#position statement

[kalikalahansa]

On generative AI

I've had 2 asks about this lately so I feel like it's time to post a clarifying statement.

I will not provide assistance related to using "generative artificial intelligence" ("genAI") [1] applications such as ChatGPT. This is because, for ethical and functional reasons, I am opposed to genAI.

I am opposed to genAI because its operators steal the work of people who create, including me. This complaint is usually associated with text-to-image (T2I) models, like Midjourney or Stable Diffusion, which generate "AI art". However, large language models (LLMs) do the same thing, just with text. ChatGPT was trained on a large research dataset known as the Common Crawl (Brown et al, 2020). For an unknown period ending at latest 29 August 2023, Tumblr did not discourage Common Crawl crawlers from scraping the website (Changes on Tumblr, 2023). Since I started writing on this blog circa 2014–2015 and have continued fairly consistently in the interim, that means the Common Crawl incorporates a significant quantity of my work. If it were being used for academic research, I wouldn't mind. If it were being used by another actual human being, I wouldn't mind, and if they cited me, I definitely wouldn't mind. But it's being ground into mush and extruded without credit by large corporations run by people like Sam Altman (see Hoskins, 2025) and Elon Musk (see Ingram, 2024) and the guy who ruined Google (Zitron, 2024), so I mind a great deal.

I am also opposed to genAI because of its excessive energy consumption and the lengths to which its operators go to ensure that energy is supplied. Individual cases include the off-grid power station which is currently poisoning Black people in Memphis, Tennessee (Kerr, 2025), so that Twitter's genAI application Grok can rant incoherently about "white genocide" (Steedman, 2025). More generally, as someone who would prefer to avoid getting killed for my food and water in a few decades' time, I am unpleasantly reminded of the study that found that bitcoin mining emissions alone could make runaway climate change impossible to prevent (Mora et al, 2018). GenAI is rapidly scaling up to produce similar amounts of emissions, with the same consequences, for the same reasons (Luccioni, 2024). [2]

It is theoretically possible to create genAI which doesn't steal and which doesn't destroy the planet. Nobody's going to do it, and if they do do it, no significant share of the userbase will migrate to it in the foreseeable future — same story as, again, bitcoin — but it's theoretically possible. However, I also advise against genAI for any application which requires facts, because it can't intentionally tell the truth. It can't intentionally do anything; it is a system for using a sophisticated algorithm to assemble words in plausibly coherent ways. Try asking it about the lore of a media property you're really into and see how long it takes to start spouting absolute crap. It also can't take correction; it literally cannot, it is unable — the way the neural network is trained means that simply inserting a factual correction, even with administrator access, is impossible even in principle.

GenAI can never "ascend" to intelligence; it's not a petri dish in which an artificial mind can grow; it doesn't contain any more of the stuff of consciousness than a spreadsheet. The fact that it seems like it really must know what it's saying means nothing. To its contemporaries, ELIZA seemed like that too (Weizenbaum, 1966).

The stuff which is my focus on this blog — untraining and more broadly AB/DL in general — is not inherently dangerous or sensitive, but it overlaps with stuff which, despite being possible to access and use in a safe manner, has the potential for great danger. This is heightened quite a bit given genAI's weaknesses around the truth. If you ask ChatGPT whether it's safe to down a whole bottle of castor oil, as long as you use the right words, even unintentionally, it will happily tell you to go ahead. If I endorse or recommend genAI applications for this kind of stuff, or assist with their use, I am encouraging my readers toward something I know to be unsafe. I will not be doing that. Future asks on the topic will go unanswered.

Notes

I use quote marks here because as far as I am concerned, both "generative artificial intelligence" and "genAI" are misleading labels adopted for branding purposes; in short, lies. GenAI programs aren't artificial intelligences because they don't think, and because they don't emulate thinking or incorporate human thinking; they're just a program for associating words in a mathematically sophisticated but deterministic way. "GenAI" is also a lie because it's intended to associate generative AI applications with artificial general intelligence (AGI), i.e., artificial beings that actually think, or pretend to as well as a human does. However, there is no alternative term at the moment, and I understand I look weird if I use quote marks throughout the piece, so I dispense with them after this point.

As a mid-to-low-income PC user I am also pissed off that GPUs are going to get worse and more expensive again, but that kind of pales in comparison to everything else.

References

Brown, T.B., Mann, B., Ryder, N., Subbiah, M., Kaplan, J., ... & Amodei, D. (2020, July 22). Language models are few-shot learners [version 4]. arXiv. doi: 10.48660/arXiv.2005.14165. Retrieved 25 May 2025.

Changes on Tumblr (2023, August 29). Tuesday, August 29th, 2023 [Text post]. Tumblr. Retrieved 25 May 2025.

Hoskins, P. (2025, January 8). ChatGPT creator denies sister's childhood rape claim. BBC News. Retrieved 25 May 2025.

Ingram, D. (2024, June 13). Elon Musk and SpaceX sued by former employees alleging sexual harassment and retaliation. NBC News. Retrieved 25 May 2025.

Kerr, D. (2025, April 25). Elon Musk's xAI accused of pollution over Memphis supercomputer. The Guardian. Retrieved 25 May 2025.

Luccioni, S. (2024, December 18). Generative AI and climate change are on a collision course. Wired. Retrieved 25 May 2025.

Mora, C., Rollins, R.L., Taladay, K., Kantar, M.B., Chock, M.K., ... & Franklin, E.C. (2018, October 29). Bitcoin emissions alone could push global warming above 2°C. Nature Climate Change, 8, 931–933. doi: 10.1038/s41558-018-0321-8. Retrieved 25 May 2025.

Steedman, E. (2025, May 25). For hours, chatbot Grok wanted to talk about a 'white genocide'. It gave a window into the pitfalls of AI. ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Retrieved 25 May 2025.

Weizenbaum, J. (1966, January). ELIZA—a computer program for the study of natural language communication between man and machine. Communications of the ACM, 9(1), 36–45. doi: 10.1145/365153.365168. Retrieved 25 May 2025.

Zitron, E. (2024, April 23). The man who killed Google Search. Where's Your Ed At. Retrieved 25 May 2025.

[lavender-gayz]

'glinda, is it true you were her FRIEND?' loving the thought of there being staunch believers in glinda's straightness in oz who over-identify with her relationship with fiyero and feel they have to defend her from accusations of lesbian behaviour. is it an open secret that madame morrible made everyone at shiz sign NDAs? does some eagle-eyed citizen swear they saw elphaba caressing glinda's face at the top of the palace and produce a blurry sketch as proof? is glinda overheard softly singing 'i'm not her girl' to herself one day, thereby sparking hushed but lively discussions in small gaylinda circles?

[croquettish]

Is Samuel the only person who recognizes the Hansry romance for what it is? The only person who has a Hansry specific line change? Outside of Hansry, and outside Henry's own subconsciousness in the form of his parents.

I think the way Samuel connects to Henry while having very few conversations with him is fascinating, but the way he clocks Hans and then the relationship that is consummated the very same night of the infiltration, and goes on to use this information to try and convince Henry to leave him.

Samuel can be impulsive, hot headed, distrustful, but he is so genuinely caring, charming, and observant. Incredible character. I want HIS take on Hansry, and Hans and Henry as individuals, so bad.

As far as we know, he is the only one! You can theorize about Godwin, but we just have proof of it for Sam. And his sort of quiet acceptance of it fits right in with what I was saying in part 1 of my Hans analysis, that Samuel's marginalized Jewish identity sits in the same space outside of the traditional societal structure as queerness does. It's no wonder that he sees this and doesn't judge it.

Honestly, based on his earlier conversation with Hans, I feel like he clocked that shit SO fast. I have my own ideas about how Jamuel happened, but especially if we assume that ship to be canon (and Warhorse evidently does! we just keep winning!), it would make sense that he sees all the telltale signs of gay panic / repression / gay yearning and recognizes it.

Like it would make sense for him to see these things through the lens of his own understanding of how he and John got together. Honestly, in that regard it wouldn't surprise me if he saw himself in Hans to a certain extent. The main difference between them is that Sam's marginality means he has given up putting on a pretense for the rest of the world, he's just honest about who he is. But he looks at Hans and sees someone who is still bound by these shackles despite not fitting into the mold.

Consider Raborsch: neither of them want to be there or feel like being particularly sociable. Hans is the only one who even briefly tries to pretend that he wants to do that and tries to fit in. Being the quiet person he is, I would bet good money that Sam notices all sorts of things people wouldn't normally pick up on. He most likely sees in Hans exactly the sort of person he would hate to be... all while also noticing that Hans seems to come more into himself when he's around Henry. Not to mention the jealousy. But we know all about that already.

And tbh? That's probably the thing that he can relate to the most when it comes to Hans, and is precisely why it's the thing he brings up to him. Like Hans just needs that little push in the right direction to help him understand how he feels...

Idk man Sam is just a really great older brother. Like I love him so much. He's such a magnificent character and we and John both are so lucky to have him.

[23fallencomets]

Logan at nashville and kyle getting pole position the world is healing

[anghraine]

Speaking of the social context of P&P and Austen in general, and also just literature of that era, I'm always interested in how things like precisely formulated hierarchies of precedence and tables of ranked social classes interact with the more complex and nuanced details of class-based status and consequence on a pragmatic day-to-day level. I remembered reading a social historian discussing the pragmatics of class wrt eighteenth-century English life many years ago and finally tracked down the source:

"In spite of the number of people who got their living from manufacture or trade, fundamentally it was a society in which the ownership of land alone conveyed social prestige and full political rights. ... The apex of this society was the nobility. In the eyes of the Law only members of the House of Lords, the peerage in the strictest use of the word, were a class apart, enjoying special privileges and composing one of the estates of the realm. Their families were commoners: even the eldest sons of peers could sit in the House of Commons. It was therefore in the social rather than in the legal sense of the word that English society was a class society. Before the law all English people except the peers were in theory equal. Legal concept and social practice were, however, very different. When men spoke of the nobility, they meant the sons and daughters, the brothers and sisters, the uncles and aunts and cousins of the peers. They were an extremely influential and wealthy group.

"The peers and their near relations almost monopolized high political office. From these great families came the wealthiest Church dignitaries, the higher ranks in the army and navy. Many of them found a career in law; some even did not disdain the money to be made in trade. What gave this class its particular importance in the political life of the day was the way in which it was organized on a basis of family and connection ... in eighteenth-century politics men rarely acted as isolated individuals. A man came into Parliament supported by his friends and relations who expected, in return for this support, that he would further their interests to the extent of his parliamentary influence.

"Next in both political and social importance came the gentry. Again it is not easy to define exactly who were covered by this term. The Law knew nothing of gentle birth but Society recognized it. Like the nobility this group too was as a class closely connected with land. Indeed, the border line between the two classes is at times almost impossible to define ... Often these men are described as the squirearchy, this term being used to cover the major landowning families in every county who were not connected by birth with the aristocracy. Between them and the local nobility there was often considerable jealousy. The country gentleman considered himself well qualified to manage the affairs of his county without aristocratic interference.

"...The next great layer in society is perhaps best described the contemporary term 'the Middling Sort'. As with all eighteenth-century groups it is difficult to draw a clear line of demarcation between them and their social superiors and inferiors. No economic line is possible, for a man with no pretensions to gentility might well be more prosperous than many a small squire. There was even on the fringe between the two classes some overlapping of activities ... The ambitious upstart who bought an estate and spent his income as a gentleman, might be either cold-shouldered by his better-born neighbours or treated by them with a certain contemptuous politeness. If however his daughters were presentable and well dowered, and if his sons received the education considered suitable for gentlemen, the next generation would see the obliteration of whatever distinction still remained. The solid mass of the middling sort had however no such aspirations, or considered them beyond their reach.

"...This term [the poor] was widely used to designate the great mass of the manual workers. Within their ranks differences of income and of outlook were as varied as those that characterized the middle class. Once again the line of demarcation is hard to draw..."

—Dorothy Marshall, Eighteenth Century England (29-34)

(There's plenty more interesting information in the full chapter, especially regarding "the poor," and the chapter itself is contracted from a lengthier version published earlier.)

[qiu-yan]

in order to say "wei wuxian is morally good," you must first define what it means to be morally good

though this is by no means exclusive to them, one logical fallacy i sometimes see wei wuxian stans make in their arguments is that they begin their analysis of wei wuxian as a character with the statement "wei wuxian is morally good."

so their argument becomes:

wei wuxian is morally good.

a morally good person would do XYZ.

therefore, wei wuxian would do XYZ.

alternatively, when they're objecting to someone else's argument about wei wuxian, their counterargument becomes:

this argument says that wei wuxian would do ABC.

a morally good person would not do ABC.

wei wuxian is morally good.

therefore, wei wuxian would not do ABC; the other person's argument is wrong.

while this is in fact a valid argument structure to use for other kinds of traits (ie. "brave," "doesn't think of the consequences," even something like "afraid of dogs"), this format of argument in fact cannot be used for a descriptor as vague as "morally good"--because, unlike the other traits, "morally good" is not precisely defined enough for the above argument structure to work.

"morally good" is not a character trait in the same way that "wants to defend the weak," "is angered by innocent people being harmed," and "does not fear consequences" are character traits, because what is considered "moral" can vary significantly from person to person. what a utilitarian considers to be moral, for example, diverges significantly from what a deontologist considers to be moral. if i were to say "wei wuxian is a morally good person," i have frankly said less about wei wuxian's personality and more about what i myself believe to be ethical.

thus, the reason why the above argument pretty much never works in the wild is that the depolyers in question rarely actually define what they mean by "morally good."

consider the case in which two different wei wuxian stans write on their blogs "wei wuxian is a good person." however, the first person follows a moral philosophy that centers courage in the face of certain failure, while the second person follows a moral philosophy that centers reason and pragmatism. thus, what the first person actually means to say is "wei wuxian is someone who courageously chooses the correct path even when he is doomed to fail," while what the second person actually means to say is "wei wuxian is a reasonable and pragmatic person." these are no longer the same statement.

or consider the case in which the first stan follows a moral philosophy that centers agent-neutral harm reduction, while the second stan follows a moral philosophy that centers agent-relative reciprocity. in this case, what the first person actually means to say is "wei wuxian is someone who helps others regardless of whether they've helped him before," while what the second person actually means to say is "wei wuxian is someone who always repays kindnesses done unto him." again, these are no longer the same statement.

in general, if one wishes to argue that "blorbo is morally good," one must first specify what exactly they mean by "morally good," because not everyone follows the same definition of "morally good." many blorbo stans, however, don't actually do this. instead, they write their arguments as if their own definition of morality is already universal law; a reader can thus only reverse-engineer what the op believes to be morally good from their post. and this leads to no shortage of disagreements: two different blorbo enjoyers might find themselves in an argument over what they believe to be their blorbo's characterization, when in reality they are actually disagreeing over what it means to be ethical at all.

on the topic of disagreement, another fact that must be acknowledged is that wei wuxian himself is also a character with his own specific thoughts and feelings. wei wuxian is not an abstract paragon of righteousness whose definition of morality just so happens to perfectly match the reader's definition of morality; wei wuxian is a specific fictional character with his own specific thoughts as to what is right and what is wrong. and every reader has to accept that what wei wuxian considers to be right can in fact be gleaned from the text--and that what wei wuxian considers to be right will not always match what the reader considers to be right. wei wuxian might, in fact, disagree with you.

thus, if you want to make any sort of statement regarding wei wuxian's moral character (whether that be "he is morally good" or "he is morally bad") you in fact have to consider not just one, but four different questions:

what do you consider to be morally good? what moral framework and/or school of moral philosophy do you use to determine what is ethical?

how well do wei wuxian's actions adhere to what you personally consider to be morally good?

what does wei wuxian consider to be morally good? what moral framework and/or school of moral philosophy does he use to determine what is ethical?

how well do wei wuxian's actions adhere to what he himself considers to be morally good?

all of these are different questions! they cannot be conflated with each other.

to write a good analysis, you must accept that [what you consider to be morally good] will not always match [what wei wuxian considers to be morally good]. when such disagreements arise, rather than distort wei wuxian's character to match what you personally believe to be morally good, perhaps consider just allowing wei wuxian to disagree with you instead. even if he's doing something you honestly can't defend, maybe wei wuxian is still striving to live as best he can according to his own ideals, and it just so happens that his ideals do not match your ideals. you really should not distort wei wuxian's motives or beliefs just to make him more palatable to you, simply because you have wedded yourself to the idea that "wei wuxian must be morally good by my own standards."

closing thoughts: this isn't really exclusive to wei wuxian stans. i've seen all sorts of character stans in all sorts of fandoms make this same logical fallacy. i certainly think that some of the jiang cheng analyses i see from fellow jiang cheng stans are born less from an objective analysis of his character and moreso from the op's desire for his actions to align with their moral compass. but, out of all the characters in MDZS, it seems like people commit this logical fallacy when discussing wei wuxian specifically far more often than they do with any other character, save perhaps lan wangji.

[papasyapperia]

When you watch supernatural all of the insanity kind of just comes off as normal because literally all of it is insane. But then you see the tumblr gifs months later and it’s like… holy shit… people are saying that confession wasn’t reciprocated when Dean is making that fucking face? And why are all those memes of Jensen making a model face actually so accurate? What is happening? Why is this show so fucking weird?

[swollenbabyfat]

Do you ever meet someone and wanna rip the artist out of them

[hyper-alice]

Every time I watch a Starkid show there’s always one character/scene that makes me say “[they’re] so ridiculous” and that statement can have either positive or negative connotations depending on the context

[kindalikerackham]

can I speak my truth for a moment? can we lay down our tomatoes and sit together in the space of possibility that 911 is in right now?

I truly think, in my heart of hearts, that for me, unrequited-buck-feelings-for-eddie canon would be nearly as satisfying as requited-buddie canon

-- HEAR ME OUT HERE ---

Buck talks about it like it's a cliche (and it is), but when has a network tv audience truly seen unrequited best friend queer feelings? When have we seen that happen with two humanized adult developed main characters, one queer, one straight? When have we seen that happen in a way that sends splinters into the friend group/found family?

Like, two supposedly straight male friends finding their sexuality and then finding each other over seasons of underdefined platonic life partner care for each other does feel beautiful and revolutionary. But... so would full balls-to-the-wall in-denial pining for your straight friend. So would learning how to be around each other and rebuilding your relationship into something that fits both of your expectations and desires. Imagine watching Buck learning how to set boundaries with Eddie to protect himself. Imagine Eddie getting pissed about that, but having to cave because. well. Buck is right. Imagine Eddie having to watch Buck heal without him. Or maybe with him. Just. With boundaries. Limits. Enforced "you can't ask that of me."

If you ask me? that's DELICIOUS

[enjoyvoidblack]

I have a lot of Thoughts about the issue of Jon's humanity. There's a lot made of how he's not human anymore in seasons 3 and 4, before and after the coma, and I could debate the usefulness of "human" as a term for morality and connectedness all day, but that's not the point. Regardless of the presentation, some sort of disconnect between him and the others is definitely there. By mid- season 4 he is fully leaning into feeding on the fears of others, into being something more of the horrors he knows than of the people around him, and that's not a shift that came from nothing. However. My hot take is this: I think Jon's disconnect both exists, and is also entirely for human reasons.

Up until season 4 Jon is three things. He is confused, afraid, and wildly out of his depth. His arc is a constant scramble to figure out what's going on three steps behind the curve, getting in too deep before he even knows what he's getting into, losing people before he even fully nails down what he lost them to. Tim sees him as uncaring because he's isolated and not acting to help matters, but that's because he doesn't know enough to help, and he's leaning hard into figuring that out instead of being around for emotional support - which is...debatably the wrong approach, but also extremely in character. One of the only things he took initiative on was smashing that table, and we all know how that turned out. By season 3, he's antsy enough with how little he knows and how little he can do that he shows up on Jude Perry's doorstep in the hopes that she'll be merciful. Point being: this man doesn't have the first clue what he's been pulled into, and the game he's been playing is nothing more than trying desperately to figure it out just in time for the next big thing to go less devastatingly wrong.

Then he dies.

Then, he wakes up feeling on top of it.

He says in the episodes after the coma that he feels revitalized. He feels in control. He finally feels like he fits with all of this. He is more of what's happening around him than he is a victim now, and that feels good. He can escape the coffin, he can square up with Jarod, he is self-assured and has tools of his own to truly know things for the first time in years. Just imagine that for a second. Imagine the most uncertain, most uneasy, most fearful time in your life, stretched over years feeling like people you know (or you!) (or the whole world!) are going to die if you can't solve a puzzle you don't even know the shape of it yet, and then somebody takes off your blindfold. You don't have to feel around for the pieces anymore. You can just see them, and move them.

Of course you're going to reach for them. Of course you're going to take the first sense of real control you've felt in years and lean into it. ...Maybe, depending on who you are and whether you have anyone around you who's willing to check you, even if you break a few eggs to make an omelette along the way. Even if those eggs are people who see you in their sleep and wake up screaming. Especially if you've spent those last few years absorbing every minute of your predecessor's recorded words on the importance of being ruthless in order to save the world.

Jon didn't start leaning into his abilities regardless of the cost because he's a monster. Jon did that because he's human, and scared, and then handed a means of relieving that fear. Better to be a wolf than a sheep. Better still, if you can convince yourself (with the help of some Classic Elias Manipulation) that it's for the good of the world, and any harm caused and the discomfort it causes you is a sacrifice that needs to be made. Jon makes sense, to me. In my mind he doesn't need to be a monster in some ambiguously defined sense to explain his shift in attitude. The explanation is there in full: a man in a rowboat on a turbulent ocean of fear, now given a motor.

(The fact that he was so consistently called a monster by Basira, one of his few points of contact still remaining in Peter Lukas's Lonely-flavoured Institute, also certainly didn't help his leaning into it at all, but that's probably an essay for another day. Confirmation bias is a hell of a thing, and I'm sure being made to think he had no other options made it all the more easy to tell himself the same.)

[tristantzara]

i think it's funny how the 2022 assassins fandom had someone who would get mad if you said anything positive about leon czolgosz and someone who would get mad if you said anything negative about leon czolgosz

[enthusiasticarsonist]

hate it when I talk about the beatles and people who are not very familiar with them hit me with 'john lennon beat his wife.' yeah, I know. I acknowledge the beatles as fully formed, objectively pretty awful, and above all complex and contradictory human beings. I talk about their unjustified glorification in pop culture and the red thread of both unintentional and meanspirited misogyny throughout their career a lot actually. now get in the fucking sandbox and play with me, we're making mclennon kiss in here

[lizzybeeee]

Well, shit.

RIP Dragon Age.

[scaredandlaughing]

randal ivory seems like the kind of guy who would eat the breading off of a corn dog first and then eat the hot dog part

[there-are-4-lights]

from here