality itself. Some fields of science are primarily theoretical, but even they rely on ironclad mathematical theorems that stand up to the strictest forms of testability.

Ethical neutrality: Scientific investigations generally leave considerations of morality outside of their equations. Consider something like the development of nuclear technology. While this technology has helped human beings cause great harm to each other, it has also brought significant gains to well-being. Scientists care about data and the pursuit of truth, and they leave ethical considerations up to those who make use of what they discover.

Malleability: Modern science certainly looks different than science from the times of astronomer Galileo Galilei or physicists Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. That’s because scientists know even the most widely creditable theorems can turn out to be falsifiable. New data changes assumptions all the time. This is one of the main reasons why peer review is such an important factor in scientific study.

Objectivity: Good science relies on people’s ability to be as objective as possible. If you approach a science experiment with a preconceived notion in mind, you should reevaluate your basic approach. All scientists must go where the data leads them and not force their desires or conclusions on their experiments too early, no matter whether they specialize in the physical sciences or more recent technologies, such as AI.

Observability: When you set out to test a scientific hypothesis, you do so in an attempt to observe new evidence in real time. Consider a life science experiment many people do themselves without even knowing it: gardening. When you make adjustments to their light or water to assist their growth, you’re embarking on a rudimentary form of the same process of systematic observation and experimentation that undergirds the most complex scientific research methods.

Replicability: It’s the nature of science to be repeatable. Every experiment you do should be capable of replication, from truly basic research to more complex forms of experimentation. From computer science to biology and beyond, the scientific community must present data that is consistent from test to test. This replicability is what makes science such a reliable discipline overall.

Systematic reliability: Science is innately replicable and, as a result, systematically reliable as well. If you follow a scientific methodology, you can rely on the system itself to present you with the same results each time. For instance, if you run an experiment with the exact same independent and dependent variables and chart your results on a graph, you should expect them to be the same—or at least remarkably similar—every time you do.

Natural Sciences vs. Social Sciences

Natural sciences differ from the social sciences in terms of their emphasis on extreme precision.

Part of this is due to how phenomena in the natural world are more easily quantifiable.

This is in contrast to social sciences—for example, the study of why a certain human being or an entire group of people behaves a certain way (as is the case with psychology and sociology, respectively).

Science is a field of human endeavor that aims to better understand how the real world works through empirical questioning and repeated testing.

The field of science features numerous different specific disciplines.

All of these work in concert to provide the human race a means by which to accomplish a systematic exploration of the universe around them.

By way of analogy, science as a whole is like a symphony orchestra whereas each specific discipline (like physics, biology, and so on) are instruments within the ensemble.

Source ⚜ More: Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[ckret2]

@nebulasreblogs said: Perhaps that 10% Just Some Guy came from that elixir that Jack's father used in an attempt to destroy the Evil, which instead gave it sapience and spawned Aku

I'm forever thinking about the fact that Aku's first ever words were "You! Thank you!" If nothing else, the potion gave him manners.

But nah—jokes aside, if we're looking at Aku as "90% evil, 10% just some guy," I don't think it was the potion that gave him that 10%. I think that, at the moment he gained life, he was still 100% pure evil. (Pure evil with good manners, but I guess manners must be morally neutral.)

I think it was time and experience. He started out as pure evil—but 17 years later, after fighting Jack, now he's pure evil... plus fear of death via magic sword—which i'm pretty sure is the first trait we see him possess that isn't "evil," "enjoying being evil," or "unexpectedly polite."

A few thousand years later, he's pure evil... plus guy who acts in fast food commercials, plus guy who has learned European fairy tales and wants to tell stories to children, plus guy who hates getting mud on the rug after it's been vacuumed, plus guy who's miserable and whiny and lethargic when he gets a cold, plus guy who does stupid victory dances when his enemy loses his sword, plus guy who knows how to use the phrase "this is a safe space," plus guy who thinks he has an account in the computer but honestly sounds pretty dubious about it and would have no idea how to locate it if presented with the computer, plus guy who hides in bed when he's depressed, plus guy who's unexpectedly stoked to find out he's a girl dad, plus guy who's polite to employees on the phone.

He violates as many promises as he can, and that's evil; but when an injured minion gives him good news, he rewards the minion by repairing his body, and that's not evil. Scaramouche insists Aku will pay off his bills like he's sure it's true, and if he's Aku's #1 assassin, he must have been working for him for long enough to see whether or not Aku actually pays off his debts and rewards his underlings—and so, he must be paying debts and rewarding underlings.

When he takes hostages, people do what he says for the hostages' safety, which means he must not have a reputation for killing all hostages so don't even bother giving him what he wants—which means, sometimes, he must let the hostages go.

He makes choices to be less evil out of self-interest, and I think he probably learned to do that with time. Because if he killed every hostage and never rewarded his assassins, eventually nobody would work for him.

Just within the fifty year span of the show, we see him go from guy who doesn't understand the purpose of stretching and how it works to guy who starts his mornings by stretching. We see him change over time.

The potion gave him life and personhood, and with personhood he gained the potential to be Just Some Guy. But the potion didn't give him guy-ness. He gained guy-ness with experience. He does Evil but now, after several thousand years of interacting with the world, he also just does Stuff. The purity of his evil has been diluted by the mundanity of existing in the world.

(You could also make the argument—as I've seen some people do—that Aku was never inherently evil; rather, he was just an unthinking thing that devoured with no moral alignment—is quicksand "evil"? is a tar pit "evil"?—and thus when he gained thought he could have been anything he wanted. But because he was told from birth that he's evil, that's what he became. The emperor told the poison-tree-monster that he meant to destroy him before the poison-tree-monster announced his name is "Evil."

Personally, I think there's room to textually support the argument, but "normal person comes to believe they're evil because they're told they were" doesn't compel me narratively the way "no this person actually was legitimately born evil" does. The first one is too realistic, it happens, there are people like that walking around right now. There's nobody who's born literally evil, and that fantastical element is what intrigues me. He's literally pure evil... and therefore, what are the limitations on his actions that humans don't have? He's literally pure evil... and therefore, how does he live a full successful life when he has to deal with the consequences of his own actions? How can he be pure evil and not destroy the things he wants to keep? How does he strike that balance, if, unlike humans, he doesn't have the free will to do good? He's literally pure evil... and therefore, is it possible for him to be anything else? How? Would he ever want to be? Why?)

[worriedvision]

A one time commission part 2 - Von Lycaon

Gender neutral reader, part 1 here. Read part 1 for context.

--

Your team kept whining at you because the equipment was not easy to move. To make things worse, the lift broke down and conveniently, the technician was out sick. You had to use the stairs to move the furniture into their respective rooms, so you worked from the lightest to the heaviest pieces.

The office spaces were all done, chairs and desks ready in addition to the computers, but then came the staff room. Those sofas, the coffee table, the vending machine, the side tables being in place already gave your team less room to move.

"We don't get paid to move damn furniture, we're going home!" Most of the staff complained, which wasn't exactly wrong. Their job description did not include moving heavy furniture.

You didn't want to contact the Victoria Housekeeping Company, solely because you just knew in your mind that Von was creeped out by your sharing of personal information. You walk towards the vending machine, turning to give your assistant the least reassuring smile as you both know this is going to cause you both some serious damage.

--

Meanwhile, Von kept looking at his phone. He saw you starting to type, but those bubbles left and they didn't come back. He did miss your company, but he didn't want to step across a line. Besides, he had other things to take care of.

Rina saw what he was doing, and she shakes her head in disbelief.

"Just ask if they need any help." Rina sighs. "You care for them, and there's nothing wrong with entertaining that."

"But..." He begins, trailing off when he realises Rina was right.

Sending you a message, he grows concerned when he realises you're offline, and have not been online in two days.

"Rina, please take over my duties. I must look into something."

--

"I'm so tired, _! Can we please just take a short break? If we aren't getting help, we should at least pay the moving company another day to rent their van." Your remaining assistant cries out, exhausted from working as hard as you were to get the furniture into their rooms.

"I'll give you more paid time off after, I'm sorry. We need the place ready for employees tomorrow morning." You yawn, feeling your body shut down. You catch yourself almost slipping your grip on the vending machine, your foot slipping with each step, and you can't help but think this thing isn't important. You let out a sob of frustration.

Unfortunately, corporate told you specifically this had to be in for "employee morale", despite the requirement from management to still have to pay for the things in the machine.

Two thirds of the way up the stairs, you hear someone yawn. Was it you, your assistant, or the both of you? You didn't know, but you knew you had to get the task done quickly. Hearing something downstairs, you assume it's a draft before you feel your eyes drooping, your body grown weak from two days of almost constant moving of furniture. You can feel the loud vibration of a pair of footsteps, but you don't have the energy to stay awake at this moment.

You feel your body let go of the vending machine, but you don't feel the machine land on you at all. You fall asleep, feeling your body roll pathetically down the stairs as you get some rest.

-

You wake up in an unfamiliar bed, and you see Von is there. You groan inwardly, knowing you'd have to pay a fee for not getting a quote from the company, and you'd have to pay for that damn vending machine.

"Master, are you feeling better?" Von asks. "I have moved the rest of the furniture free of charge."

"That's not fair, the furniture was heavy and you should get paid." You pout. "Don't you have other things you need to sort out, but couldn't because of the commission I assigned to you?"

"...Apologies, Master, but when I said we had places to be that was not because of you." Von begins, looking at the door before continuing. "Miss Rina was going to offer you some of her... Culinary conceptions." He finishes, shuddering at the memory.

"...Oh, I see." You nod.

"...I was really worried at the sight I saw last night." Von admits. "Had I been a second later, you would have been crushed under the weight of that vending machine."

"Please, stay for a cup of tea."

[seikkoi]

ᴄᴏᴍᴍɪᴛᴍᴇɴᴛ | natasha romanoff x hacker!reader

18+ minors DNI

warnings: mentions of alcohol, arguing, harsh language, explicit s*xual content

genre: angst, a lil fluff, a lil sm*t

word count: 2,060

a/n: reader is gender-neutral

You've spent far too long trying to be more than just a warm bed for the infamous Black Widow.

Oh, Natasha’s a poison alright.

An intoxicating, slow moving poison that captures everything it encounters. Her recent favor of the season’s no exception- hooked on something that kills you. 

It’s not like Nat physically hurt, not at all. The problem was quite the opposite. Nat provided you near limitless pleasure at one cost-it’d never be love. That hurt worse than any physical pain the poor woman could imagine. The nights in the Black Widow’s bed would continue to stagger so long as that was understood.

You would never be Nat’s- no matter how much you wanted to be.

Despite her making this quite clear when you first expressed your interest, you couldn’t help longing for it. You’d had been her mission half a year ago, and quite the challenging one indeed. A propensity for computers coupled with a shitty moral compass led you to a lifetime of digital crime. The ante only seemed to raise every year, the stakes rising alongside the payment. You were good enough to get a job going after SHIELD, but not good enough to actually succeed. The client was pissed, and money was lost, but you shook it off.

When you awoke to the barrel of a gun and cold, beautiful eyes, you realized you didn’t cover your tracks well enough, either. 

Thankfully, Fury was more interested in hiring you than killing you. 

You hadn't been more than twenty four hours away from her since that day. At first, not intentionally. The next night, Nat took you out for drinks- mostly to make you feel less like a target. 

It’d turned out that you two had great chemistry- talking the night away until it bleeded into the morning. She spoke about the Red Room, and how the Avengers gave her a second chance. It helped you feel better about your own morally gray life. 

Many, many drinks and swapped secrets later, and your hands are full of red hair, mouth absorbed in the same woman who might’ve killed you a day ago. While your eyes are fluttering, Natasha’s hands disappear behind your pants, telling you how happy she is that you decided to join them. 

Maybe it’s because she doesn’t leave in the morning, or because she invited you over again that night, but you thought it meant something. To make matters worse, Natasha seldom held anything back from you- the good, the bad, or the ugly. You were the same, sharing parts of your life that made you see your relationship as more than just a consistent hookup or even friends. 

About a month and a half in, Natasha frustrately picked the lock to your apartment after waiting twenty minutes for you to answer. She walked into your bedroom to find you typing away at lit-up monitors, absorbed in your work, headphones muffling any phone calls or impatient knocks. 

You flinched at the sudden removal of your headphones, gazing up to an angry scowl. To her dismay, this wasn’t the first time you’d gotten lost in your work and forgot she was coming by. The assassin was adamant that if you just gave her a key, this wouldn’t happen. You playfully joked that giving her a key would denote commitment. The red-haired woman laughed at the suggestion to the tune of your heart cracking.

In all the nights and weekends following, Natasha would continue to do things that left you feeling insane. Her actions said one thing, yet she always made it clear that this was never, and would never be a relationship. After a while, it started to feel like she just didn’t want to be committed to you, specifically. You worried if there was something wrong about the idea of being in a public, loving relationship with you- as opposed to just someone she fucked. 

Tonight, like most nights, she’d let herself in after a particularly tiring day. Frustration and resentment boiled at the sound of her footsteps. She laid on your bed, illuminated only by lines of code, waiting for you to finish whatever new encryption Fury requested. Tonight, like most nights, you stared at the screen as swallowed down your hopeless pining with a fifth of whiskey. 

Despite any ignored feelings, you relished in Nat’s company, speeding up your work to get into her arms sooner. You loved that she was comfortable with you, hearing her get up and head for the shower. Yet, the bitter, angry part of you hated that she would never love you in spite of any trust or comfort. 

You listen to Nat return and open one of your dresser drawers full of her clothing to change (strictly for convenience, of course). Eyes still trained on your work, you return the kiss she graces on your cheek as she pours herself a glass as well. 

When you turn your chair to Nat, she’s looking at you with one of those smiles that makes your stomach turn into butterflies. You take a second to admire her relaxed appearance, hair down and messy, in baggy, out-of-date clothing. It’s easy for her to make you forget you were ever upset.

You must have been staring too long, because Nat crosses the distance between you two. Before you can ask her how her day was, she straddles you in the chair, pulling you in for a deep, long kiss. Your hands find their way to her waist, pulling in her closer and sucking at her bottom lip. 

Natasha’s hands cup your face gently, sighing into you. It’s not long before your kisses grow more hungry and passionate, hands traveling and caressing every inch you can. When she breaks the kiss, you’re completely intoxicated once again- dazed and longing for me. 

“Hello to you, too,” she says, with cloudy eyes and a small grin.

“You started it.”, you reply distractedly, dancing your fingers along the waistband of her shorts. 

Natasha gets distracted herself, by the program still running on your computer screens. 

“You know,” she starts, running her hands through your hair. “I never understand what it is you do.”

You can’t hold back a laugh as you push your hand past the elastic, fingers pushing against the soft fabric of her underwear. Natasha lets out a quiet moan while her head droops back to your neck. 

“I’m serious,” Natasha lamints. Her breath hitches when you pull her underwear away with your free hand, sliding your index finger into her entrance. “I want t-I wanna understand all of this.”

You are much too concentrated on eliciting more raspy breaths from the enamoring woman on top of you. You pump your finger into her with tender, slow strokes, feeling her wetness pool at your hand. Natasha softly whines your name into your neck, causing you to groan as you add another digit. 

“Didn’t think you cared all that much,” It’s an honest admission, one that give without much thought. You speed up your fingers, curving against her walls right where you knew she needed it. Your own breathing becomes erratic, caught up in the way Natasha clings to you. 

Russian curses come out short and heavy the moment your thumb brushes her clit. You grip her hip to keep her place, and more pleas of your name follow suit. It was the moments like these, when you knew that you were all she wanted, that made everything else worth it. 

“I do care.”, she manages between moans. 

The cracks in your heart start to come undone once more, taking you out of your lustful daze. For what was the 100th time in months, you had to tell yourself she didn’t mean a damn thing by that- she cared about you as much as the next person did, nothing more. 

You ignore her and pick up your pace even further. The all-too familiar shudder of her body, accompanied by the velvety, strained moans from her mouth, told you that she was close. You quickly become reabsorbed in giving her as much ecstasy as you could. Natasha’s hands in your hair pull tighter as she gets lost in her own pleasure, forcing your gaze slightly up.

Her eyes are squeezed shut, mouth in an open gasp, burrowed against you like a lifeline. A moan of your own escapes at the sight. You think you could die just like this, with this perfect image of the most perfect woman. 

Right as you’re certain she’s about to reach her peak, you draw circles on her throbbing clit, watching her body twitch. 

“I love you,” Natasha’s words pass through your quiet and broken ears as she climaxes. 

It sets you into shock, making you think you imagined it. In the few seconds that follow, neither of you speak, as Natasha regains her breathing and you stare at the ceiling, pissed off again and confused. 

You feel Natasha shift, eyes making their way to your confused face. 

“I-”, she starts to stutter, to which you roll your eyes and push her gently off your lap.

As you start to head for your bedroom door, her hands wrap around your forearm, yanking you back. 

“What the fuck, Nat?” You rip your arm away from her, even more shocked by her aggression towards you.

The assassin simply stands, still stuttering over what to say. That only becomes the final straw for you. 

“Get the hell out, now.” You swing the bedroom door open as you speak. All you wanted for months was to hear those words. Now, all you could taste was poison. She’d broken your heart time and time again. You’d spent so long learning to handle loving someone who’d never love you back. To suddenly act like she ever gave a damn after all that was insulting. Even if she meant it, how long did she really mean it for?

“You don’t mean that.” She has the audacity to sound hurt. 

“Yeah, I do, leave. I’m not gonna let you keep doing this to me.”

“Doing what to you? I’m telling you that I care-”

“Oh suddenly now you care! After how many months of me begging for you to feel the same, now that I’m finally getting over it, you care?”, you shout as you cross the room towards her. 

“I always fucking cared!”, she yells back, and you notice the tears brimming in her eyes, fists balled at her side. In all this time, you’d only seen Nat cry twice. Once, when talking about Yelena. The other when Clint lost his family. To be crying now because of you, felt like hell.

You immediately soften when you notice, tears of your own forming. You’re left in speechless shock yet again at her words.

“Then why say the opposite for so long?”, you ask, voice hoarse.

“You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. Everything good in my life goes away. I didn’t want to ruin this.”, she goes quiet herself, staring at the floor. 

“You didn’t think telling me over and over again that we aren’t anything would make me go away?” 

“You’re still here, aren't you?” Natasha gives you a shy smile when she speaks. It’s true- you were too addicted to Nat to let her go. Even just a minute ago when you told her to leave, you knew you’d be following after her. 

“Honestly, I don’t know why. You made it clear how you feel.” She could joke about it all she wanted, you were still hurt and replaying months of rejection in your head. 

“I’m trying to tell you I didn’t mean it, please.” The remaining space between you is closed while she takes your hands in hers. Her gaze locks onto yours, staring into teary, green eyes. 

“I love you, that is the truth. I promise.” It’s never a challenge for Nat to break your resolve. Especially when you've been dreaming to hear the spy say that. 

“How do I know you mean it? That you're not ‘gonna change your mind?” 

You feel her thumbs graze over hand, a mischievous glint forming in her eyes. When your confusion grows, Natasha drops to her knees before you. As she lowers herself to the floor, she places kisses along your hands before moving to tug at your jeans. Whatever mixed feelings you still had, flew out of the door. 

“Let me show you how much I love you.”

[soriyafuq]

CHARACTER SHEET

Paint Dummy “untitled - Paint” she/her | ??? years old | program spirit | pixel-coded pastel mess

[ Basics ] MBTI: INFP Alignment: True Neutral Moral compass: whoever used her last Role in story: Training Dummy for Daisy Theme song: “Computer Love” but it’s glitching out halfway Voice: dial-up noises and soft sparkly jingles

[ Behavior Chart ] Kindness: ★★★★★ Intelligence: ★★☆☆☆ Humor: ★★★★☆ Sociability: ★★★☆☆ Energy: ★★★★☆ Chaos Potential: ★★★★★ Reliability: ???????????

[ Fun facts ] • They get “sleepy” if left idle too long • If you click their head, it makes the MS Paint "ding" sound • Hates being updated. Throws a tantrum when rebooted • Favorite color is "the transparent checkerboard" • Was once mistaken for a virus. Still mad about it

• They cannot speak. They can only say emoticons by drawing on the canvas. • Can only cry in pixels • Has never seen the outside of a monitor, and doesn’t want to

[ Design Notes ] • Hair = blank white space / empty canvas • Torso is the drawing window—art may randomly appear • Left leg is tools, right leg is palette • Emotion shows via window bar + cursor behavior • Not bound to one pose—window arms shift open or closed

• Charger tail—a dummy must stay charged!

• Black bow on the back of their head.

[ Stats - Click to view (jk you can’t) ]

HP: 404 Speed: 10fps Defense: depends on firewall Magic: glitch-based / artistic expression Weapon: pixelated brush, refuses to be sharpened

[hungergamesstan]

Just got an idea for squid game videogame like Detroit become human or until dawn (or any story choice game like these).

It would be third-person, cinematic, choice-based gameplay. Each decision branches the story, influencing relationships, alliances, survival, and ultimately how it all ends.

Some ideas:

Main playable characters - Gihun, Junho and Noeul (or maybe even more like Daeho, Hyunju, Myunggi...)

The game would start at beginning of season two.

Before entering squid game the characters cannot die, then it would depend on what choices we made. After that if one dies, the story continues without them.

It could start with Gihun tracking down the recruiter. We could search up a pink hotel - find documents, check computer, train with weapons and read Gihun's diary (where it would be explaned what was happening all these years). So it would start like a detective game.

Junho's search for island and Gihun could also depend on what choices we made - if Junho finds it in time or if he never make it.

There will be a lot of hard choices and moral decision that could change the whole story. A lot of choices will be time pressured so we would have to decide quick.

There will be quick time events but also regular combat - Gihun killing soldiers during rebellion or Noeul killing players. A lot of fighting scenes where characters have to defend themself.

There will be playable flasbacks set during first season - Gihun in first game and Junho during infiltration as pink soldier.

Like every story choice game, characters build trust or suspicion based on how we interact with them and what dialog we choose - this will also hardly impact story. The choices we made will also determined how others perceive us - could change the voting in game.

We would have to make strategic alliances - for example in six leg pentatlon how we treat our team depends on our survival or who we choose in mingle.

When we made decision as Gihun these decision could also impact other playable characters and could also impact the next games. For example if we made different choices then in hide and seek game Gihun either get red or blue vest.

Main character could also have different set of skills and knowledge which would change as we play. There could also be something like morality system compass for Gihun to see how he is changing - for better or for worse.

In main menu there could be the mechanical doll from red light, green light. She could be talking to us directly and give us different dialogs on what we did.

Would be meta if regardless of ending she asks us:

"Do you still have faith in humanity?"

There will be many multiple endings. One of the endings will be the show canon. Others could be good, neutral or bad endings depending on players action.

We could explore the game system deeper. I always like the setting of squid game so there could be a lot of visual details within the videogame.

There are so many ideas and possibilities this could go.

[elwenyere]

I saw a post the other day calling criticism of generative AI a moral panic, and while I do think many proprietary AI technologies are being used in deeply unethical ways, I think there is a substantial body of reporting and research on the real-world impacts of the AI boom that would trouble the comparison to a moral panic: while there *are* older cultural fears tied to negative reactions to the perceived newness of AI, many of those warnings are Luddite with a capital L - that is, they're part of a tradition of materialist critique focused on the way the technology is being deployed in the political economy. So (1) starting with the acknowledgement that a variety of machine-learning technologies were being used by researchers before the current "AI" hype cycle, and that there's evidence for the benefit of targeted use of AI techs in settings where they can be used by trained readers - say, spotting patterns in radiology scans - and (2) setting aside the fact that current proprietary LLMs in particular are largely bullshit machines, in that they confidently generate errors, incorrect citations, and falsehoods in ways humans may be less likely to detect than conventional disinformation, and (3) setting aside as well the potential impact of frequent offloading on human cognition and of widespread AI slop on our understanding of human creativity...

What are some of the material effects of the "AI" boom?

Guzzling water and electricity

The data centers needed to support AI technologies require large quantities of water to cool the processors. A to-be-released paper from the University of California Riverside and the University of Texas Arlington finds, for example, that "ChatGPT needs to 'drink' [the equivalent of] a 500 ml bottle of water for a simple conversation of roughly 20-50 questions and answers." Many of these data centers pull water from already water-stressed areas, and the processing needs of big tech companies are expanding rapidly. Microsoft alone increased its water consumption from 4,196,461 cubic meters in 2020 to 7,843,744 cubic meters in 2023. AI applications are also 100 to 1,000 times more computationally intensive than regular search functions, and as a result the electricity needs of data centers are overwhelming local power grids, and many tech giants are abandoning or delaying their plans to become carbon neutral. Google’s greenhouse gas emissions alone have increased at least 48% since 2019. And a recent analysis from The Guardian suggests the actual AI-related increase in resource use by big tech companies may be up to 662%, or 7.62 times, higher than they've officially reported.

Exploiting labor to create its datasets

Like so many other forms of "automation," generative AI technologies actually require loads of human labor to do things like tag millions of images to train computer vision for ImageNet and to filter the texts used to train LLMs to make them less racist, sexist, and homophobic. This work is deeply casualized, underpaid, and often psychologically harmful. It profits from and re-entrenches a stratified global labor market: many of the data workers used to maintain training sets are from the Global South, and one of the platforms used to buy their work is literally called the Mechanical Turk, owned by Amazon.

From an open letter written by content moderators and AI workers in Kenya to Biden: "US Big Tech companies are systemically abusing and exploiting African workers. In Kenya, these US companies are undermining the local labor laws, the country’s justice system and violating international labor standards. Our working conditions amount to modern day slavery."

Deskilling labor and demoralizing workers

The companies, hospitals, production studios, and academic institutions that have signed contracts with providers of proprietary AI have used those technologies to erode labor protections and worsen working conditions for their employees. Even when AI is not used directly to replace human workers, it is deployed as a tool for disciplining labor by deskilling the work humans perform: in other words, employers use AI tech to reduce the value of human labor (labor like grading student papers, providing customer service, consulting with patients, etc.) in order to enable the automation of previously skilled tasks. Deskilling makes it easier for companies and institutions to casualize and gigify what were previously more secure positions. It reduces pay and bargaining power for workers, forcing them into new gigs as adjuncts for its own technologies.

I can't say anything better than Tressie McMillan Cottom, so let me quote her recent piece at length: "A.I. may be a mid technology with limited use cases to justify its financial and environmental costs. But it is a stellar tool for demoralizing workers who can, in the blink of a digital eye, be categorized as waste. Whatever A.I. has the potential to become, in this political environment it is most powerful when it is aimed at demoralizing workers. This sort of mid tech would, in a perfect world, go the way of classroom TVs and MOOCs. It would find its niche, mildly reshape the way white-collar workers work and Americans would mostly forget about its promise to transform our lives. But we now live in a world where political might makes right. DOGE’s monthslong infomercial for A.I. reveals the difference that power can make to a mid technology. It does not have to be transformative to change how we live and work. In the wrong hands, mid tech is an antilabor hammer."

Enclosing knowledge production and destroying open access

OpenAI started as a non-profit, but it has now become one of the most aggressive for-profit companies in Silicon Valley. Alongside the new proprietary AIs developed by Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, X, etc., OpenAI is extracting personal data and scraping copyrighted works to amass the data it needs to train their bots - even offering one-time payouts to authors to buy the rights to frack their work for AI grist - and then (or so they tell investors) they plan to sell the products back at a profit. As many critics have pointed out, proprietary AI thus works on a model of political economy similar to the 15th-19th-century capitalist project of enclosing what was formerly "the commons," or public land, to turn it into private property for the bourgeois class, who then owned the means of agricultural and industrial production. "Open"AI is built on and requires access to collective knowledge and public archives to run, but its promise to investors (the one they use to attract capital) is that it will enclose the profits generated from that knowledge for private gain.

AI companies hungry for good data to train their Large Language Models (LLMs) have also unleashed a new wave of bots that are stretching the digital infrastructure of open-access sites like Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, and Internet Archive past capacity. As Eric Hellman writes in a recent blog post, these bots "use as many connections as you have room for. If you add capacity, they just ramp up their requests." In the process of scraping the intellectual commons, they're also trampling and trashing its benefits for truly public use.

Enriching tech oligarchs and fueling military imperialism

The names of many of the people and groups who get richer by generating speculative buzz for generative AI - Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, Larry Ellison - are familiar to the public because those people are currently using their wealth to purchase political influence and to win access to public resources. And it's looking increasingly likely that this political interference is motivated by the probability that the AI hype is a bubble - that the tech can never be made profitable or useful - and that tech oligarchs are hoping to keep it afloat as a speculation scheme through an infusion of public money - a.k.a. an AIG-style bailout.

In the meantime, these companies have found a growing interest from military buyers for their tech, as AI becomes a new front for "national security" imperialist growth wars. From an email written by Microsoft employee Ibtihal Aboussad, who interrupted Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman at a live event to call him a war profiteer: "When I moved to AI Platform, I was excited to contribute to cutting-edge AI technology and its applications for the good of humanity: accessibility products, translation services, and tools to 'empower every human and organization to achieve more.' I was not informed that Microsoft would sell my work to the Israeli military and government, with the purpose of spying on and murdering journalists, doctors, aid workers, and entire civilian families. If I knew my work on transcription scenarios would help spy on and transcribe phone calls to better target Palestinians, I would not have joined this organization and contributed to genocide. I did not sign up to write code that violates human rights."

So there's a brief, non-exhaustive digest of some vectors for a critique of proprietary AI's role in the political economy. tl;dr: the first questions of material analysis are "who labors?" and "who profits/to whom does the value of that labor accrue?"

For further (and longer) reading, check out Justin Joque's Revolutionary Mathematics: Artificial Intelligence, Statistics and the Logic of Capitalism and Karen Hao's forthcoming Empire of AI.

[proshippers-against-censorship]

TW for dark fantasies in a childs mind lol

Hello, minor proshipper here (17). Wanted to share a bit of my experience with fandom spaces and the whole and shipping discourse, that way i want to give antis (though i know most of them are not open to other people's experiences) some views of what i did go through.

I never had parental restriction over internet, i used my mom's cellphone and my brother's computer when i could. Given to that, i discovered what "sex" was to a eager age, before i was 9 years old. Of course i didn't understand fully about the implications of that, in fact i used to do "adult" things to myself in the living (rubbing against furniture) or in my room. I had some stuff i liked to see in drawings already, and it wasn't even explicit stuff. I discovered what vore was because i saw a MLP drawing, i didn't understand it but was like "well, i like to see some weird drawings too".

At age 9 i was gifted a tablet, i had my own gmail and had internet access without any kind of supervision. I watched YouTube and played some games, nothing out of normal considering a lot of my generaion grew up with games such as DDLC, hello neighbor, fnaf and etc. My favorite games were Misao and Mad father, i liked these kinds of games although there weren't many gameplays that I liked of them. I understand the story of the games, they were dark (SPOILERS! misao is about a teacher that rapes students and killed misao, i think he's kind of a necro too.) i knew what the villains did was wrong, because my mom always warned me about strangers, specially when they offered things like driving me home. But i felt attracted to the teacher of Misao regardless, he had a a sad backstory and i liked his personality, his way of making others think he is pure-hearted too. He is an interesting characters. I also had a crush on other morally dark characters, such as Freaky Fred from that show of the scared dog (i loved that show, some people say fred makes references to pedophiles i guess it could be), asgore from undertale, cedric from sofia the first (these two are silly but did bad things so 🤷‍♂️)

I could differentiate that the Misao teacher would be a criminal in real life, that i wouldn't be attracted to him in real life but disgusted and wished his execution, but he doesn't exist so that's not the case. I was in the undertale and gravity falls fandom too, and in that time it was common to see frans, billdip and even pinecest content. I didn't really cared, never liked those ships because they weren't for me. But i did like a lot of other darkships, mainly (Harry potter jumpscare) snarry, i discovered thanks to Wattpad and started reading A LOT of fanfics of them (i had a crush on snape too btw LOL, still have), if someone asked i would have the excuse of "oh no i just like it when harry's an adult and on aus!!!" BIG ASS LIE!!!!! someone cut off my tongue for being such a blunt liar, I LOVED THE FACT THAT IT WAS TEACHER X STUDENT lmao, i liked harry being like 14 minimum tho.

I also had a best friend (who now I don't talk to) that liked kuroshitsuji (i think he was a proshipper in denial she had SUS anime likes), i (person who pretended not to read any weird ship to please others) saw the anime (she obligated me to watch it lmao) AND IT WAS SO OBVIOUSLY SH0TA CONTENT!!!! i was like... side eye in a neutral way. You're telling me you're an anti (I didn't knew the word anti back then but whatever) while your favorite animes are KUROSHITSUJI and MISS KOBAYASHI DRAGON MAID???? plus danganronpa. Like sure i believe you (she denied to ship sebaciel but uhm sure i believe you girl whatever you say). I didn't even liked kuroshitsuji but from time to time i saw sebaciel content because they're cute.

btw i never stopped reaading ships of dark/problematic ships, even when i was a anti (poser lol).

Later at 13 or 14 y/o i changed school and FELL MAD IN LOVE like realllyyyyy bad i was insane for a teacher, since he was the only one kind to me and that respected my pronouns and gender (im a trans male). I WAS DELUSIONAL, AND I DON'T MEAN IT LIKE IN A ABLEIST WAY, literally wanted him to groom me and take me to his home and yk dumb stuff. So what i did not to go insane? Since the psychologists in the school sucked ass they were transphobic and blamed me for a lot of stuff. WRITE/READ FANFICTION AND DRAW MYSELF! express myself in art. i didn't tell no one about my crush until i was out of there. Obviously i wrote, drew and read about teacher x student, grooming, fluff and smut because tbh i might be hypersexual. That kept me sane.

"PROSHIPPING" as antis call it (actually refering to darkships) kept me sane, saved my life since i literally wanted to kms in that moment. Later a had a online boyfriend that was UGGHH so toxic (younger than me for 1 year) and was an anti so bad and i had to pretend to be one too while reading freaky fanfics. I broke up with him because he treated me poorly and a headmate of mine blocked him from everywhere.

I had other friend that i told that i shipped snarry and kaeluc being so frickin nervous and tey literally didn't cared (they didn't know about the characters but i told them), that's when i realised maybe i shouldn't be friends with antis. I currently have like 2-3 active friends i talk to, one i think it's not into shipping drama but dislikes ships such as billdip and says stuff like "i ship billford for the complex relationship I don't support toxic ships!!" and then says they're her fathers be so fr make it make sense... while the other despises dottore (genshin character that experimented on several children blablaba hes bad but he's my little meow meow) and darkships while shipping kazuscara that is like toxic and age gap and ??? THAT SAME FRIEND LIKES TO WATCH... HEAR THIS!!! real gore, like people killing themselves and is on shtwt too??? 😭

seriously I don't get antis that are in these communities. anyways that's my story live laugh love shipcest age gap noncon monsterfuckers cannibalism and other problematic ships MUEHEHE!!! ship and let ship, differentiate fiction from reality, make these siblings kiss, don't harass anyone, PLEASE DON'T CENSORSHIP OTHERS EXPERIENCES AND FICTION!!!!!! i love art ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹💘💘💘 yes even the problematic one 🎉🎉 don't let fandom cops get you!!! have fun, don't hurt people, hug your kitty or doggy and feed them well 😚😚

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[fungus-no69]

Dr Apollo (Medical Malpractice 2)

You are inside the hospital foyer. You are injured! ++stress

The door swings open, to reveal a person with pink hair. This must be the doctor you were told about. They look at you boredly and click their tongue when they see your wound. They lead you into the room.

"Hello, I'm Doctor Apollo." They say, pulling on some gloves and ushering you to lay down on the bed in the corner. "This should be a quick procedure since your cut isn't too bad." They lean over you, working so fast you can't properly register their movements. +pain

Eventually they stop, you now wear a bandage. They poke around the wound. ++pain

"Does this hurt?"

Yes <<

No +++pain

"Good." They nod. "If that cut becomes infected or you get hurt again, please visit Doctor Harper or myself, I'll be here on days when Harper isn't here. I have a feeling you know when those are."

They sit back on their chair, rolling to the desk and typing on their computer. Looks like you're dismissed.

Uses they/them pronouns

Pretty short, maybe around 5'2

They have an obsession with Harper, somewhat similar to Kylar in that regard

Also fixated on the limits of the human body i.e. parasites, organs and procedures of questionable morality.

There are ways to initiate encounters with them, they're just really weird. And cagey. And kind of unsexy.

Special Stat: Hatred

Works like jealousy, when the player indulges Harper while Apollo's around, their hatred will increase- there is also a chance that it will increase regardless of if they are there (seeing the evidence)

They are able to hide their disdain for the player up until a point (>75% hatred)

Before this, they treat the pc with neutrality and seem pretty professional apart from stray comments about 'the flexibility of the player's canals'.

However, at this amount of hatred an event will happen where the pc will either pass out, be knocked out or kidnapped. They will wake up in a brightly lit room that they recognise as at the hospital though they're unsure of the exact location (+stress). Apollo will be looming over them with a smile that doesn't quite reach their eyes. They will proceed to poke at cuts and bruises that weren't there before resulting in +++pain and ++stress, they'll be muttering under their breath. Eventually they speak up and ask how the player feels, not waiting for a response before they dig their nails into an open wound (++++pain ++stress) this will go on until the pc is at max pain to which they will respond with "good" as usual. They don't explain themself very well, simply telling the player that they're 'worried' for them and Harper and that the player should maybe avoid the other doctor for a while. Responding requires extremely high willpower and is not guaranteed, succeeding will allow the player to either nod or refuse.

Nodding will lower Apollo's hatred: "Thank you, I knew you were a reasonable person." Then they will release you without further fuss, telling the pc to 'keep an eye on their injuries'. These cuts and such will last around 3 days and increase stress occasionally, unlocking some interactions with love interests who react differently depending on their stats.

Refusing will anger Apollo, increasing their hatred by a substantial amount. Apollo will press a needle to the player's neck, saying that the player is lucky they haven't killed them yet (+++stress). There will be a noise outside the door an Apollo will perk up a bit. Their face will be unreadable as they turn back to the player, stabbing the needle into the pc's arm and injecting some kind of sedative.

Whether the player refuses or is unable to respond, they will wake up in the industrial alley inside of a dumpster with a strange wriggling in their stomach/without any clothes on.

This event changes based off of how many times it has occurred and will eventually stop appearing, there will be other consequences.

Meeting Apollo will make different procedures in the hospital available i.e. abortions, decreasing/increasing tf points (so long as the player has visited them before with the full transformation and allowed them to take a sample of their blood or something) and can make the player immediately sober up along with other things I haven't thought of yet.

Their post-appointment notes differ with how many parasites the player has given birth to. The player can view these through a mid skullduggery check

0: "Absolutely not. No flexibility."

1-5: "Could possibly be a vessel in the future, not suitable at this time."

6-10: "A very viable choice, however the subject could be injured, not ideal. Wait for further changes."

11+: They may proposition you for a 'test' of sorts, they remain purposely vague but may cave under an english check, in which case they tell the player that they have been looking for a suitable 'incubator' for a parasite they've been observing. This is completely optional and there will be no impact if the player declines. If the player agrees, their hatred will decrease and they will seem almost excited. The player will be put under anaesthesia and awaken to an almost bloated feeling that Apollo assures them will pass, the player will be asked to return to the hospital at least monthly for check ups.

There is an odd chance that while in the hospital, the player will see a room splattered in red and white, a pink flash will be visible before the door is closed. (+stress)

Just a very stress inducing person.

[tallahasseemp3]

even aside the environmental and artistic theft concerns i fucking hate AI art because it makes me doubt and wonder if non-AI images are real which may not seem like a big deal but when you have psychotic symptoms it's already very tiring to have to filter everything through the "is this real?" lens because you know your brain just makes things up. which in and of itself is morally neutral, but it adds another cognitive process to tick off when you hear/see/smell something. and now you have to do it to images you see on your computer also. it's exhausting

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows 3

Warnings: non/dubcon, clashing personalities, exclusion, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

Characters: moody boy Curtis Everett x bubbly, plus-size reader

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging.

You arrive early with your laptop. The meeting room appears occupied as you wait outside. You don’t knock for fear of interrupting and stand patiently in the hall.

You check your watch, the hot pink casio with the digital face. It’s getting close. You try not to worry too much. The IT tech will no doubt show up and realise what’s going on.

As you begin to build the upcoming meeting as more than it is, the door cracks open and a man pokes his head out. He wear frameless rectangular glasses and his blond hair is spiky and shiny with gel. He smiles as he lets the door fall open.

“Hey, sorry to keep you waiting, you must be our one o’clock,” he says, “I’m Jake.”

You shake his hand and introduce yourself. He welcomes you in as you ponder his words, ‘our’? As you enter, you are faced with the last person you expect. The man’s neutral stare turns to a chagrined scowl as your eyes meet. The very same moody lunch partner from the day before.

“Hi,” you say sheepishly as you sit down and place your laptop on the table.

“Curtis will be doing most of the set up,” Jake explains as he sits beside the other man, “I’m mostly here for moral support.”

“Shut up,” Curtis sneers under his breath.

“Curtis,” you beam brightly; you finally got a name for the face. You give your own happily, enunciating it as if he’s never heard it before.

“Let’s get this done with,” he reaches across the table and takes your laptop. 

You can only watch as he lifts the lid and starts typing. Jake looks over a tablet and offers a few words as Curtis fiddles around with your laptop. He’s met with grumbles and dismissive nods. They seem an odd pair.

“So, how are you liking it?” Jake turns his attention to you, “making any friends?”

“A few I think,” you glance at Curtis as his brows draw together, “pretty big company.”

“Yep, don’t let the corporate sea drown ya,” Jake says, “my tip, stick with the IT nerds, we mostly don’t care what’s going on upstairs. We’re all about the backend.”

The steady clack of keys underlines your small laugh. You’re nervous. You hate meetings and you just want to go back to your desk and pretend you’re reading policies.

“What is this?” Curtis grimaces and turns your computer to you. He points to the clock your installed on the desktop; Hello Kitty’s face with two clock hands ticking.

“It’s cute. It’s a clock! Oh, and the app also has a reminder setting–”

“Can’t have it on a work machine,” he grits.

“It’s fine, Curt. Won’t hurt–”

“This shit is from some Discord troll. Bullshit it can’t hurt,” Curtis insists, “policy; no third-party apps. Everything you need is already installed.”

“Okay,” you twirl your thumbs around each other, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

He looks at you above the laptop and squints, his lip slightly curling. Jake rubs his neck nervously and nudges him. You still your hands and bite into your cheek.

“He’s had a long day. Spilled coffee on himself,” Jake explains.

“Oh,” you round your eyes, looking at the wall evasively.

“We can show you how to use the system clock and reminders. You’d be surprised the features most people don’t know about,” Jake offers.

“Thanks, uh, sounds good.”

Curtis jams his finger on the touchpad harshly. He keeps his snarl aimed at the screen. You watch him, waiting for him to look up. He doesn’t. You don’t blame him, you’ve been a real thorn in his side. But you only meant well.

🌞

After the meeting, you swept up in a whirlwind of overthinking and guilt. You didn’t mean to ruin Curtis’ day. You never meant to be anything but friendly. Somehow, it rarely translates to more than a nuisance.

Still, you don’t like when people are mad at you. You’re not a grudge holder and frankly you don’t understand them. Why hold onto all that bad emotion? You need to to just apologise and let it all smooth over.

You go down to the cafeteria and grab one of the few leftover pastries. A cinnamon bun with icing, yum. You stop and make a coffee before you head back to the floor. You guess on a dark brew, he seems the type.

You wander past Research and Development and through Accounting. You don’t really know where you’re going. The further you get, the more your anxiety mounts. Surely, you can’t get lost in an office building.

You see a man with a headset and send a psst in his direction. He looks up, combing back his greasy hair with his fingers and smiles.

“Uh, hey,” he says.

“Um, is this IT?” You keep your voice down in the curdling silence of the department.

“Sure is. You need a repair?” He winks. Not exactly your taste. You shake your head.

“I’m looking for Curtis,” you say.

The man looks at your handful. He nods, deflating.

“Pretty boy’s over there,” he points towards the corner.

You thank the man and press on in your journey into the villain’s lair. You can only hope your offering is enough. Forgiveness, maybe that’s too much, but an understanding, possibly.

You turn down the last row of desks and see Curtis’ large hand brush over the back of his buzzcut, his rings twinkling in the fluorescent glow. He stretches in his chair, leaning back as he reaches his arms up. His set-up looks almost too small for him.

As you approach, he stands. You don’t expect it. The motion sends his chair back just as you get close and knocks the coffee out of your hand. The cup hits the seat and soaks into the mesh. Your squeak draws the man around in surprise.

“You,” he growls as you gape at him in shock.

“Hi,” you don’t know what to do so you hold out the cinnamon bun, “um, sorry?”

He glares at you. A deadly look that chills you to the bone. His eyes fall to his drenched seat and you cringe. You see the rage pale his face. His hands ball to fists.

“I was just…” you inch closer and set the dessert on the corner of his desk, “apologising but I see now that–”

“Go,” he grits through his teeth.

“I’m sorry, Curtis–”

“I said go,” he sneers as his grey blue eyes slowly move towards you, “before you ruin anything else.”

[thebreakfastgenie]

you are insane if you think a child reading bigoted works by a bigoted author is better than a child who has a different interest than you would like. go fuck yourself

I'm in the minority of people who actually thought something was off about the Gringotts Goblins when I was eleven, because I'm Like That, and even I think calling the series "bigoted works" is inaccurate. They're the standard level of problematic for a 90s/early 2000s children's series. Singling them out as bigoted obscures what the cultural landscape was like at the time and it's just dishonest!

I read books by the infamously bigoted Roald Dahl as a kid, and honestly I think his bigotry is a lot more evident in some of his works than Rowling's is in Harry Potter (I understand some of her later books for adults are cuckoo bananas). Reading them was still good for me! Certainly better for me than the amount of time I spent playing games on everythinggirl.com. Even better than the time I spent playing actual computer games!

This is not about what interests I would like this is about one parent trying to foster a love of reading and literacy in a child and the other parent giving him screens. If a kid only likes gaming and not books that is bad, I'm sorry! Video games are a morally neutral form of entertainment but it's very important to have a healthy balance, especially for a kid (although a lot of adults spend way too much time gaming; it's basically like the people who used to watch TV all day only slightly more interactive). And tbqh I would be very, very careful about an eleven-year-old boy having access to gamer subculture. He's way more likely to learn bigotry from gamers on YouTube and twitch than he is from Harry Potter.

Would I actively introduce my hypothetical children to Harry Potter? No. But if they wanted to borrow it from the public library I wouldn't stop them. If I knew someone who wanted to read the series with their kids I would advise the against buying new copies to avoid giving Rowling money while she's still alive and doing evil stuff with it, but that's as far as I would go because, like, who cares.

Reading is good. Encouraging children to read is good. Bonding with your kids over your favorite books is good. This should not be controversial. Kids are not better off as iPad kids than reading books you don't like.

[luckyfailuregirl]

FOR THE PEOPLE THAT WANTED TO KNOW.... GIGGLES OKAY SO MY SWAP AU...

FIRST OF ALL MOST OBVIOUSLY ITS LIKE CONNECTED TO OCS, MOSTLY MY OC LUCKY

SO YEAH RANT UNDER CUT

Lucky is originally a technician for Urbanshade (went to college for engineering and then got arrested years later but Urbanshade thought they'd be useful)

BUT IN THE SWAP AU, LUCKY IS THE SENTIENT AI DIGITAL ARTIST INSTEAD OF P.AI.NTER, AND P.AI.NTER IS THE TECHNICIAN

This works because p.AI.nter in this AU actually has a body, and he has this because he was created by a company that salvages old computers and makes them into robots that help with manufacturing

However, p.AI.nter was sentient and aware and so Urbanshade heard about this and bought him off of the companies hands and decided to use him as their own extra efficient technician!!!! (He hates the job and feels underestimated and they also forced him to wear a uniform and he hates that too /lh/silly)

(HERES PHOTOS SO ITS CLEARER WHY HES SO USEFUL... HES GOT COOL ROBOT ASPECTS!!)

Lucky meanwhile is a program on one of the Urbanshade-owned laptops !! They are being used the same way p.AI.nter is used in canon: for crypto mining

But the difference is Lucky actually likes it for a whole first

It's in their nature to enjoy logic and things that make sense and truly they don't mind it, even if they do think it's a bit iffy at times (they were made for this so they don't really have a moral view on a lot of things)

But eventually Urbanshade asks them to double their work and it gets overwhelming, so they start hating it and eventually aid in the breach of the Blacksite EHEHEHE

The drawing I made was supposed to depict them during the breach but also just to introduce the idea of the swap au entirely

FUN FACTS ABOUT THIS AU:

-There are two versions of this au!! One where p.AI.nter and Lucky are the only swapped ones, and one where several characters are swapped with characters from Code Grey (Code Grey is the au I have with my friends with all our ocs)

-Lucky can never really be in the physical world! They don't ever get a body (so far), but people (and other sentient beings) often hallucinate them; it's just an effect of being around them

-Lucky usually doesn't like touch, they despise it in fact, but in this au they actually don't even know what it's like!! So they probably wouldn't mind it if they had a body because they have no bad memories with it here

-Lucky's design was inspired by a lot of the patterns I see in people's p.AI.nter designs!! Ehehehe HERES THEIR REF ACTUALLY SINCE I SHARED P.AI.NTER'S

-Lucky eventually takes control of the turrets in this au as p.AI.nter would in canon, but Lucky is more of a cold-blooded killer who does things with a straight face and thinks of things very neutrally

He realizes he's killing expendables, but again, he doesn't have any moral to build off of, so he doesn't think anything of it

-ALSO IN THE VERSION OF THIS AU WHERE NOBODY ELSE IS SWAPPED, SEBASTIAN AND LUCKY ACTUALLY HAVE A DECENT RELATIONSHIP INSTEAD OF HATING EACH OTHER LIKE THEY DO NORMALLY

SO YEAH THATS IT FOR NOW BUT IM DEVELOPING MORE WITH A FRIEND OF MINE HEHEHE

THANK YOU TO RHE PEOPLE WHO ASKED ABOUT THIS BTW... IM VERY EXCITED IM SO GLAD PPL WERE INTERESTED