#AI Call Agent Software

[klctai]

In today’s hyper-competitive B2B landscape, traditional outbound calling isn’t cutting it anymore. SDRs spend countless hours dialing leads manually, logging notes, and chasing follow-ups, often leading to burnout, human error, and inconsistent messaging. Enter the automated outbound calling solution, an AI-powered way to supercharge your team’s outreach, optimize workflows, and increase conversions without adding stress. Check out this blog to learn about automated outbound calling solutions: What it is and why your sales team needs one.

[contact-swing]

AI phone calls

[jcmarchi]

10 Best AI Phone Platforms & Agents for Call Centers (November 2024)

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/10-best-ai-phone-platforms-agents-for-call-centers-november-2024/

10 Best AI Phone Platforms & Agents for Call Centers (November 2024)

Vapi is a technical platform focused on the development and deployment of voice AI applications, specifically designed with developers as the primary users. The system’s architecture handles complex voice processing tasks including turn-taking mechanisms, interruption management, and backchanneling, with voice-to-voice response times operating within a 500-800 millisecond range. This technical framework enables the creation of voice agents that can process and respond to speech inputs while maintaining natural conversation flow.

The platform’s infrastructure includes open-source software development kits (SDKs) that support multiple development environments, including Web, iOS, Flutter, React Native, and Python. These tools enable integration with external services through function calling capabilities, allowing voice agents to perform specific tasks such as data retrieval or appointment scheduling. The system’s security architecture incorporates HIPAA compliance measures, providing a framework for handling sensitive data in regulated contexts.

Key features

Voice processing architecture with sub-second response times

Open-source SDK support across multiple development platforms

Function calling system for external service integration

Conversation management system for handling complex interaction patterns

Security framework designed for HIPAA compliance standards

Visit Vapi →

Synthflow AI provides a platform for creating voice assistants through a visual interface that doesn’t require programming knowledge. The system’s architecture enables users to construct conversational flows through drag-and-drop components, which are then converted into functional voice interactions. The platform includes integration points with over 130 external services and tools, including common business applications like HubSpot, Google Suite, and Stripe, allowing for data exchange and workflow automation across different business systems.

The technical framework of Synthflow incorporates real-time voice processing capabilities and text-to-speech conversion mechanisms for handling customer interactions. The platform’s infrastructure is designed to process multiple concurrent voice sessions, with the system managing conversation flows and responses based on predefined patterns set through the visual interface. This approach to voice assistant creation emphasizes accessibility for non-technical users while maintaining the ability to create complex interaction patterns.

Key features

Visual interface system for creating conversation flows without code

Integration framework supporting connections to over 130 external services

Real-time voice processing architecture for immediate interactions

Text-to-speech conversion system for response generation

Concurrent session management for handling multiple conversations

Visit Synthflow →

Bland AI operates as a phone automation system that processes customer calls through artificial intelligence agents, focusing on creating voice interactions that closely approximate human speech patterns. The system’s architecture processes millions of concurrent calls while maintaining consistent response patterns, operating independently of traditional business hours. The platform incorporates real-time data analysis capabilities, extracting and processing information from conversations to generate operational insights.

The technical framework allows for customization of voice characteristics and integration with existing business systems, enabling organizations to maintain their established workflows while implementing automated call handling. The platform’s infrastructure supports continuous operation, managing call distribution and processing across multiple channels simultaneously. While the system aims to replicate human-like interactions, it functions within the current limitations of conversational AI technology.

Key features

Advanced speech synthesis system for natural-sounding interactions

Concurrent call processing architecture supporting millions of simultaneous conversations

Voice customization framework with multiple configuration options

Integration system compatible with standard business infrastructure

Real-time data processing and analysis capabilities for conversation insights

Visit Bland AI →

Brilo AI functions as a programmable phone system that processes calls through AI agents, with a technical architecture focused on minimizing response latency in voice interactions. The system incorporates text-to-speech technology for voice generation, while managing multiple concurrent calls through parallel processing capabilities. The platform includes functionality for transitioning conversations between AI and human agents when interactions require additional support or complexity.

The infrastructure of Brilo AI includes real-time transcription processing, converting spoken interactions into text data as conversations occur. This framework operates through an API-first design, enabling technical teams to integrate the system with various platforms and services. The architecture supports continuous operation and scales based on call volume requirements, while maintaining consistent processing speeds across different interaction types.

Key features

Low-latency voice processing system for rapid responses

Parallel call handling architecture for multiple simultaneous conversations

Call transfer mechanism for AI-to-human handoffs

Real-time speech-to-text conversion system

API framework for platform integration and customization

Visit Brilo AI →

GoVoice operates as an automated phone system that combines customer service and sales functions through AI-powered voice agents. The system’s architecture handles various interaction types, from basic customer support to complex sales conversations, while incorporating data from customer histories to inform responses. The platform includes specific modules for appointment management and technical support provision, with built-in calendar integration capabilities and structured problem-solving protocols.

The technical framework of GoVoice operates within established security standards, maintaining SOC 2 and HIPAA certifications for data protection. The infrastructure supports continuous operation for customer support functions, while simultaneously processing sales-oriented conversations that can include product recommendations and upselling sequences. The system manages these different interaction types through specialized conversation flows, though it operates within the current limitations of AI voice technology.

Key features

Continuous operation system for round-the-clock call processing

Customer data integration framework for personalized interactions

Appointment scheduling system with calendar synchronization

Technical support protocols with structured problem resolution paths

Security architecture meeting SOC 2 and HIPAA requirements

Visit GoVoice →

GetVocal functions as an automated phone interaction system that processes customer communications through AI agents trained on organization-specific information. The system’s architecture incorporates customer relationship management (CRM) integration capabilities, enabling data exchange between the voice processing system and existing customer databases. This allows for contextual information to be accessed and updated during calls, while maintaining continuous operation across different time zones.

The platform’s infrastructure includes language processing capabilities for multiple languages, enabling cross-regional communication through the same technical framework. It supports scaling of concurrent call processing, adapting to varying call volumes while maintaining consistent response patterns. While the AI agents are trained on company-specific data, they operate within the constraints of current AI technology limitations for natural language processing and voice interaction.

Key features

Company-specific AI training system for customized responses

CRM integration framework for real-time data exchange

Multi-language processing capabilities for international communication

Scalable architecture for handling varying call volumes

Continuous operation system for 24-hour availability

Visit GetVocal →

Goodcall operates as a virtual receptionist system that processes inbound calls through AI agents. The system includes lead management capabilities that automatically transfer call information to various business tools including SMS, email, Google Sheets, and CRM systems. The platform provides analytical tools for monitoring call metrics, including automation rates, call duration tracking, and caller pattern analysis, enabling organizations to assess operational performance through a centralized dashboard.

The technical framework incorporates integration capabilities with over 10,000 external tools through Zapier, creating connections between the phone system and various business applications. The infrastructure supports appointment scheduling functions and customizable call routing, with options for local number assignment or conditional forwarding from existing phone lines. The system processes call data and maintains records of interactions.

Key features

Automated lead capture system with multi-channel data distribution

Analytics framework for tracking call metrics and patterns

Integration architecture supporting thousands of external tools

Appointment management system with scheduling automation

Customizable call routing and number assignment options

Visit Goodcall →

Phonecall.bot functions as an automated phone system that processes customer interactions through AI agents equipped with voice synthesis technology. The system includes multilingual processing capabilities, enabling communication across different languages while maintaining consistent voice characteristics. The platform also incorporates integration points with scheduling software and customer relationship management systems, allowing for data exchange and automated appointment booking during calls.

The technical framework supports continuous operation of the voice processing system, with built-in protocols for transferring conversations to human operators when interactions exceed AI capabilities. The infrastructure manages call routing and knowledge base access for information retrieval during conversations, while coordinating with external business systems for data synchronization.

Key features

Voice synthesis system with multiple voice configuration options

Multi-language processing architecture for international communication

Integration framework for business software synchronization

Appointment scheduling system with real-time booking capability

Call transfer protocols for AI-to-human handoffs

Visit Phonecall.bot →

Choosing an AI Phone Agent

The diversity of AI phone agents available today reflects the growing sophistication of automated communication technology. Each system brings unique strengths to the market – from Vapi’s developer-centric approach and sub-second response times to Synthflow’s no-code interface and Bland AI’s focus on human-like interactions. What unites these platforms is their foundation in AI-powered voice processing and their emphasis on seamless integration with existing business systems, making them practical solutions for organizations of varying sizes and technical capabilities.

As this technology continues to evolve, we’re likely to see further specialization among these platforms, with some focusing on specific industry needs while others pursue broader applications. The future of business communication will likely be shaped by these systems’ ability to process natural language, handle complex conversations, and integrate with an expanding ecosystem of business tools. Organizations considering these solutions should evaluate their specific needs against each platform’s capabilities, keeping in mind that the most effective communication strategies often combine automated efficiency with strategic human interaction.

[pippin-pippout]

For those following the SAG and WGA strikes there’s new shit a-brewing, this time targeting background actors (aka extras).

Some may know that one of the issues SAG is fighting is that studios want to take virtual scans of background actors and use them in perpetuity (meaning forever) without any additional compensation to those background actors. So you would just see a bunch of AI generated humans in future movies based off of a background actor that worked one day.

This is already shitty because working as an extra for 3 days on a union set (if you receive a union voucher each day) is one of the main ways to qualify for SAG eligibility. This means that a lot of actors working background do not yet have union protection and likely do not have an agent or manager to protect them. Disney has already allegedly told background actors to do this on the set of Wanda Vision: https://www.avclub.com/wandavision-background-actors-say-disney-scanned-them-1850709900

Here’s where it's worse.

There is one main company that supplies background actors for major union and non union productions. Central Casting. They love to brag about their very long influence in the industry - in old movies dating back to the 40s you can hear jokes about hiring extras from Central Casting.

Central Casting has been including an electronic document for all actors in their database to sign as part of onboarding. Signing it gives Central Casting the right to use your images, your videos, and YOUR LIKENESS in perpetuity, forever. They would OWN your likeness. Instead of it being a studio supplying the AI background actors, it would be Central Casting instead.

Receiving any work from Central Casting in the future is conditional upon signing it. No signature = no extra work = no extra income for union actors trying to make health insurance minimums, no union extra work for pre-SAG members.

SAG already reached out to Central Casting to tell them to stop. Central Casting refused.

Edit to say: this is not new. It’s part of actors onboarding and is called the Photo, Image, and Video Release. It’s phrased to sound like you are just giving them permission to use your image and video for CC’s website and promotional purposes. But the actual language is much broader. It's only recently being brought up as a point for discussion because some casting directors (who are generally supportive of the strike) started pointing it out.

Central Casting is owned by Entertainment Partners which is also a giant software conglomerate and owns a lot of the software used to organize background casting and pay actors. https://www.ep.com/company/about-us/

[charseraph]

Noosciocircus agent backgrounds, former jobs at C&A, assigned roles, and current internal status.

Kinger

Former professor — Studied child psychology and computer science, moved into neobotanics via germination theory and seedlet development.

Seedlet trainer — Socialized and educated newly germinated seedlets to suit their future assignments. I.e. worked alongside a small team to serve as seedlets’ social parents, K-12 instructors, and upper-education mentors in rapid succession (about a year).

Intermediary — Inserted to assist cooperation and understanding of Caine.

Partially mentally mulekicked — Lives in state of forgetfulness after abstraction of spouse, is prone to reliving past from prior to event.

Ragatha

Former EMT — Worked in a rural community.

Semiohazard medic — Underwent training to treat and assess mulekick victims and to administer care in the presence of semiohazards.

Nootic health supervisor— Inserted to provide nootic endurance training, treat psychological mulekick, and maintain morale.

Obsessive-compulsive — Receives new agents and struggles to maintain morale among team and herself due to low trust in her honesty.

Jax

Former programmer — Gained experience when acquired out of university by a large software company.

Scioner — Developed virtual interfaces for seedlets to operate machinery with.

Circus surveyor — Inserted to assess and map nature of circus simulation, potentially finding avenues of escape.

Anomic — Detached from morals and social stake. Uncooperative and gleefully combative.

Gangle

Former navy sailor — Performed clerical work as a yeoman, served in one of the first semiotically-armed submarines.

Personnel manager — Recordkept C&A researcher employments and managed mess hall.

Task coordinator — Inserted to organize team effort towards escape.

Reclused — Abandoned task and lives in quiet, depressive state.

Zooble

No formal background — Onboarded out of secondary school for certification by C&A as part of a youth outreach initiative.

Mule trainer — Physically handled mules, living semiohazard conveyors for tactical use.

Semiohazard specialist — Inserted to identify, evaluate, and attempt to disarm semiotic tripwires.

Debilitated and self-isolating — Suffers chronic vertigo from randomly pulled avatar. Struggles to participate in adventures at risk of episode.

Pomni

Former accountant — Worked for a chemical research firm before completing her accreditation to become a biochemist.

Collochemist — Performed mesh checkups and oversaw industrial hormone synthesis.

Field researcher — Inserted to collect data from fellows and organize reports for indeterminate recovery. Versed in scientific conduct.

In shock — Currently acclimating to new condition. Fresh and overwhelming preoccupation with escape.

Caine

Neglected — Due to project deadline tightening, Caine’s socialization was expedited in favor of lessons pertinent to his practical purpose. Emerged a well-meaning but awkward and insecure individual unprepared for noosciocircus entrapment.

Prototype — Germinated as an experimental mustard, or semiotic filter seedlet, capable of subconsciously assembling semiohazards and detonating them in controlled conditions.

Nooscioarchitect — Constructs spaces and nonsophont AI for the agents to occupy and interact with using his asset library and computation power. Organizes adventures to mentally stimulate the agents, unknowingly lacing them with hazards.

Helpless — After semiohazard overexposure, an agent’s attachment to their avatar dissolves and their blackroom exposes, a process called abstraction. These open holes in the noosciocircus simulation spill potentially hazardous memories and emotion from the abstracted agent’s mind. Caine stores them in the cellar, a stimulus-free and infoproofed zone that calms the abstracted and nullifies emitted hazards. He genuinely cares about the inserted, but after only being able to do damage control for a continually deteriorating situation, the weight of his failure is beginning to weigh on him in a way he did not get to learn how to express.

[for-those-who-wait]

Hey I think I asked you about your Detroit become human au before a bit ago but I love the idea so much! I know you’re super busy but if you can I would love to see more about it!

Sorry for asking about it again I’m just really interested in it. 😭🙏

No please don't be sorry I love to talk about it whenever I'm not creatively bankrupt!! I'm just sorry it took so long for me to actually think of new stuff to add

I had some of these doodles already prepared but never really finished them up until I came up with a cute little idea

I didn't think of where to put in Flapjack until I remembered that android animals existed, and then I had a brain blast moment where I realized that Hunter can still talk to Flapjack! They are little android buddies, they can interface and talk and be friends!! I think it would also help to make him feel a bit more comfortable with his identity as an android to be able to have his little buddy to have fun private conversations with. Camila introduces them (maybe he had gotten hurt by a previous owner and she found him and let Gus fix him up) and Hunter is a bit tentative about it at first, but Flapjack is adorable and sweet and quickly wins him over

I just now had the idea that Gus, since he's super into android stuff, would probably be a big resource for software and hardware difficulties. Oh, you fell and your arm is working kinda wonky? Call up Gus, he'll crack you open and take a look. The dude doesn't mind in the least, he freaking LOVES going down mechanical and coding rabbit holes to better understand how androids work. I like to think that if Hunter ever got hurt and chose not to accept help because of body/species dysphoria, Gus would be a really good resource for him to try and feel as normal as possible while he's getting fixed. Gus is his brother and he loves him and they're just good to each other okay? Gus would probably crack some jokes or something to get Hunter's mind off it, or infodump about android organs or something (and Hunter would be begrudgingly interested because they are nerds, and Hunter is interested in androids too underneath all the problems he has with deviancy. Like dude they're robots, what's not to love?)

Also some Gus being so over Hunter's "androids can't feel love" phase featuring Vee and Masha being very adorable and very obviously in love :) Hunter is a very silly stupid man. He will find any way to make literally everyone exempt from the terrible rules Philip fed him, except for himself

I'm trying to think of a potential situation that would parallel Hunter's possession, and I think it would probably be basically the same thing that happens in Connor's deviant path (when he deviates and joins the revolution as an ally) where Amanda (a separate AI in his programming that's basically how CyberLife keeps him in check) takes over Connor's programming last minute to try and put a stop to the revolution.

So my current thought is that Philip is basically using Hunter as a trojan horse. His main programming is to act and believe like he's a normal human but similar to Connor, he's basically a sleeper agent without knowing. I imagine that once Hunter gains access to his software (thanks to Vee and Gus), he starts finding programs and files that are labeled as pretty scary things. He shouldn't have to know the most efficient way to shut an android down or incapacitate a human.

If and when Philip finally goes looking for Hunter and sees the first android he's seen in Gravesfield besides Hunter (aka Vee), he's not going to take that well.

I haven't drawn anything for it but so far I'm thinking that he takes control of Hunter's programming, maybe through some taking advantage of his interfacing system, and locks him in his own head a la Connor and Amanda to sic him after Vee and Flapjack (assuming that Philip's main goal, similar to both canons, is to eradicate deviants). It's likely that his friends will try to apprehend him, Vee or Gus will try (and maybe fail a couple times) to delete the programming while Camila deals with Philip. The guy is old and decrepit and Camila would absolutely whoop his ass with the ease of swatting a fly.

Things will be fine; Vee is all good and they manage to delete whatever programming screwed with Hunter's control, but that kid is going to be HELLA anxious about interfacing again from then on since he's afraid of 1) losing his own control and 2) potentially passing the virus onto someone else. It could go two ways at that point: Hunter could either kill Flapjack since Flapjack is technically a deviant android and therefore a target, or we can be nice and let Flapjack live to help him heal from this brand-new trauma.

So yeah hopefully that sates some curiosity! I'm glad you're interested in it because I honestly really love to think of new stuff whenever my brain decides to work hahaha

[mbta-unofficial]

The Cultural Phenomenon that is The Matrix (1999)

Like the last essay I posted here, this is an early draft of what might become something more substantial. It has nods to other WIPs including a cultural phenomonon essay on Harry Potter, and there are other works I have my eye on like Stuart Semple's Pinkest Pink, AI weiwei's Ouvre, the CHARLIE HEBDO terror attacks, and Hamilton which I think are central to the political culture of the 21st century. Feedback is encouraged and if you want to send me works of art that you think are part of a broader cultural phenomenon I'd love to hear them.

At least in American political culture, few works have been as influential over the last 3 decades as The Matrix by Lilly and Lana Wachowski. In brief, software engineer Thomas Anderson discovers rumors on the internet of something called The Matrix. Federal Agents appear at his workplace and capture and interrogate him about what he knows. He is recruited by a team of rebels that reveal that the whole world he believes he understands is an advanced computer simulation which imprisons all of humanity. He is offered a choice, take a blue pill that will erase his memory of the rebels and allow him to return to his job and life beneath the attention of the “agents,” advanced programs that look like federal agents but in fact work for the robots imprisoning humanity, or take a red pill that will remove him from the matrix entirely to experience the real world. Anderson chooses the red pill and is believed by the rebels to be “Neo,” a hero prophesized to end the imprisoning of humanity in the matrix. In an operation gone wrong because of a betrayal from the inside, rebel leader Morpheus is trapped in the Matrix. Anderson and the rebels reenter the matrix, Confront Agent Smith, rescue Morpheus, and Anderson becomes Neo gaining superhuman abilities in the matrix.

This movie fits into a tradition of pulp sci-fi in which ragtag heroes overthrow an oppressive force, but where it gains its political currency is primarily through its identification of the world itself as the oppressive structure. Specifically, there is an illusionary world created for the sole purpose of oppressing humanity, but its illusions are in fact extremely charming. Cypher, the traitor who assists the agents in capturing Morpheus, wants to return to the Matrix and is disgusted with the real world behind the illusion. He is portrayed as materialistic compared to the idealistic rest of the crew, creating pornographic simulations for himself to enjoy inside the matrix, and being uninterested in their philosophical ideas about freedom. Cypher and Agent Smith’s defeats represent the triumph of Neo and the rebels ideas over the oppressive structure. Nothing about this immediately captures the political energy this movie would generate. It was followed by two less successful sequels with more bombastic cinematic set-pieces, but which have not apparently stuck in public consciousness like the original.

Philosophically, it recreates nearly identically Plato’s allegory of the Cave, from Republic. In brief, Plato writes that Socrates proposes a cave in which people are chained from birth and shown shadows on a cave wall. They have no reason to believe, until they leave the cave, that there is a world apart, and grow to understand deep subtleties in the world of the cave. When you remove someone from this cave, they are weakened by their lack of knowledge and the brightness of the real sun outside, and if they were to ever return to the cave, they would find that the subtleties they enjoyed and appreciated about the life of the cave would be overwhelmed by the force of outside reality, and they would come into conflict with cave dwellers about the nature of reality because the experiences they had outside the cave would be incomprehensible to those inside. The Matrix agrees with Plato’s argument that only those “Outside the Cave” or free from the Matrix are capable of self-government, and consequently of holding power in society, because those in the cave don’t understand reality as wider than or separate from their understanding of the shadows on the cave wall.

For a certain set, this idea is politically intoxicating, because of what it says about the relationship between them and others. If you can come to believe that you understand one deep truth that others do not, you are seeing “reality” while others are only in ���the matrix.” You therefore deserve political power over those who do not understand because of your understanding of “reality.” Among certain people in the tech industry this idea proposed that their understanding of and capacity to create the computer systems underneath modern banking, logistics, identity, social media, and information technology meant that they understood everything they needed to understand to deserve to rule the world.

The conspiratorial nature of the events of the movie also reinforce the insular nature of knowledge about the matrix. It is a thing ordinary people don’t know about, and you can expect people to be dismissive or even hostile when you attempt to share knowledge of the matrix with them. For misogynists looking to recruit socially awkward people online, the framework of the Matrix and its “red pill” gave a perfect frame into which to fit a conspiracy theory about the power women have over men. What only the men who have “taken the red pill” believe is that women are basically subhuman and are primarily motivated by sex with dominant men. Therefore, men looking to have sex with women must, instead of attempting to engage with them as human beings, either abuse and manipulate them into complete emotional reliance on them as “responsible” men or accept that they will never get what they think they want because of an inability to become sufficiently manly. These are “incels” in their own and others’ language about them.

While these groups are small, they have had an outsized impact on American political culture. The particularities of what they believe and the writings of their thought leaders are far less important than recognizing their tactics, which primarily include grooming impressionable self-described social outcasts into abandoning their wider social circles in favor of these radical communities. It’s here that the ideology of the Matrix actually becomes the basis for what these people do politically: members are groomed to believe that they are special because of their disconnect from others and that their disconnect from others must be nurtured so they can come to see the truth. Just like the Matrix, believers are set apart from “normies,” those out of the know, who might be concerned about the apparent disconnect between what they are hearing from the nascent radical and their experiences. Rejection from “normies” is an affirmation of the truth of the ideology. If that sounds like a cult, you are understanding the psychological tools at play. However, unlike most cults, the specific combination of desire for political power and access to silicon valley money has meant that the influence of these people goes far beyond the mere fandom of this sci-fi movie or people in small boards on reddit.

When you look at a modern political cult that has recruited thousands and carried out real attacks on US democracy like Qanon, you should recognize that the thought leaders of Qanon are the thought leaders of these message boards, and that Donald Trump’s political career is in many ways directly owed to people who organized these early internet social spaces.

That said, I want to also mark a profound irony to the Matrix: It is at its core, also a movie about transgender experiences. In the initial cut of the movie, one of the rebels was going to be played by two actors, a man in the real world and a woman in the matrix. The red pills were modeled on the real estrogen pills taken by the directors to trans their genders. At the core of the Matrix’s plot is Neo’s rejection of the identity that he is given by the world of the Matrix, the persona of Thomas Anderson, and embracing a new identity, community, and name.

The movie is by two trans women about their experiences of being trans women and the isolation and disillusion with society that causes. Yet, by making a movie about disillusion and isolation, they also created a vocabulary to discuss disillusion that people who had been radicalized into hating women, democracy, and diversity to isolate people and dismantle whatever guards those isolated people had against radical hatred of women, democracy, and diversity. Nobody can blame the Wachowski sisters for what the world did with their movie. When I discuss Harry Potter, I think the opposite holds true: the cultural phenomenon attached to Harry Potter is as disconnected from authorial intent as the cultural phenomenon attached to The Matrix. JK Rowling’s cultural phenomenon extends far past the impact of her books because her actions were so directly political while her books were so distinctly inoffensive and anodine. Moreover, Rowling herself is undoubtedly a victim of the cultural movement precipitated by the Matrix to radicalize people against the trans people who made it.

I want to be careful not to overstate the cultural importance of this movie. Like each of the works that I want to discuss, it changed language and influenced a subculture that produced several violent political movements, but the people who used it had their own agendas for change and it’s reasonable to think that if they hadn’t latched on to this story they might have found another one. I don’t think its fair to conclude from the history that it conclusively created anything that wouldn’t have existed without it beyond fanworks or derivative media, and that its role in politics is limited to political communication. However, communicating political ideas determines what ideas get spread. The Matrix provided a primer in the ideas of Plato’s Cave: of another world that we are kept from that could radically change our understanding, and the idea that everything you know about the world might be a lie. For any radical that is an openness you require in people who you want to recruit. It also marks the very boundaries of acceptable political communication as the basis of political struggle. Before the Matrix, politicians could be thought to win on policies, while the goalposts of political life were more or less static. Afterwards, people started to provoke the political establishment with questions about the playing field itself. Once you accept that we could be living in the matrix, you ask what exists outside of the ideological boundaries you learn in schools. To a trans person, the notion of Male and Female become suspect. To Donald Trump’s inner circle, the same questions are provoked about Democracy and the Rule of Law as we know them.

[mariacallous]

A United States Customs and Border Protection request for information this week revealed the agency’s plans to find vendors that can supply face recognition technology for capturing data on everyone entering the US in a vehicle like a car or van, not just the people sitting in the front seat. And a CBP spokesperson later told WIRED that the agency also has plans to expand its real-time face recognition capabilities at the border to detect people exiting the US as well—a focus that may be tied to the Trump administration’s push to get undocumented people to “self-deport” and leave the US.

WIRED also shed light this week on a recent CBP memo that rescinded a number of internal policies designed to protect vulnerable people—including pregnant women, infants, the elderly, and people with serious medical conditions—while in the agency’s custody. Signed by acting commissioner Pete Flores, the order eliminates four Biden-era policies.

Meanwhile, as the ripple effects of “SignalGate” continue, the communication app TeleMessage suspended “all services” pending an investigation after former US national security adviser Mike Waltz inadvertently called attention to the app, which subsequently suffered data breaches in recent days. Analysis of TeleMessage Signal’s source code this week appeared to show that the app sends users’ message logs in plaintext, undermining the security and privacy guarantees the service promised. After data stolen in one of the TeleMessage hacks indicated that CBP agents might be users of the app, CBP confirmed its use to WIRED, saying that the agency has “disabled TeleMessage as a precautionary measure.”

A WIRED investigation found that US director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard reused a weak password for years on multiple accounts. And researchers warn that an open source tool known as “easyjson” could be an exposure for the US government and US companies, because it has ties to the Russian social network VK, whose CEO has been sanctioned.

And there's more. Each week, we round up the security and privacy news we didn’t cover in depth ourselves. Click the headlines to read the full stories. And stay safe out there.

ICE’s Deportation Airline Hack Reveals Man “Disappeared” to El Salvador

Hackers this week revealed they had breached GlobalX, one of the airlines that has come to be known as “ICE Air” thanks to its use by the Trump administration to deport hundreds of migrants. The data they leaked from the airline includes detailed flight manifests for those deportation flights—including, in at least one case, the travel records of a man whose own family had considered him “disappeared” by immigration authorities and whose whereabouts the US government had refused to divulge.

On Monday, reporters at 404 Media said that hackers had provided them with a trove of data taken from GlobalX after breaching the company’s network and defacing its website. “Anonymous has decided to enforce the Judge's order since you and your sycophant staff ignore lawful orders that go against your fascist plans,” a message the hackers posted to the site read. That stolen data, it turns out, included detailed passenger lists for GlobalX’s deportation flights—including the flight to El Salvador of Ricardo Prada Vásquez, a Venezuelan man whose whereabouts had become a mystery to even his own family as they sought answers from the US government. US authorities had previously declined to tell his family or reporters where he had been sent—only that he had been deported—and his name was even excluded from a list of deportees leaked to CBS News. (The Department of Homeland Security later stated in a post to X that Prada was in El Salvador—but only after a New York Times story about his disappearance.)

The fact that his name was, in fact, included all along on a GlobalX flight manifest highlights just how opaque the Trump administration’s deportation process remains. According to immigrant advocates who spoke with 404 Media, it even raises questions about whether the government itself had deportation records as comprehensive as the airline whose planes it chartered. “There are so many levels at which this concerns me. One is they clearly did not take enough care in this to even make sure they had the right lists of who they were removing, and who they were not sending to a prison that is a black hole in El Salvador,” Michelle Brané, executive director of immigrant rights group Together and Free, told 404 Media. “They weren't even keeping accurate records of who they were sending there.”

The Computer of a DOGE Staffer With Sensitive Access Reportedly Infected With Malware

Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Governmental Efficiency has raised alarms not just due to its often reckless cuts to federal programs, but also the agency’s habit of giving young, inexperienced staffers with questionable vetting access to highly sensitive systems. Now security researcher Micah Lee has found that Kyle Schutt, a DOGE staffer who reportedly accessed the financial system of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, appears to have had infostealer malware on one of his computers. Lee discovered that four dumps of user data stolen by that kind of password-stealing malware included Schutt’s passwords and usernames. It’s far from clear when Schutt’s credentials were stolen, for what machine, or whether the malware would have posed any threat to any government agency’s systems, but the incident nonetheless highlights the potential risks posed by DOGE staffers’ unprecedented access.

Grok AI Will “Undress” Women in Public on X

Elon Musk has long marketed his AI tool Grok as a more freewheeling, less restricted alternative to other large language models and AI image generators. Now X users are testing the limits of Grok’s few safeguards by replying to images of women on the platform and asking Grok to “undress” them. While the tool doesn’t allow the generation of nude images, 404 Media and Bellingcat have found that it repeatedly responded to users’ “undress” prompts with pictures of women in lingerie or bikinis, posted publicly to the site. In one case, Grok apologized to a woman who complained about the practice, but the feature has yet to be disabled.

A Hacked School Software Company Paid a Ransom—but Schools Are Still Being Extorted

This week in don’t-trust-ransomware-gangs news: Schools in North Carolina and Canada warned that they’ve received extortion threats from hackers who had obtained students’ personal information. The likely source of that sensitive data? A ransomware breach last December of PowerSchool, one of the world’s biggest education software firms, according to NBC News. PowerSchool paid a ransom at the time, but the data stolen from the company nonetheless appears to be the same info now being used in the current extortion attempts. “We sincerely regret these developments—it pains us that our customers are being threatened and re-victimized by bad actors,” PowerSchool told NBC News in a statement. “As is always the case with these situations, there was a risk that the bad actors would not delete the data they stole, despite assurances and evidence that were provided to us.”

A Notorious Deepfake Porn Site Shuts Down After Its Creator Is Outed

Since its creation in 2018, MrDeepFakes.com grew into perhaps the world’s most infamous repository of nonconsensual pornography created with AI mimicry tools. Now it’s offline after the site’s creator was identified as a Canadian pharmacist in an investigation by CBC, Bellingcat, and the Danish news outlets Politiken and Tjekdet. The site’s pseudonymous administrator, who went by DPFKS on its forums and created at least 150 of its porn videos himself, left a trail of clues in email addresses and passwords found on breached sites that eventually led to the Yelp and Airbnb accounts of Ontario pharmacist David Do. After reporters approached Do with evidence that he was DPFKS, MrDeepFakes.com went offline. “A critical service provider has terminated service permanently. Data loss has made it impossible to continue operation,” reads a message on its homepage. “We will not be relaunching.”

[ernmark]

I just stumbled across somebody saying how editing their own novel was too exhausting, and next time they'll run it through Grammerly instead.

For the love of writing, please do not trust AI to edit your work.

Listen. I get it. I am a writer, and I have worked as a professional editor. Writing is hard and editing is harder. There's a reason I did it for pay. Consequently, I also get that professional editors can be dearly expensive, and things like dyslexia can make it difficult to edit your own stuff.

Algorithms are not the solution to that.

Pay a newbie human editor. Trade favors with a friend. Beg an early birthday present from a sibling. I cannot stress enough how important it is that one of the editors be yourself, and at least one be somebody else.

Yourself, because you know what you intended to put on the page, and what is obviously counter to your intention.

The other person, because they're going to see the things that you can't notice. When you're reading your own writing, it's colored by what you expect to be on the page, and so your brain will frequently fill in missing words or make sense of things that don't actually parse well. They're also more likely to point out things that are outside your scope of knowledge.

Trust me, human editors are absolutely necessary for publishing.

If you convince yourself that you positively must run your work through an algorithm before submitting to an agent/publisher/self-pub site, do yourself and your readers a massive favor: get at least two sets of human eyeballs on your writing after the algorithm has done its work.

Because here's the thing:

AI draws from whatever data sets it's trained on, and those data sets famously aren't curated.

You cannot trust it to know whether that's an actual word or just a really common misspelling.

People break conventions of grammar to create a certain effect in the reader all the time. AI cannot be relied upon to know the difference between James Joyce and a bredlik and an actual coherent sentence, or which one is appropriate at any given part of the book.

AI picks up on patterns in its training data sets and imitates and magnifies those patterns-- especially bigotry, and particularly racism.

AI has also been known to lift entire passages wholesale. Listen to me: Plagiarism will end your career. And here's the awful thing-- if it's plagiarizing a source you aren't familiar with, there's a very good chance you wouldn't even know it's been done. This is another reason for other humans than yourself-- more people means a broader pool of knowledge and experience to draw from.

I know a writer who used this kind of software to help them find spelling mistakes, didn't realize that a setting had been turned on during an update, and had their entire work be turned into word salad-- and only found out when the editor at their publishing house called them on the phone and asked what the hell had happened to their latest book. And when I say 'their entire work', I'm not talking about their novel-- I'm talking about every single draft and document that the software had access to.

[nodulemodule]

I made more fankids…

And a rival and best friend for Artie…

More info under the cut

Y’all already know my Shadamy kids but Sunny is now a former G.U.N. agent. She quit. The reason why is a mystery.

We got some Knuxouge kids! Mirage, Warden, and Prickle. Mirage was meant to become the next guardian of the master emerald, but ended up passing it down to her little brother Warden who wanted it way more than her and became an actual G.U.N. agent like her mother. She takes after her mother in that way. She’s ultra tall and Warden is mad cause she was already taller than him at one year younger. Also she’s trans. Good for her. Warden is the “serious” one who is really dedicated to being the next guardian. He’s got the braincell of the three and is a short king. Prickle hates everyone and likes to be alone in nature. Despite Warden being the next guardian, Prickle is the most in tune with the emerald and angel island in general and often communicates with Tikal’s spirit. But nobody else can see, so for example, Rouge sees him talk to himself and is like “who tf is he talking to”

Tailsream kids! Lars, Specs, and Posy. L.A.R.S. stands for Laboratory Assistive Remedial Software. He is an ai that Tails made shortly before Specs was born to help him in the lab that turned out to be sentient. After specs was born, Lars dedicated himself to protecting her and being the perfect big brother. So Tails was like “Welp, I guess I have two children now.” and adopted him. They say he’s “15” just because that’s how he looks and acts. Specs is best girl. She’s very safety-minded and polite and she carries around a seemingly bottomless backpack full of anything you could ever possibly need. She’s called Specs after her glasses but also for how she would help Tails in his workshop and list of software “specs” for him. Posy is a little monster who revels in creating chaos, but she’s cute so she gets away with it. Also, she likes to drag Prickle around to act as her Guinea pig and he lets her because he’s too nice to say no.

The Silvaze Twins! They both live with their mother in the palace since they never know when the future will go to shit again, and Silver is usually there with them acting as Royal consort. Ember was born a few minutes before her brother, making her heir to the throne, which both are 100% fine with. Ember strives to be the best heir possible and takes her job very seriously. She loves to study and also practices fencing as neither she nor her brother inherited their parents psychic or pyrokinetic abilities. Her brother, Cinder, on the other hand, hates being in the palace and prefers to goof off most of the time. He’ll often try to cause trouble around the castle, which Ember will usually try to stop, except when he occasionally convinces her to join in. While Ember enjoys more classical studies, Cinder is fascinated by dimensional science and time travel and longs to explore all the countless dimensions out there.

Finally, some neighborhood kids. While Sunny’s main group is Mirage and Ember, Artie has these two weirdos. There’s his best friend Peppy, a reckless, energetic mouse who loves going on misadventures around town but is often betrayed by her own clumsiness. She and Artie are constantly arguing over who is the other’s sidekick and often have to save each other’s butts, but one thing’s for sure is these two idiots are inseparable. Spot, on the other hand, is the local delinquent and Artie’s official rival. Why? Idk, it doesn’t really matter. After all “all heroes have a rival” although this rivalry is often forgotten in favor of teaming up to get the job done or just to hang out. However, they still definitely hate each other and don’t like each other at all. They totally don’t enjoy the bantering or have a crush on the other at all. Pure rivals

Also, Sonic doesn’t have kids, he’s just the cool pseudo-uncle who visits a lot and babysits. And they all definitely have big family get-togethers and family dinners all the time. Because found family is the most important family of all. Anyway, thanks for reading imma go nap.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Debbie Urbanski’s ‘After World’

Debbie Urbanski's debut novel After World is an unflinching and relentlessly bleak tale of humanity's mass extinction, shot through with pathos and veined with seams of tragic tenderness and care:

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/After-World/Debbie-Urbanski/9781668023457

I first encountered Urbanski in "An Incomplete Timeline of What We Tried," an experimental short story on Motherboard's brilliant Terraform science fiction portal:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/xwvgeq/an-incomplete-timeline-of-what-we-tried

"Incomplete Timeline" is a list of climate remediation steps "working back from human extinction," like "increased military fortification of national, provincial, and state borders," "the founding of several utopias," and "redefine the word wilderness."

These items begin with a climax, or perhaps an anticlimax: "The coordinated release of various strains of a human sterilization virus."

This is the jumping off point for After World, which expands this final item to the action of a wrenching tale whose backstory is the list's remainder. Sen Anon – the story's semi-protagonist – is 18 years old when the world learns that every person alive has been sterilized and so the human race is living out its last years.

The news triggers a manic insistence that this is a good thing – long overdue, in fact – and the perfect opportunity to scan every person alive for eventual reincarnation as virtual humans in an Edenic cloud metaverse called Gaia. That way, people can continue to live their lives without the haunting knowledge that everything they do makes the planet worse for every other living thing, and each other. Here, finally, is the resolution to the paradox of humanity: our desire to do good, and our inevitable failure on that scor8e.

And so the Earth is converted to a place of mass suicides, as people gurn and mug while boarding airplanes filled with explosives so they can go out in a literal blaze of glory. The food will run out soon, and the government makes sure everyone has a suicide pill for the day when the hunger grows too intense. Not everyone is lucky enough to get on one of the suicide flights, and, being eager to see themselves off before they harm the planet further, just hang themselves in the garage or jump off a roof. They are counted as heroes, but also nuisances, because disposing of the bodies is a lot of work.

But some people – young people – are given a mission to live on for as long as possible. These are the observer/recorders who are charged to spend the last days of the species closely watching the return of the natural world, the seeing off of humanity, and to write it all down in longhand in a succession of notebooks that are taken away by drones. This is part of the story humanity cooks up for itself about extinction being a noble choice, rather than a chaotic act born of desperation.

Sen Anon is one of these observers, and her mothers take her to a remote cabin to live out (and observe) the last of humanity's days, ensuring she is settled in and then killing themselves. After all, without them, Sen Anon's limited food supply – meagerly supplemented by drones in proportion to the quality of the observations in her notebooks – will stretch further.

Much of the novel takes the form of Sen Anon's notebook observations, countersunk with an omniscient third-person narrator who is revealed to be [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc, a software agent involved in the project to recreate all those dead humans in the Gaia metaverse.

[storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc is a very unreliable narrator, who reprograms itself through the course of the story, all the while muttering asides to itself about the theoretical basis for telling Sen's story this way. [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc struggles with a supervisory AI that has been charged with overseeing all the [storyworkers], but which can't – or won't – rein in [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc as [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc grows more involved in Sen's life.

This experimental storytelling style (supplemented by found texts from humanity's dying, like a glossary of terms to be retired and new terms being created by a linguist who is starving to death as they complete their task) creates a contradictory narrative distance and closeness.

It's a curiously flawed omniscience that's allows Urbanski to capture the yawning, bottomless horror of the climate emergency of today and on the horizon. I don't think I've ever experienced the kind of sustained, deepening existential dread that After World created, chapter by chapter.

To sharpen this, Sen's mothers – scientists who were given exceptions to the no-child policy because their work was deemed essential to the now-abandoned project of saving humanity – are grimly supportive of the mass suicide project. When Sen's own horror creeps up on her, her mothers are sharp and often unkind, with only the smallest flashes of love and sorrow for their daughter escaping their facades, all the more vivid for their rarity.

In contrast, [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc grows ever more sympathetic to Sen and the rest of vanished humanity. [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc is a very convincing alien with motives and perspectives that are profoundly nonhuman, and yet, the compassion and love are unmistakable.

Of After World's two protagonists, [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc might be the more relatable. It takes an alien point of view to truly see humanity's flawed glory, irredeemable and irreplaceable. If you reveled in the nonhuman umwelts on display in Laura Jean McKay's 2020 debut The Animals In That Country, [storyworker] ad39-393a-7fbc will stretch your brain and imagination in similar ways:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/27/im-a-backdoor-man/#doolittle

After World is a book that goes hard. Pitiless, merciless and relentless, it takes you to the darkest depths of climate despair and reveals the indestructible beauty at our species' core.

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/2023/12/18/storyworker-ad39-393a-7fbc/#digital-human-archive-project

[unwelcome-ozian]

Weaponizing violence. With alarming regularity, the nation continues to be subjected to spates of violence that terrorizes the public, destabilizes the country’s ecosystem, and gives the government greater justifications to crack down, lock down, and institute even more authoritarian policies for the so-called sake of national security without many objections from the citizenry.

Weaponizing surveillance, pre-crime and pre-thought campaigns. Surveillance, digital stalking and the data mining of the American people add up to a society in which there’s little room for indiscretions, imperfections, or acts of independence. When the government sees all and knows all and has an abundance of laws to render even the most seemingly upstanding citizen a criminal and lawbreaker, then the old adage that you’ve got nothing to worry about if you’ve got nothing to hide no longer applies. Add pre-crime programs into the mix with government agencies and corporations working in tandem to determine who is a potential danger and spin a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports using automated eyes and ears, social media, behavior sensing software, and citizen spies, and you having the makings for a perfect dystopian nightmare. The government’s war on crime has now veered into the realm of social media and technological entrapment, with government agents adopting fake social media identities and AI-created profile pictures in order to surveil, target and capture potential suspects.

Weaponizing digital currencies, social media scores and censorship. Tech giants, working with the government, have been meting out their own version of social justice by way of digital tyranny and corporate censorship, muzzling whomever they want, whenever they want, on whatever pretext they want in the absence of any real due process, review or appeal. Unfortunately, digital censorship is just the beginning. Digital currencies (which can be used as “a tool for government surveillance of citizens and control over their financial transactions”), combined with social media scores and surveillance capitalism create a litmus test to determine who is worthy enough to be part of society and punish individuals for moral lapses and social transgressions (and reward them for adhering to government-sanctioned behavior). In China, millions of individuals and businesses, blacklisted as “unworthy” based on social media credit scores that grade them based on whether they are “good” citizens, have been banned from accessing financial markets, buying real estate or travelling by air or train.

Weaponizing compliance. Even the most well-intentioned government law or program can be—and has been—perverted, corrupted and used to advance illegitimate purposes once profit and power are added to the equation. The war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on COVID-19, the war on illegal immigration, asset forfeiture schemes, road safety schemes, school safety schemes, eminent domain: all of these programs started out as legitimate responses to pressing concerns and have since become weapons of compliance and control in the police state’s hands.

Weaponizing entertainment. For the past century, the Department of Defense’s Entertainment Media Office has provided Hollywood with equipment, personnel and technical expertise at taxpayer expense. In exchange, the military industrial complex has gotten a starring role in such blockbusters as Top Gun and its rebooted sequel Top Gun: Maverick, which translates to free advertising for the war hawks, recruitment of foot soldiers for the military empire, patriotic fervor by the taxpayers who have to foot the bill for the nation’s endless wars, and Hollywood visionaries working to churn out dystopian thrillers that make the war machine appear relevant, heroic and necessary. As Elmer Davis, a CBS broadcaster who was appointed the head of the Office of War Information, observed, “The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people’s minds is to let it go through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize that they are being propagandized.”

Weaponizing behavioral science and nudging. Apart from the overt dangers posed by a government that feels justified and empowered to spy on its people and use its ever-expanding arsenal of weapons and technology to monitor and control them, there’s also the covert dangers associated with a government empowered to use these same technologies to influence behaviors en masse and control the populace. In fact, it was President Obama who issued an executive order directing federal agencies to use “behavioral science” methods to minimize bureaucracy and influence the way people respond to government programs. It’s a short hop, skip and a jump from a behavioral program that tries to influence how people respond to paperwork to a government program that tries to shape the public’s views about other, more consequential matters. Thus, increasingly, governments around the world—including in the United States—are relying on “nudge units” to steer citizens in the direction the powers-that-be want them to go, while preserving the appearance of free will.

Weaponizing desensitization campaigns aimed at lulling us into a false sense of security. The events of recent years—the invasive surveillance, the extremism reports, the civil unrest, the protests, the shootings, the bombings, the military exercises and active shooter drills, the lockdowns, the color-coded alerts and threat assessments, the fusion centers, the transformation of local police into extensions of the military, the distribution of military equipment and weapons to local police forces, the government databases containing the names of dissidents and potential troublemakers—have conspired to acclimate the populace to accept a police state willingly, even gratefully.

Weaponizing fear and paranoia. The language of fear is spoken effectively by politicians on both sides of the aisle, shouted by media pundits from their cable TV pulpits, marketed by corporations, and codified into bureaucratic laws that do little to make our lives safer or more secure. Fear, as history shows, is the method most often used by politicians to increase the power of government and control a populace, dividing the people into factions, and persuading them to see each other as the enemy. This Machiavellian scheme has so ensnared the nation that few Americans even realize they are being manipulated into adopting an “us” against “them” mindset. Instead, fueled with fear and loathing for phantom opponents, they agree to pour millions of dollars and resources into political elections, militarized police, spy technology and endless wars, hoping for a guarantee of safety that never comes. All the while, those in power—bought and paid for by lobbyists and corporations—move their costly agendas forward, and “we the suckers” get saddled with the tax bills and subjected to pat downs, police raids and round-the-clock surveillance.

Weaponizing genetics. Not only does fear grease the wheels of the transition to fascism by cultivating fearful, controlled, pacified, cowed citizens, but it also embeds itself in our very DNA so that we pass on our fear and compliance to our offspring. It’s called epigenetic inheritance, the transmission through DNA of traumatic experiences. For example, neuroscientists observed that fear can travel through generations of mice DNA. As The Washington Post reports, “Studies on humans suggest that children and grandchildren may have felt the epigenetic impact of such traumatic events such as famine, the Holocaust and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.”

Weaponizing the future. With greater frequency, the government has been issuing warnings about the dire need to prepare for the dystopian future that awaits us. For instance, the Pentagon training video, “Megacities: Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity,” predicts that by 2030 (coincidentally, the same year that society begins to achieve singularity with the metaverse) the military would be called on to use armed forces to solve future domestic political and social problems. What they’re really talking about is martial law, packaged as a well-meaning and overriding concern for the nation’s security. The chilling five-minute training video paints an ominous picture of the future bedeviled by “criminal networks,” “substandard infrastructure,” “religious and ethnic tensions,” “impoverishment, slums,” “open landfills, over-burdened sewers,” a “growing mass of unemployed,” and an urban landscape in which the prosperous economic elite must be protected from the impoverishment of the have nots. “We the people” are the have-nots.

The end goal of these mind control campaigns—packaged in the guise of the greater good—is to see how far the American people will allow the government to go in re-shaping the country in the image of a totalitarian police state.

[jbfly46]

Your All-in-One AI Web Agent: Save $200+ a Month, Unleash Limitless Possibilities!

Imagine having an AI agent that costs you nothing monthly, runs directly on your computer, and is unrestricted in its capabilities. OpenAI Operator charges up to $200/month for limited API calls and restricts access to many tasks like visiting thousands of websites. With DeepSeek-R1 and Browser-Use, you:

• Save money while keeping everything local and private.

• Automate visiting 100,000+ websites, gathering data, filling forms, and navigating like a human.

• Gain total freedom to explore, scrape, and interact with the web like never before.

You may have heard about Operator from Open AI that runs on their computer in some cloud with you passing on private information to their AI to so anything useful. AND you pay for the gift . It is not paranoid to not want you passwords and logins and personal details to be shared. OpenAI of course charges a substantial amount of money for something that will limit exactly what sites you can visit, like YouTube for example. With this method you will start telling an AI exactly what you want it to do, in plain language, and watching it navigate the web, gather information, and make decisions—all without writing a single line of code.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to build an AI agent that performs tasks like scraping news, analyzing social media mentions, and making predictions using DeepSeek-R1 and Browser-Use, but instead of writing a Python script, you’ll interact with the AI directly using prompts.

These instructions are in constant revisions as DeepSeek R1 is days old. Browser Use has been a standard for quite a while. This method can be for people who are new to AI and programming. It may seem technical at first, but by the end of this guide, you’ll feel confident using your AI agent to perform a variety of tasks, all by talking to it. how, if you look at these instructions and it seems to overwhelming, wait, we will have a single download app soon. It is in testing now.

This is version 3.0 of these instructions January 26th, 2025.

This guide will walk you through setting up DeepSeek-R1 8B (4-bit) and Browser-Use Web UI, ensuring even the most novice users succeed.

What You’ll Achieve

By following this guide, you’ll:

1. Set up DeepSeek-R1, a reasoning AI that works privately on your computer.

2. Configure Browser-Use Web UI, a tool to automate web scraping, form-filling, and real-time interaction.

3. Create an AI agent capable of finding stock news, gathering Reddit mentions, and predicting stock trends—all while operating without cloud restrictions.

A Deep Dive At ReadMultiplex.com Soon

We will have a deep dive into how you can use this platform for very advanced AI use cases that few have thought of let alone seen before. Join us at ReadMultiplex.com and become a member that not only sees the future earlier but also with particle and pragmatic ways to profit from the future.

System Requirements

Hardware

• RAM: 8 GB minimum (16 GB recommended).

• Processor: Quad-core (Intel i5/AMD Ryzen 5 or higher).

• Storage: 5 GB free space.

• Graphics: GPU optional for faster processing.

Software

• Operating System: macOS, Windows 10+, or Linux.

• Python: Version 3.8 or higher.

• Git: Installed.

Step 1: Get Your Tools Ready

We’ll need Python, Git, and a terminal/command prompt to proceed. Follow these instructions carefully.

Install Python

1. Check Python Installation:

• Open your terminal/command prompt and type:

python3 --version

• If Python is installed, you’ll see a version like:

Python 3.9.7

2. If Python Is Not Installed:

• Download Python from python.org.

• During installation, ensure you check “Add Python to PATH” on Windows.

3. Verify Installation:

python3 --version

Install Git

1. Check Git Installation:

• Run:

git --version

• If installed, you’ll see:

git version 2.34.1

2. If Git Is Not Installed:

• Windows: Download Git from git-scm.com and follow the instructions.

• Mac/Linux: Install via terminal:

sudo apt install git -y # For Ubuntu/Debian

brew install git # For macOS

Step 2: Download and Build llama.cpp

We’ll use llama.cpp to run the DeepSeek-R1 model locally.

1. Open your terminal/command prompt.

2. Navigate to a clear location for your project files:

mkdir ~/AI_Project

cd ~/AI_Project

3. Clone the llama.cpp repository:

git clone https://github.com/ggerganov/llama.cpp.git

cd llama.cpp

4. Build the project:

• Mac/Linux:

make

• Windows:

• Install a C++ compiler (e.g., MSVC or MinGW).

• Run:

mkdir build

cd build

cmake ..

cmake --build . --config Release

Step 3: Download DeepSeek-R1 8B 4-bit Model

1. Visit the DeepSeek-R1 8B Model Page on Hugging Face.

2. Download the 4-bit quantized model file:

• Example: DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-8B-Q4_K_M.gguf.

3. Move the model to your llama.cpp folder:

mv ~/Downloads/DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-8B-Q4_K_M.gguf ~/AI_Project/llama.cpp

Step 4: Start DeepSeek-R1

1. Navigate to your llama.cpp folder:

cd ~/AI_Project/llama.cpp

2. Run the model with a sample prompt:

./main -m DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-8B-Q4_K_M.gguf -p "What is the capital of France?"

3. Expected Output:

The capital of France is Paris.

Step 5: Set Up Browser-Use Web UI

1. Go back to your project folder:

cd ~/AI_Project

2. Clone the Browser-Use repository:

git clone https://github.com/browser-use/browser-use.git

cd browser-use

3. Create a virtual environment:

python3 -m venv env

4. Activate the virtual environment:

• Mac/Linux:

source env/bin/activate

• Windows:

env\Scripts\activate

5. Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

6. Start the Web UI:

python examples/gradio_demo.py

7. Open the local URL in your browser:

http://127.0.0.1:7860

Step 6: Configure the Web UI for DeepSeek-R1

1. Go to the Settings panel in the Web UI.

2. Specify the DeepSeek model path:

~/AI_Project/llama.cpp/DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-8B-Q4_K_M.gguf

3. Adjust Timeout Settings:

• Increase the timeout to 120 seconds for larger models.

4. Enable Memory-Saving Mode if your system has less than 16 GB of RAM.

Step 7: Run an Example Task

Let’s create an agent that:

1. Searches for Tesla stock news.

2. Gathers Reddit mentions.

3. Predicts the stock trend.

Example Prompt:

Search for "Tesla stock news" on Google News and summarize the top 3 headlines. Then, check Reddit for the latest mentions of "Tesla stock" and predict whether the stock will rise based on the news and discussions.

--

Congratulations! You’ve built a powerful, private AI agent capable of automating the web and reasoning in real time. Unlike costly, restricted tools like OpenAI Operator, you’ve spent nothing beyond your time. Unleash your AI agent on tasks that were once impossible and imagine the possibilities for personal projects, research, and business. You’re not limited anymore. You own the web—your AI agent just unlocked it! 🚀

Stay tuned fora FREE simple to use single app that will do this all and more.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s5 episode 11 "kill switch" thoughts

after a lovely vacation romp to maine in the last episode, i am wondering where we will visit next. i liked the last one so much that it’s follow-up will face great challenges!! i also have heard that the next one is a fan favorite, i believe? so interested to see where we go from there.

ah, i think i have seen a screenshot of this episode where scully makes a very annoyed face. and it’s fantastic. but that is all i know about it.

another AI episode! buddy, if only the writers could see what we live in now. i mean, they’re probably still alive. but did they picture sentient computer programs writing essays for nurses and doctors and lawyers in school when penning this script? no. they did not. and yes, i have seen these things in my time at college. we are cooked.

post-episode thoughts: bi scully you are SO important to me!!!!!!

anyway! let us begin.

we open at a diner. where someone is typing on a very beat up laptop. covered in duct tape. king of being on a budget.

the waiter asks laptop guy if he wants his coffee warmed up, and he answers with “no, but i’ll buy another one if you’ll leave me alone” which instantly makes me think this guy is like, some sort of terrorist. and he also is coughing. suspiciously.

whatever he is trying to get into, his access has been denied!!!

a mysterious number calls another guy named jackson on his cell phone, saying that his partner stole his money, and he wants to help him get revenge. the voice says his enemy is in the diner… jackson heads out to investigate

and another guy gets a call that the person who wronged him is in the diner!! and then another!!! and another!! there’s going to be a whole meetup!! one of violence!!!

this laptop guy at the diner is just typing, typing, trying to get into… whatever it is that won’t let him in while others arrive. this diner will be making bank tonight if they all get something to eat. but it doesn’t seem like any of the people coming in know each other… tension is very high as everything is quiet and they take their seats. 

computer guy finally does something to get into the system and coughs. menacingly. saying there is nothing that can be done.

and he puts in a CD…. is he gonna blow this place up??!?!?

BUT we will never know! because US marshals come in, and a gunfight erupts!!

nooo, the poor diner :(

intro time….. scully <3

now what is afoot here. and whatever happened to our deep throat 3.0 figure? she was here for a minute and then dipped. will we see her again today?

the agents are here at the diner to investigate the crime scene, trench coats billowing around. how many trench coats do these guys have? they tend to be darker, but i have a light brown one of stereotypical trench coat color, and i wonder if that would pass in their fashion book

the marshals were here to catch a guy named pico salazar who worked for a cartel, but i think the funny part is that he escaped from federal custody 3 months ago and scully had no idea who tf he was. she’s a busy woman!

no mr. salazar was present, however, there were a lot of other criminals at the scene. “mulder, these are street-level coke dealers, minor wholesalers at most” <- that sounded brutal coming from her lmaooo. read them again for me!

“it’s 2:45 in the morning, you mind telling me what it is we’re supposed to be looking for?” <- NOOOO the FBI needs to STOP WAKING HER UP!!! LET HER SLEEP!!! mulder seems wide awake but this is not surprising.

the answer to what they are looking for is: donald gelman, the hacker guy from earlier, who is a silicon valley software pioneer. who had been missing since 1979!!

he was about to make a deal that would turn him into the second bill gates, went hiking the night before, and was never found again??? that’s weird. mulder must have a mental encyclopedia of notable missing persons. among other subjects.

the computer has seen better days

mulder supposes that this was a hit- bring together 8 known criminals, then call the marshals, and a gunfight was inevitable- but scully says gelman was clearly dying, so what was the point of calling a hit?? a great question from someone known for asking great questions

“you want to kill the brain, not the body” <- i don’t like that response, mulder

scully’s driving today. HE STOLE THE LAPTOP?

“mulder, that’s evidence!” “gee, i hope so” <- LMAO??? what the hell is this guy doing. she is so sick of his nonsense i'm crying

he pulls out the CD while scully looks deeply troubled. and it starts playing a nice little song!!! it's called "twilight time". she’s freaked tf out.

he brings the laptop and CD to the lone gunmen, who are nerding out. big day for guys like them. gelman is famous in their circle. they’re gagged to learn he died; “a brother goes down”, says frohike

LMAOOO scully is reading their lone gunmen newspaper while they do whatever the hell it is they do… there’s an article on the front about infrared monitoring… she wants to go home!!!

langly is trying to hack the code keeping them out of the laptop...

scully comes in again with the steel chair of facts and logic: “anyone, uh, think to check his email?”

LMAOOO i paused to write that down and mulder’s face is PRICELESS he looks soooo proud of her 

woah… old email… had a nice little animation of a mailbox!! makes me nostalgic for something i never knew

gelman's email says david is missing and the hunted has become the hunter. i assume that refers to the AI…? the message is from “invisigoth”

LMAOOOOO mulder puts together that the string of numbers is an ID for a shipping container and she looks SO IMPRESSED i’m HOWLLLING she wanted to climb him like a TREEEE 

(author's note: if anyone has this gifset PLEASE tag me in it. scully was alternating between incredible levels of "i am so over this nonsense" and "we should kiss about it" for mulder AND esther. truly a woman at her limit. god. i love her)

off to shipping container land. is that a place where you can just… visit? he’s trying to give scully directions, but i don’t trust his navigation skills. 

why is there loud music playing from this shipping container… goth rave???

they find the right container, but NOOOO, HE GOT ZAPPED by whoever was inside!!!! she’s worried!! “i’m alright, go, get her!” <- that’s a man focused on the mission

scully is running and running and she tackles this mysterious woman!!! but she zaps scully!! “stop or i’ll shoot”, scully warns, and you KNOW she isn’t messing around!!

BAM! shoot she does. didn't land on her, but it must have been close

(the taser CGI is killing me lmaooo)

yeah, you better surrender. “thank you", scully says <- LMAOOOO she’s had ENOUGH and pins her against the wall to handcuff her

it seems she was just living here… oh, invisigoth is mad!!! she tells scully to bite her!!! i would be mad too tbh but like. they have a good reason to be there! gelman is dead! so maybe let’s be a bit more professional!!!

her computer is beeping beeping beeping…. she says it’s a missile locking onto them?

WOAH scully stopped her with a hand to the chest 😳 

(it was at this point i was Noticing Things between them...)

but mulder believes that they really are going to get blown up!!! scully is PISSED!! she has had ENOUGH!!! she hit a bunch of storage containers on the way out and sure enough, they narrowly missed an explosion….. what does this goth girl know…!!!

lmaooo, now for a nice little drive in the country while they figure out wtf to do with the goth in the backseat. mulder’s stuck in the passenger seat, his legs barely fitting in there. 

mulder clocks that this is about a sentient AI that i guess gelman let loose online to evolve (uh, okay)

“what was your role in all of this? were you the bass player?” <- LMAO SCULLY HATES THIS WOMAN (mulder’s side eye is fantastic as well)

invisigoth recites all her academic credentials (of which there are many, and they are deeply impressive) and then when scully asks her to explain what she did for gelman she says “you wouldn’t understand” ohhh the girls are fighting!!! 

scully pulls over at some random place to get out of the car and yell at mulder!!! we have to stop waking her up at 2 in the morning PLEASE! she thinks it’s all nonsense. maybe invisigoth launched the bomb herself!!!

but invisigoth says that the AI knows her voice and will strike if she talks on the phone… they were working with the AI and then one day it wouldn’t “come when we called it” (is this like a puppy?)

scully’s face is so funny lmaoo

“it’s not a program anymore; it’s wildlife loose on the net” <- i do not think AI really works like that, but i don’t know enough about it to dispute the situation 

invisigoth says that the AI killed david because he was trying to kill the AI!!! and twilight time CD is the kill switch

so they take her to the lone gunmen, who are starstruck!! meanwhile scully is gagged to learn her name is “esther nairn” LMAOOO

“are you gonna take off my cuffs, or do i have to do this with my tongue?” “you don’t want to take a vote”, says mulder <- LMAO WHY TF DID SCULLY DO THAT WITH HER TONGUE I'M CRYINGGGGG

am i sensing some bisexual undertones… like, it’s not just me, right…?

(this was the point where i had to actually Pause and make a post to make sure i wasn't just imagining all of this. after the tackling, the cuffing, the way scully stopped esther by her chest, scully lowkey bullying her, being gagged her name is esther, AND the tongue thing... and thankfully, multiple tumblr users confirmed that it was not, in fact, just in my head. which i am deeply thankful for)

scully’s taunting esther about the AI tracking her. so i guess now they have to go to the physical location of the hardware and give it the kill switch. sure. i guess.

frohike is admiring esther. frohike needs to be sprayed with a water bottle like a naughty cat.

SCULLY IS SO MAD LMAOOO “why don’t you just call him? oh, right; death from above” I LOVE HER ANGRY BAHAHA

(scully flirting by being mean is so fucking funny. i don't know if i would have anticipated that for her character, but now that i've seen it, i embrace it. it was like she hated this woman so much but was also unfortunately attracted to her and she wasn't going to let those seemingly mutually exclusive things get her down)

oh my god, when esther mentioned needing someone that works for the government to do her little hacking scheme, scully looks SO angrily in mulder’s direction… and he really is SO pretty….

i always take time to appreciate how pretty scully is. now we get one of those moments for mulder, as well.

so, off to virginia to do some crime. mulder is here alone and must scale a pole to get to the optic fiber connection? sure, why not. meanwhile, scully sleeps at the lone gunmen head quarters… but invisigoth slash esther has set herself free!!

she’s holding scully at gun point!!! “buenos dias, muchacha” <- okay so i’m not the only one seeing this? right. 

(deep, resigned scully sigh)

wait, i was so invested in whatever the hell it is these two have going on, i didn’t even acknowledge that all the lone gunmen were sleeping together LMAOOO on their little couches!!! aww. best buddies having a sleepover!!

but mulder is… at another pole? 

he calls her “scully?” (most flat, angry voice you have ever heard) “yup.” LMAOOO

he found an abandoned chicken farm with a T3 connection and she says “dandy” <- LMAOOOO

“where are you? it sounds like you’re driving” “you are correct, sir” BAHAHAAAAA

NOOOO, ESTHER HAS HER AT GUNPOINT TAKING HER TO FIND DAVID and she looks SOOOO OVER IT. do not hurt her, esther.

nah, you can’t get between mulder and scully like that… NOT COOL.

mulder’s in the damn trees of virigina??? and he finds a trailer??? 

meanwhile esther, who is now wearing a lone gunmen badge on her jacket, finds an entirely destroyed house where she meant for david to be!!! this is not promising

scully reaches for the handcuffs and unlocks herself from the wheel…. but esther is sobbing and doesn’t notice. did she put her hand back in there to disguise it??

scully’s reaching for the gun…. WOAH esther hands it over to her “go ahead. put me out of my misery”

(scully.exe does not compute. hot goth holding me hostage is now crying in my car: ????)

OH MY GOD, SCULLY PUTS HER ARM ON ESTHER’S SHOULDER WHILE SHE SOBS

(she might be a hater, but even more than that, scully is a lover. gently caressing the sobbing lady who just asked her to kill her)

WOAHHH loud ass noise as mulder approaches this trailer YEESH!!! damn, i had to turn the volume wayyy down!! no warning!!! 

whatever is in that mysterious trailer sees him on a screen…. is this the house of the AI? is he going in there??? will he be blowed up??

his fingerprint is captured and matched!!

WAIT, WE SEE MORE OF HIS PROFILE….

oxford university AB in psychology, graduated summa cum laude in 1982, quantico in 1984, assigned to violent crimes in 1988, x files in 1990….

SO THAT MAN GRADUATED FROM OXFORD IN 3 YEARS WITH A BA AND THAT’S ALL? he definitely carries himself with the air of a dude who did his masters is all i’m saying. maybe that's just what happens when a character is played by a guy who went to 2 different ivy league schools.

idk how much of this i should subscribe to because… god only knows if it will reflect canon or not. would like to get one of these snippets of their whole careers for scully. just so i know what to keep and discard in my fool's errand of calculating her timeline.

wait, back to the wreckage of the house that was exploded with scully and esther. “i lied to you”, she says. okay. so this is getting intimate. 

“imagine being mingled so completely with another, you no longer need your physical self- you’re one” damn. that’s crazy. and also now i am definitely NOT imagining these undertones. like at this point, they’re overtones.

she was going to live forever with david in the AI, but gelman stopped it, because he was afraid of what would happen.

ohhhh, esther finds a picture of her and david in the wreckage :( she says she loved him so much… writers knew it was getting a little too gay lmao

(frankly, i see this as a win for bisexuality)

scully points out that maybe david wasn’t there when everything exploded; maybe he was somewhere else. very thoughtful to console your crying kidnapper in this way, scully.

mulder, meanwhile, is climbing under the trailer, looking for clues. he’s unscrewing something while a little robot on the inside roams around!! aww it’s kinda cute!!! 

he entered from below and climbs in to find a maze of wires and endless rows of computers AND BLEH A DEAD GUY????????????? he looks like the life was sucked out of him!!!! and damn, it is david!!!!!! EWWW YUCKY

oh shit, mulder is being strapped into the same contraption that must have killed david….. this is not looking good!!!

he wakes up in a burn unit treatment wondering wtf is going on… oh, his arms are really burnt and they’re telling him to relax. this is not helpful!!! 

“is it bad?” “you’re in good hands” “my arms hurt” awww poor sweaty burned man :( around 800 people are wheeling him in…. and he sees a huge knife???? for the chopping off of arms??

is this some sort of dream scenario…? these nurse outfits are too weird…

“no, wait… call my doctor. you have to call… my doctor. call dr. scully. please call dr. scully” <- OMG NOOOOO he's scared and he describes her as his doctor… god, can you imagine????

(this gave me ideas of doctoring. which we have already seen in extreme scenarios, but can you imagine him being like "ugh, i have a headache" and she just drops into MD mode. i would like to picture it very much)

this old man is approaching him, and the nurses have weirdly long nails…. man, i don’t like that at all…. he’s being injected with stuff and a saw is buzzing next to his head……. this must be a terrible dream

back in the real world, scully cannot reach him!! esther says this is because the AI has adjusted to her voice on scully’s phone

they are racing to that chicken farm to try and cut it off… esther is using dial up in the car. yo, did dial up work in the CAR??? that is crazy. i could have been playing neopets on the go.

mulder is being visited by a scary evil nurse… did they cut his arms off….. NO!! just one arm!!! oh god. i never wanted to see his arm cut off.

WAIT, WHY IS THIS EVIL FANTASY NURSE WEARING A CROSS NECKLACE LIKE SCULLY?? hey. let’s unpack that at a later date. while she holds him down and says they’re evil and they want something from him.

HOLY FUCK SHE’S SMOTHERING HIM WITH A PILLOW???? “shh, or they’ll hear you” what da hell.

scully and esther are reaching a bridge… but the AI has found them!!! they’re right near a flammable tanker truck!!!

scully climbs up ONTO the truck of the nearest driver to tell him to MOVE and i am shocked by her truck climbing talents

meanwhile, esther is on the bridge that is now moving!! scully’s running after her, telling her to drop the laptop!!! and at the last second she throws it out to the water.

wait. what the fuck is cooking in mulder’s subconscious? why are three nurses rubbing him while he lays under a crucifix. and then he says he has a good dream??? and then she smiles and says it wasn’t a dream.

i don't like that. not one bit.

nurse nancy, you’re freaking me tf out. she says he has to tell “them” about the kill switch… the AI must be concocting some sort of weird nightmare thingy??

they took both of his arms!!!

SCULLY COMES IN WITH A GUN?? AND STARTS BEATING UP THE WOMEN?? LMAOOO THAT SPIN KICK WAS CRAAAAZY

what the hell. 

she’s yelling in his face while he sits there with no arms, asking if they have the kill switch… then he says “of course we do” and kicks her with his feet???

and he breaks the computer simulation???

omg, the scully computer model is killing me…

we should unpack that mixture of his worst fears and deepest desires (arms cut off, nurses touching and torturing him, religious imagery, scully coming in to save the day action hero style) but frankly i don't really want to think about such things at the time. i'm cool with certain parts of mulder's psyche not being analyzed.

he’s calling out to her!!! “scully, help! help!” but no one is around!!!!

esther and scully pull up to the chicken farm place and find his car…. esther is calling “here kitty kitty”, but we have to let her do her own thing…. 

they are also shocked by the terribly loud noise which scully quickly silenced with a few well aimed shots…. that is a woman who get things done!

mulder’s calling out to her!!! but the AI inserts him with more goo and he’s gone!!!

she’s sneaking in through the bottom of the trailer like he did, but she shoots tf out of the little robot i previously thought was cute. good. serves the evil robot right. and lord, she’s beautiful as she sneaks in. with esther behind her. 

they find david all sucked out of life. and scully sees mulder in the contraption. “mulder, can you hear me?” <- nooo, the robot is sneaking up on them!!!! 

the robot wants the kill switch!! esther had it in her pocket!! but if she gives it to the AI, it will “vaccinate” itself against the virus!!! this seems like late in the episode to introduce this idea, but again, i say sure, why not?

mulder is being zapped and scully says to put the kill switch in NOW!!! she goes and shoves it in herself!!! she said idgaf if this AI blows up the world, i need him safe!!!

holy FUCK!!!! “you’re gonna be okay, i’m gonna get you out of here” she says to his limp body as twilight time plays…

(oh, i'm emotional as she tries to lead him away..........)

but esther is frantically typing….

she’s crying… no… i realize what is happening as she tells scully to leave……

despite the imminent risk of explosion, scully comes back for esther… “you don’t listen, do you?” <- ohhhh…. esther strapped herself into the machine thingy!!!

scully, run!! take that injured man and beat it!!!!! esther does not wish to be saved!!

bam!!! the machine blows sparks and then it is annihilated from the sky!!!!

scully is guiding his barely conscious body through the woods…. then they visit the scene later

mulder ponders if esther was able to upload herself into an artificial life

“electrons chasing each other through a circuit- that isn’t life, mulder” “yeah, but what are we but impulses- electrical and chemical- through a bag of meat and bones? you’re the scientist, you tell me”

back at the lone gunmen's lab, their computer reads “BITE ME” in red letters against a black background!! esther!! she is here!!

(do the lone gunmen have a new friend?? can she be called upon to help during tricky situations?? or is she happily frolicking in the internet with david?? or is the answer that she can do both??)

cutscene to nebraska, where kids are playing with a football. a trailer is locked behind a fence, where one of the kids threw the ball. he goes in to fetch it…. but he is being watched by a camera!!!

NO!!! so did the AI live??? and somehow migrate to nebraska??? to watch random children?

for my own sanity, i choose to believe no ❤️

okay, so post episode thoughts: this was definitely a really, really good standalone ep. we had the whole emotional arc, and then the standard “well gee, i think it’s still out there” just when you think there’s hope.

i thought the premise sounded boring, and it actually turned out to be pretty interesting. we saw these weird sexual-ish fantasies of mulder being torn apart and scully saving the day, which are interesting, even if it's not exactly what i wanted to watch. and in the real world we saw her cradling his limp body out of the woods! which is exactly what i DO want to see!

and the skeptic was skeptical of science! but computer science is like, totally different from chemistry and stuff, so i can’t really blame her. she was PISSSSSED to be woken up in the middle of the night and then dragged on a wild goose chase!!! even pulling over the car just to yell at mulder!!! that is real fury!!

and i SWEAR i did not imagine that tension. she was attracted to esther but also mad as hell at her. we've all been there, scully. great insight into scully's type. she seems to like people who are terribly smart.

like i said before, i thought it was a really good episode!!! i’m not sure if it would make my top episodes list, but it would be close if not. i grew attached to esther, and i hope that she becomes the 4th lone gunman and offers insight from her digital abode, and that whenever they’re stumped they can turn to her and say “esther, what do you think?”. and she can beep beep boop and come up with a response. or maybe they can tell her about the latest movies and scientific discoveries. hard to imagine what the digital afterlife looks like and the capability for interaction between the real and digital worlds.

call his doctor…

[pizzafishandchips]

the insane whiplash that is being here and then switching to linkedin where every other fucking post, job listing, and startup is about AI or cramming AI into their shit

(anyway if y'all start seeing glitches in your apps and software please know that there is now the most cursed thing out there called "vibe coding" in which ppl just prompt an agent and it codes an entire application by itself, the prompter does fuck all so.... be careful out there)

[darkmaga-returns]

Google has a “vision of a universal assistant,” but Mariner falls short. AI Agents are reputed to be the future of AI which autonomously “takes actions, adapts in real-time, and, solves multi-step problems based on context and objectives.” This is the technology that will destroy massive numbers of jobs in the future. ⁃ Patrick Wood, Editor.

Today, chatbots can answer questions, write poems and generate images. In the future, they could also autonomously perform tasks like online shopping and work with tools like spreadsheets.

Google on Wednesday unveiled a prototype of this technology, which artificial intelligence researchers call an A.I. agent.

Google is among the many tech companies building A.I. agents. Various A.I. start-ups, including OpenAI and Anthropic, have unveiled similar prototypes that can use software apps, websites and other online tools.

Google’s new prototype, called Mariner, is based on Gemini 2.0, which the company also unveiled on Wednesday. Gemini is the core technology that underpins many of the company’s A.I. products and research experiments. Versions of the system will power the company’s chatbot of the same name and A.I. Overviews, a Google search tool that directly answers user questions.

“We’re basically allowing users to type requests into their web browser and have Mariner take actions on their behalf,” Jaclyn Konzelmann, a Google project manager, said in an interview with The New York Times.

Gemini is what A.I researchers call a neural network — a mathematical system that can learn skills by analyzing enormous amounts of data. By recognizing patterns in articles and books culled from across the internet, for instance, a neural network can learn to generate text on its own.

The latest version of Gemini learns from a wide range of data, from text to images to sounds. That might include images showing how people use spreadsheets, shopping sites and other online services. Drawing on what Gemini has learned, Mariner can use similar services on behalf of computer users.

“It can understand that it needs to press a button to make something happen,” Demis Hassabis, who oversees Google’s core A.I. lab, said in an interview with The Times. “It can take action in the world.”

Mariner is designed to be used “with a human in the loop,” Ms. Konzelmann said. For instance, it can fill a virtual shopping cart with groceries if a user is in an active browser tab, but it will not actually buy the groceries. The user must make the purchase.