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#AI Employees Review
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AI Employees Review – Generate Unlimited AI Contents In 60 Seconds
Welcome to my AI Employees Review Post, This is a genuine user-based AI Employees review where I will discuss the features, upgrades, demo, price, and bonuses, how AI Employees can benefit you, and my own personal opinion. This is the World’s First First AI App Preloaded With Google’s Highly Trained 25 AI Employees Completes All Your Marketing Tasks In Less Than 60 Seconds!
Imagine, Companies are constantly seeking ways to streamline operations, maximize efficiency, and gain that crucial edge over the competition. In this relentless pursuit of progress, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force, promising to revolutionize the very fabric of how we work. One such offering capitalizing on this AI revolution is AI Employees. This service claims to provide a virtual workforce of AI-powered assistants, each programmed to tackle an array of marketing tasks. From crafting compelling content and managing social media campaigns to analyzing data and generating reports, AI Employees promises a one-stop shop for businesses seeking to supercharge their marketing efforts. But is AI Employees the key to unlocking explosive growth
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AI Employees Review: What Is AI Employees?
AI Employees pitches itself as a game-changer in the marketing world, offering a virtual pool of AI-powered assistants specifically designed to tackle a multitude of marketing tasks., acting as an extension of your in-house team. From crafting social media posts and churning out blog articles to managing ad campaigns and analyzing data, AI Employees promises to handle a wide range of marketing activities with speed, efficiency, and 24/7 availability.
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Imagine having a tireless content creation machine churning out fresh content or an AI analyst poring over data sets to identify hidden trends, all without needing breaks or exceeding their budget. This is the enticing proposition behind AI Employees. But before you jump on the AI bandwagon, this review will equip you with the knowledge to assess if this virtual workforce can truly deliver on its promises.
AI Employees Review: Overview
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Creator: Akshat Gupta
Product: AI Employees
Date Of Launch: 2024-May-16
Time Of Launch: 11:00 EDT
Front-End Price: $17 (One-time payment)
Official Website: Click Here To Access
Product Type: Software (Online)
Support: Effective Response
Discount: Get The Best Discount Right Now!
Recommended: Highly Recommended
Bonuses: Huge Bonuses
Skill Level Required: All Levels
Refund: YES, 30 Days Money-Back Guarantee
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AI Employees Review: About Authors
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At the helm of AI Employees is Akshat Gupta, a visionary driving innovation in AI technology throughout 2024. Gupta brings his wealth of expertise to the forefront, dedicating himself to developing pioneering solutions that simplify and streamline website creation for users globally.
Recognized as a prominent leader in the field, Gupta continually inspires and empowers others to leverage the potential of AI in achieving their goals and maximizing their online capabilities.
He has earned his reputation through the creation of numerous products such as KidTales PLR, AI DeepSongs, SiteFlow AI, CreativeAI 2.0, AI GameZone, AI VideoBooks, AI AppMaker, AI VideoSong, VoiceGPT AI, ExplainerVideoz, FlipBooks, MazeMaker, eBookMaker, and many others.
AI Employees Review: Features
World’s First AI App Preloaded With Highly-Trained 20 Google AI Employees
Built-In Voice & Keyword Command Feature
Create & Sell Limitless AI Content & Marketing Materials
AI Employee “Rhyan Anderson” — Creates World-Class Websites In Any Niche & Language
Sales Funnel Specialist “Olivia Roberts” Create High-Converting Sales Funnels
Email Campaign Manager “Emily Johnson” Sends Unlimited Email & SMS Campaigns For You
Graphic Designer “Aisha Khan” Crafts Ultra-HD AI Images, Art, Logos & Graphics For Maximum Conversion
AI Employee Liam Murphy Creates Ultra-HD 4K AI Videos
AI Employee “Emma Brown,” Writes High-Converting Copies & Blog Posts
Voice-Over Artist “Sarah Mitchell” Generates Unlimited AI Voice-Overs
Music AI Expert “Leonard Johnson” Composes AI Music & Video Songs In Any Language
Course Developer “Murli Vijay” Creates & Sells Best-Selling AI Courses
SEO Expert Tom Wilson Ranks Your Websites & Pages On The First Page Of Google & Yahoo
AI Expert “Isabella Rossi — Manages Your Social Media Accounts & Posts.
Chatbot Developer “Sandeep” Creates & Embeds Unlimited Chatbots For Better Engagement & Sales.
Emily Davis Create Stunning eBooks & Flipbooks With A Single Keyword
AI Employee “Mireille Darc” Provides Unlimited AI Stock Media Assets
AI Employee “Daniel Victor” Creates Stunning AI Avatar Videos In Any Niche
Paul McGrath Does All The Affiliate Marketing For You
Ai Employees Mobile Edition
Lifetime FREE Updates
24*7 Support & 100% Uptime Guaranteed
Step-By-Step Training Videos
Exclusive Bonuses
AI Employees Review: How Does It Work?
You’re Just 3 Clicks Away From Getting Access To Our Highly-Skilled Google’s AI Employee Team That Completes All Your Marketing Tasks Less than 60 seconds!
STEP #1: Login & Command
Give keyword or voice commands about your desired AI Content or Marketing Materials.
STEP #2: Generate
AI Employee Harnesses The Power Of Google’s Highly Skilled AI Employees & Creates Your Desired AI Content & Marketing Materials Instantly.
STEP #3: Profit
Start profiting by selling these high-in-demand marketing contents to your clients or on freelancing platforms like Fiverr & Upwork while filling up your pockets.
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AI Employees Review: Can Do For You
Google’s Latest AI Employee Team Creates All Your Marketing Materials In Less Than 60 Secs.
Give a Simple Keyword Or Voice Command & Get Your Tasks Done Instantly.
Done-For-You, 20 Highly-Experienced AI Employees Working For You 24*7 Non-Stop.
Command AI Employee “Rhyan Anderson” — Who Creates World-Class Websites In Any Niche & Language For You Instantly.
Create High-Converting Sales Funnels Using Your Sales Funnel Specialist “Olivia Robert.
Send Unlimited Email & SMS Campaigns Using Your Email Campaign Manager “Emily Johnson.
Craft Ultra-HD AI Images, Arts, Logos & Graphics For Maximum Conversion With Single Keyword.
Command Your Video Creator Liam Murphy — Who Creates Jaw-Dropping 4K AI Videos Instantly.
Craft High-Converting Copies & Blog Posts Using Your AI Employee “Emma Brown
Generate Unlimited AI Voice-Overs In Any Language With Voice-Over Artist “Sarah Mitchell
Compose AI Music & Video Songs In Any Language You Want Commanding Your Music AI Expert “Leonard Johnson.
Create & Sell Best-Selling AI Courses With Your Course Developer “Murli Vijay
Rank Your Websites & Pages On The First Page Of Google & Yahoo With SEO Expert.
Command Social Media Expert “Isabella Rossi — Who Manages Your Social Media Accounts & Posts.
Create & Embed Unlimited Chatbots For Better Engagement & Sales.
Create Stunning eBooks & Flipbooks With A Single Keyword By Commanding “Emily Davis”
AI Employee “Mireille Darc” Provides You Unlimited AI Stock Media Assets Instantly.
Create Stunning AI Avatar Videos In Any Niche Commanding AI Employee “Daniel Victor”
Your Affiliate Manager — Paul McGrath Does All The Affiliate Marketing On Your Behalf & Lets You Enjoy The Free Profits.
Fire All Your Expensive Tools & Services.
Commercial License Included — Create & Sell as Many Assets As You Like To Your Clients.
Newbie Friendly, Easy-To-Use Dashboard.
Iron-clad 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee.
AI Employees Review: Verify User Feedback
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AI Employees Review: Who Should Use It?
Affiliate Marketers
E-Com Store Owners
Freelancers
CPA Marketers
Blog Owners
Video Marketers
Content Creators
YouTubers
Product Creators
Website Owners
Personal Brands
And many others
AI Employees Review: OTO’s And Pricing
Front End: AI Employees($17)
OTO1: AI Employees Unlimited ($27)
OTO2: AI Employees DFY ($47)
OTO3: AI Employees Automation ($37)
OTO4: AI Employees AI Audience ($37)
OTO5: AI Employees Agency ($67)
OTO6: AI Employees Reseller ($97)
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AI Employees Review: My Unique Bonus Bundle
My Unique Bonus Bundle will be visible on your access page as an Affiliate Bonus Button on WarriorPlus immediately after purchase.
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And before ending my honest AI Employees Review, I told you that I would give you my very own unique PFTSES formula for Free.
AI Employees Review: Demo Video
Just Watch The AI Employees Demo Video Down Below To Get All The Details:
>>For More Details Click Here<<
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AI Employees Review: Money Back Guarantee
You’re In Safe Hands With Our 100% Risk-FREE, Iron-Clad 30 Days Money Back Guarantee
The simple fact is that we won’t take your money if, after buying AI Employees, you don’t think you got what you paid for. Delivering a high-quality product with zero dissatisfied consumers is our goal. In the event that we fail to meet your expectations, your money is not worth it. Well, you may get a complete refund if we don’t live up to your expectations by letting us know within 30 days. Heck, as a thank you, we’ll even offer you some more tools to help you grow your company and sales like never before. In any case, you only benefit.
AI Employees Review: Pros and Cons
Pros:
Efficiency Boost: AI automates repetitive tasks, freeing human teams for strategic work.
Productivity Powerhouse: Work 24/7, churning out content and analyzing data tirelessly.
Cost-Effective Solution: Potentially cheaper than hiring additional human employees.
Data-Driven Decisions: Provides insights to optimize marketing strategies and maximize results.
Cons:
You cannot use this product without an active internet connection.
In fact, I haven’t yet discovered any other problems with AI Employees.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s)
Q. What exactly are AI Employees?
World’s First AI App Supercharged With Google’s Highly Trained & Experienced 20 AI Employees That Completes All Your Marketing Tasks
Q. Do I need some prior skills or experience to get started?
AI Employees is 100% newbie-friendly with an easy-to-use dashboard.
Q. What happens if I don’t see results?
We’ve got you covered. If you don’t see your desired results with AI Employees just let us know within the next 30 days and we’ll refund you every penny.
Q. What if I get confused along the way?
Don’t worry we have exclusive detailed video training for you that shows all the required steps.
Q. What if I get confused along the way?
Don’t worry we have exclusive detailed video training for you that shows all the required steps.
Q. Is This Compatible with both PC, Mac, Android, And iOS?
It works on any device.
Q. How Do I Lock-In My Discount?
Click the button below to get the AI Employees at the lowest price.
AI Employees Review: My Recommendation
AI Employees offers a glimpse into the future of AI-powered marketing automation. While it boasts increased efficiency and data-driven insights, limitations in creative output and human oversight remain crucial considerations. Carefully weigh the potential benefits against the drawbacks to determine if AI Employees aligns with your marketing goals. The platform may be a valuable stepping stone for businesses seeking to automate tasks and gain data analysis, but true marketing success likely resides in a thoughtful blend of human creativity and AI assistance.
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Check Out My Previous Reviews: OverLap AI Review, AI CaptureFlow Review, FlexiSitesAI Review, WP Defense Review, HostDaddy Review , Valor App Review, Crypto Cloud Review.
Thank for reading my AI Employees Review till the end. Hope it will help you to make purchase decision perfectly.
Disclaimer: This AI Employees review is for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. Before making a purchase decision, we recommend conducting your own research and exploring the software.
Note: Yes, this is a paid tool, however the one-time fee is $17 for lifetime.
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princesscedar · 2 months
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Working on a pre-employment assessment for a company I already know is shit and midway through they hit me with the "time for a recorded interview!! :)" like.........
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FYI artists and writers: some info regarding tumblr's new "third-party sharing" (aka selling your content to OpenAI and Midjourney)
You may have already seen the post by @staff regarding third-party sharing and how to opt out. You may have also already seen various news articles discussing the matter.
But here's a little further clarity re some questions I had, and you may too. Caveat: Not all of this is on official tumblr pages, so it's possible things may change.
(1) "I heard they already have access to my data and it doesn't really matter if I opt out"
From the 404 article:
A new FAQ section we reviewed is titled “What happens when you opt out?” states “If you opt out from the start, we will block crawlers from accessing your content by adding your site on a disallowed list. If you change your mind later, we also plan to update any partners about people who newly opt-out and ask that their content be removed from past sources and future training.”
So please, go click that opt-out button.
(2) Some future user: "I've been away from tumblr for months, and I just heard about all this. I didn't opt out before, so does it make a difference anymore?"
Another internal document shows that, on February 23, an employee asked in a staff-only thread, “Do we have assurances that if a user opts out of their data being shared with third parties that our existing data partners will be notified of such a change and remove their data?” Andrew Spittle, Automattic’s head of AI replied: “We will notify existing partners on a regular basis about anyone who's opted out since the last time we provided a list. I want this to be an ongoing process where we regularly advocate for past content to be excluded based on current preferences. We will ask that content be deleted and removed from any future training runs. I believe partners will honor this based on our conversations with them to this point. I don't think they gain much overall by retaining it.”
It should make a difference! Go click that button.
(3) "I opted out, but my art posts have been reblogged by so many people, and I don't know if they all opted out. What does that mean for my stuff?"
This answer is actually on the support page for the toggle:
This option will prevent your blog's content, even when reblogged, from being shared with our licensed network of content and research partners, including those that train AI models.
And some further clarification by the COO and a product manager:
zingring: A couple people from work have reached out to let me know that yes, it applies to reblogs of "don't scrape" content. If you opt out, your content is opted out, even in reblog form. cyle: yep, for reblogs, we're taking it so far as "if anybody in the reblog trail has opted out, all of the content in that reblog will be opted out", when a reblog could be scraped/shared.
So not only your reblogged posts, but anyone who contributed in a reblog (such as posts where someone has been inspired to draw fanart of the OP) will presumably be protected by your opt-out. (A good reason to opt out even if you yourself are not a creator.)
Furthermore, if you the OP were offline and didn't know about the opt-out, if someone contributed to a reblog and they are opted out, then your original work is also protected. (Which makes it very tempting to contribute "scrapeable content" now whenever I reblog from an abandoned/disused blog...)
(4) "What about deleted blogs? They can't opt out!"
I was told by someone (not official) that he read "deleted blogs are all opted-out by default". However, he didn't recall the source, and I can't find it, so I can't guarantee that info. If I get more details - like if/when tumblr puts up that FAQ as reported in the 404 article - I will add it here as soon as I can.
Edit, tumblr has updated their help page for the option to opt-out of third-party sharing! It now states:
The content which will not be shared with our licensed network of content and research partners, including those that train AI models, includes: • Posts and reblogs of posts from blogs who have enabled the "Prevent third-party sharing" option. • Posts and reblogs of posts from deleted blogs. • Posts and reblogs of posts from password-protected blogs. • Posts and reblogs of posts from explicit blogs. • Posts and reblogs of posts from suspended/deactivated blogs. • Private posts. • Drafts. • Messages. • Asks and submissions which have not been publicly posted. • Post+ subscriber-only posts. • Explicit posts.
So no need to worry about your old deleted blogs that still have reblogs floating around. *\o/*
But for your existing blogs, please use the opt out option. And a reminder of how to opt out, under the cut:
The opt-out toggle is in Blog Settings, and please note you need to do it for each one of your blogs / sideblogs.
On dashboard, the toggle is at https://www.tumblr.com/settings/blog/blogname [replace "blogname" as applicable] down by Visibility:
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For mobile, you need the most recent update of the app. (Android version 33.4.1.100, iOs version 33.4.) Then go to your blog tab (the little person icon), and then the gear icon for Settings, then click Visibility.
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Again, if you have a sideblog, go back to the blog tab, switch to it, and go to settings again. Repeat as necessary.
If you do not have access to the newest version of the app for whatever reason, you can also log into tumblr in your mobile browser. Same URL as per desktop above, same location.
Note you do not need to change settings in both desktop and the app, just one is fine.
I hope this helps!
3K notes · View notes
bengesko · 4 months
Text
AI Sellout
Used an email mask to read the whole article, pasting it below the cut.
Quick important points:
The tweet content is a list of things that are currently included, but were not SUPPOSED TO BE, and engineers are working to scrub it.
Automattic is supposedly going to add an opt out option.
Automattic did not respond to a question from 404 Media about whether it could guarantee that people who opt out will have their data deleted retroactively.
Tumblr and Wordpress are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI, according to a source with internal knowledge about the deals and internal documentation referring to the deals. 
The exact types of data from each platform going to each company are not spelled out in documentation we’ve reviewed, but internal communications reviewed by 404 Media make clear that deals between Automattic, the platforms’ parent company, and OpenAI and Midjourney are imminent.
The internal documentation details a messy and controversial process within Tumblr itself. One internal post made by Cyle Gage, a product manager at Tumblr, states that a query made to prepare data for OpenAI and Midjourney compiled a huge number of user posts that it wasn’t supposed to. It is not clear from Gage’s post whether this data has already been sent to OpenAI and Midjourney, or whether Gage was detailing a process for scrubbing the data before it was to be sent. 
Gage wrote:
“the way the data was queried for the initial data dump to Midjourney/OpenAI means we compiled a list of all tumblr’s public post content between 2014 and 2023, but also unfortunately it included, and should not have included:
private posts on public blogs
posts on deleted or suspended blogs
unanswered asks (normally these are not public until they’re answered)
private answers (these only show up to the receiver and are not public)
posts that are marked ‘explicit’ / NSFW / ‘mature’ by our more modern standards (this may not be a big deal, I don’t know)
content from premium partner blogs (special brand blogs like Apple’s former music blog, for example, who spent money with us on an ad campaign) that may have creative that doesn’t belong to us, and we don’t have the rights to share with this-parties; this one is kinda unknown to me, what deals are in place historically and what they should prevent us from doing.”
Gage’s post makes clear that engineers are working on compiling a list of post IDs that should not have been included, and that password-protected posts, DMs, and media flagged as CSAM and other community guidelines violations were not included.
Automattic plans to launch a new setting on Wednesday that will allow users to opt-out of data sharing with third parties, including AI companies, according to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, and internal documents. A new FAQ section we reviewed is titled “What happens when you opt out?” states that “If you opt out from the start, we will block crawlers from accessing your content by adding your site on a disallowed list. If you change your mind later, we also plan to update any partners about people who newly opt-out and ask that their content be removed from past sources and future training.” 
404 Media has asked Automattic how it accidentally compiled data that it shouldn’t share, and whether any of that content was shared with OpenAI, but did not immediately hear back from the company. 404 Media asked Automattic about an imminent deal with Midjourney last week but did not hear back then, either.
Another internal document shows that, on February 23, an employee asked in a staff-only thread, “Do we have assurances that if a user opts out of their data being shared with third parties that our existing data partners will be notified of such a change and remove their data?”
Andrew Spittle, Automattic’s head of AI replied: “We will notify existing partners on a regular basis about anyone who's opted out since the last time we provided a list. I want this to be an ongoing process where we regularly advocate for past content to be excluded based on current preferences. We will ask that content be deleted and removed from any future training runs. I believe partners will honor this based on our conversations with them to this point. I don't think they gain much overall by retaining it.” Automattic did not respond to a question from 404 Media about whether it could guarantee that people who opt out will have their data deleted retroactively.
News about a deal between Tumblr and Midjourney has been rumored and speculated about on Tumblr for the last week. Someone claiming to be a former Tumblr employee announced in a Tumblr blog post that the platform was working on a deal with Midjourney, and the rumor made it onto Blind, an app for verified employees of companies to anonymously discuss their jobs. 404 Media has seen the Blind posts, in which what seems like an Automattic employee says, “I'm not sure why some of you are getting worked up or worried about this. It's totally legal, and sharing it publicly is perfectly fine since it's right there in the terms & conditions. So, go ahead and spread the word as much as you can with your friends and tech journalists, it's totally fine.”
Separately, 404 Media viewed a public, now-deleted post by Gage, the product manager, where he said that he was deleting all of his images off of Tumblr, and would be putting them on his personal website. A still-live post says, “i've deleted my photography from tumblr and will be moving it slowly but surely over to cylegage.com, which i'm building into a photography portfolio that i can control end-to-end.” At one point last week, his personal website had a specific note stating that he did not consent to AI scraping of his images. Gage’s original post has been deleted, and his website is now a blank page that just reads “Cyle.” Gage did not respond to a request for comment from 404 Media. 
Several online platforms have made similar deals with AI companies recently, including Reddit, which entered into an AI content licensing deal with Google and said in its SEC filing last week that it’s “in the early stages of monetizing [its] user base” by training AI on users’ posts. Last year, Shutterstock signed a six year deal with OpenAI to provide training data.
OpenAI and Midjourney did not respond to requests for comment. 
997 notes · View notes
were--ralph · 3 days
Note
hello, I'm 16 years old, and I love weed.
I am also decently good at picture editing. furthermore, I detest only having street weed available to me. so when my friend showed me an app that delivered weed, for cheaper than street weed, with higher quality than street weed, I was very happy. I asked her if we needed IDs and she said her sister said no, go to the website, you need an ID. I'm very tenacious person, I went to a break room to get water but they were out of plastic cups so instead of giving up I filled up a plastic bag with the water and drank it like a cat. so what I did is I took my debit card, a blank piece of paper, and a cut up plastic bag, and I did a little photo shoot with him on my table. The card was to capture the dimensions of an ID card, the film was to capture light in a way that an ID card might capture light, and the blank piece of paper was to have under the plastic so it could be more easily applicable as a light map than my table. so, I spend the next hour, mind you the started at 2:00 am, editing an ID onto the table. this wasn't even the ID I wanted to use for the website, this was just a mock-up using one I found on Google images. And what do you know, I got it really fucking convincing. so convincing that when I showed my friend, his response wasn't "look at that obviously digital ID," his response was "look at that obviously fake ID," which was something that could be remedied. for I had scaled the mountain and I had created something from nothing, I had used my birthright of Creation to fucking make a picture of an ID on my table, that looks like it actually existed. It had depth, had lighting, it had pixel by pixel editing. so I go and edit the image of the fake ID and put my face on there and a fake name of my choosing with dates that don't look too suspicious. And then I evolved my creation to be me. I, now a 22-year-old, was sitting on my table. My name was Aron Parker Russo, I was born 2 days after my birthday but 6 years before it. I had created a reality in which I was unquestionably able to buy good marijuana. so I take my creation to the site, and I upload the picture for whichever benevolent employee spends their days mulling over IDs not really giving a shit and just glancing at them to review them. And then, to my utmost horror, it was an AI that scanned the ID. I still tried, I tried to got it through, but it was no use, because the reality I had created was not a reality in which Aaron Parker Russo was known by the government. This is my 13th reason, and I think it could be a banger ass Tumblr post.
I'll be honest, I didn't read this it was way too long, but im glad things worked out for you.
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thoughtportal · 4 months
Text
Tumblr and Wordpress are preparing to sell user data to Midjourney and OpenAI, according to a source with internal knowledge about the deals and internal documentation referring to the deals. 
The exact types of data from each platform going to each company are not spelled out in documentation we’ve reviewed, but internal communications reviewed by 404 Media make clear that deals between Automattic, the platforms’ parent company, and OpenAI and Midjourney are imminent.
The internal documentation details a messy and controversial process within Tumblr itself. One internal post made by Cyle Gage, a product manager at Tumblr, states that a query made to prepare data for OpenAI and Midjourney compiled a huge number of user posts that it wasn’t supposed to. It is not clear from Gage’s post whether this data has already been sent to OpenAI and Midjourney, or whether Gage was detailing a process for scrubbing the data before it was to be sent. 
Gage wrote:
“the way the data was queried for the initial data dump to Midjourney/OpenAI means we compiled a list of all tumblr’s public post content between 2014 and 2023, but also unfortunately it included, and should not have included:
private posts on public blogs
posts on deleted or suspended blogs
unanswered asks (normally these are not public until they’re answered)
private answers (these only show up to the receiver and are not public)
posts that are marked ‘explicit’ / NSFW / ‘mature’ by our more modern standards (this may not be a big deal, I don’t know)
content from premium partner blogs (special brand blogs like Apple’s former music blog, for example, who spent money with us on an ad campaign) that may have creative that doesn’t belong to us, and we don’t have the rights to share with this-parties; this one is kinda unknown to me, what deals are in place historically and what they should prevent us from doing.”
Gage’s post makes clear that engineers are working on compiling a list of post IDs that should not have been included, and that password-protected posts, DMs, and media flagged as CSAM and other community guidelines violations were not included.
Automattic plans to launch a new setting on Wednesday that will allow users to opt-out of data sharing with third parties, including AI companies, according to the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, and internal documents. A new FAQ section we reviewed is titled “What happens when you opt out?” states that “If you opt out from the start, we will block crawlers from accessing your content by adding your site on a disallowed list. If you change your mind later, we also plan to update any partners about people who newly opt-out and ask that their content be removed from past sources and future training.” 
404 Media has asked Automattic how it accidentally compiled data that it shouldn’t share, and whether any of that content was shared with OpenAI, but did not immediately hear back from the company. 404 Media asked Automattic about an imminent deal with Midjourney last week but did not hear back then, either.
Another internal document shows that, on February 23, an employee asked in a staff-only thread, “Do we have assurances that if a user opts out of their data being shared with third parties that our existing data partners will be notified of such a change and remove their data?”
Andrew Spittle, Automattic’s head of AI replied: “We will notify existing partners on a regular basis about anyone who's opted out since the last time we provided a list. I want this to be an ongoing process where we regularly advocate for past content to be excluded based on current preferences. We will ask that content be deleted and removed from any future training runs. I believe partners will honor this based on our conversations with them to this point. I don't think they gain much overall by retaining it.” Automattic did not respond to a question from 404 Media about whether it could guarantee that people who opt out will have their data deleted retroactively.
News about a deal between Tumblr and Midjourney has been rumored and speculated about on Tumblr for the last week. Someone claiming to be a former Tumblr employee announced in a Tumblr blog post that the platform was working on a deal with Midjourney, and the rumor made it onto Blind, an app for verified employees of companies to anonymously discuss their jobs. 404 Media has seen the Blind posts, in which what seems like an Automattic employee says, “I'm not sure why some of you are getting worked up or worried about this. It's totally legal, and sharing it publicly is perfectly fine since it's right there in the terms & conditions. So, go ahead and spread the word as much as you can with your friends and tech journalists, it's totally fine.”
Separately, 404 Media viewed a public, now-deleted post by Gage, the product manager, where he said that he was deleting all of his images off of Tumblr, and would be putting them on his personal website. A still-live post says, “i've deleted my photography from tumblr and will be moving it slowly but surely over to cylegage.com, which i'm building into a photography portfolio that i can control end-to-end.” At one point last week, his personal website had a specific note stating that he did not consent to AI scraping of his images. Gage’s original post has been deleted, and his website is now a blank page that just reads “Cyle.” Gage did not respond to a request for comment from 404 Media. 
Several online platforms have made similar deals with AI companies recently, including Reddit, which entered into an AI content licensing deal with Google and said in its SEC filing last week that it’s “in the early stages of monetizing [its] user base” by training AI on users’ posts. Last year, Shutterstock signed a six year deal with OpenAI to provide training data.
OpenAI and Midjourney did not respond to requests for comment. 
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wolfnanaki · 1 year
Text
I've had people on YouTube and Twitter try to mock me by calling me "Goodbye Volcano High's strongest soldier".
But you know what? Going to bat for KO_OP, a worker cooperative queer indie studio with 4-day work weeks? And they avoid crunch and ensure the mental health of their employees? I'll gladly do so.
Especially since I've seen what "gamers" will defend.
$70 games that are broken at launch and teeming with microtransactions, DLC, and gambling mechanics. Games that take up over 100GB of hard drive space. Executives who crunch their employees to dust and allow rampant sexual abuse and wage theft, followed by mass layoffs to preserve profit margins and corporate bonuses. Cultures of racism, misogyny, and queerphobia, both in the workplace and in the gamer community. AI and NFTs being incorporated into game development. Lack of accessibility for players with disabilities. "Live service" games touted as being supported for years only to die in months. Decades of games no longer being available except through piracy. The lies and broken promises. The list goes on. There's so much of all of it everywhere, and it seems to get worse by the year.
Yet for gamers, all of those are secondary issues, if at all. They're more concerned if the video game girls are sexy or not. Or if a reviewer gave the "right" score for their golden goose game. Or if a game has - heaven forbid - an easy mode. And when their games are awful, their go-to blame is towards the "woke", the "SJWs", the "game journos". They keep financially supporting the things that are ruining games then blame marginalized people and reviewers for games being bad.
So yeah, screw it, I'll gladly throw my support towards an indie studio that represents what I want to see more of in the game industry. Come at me.
If there are other studios you want to show support for that you think are doing the right things too, feel free to share in the replies and reblogs.
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cemeterything · 2 years
Note
In January 2021 there were less than 200 tumblr employees (source is the tumblr staff member on the guy fieri arg discord server who was confirmed to be tumblr staff. Also I think another staff member posted it on their blog around that time). Unless they’ve mass hired people (it sounded like the size of the team was getting smaller at the time so unlikely) the content moderation team is extremely small. It’s definitely a significant issue that there’s not enough people to run this website properly, but it’s a staffing issue, not a not caring about or agreeing with bigotry issue. That’s also why they rely on terrible ai software to review images and blanket bans of certain tags. There’s straight up not enough people to actually review reports, however if something high profile happens they can act quickly. (Sorry this is a long ask, I just feel this is important information in any discussion about how tumblr is run)
yeah that's fair, it's good to have all the information available. it doesn't change the fact that tumblr has pretty much always had problems with moderation though, like it's never been good at handling harassment and hate speech as far as i remember (and i've used this site since 2011/2012), and that's why i can't in good conscience view tumblr as the like. friendly quirky little family community it markets itself as. i respect that it's not easy to run a website, but it has genuine problems with dealing with those issues (as most social media do) and there's not really anything that can excuse that, and i respect why people are upset about it. having been on the receiving end of both targeted mass harassment and hate speech myself, and having received absolutely no help or support from tumblr when i tried to report it, i can't help but feel pretty fed up with how they manage things in that department. i work in retail, so i get that some issues are due to staffing shortages and the limitations of the company and how it's run, so i don't blame individual tumblr staff members for that any more than i'd blame any individual employee of a company for that company's failures unless they were clearly personally responsible, but at the same time i strongly believe in doing the best you can by your fellow human beings and working to prevent harm wherever possible, and how tumblr handles harassment and hate speech falls way short of that.
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maddiesbookshelves · 1 year
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Second queer manga rec for pride month!
The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All, by Arai Sumiko
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Original title: Ki ni Natteru Hito ga Otoko ja Nakatta / 気になってる人が男じゃなかった
Genres: Comedy - Romance - Shojo-ai - Slice of Life
Themes: School Life - Music
Japanese volumes: 1 (Ongoing)
During one of her visits to the record store, popular high school gyaru Aya Oosawa falls in love with the store employee, not realizing that this cool guy is actually Mitsuki Koga, the quiet girl sitting next to her in class.
The premise of the story sounded really fun and the art was so good that I just HAD to give it a try and, let me tell you, it's absolutely worth the hype
The story is pretty simple but the way the characters and their relationship are handled is just so nice. I think it's a pretty refreshing story and I like that we get to have cute stories like this that aren't centered on the characters' sexuality but the characters' relationship. As I probably said in my Love Mix-up! review, darker stories on the struggles of being queer are great too, but I want to be able to just... breathe and have a nice time with classic romance tropes. After all, I enjoy romance manga way more than romance book (don't ask me why, I don't know) so it's always great to read queer romances like this
French version under the cut
Titre Original : Ki ni Natteru Hito ga Otoko ja Nakatta / 気になってる人が男じゃなかった
Genres : Comédie - Romance
Thèmes : École - Musique
Volumes VO : 1 (En cours)
Lors d'une de ses visites chez le disquaire Aya Oosawa, gyaru populaire dans son lycée, tombe amoureuse de l'employé sans se rendre compte que ce mec cool est en réalité Mitsuki Koga, la fille discrète assise à côté d'elle en classe.
Le pitch de l'histoire avait l'air fun et les dessins étaient tellement beau, il FALLAIT que j'essaie de le lire et, franchement, la hype est totalement justifiée
L'histoire est assez simple mais la façon dont les personnages et leur relation sont traités est tellement bien. Je trouve que ça change un peu des histoires habituelles et j'aime le fait qu'on puisse avoir des histoires mignonnes qui ne sont pas centrées sur la sexualité des personnages mais plutôt sur leur relation. Comme je l'ai probablement dit dans ma review de Love Mix-up !, les histoire plus sombres sur les difficultés d'être queer sont très bien aussi, mais je veux pouvoir juste... respirer et passez du bon temps en lisant des trope de romance classiques. Après tout, j'apprécie largement plus la romance en manga qu'en roman (me demandez pas pourquoi, je sais pas) du coup c'est toujours agréable de lire une romance queer comme ça
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simpscripts · 1 year
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Free-fall Chapter 1 (Sun/Moon x Reader)
Summary: You needed a job, any job that would overlook your lack of education or non existent ‘official’ work history. It just so happens that this job is the closest thing to home since your circus troupe went under. So what’s the big problem?
Authors note: Honestly this is just an idea I wanted to write for myself but I hope someone else enjoys it too! This is going to be a slow burn.
Fazbear Entertainment Company knew what their biggest problem was at the moment, it was practically glaring at them in the face daily as thousands of complaints and bad reviews rolled in. The problem was the daycare attendant.
Adults hated it, employees constantly quit because they refused to work with it, and more importantly the children it was programmed to take care of were frightened of it. Its sole design existed to appease children, to have nurturing and playful characteristics so the kids did not feel watched over but instead felt as if they were just having a play date. In theory, it should have worked but the idea of a lone animatronic, towering above everyone that encountered it along with the personality that mimicked that of a clown, it isn’t hard to see now where this idea had failed.
What were they to do about this issue, scrap him? No, they couldn’t do that, not only because of just how insanely expensive it was to build and the giant loss the company would take from that, but they also had to take into account its unique build that couldn’t easily be scrapped for parts for the other animatronics upgrades. Unlike the Glamrocks or simply just the S.T.A.F.F. Bots, their design is ten times more intricate. All of the ‘personality’ animatronics had the AI capability to learn but that’s where the similarities truly ended.
The daycare attendant was given a different type of endoskeleton, one that can give them more agility than the others. Soft padding was placed over the endoskeleton that would make it safe when children interacted with it, and it had twice the responsibility. As well as intricate programming that took years to write code for compared to any other of the animatronics to make sure child safety was its top priority. No, they couldn’t scrap it, they would be losing way too much.
So what were they to do about this situation? Easy. To figure out their next step all the company had to do was look at other large theme parks in the country. They had creepy mascots and characters too but with a difference, they were almost always accompanied by a handler. Sure the princesses and superheroes didn’t need a handler but they were human. The anthropomorphic costumes freaked out the children, but with a human handler escorting them around it brought a human touch back into it and helped relieve some of the creepy tension, making them more approachable, and ushering back in the cartoonish charm their designers were aiming for during their creation.
While the solution may have been an easy one to make, executing it was not as easy. It was hard finding someone willing to fill that role. Person after person entered the interview, seemingly excited about the job, but then they would meet it for the first time.
They made sure to have each interview end with a little meet and greet with Sun, as opposed to Moon whom they correctly guessed would scare the potential hires off even quicker, but each meeting ended the same way regardless. One right after the other the interviewees raced out the door once they reached the meet and greet portion, even the ones who swore up and down that no matter what they were desperate for the job.
Week after week they continued the arduous process of interviewing candidates, a few even made it to on-the-job training. There were even some impressive candidates they thought would fill the role perfectly due to their previous job experience as performers and theme park handlers. As always though before they could officially hire anybody they all walked out, leaving the company to start the process of interviews all over again.
Eventually, they landed on your resume. A small single page compared to some of the larger or more impressive resumes they started with, but at this point, they can’t be too picky. The resume lacked any schooling or degrees and it listed only a few jobs that all consisted of waitressing at different establishments. Then they read the very last line and practically had dollar signs in their eyes as they realized that they just struck gold, you had worked ten years in a circus troupe.
They just found their golden candidate who could not just assist but also be a true star of the show alongside their animatronic, and they would not let this candidate slip away so easily.
They pulled out all the stops for your interview, or at least as much as the corporation would realistically allow. So when you arrived at the interview they offered you a large array of beverages like soda, water, coffee, or juice before whisking you off towards a conference room. Usually, most of your interviews have been in the back of some dingy restaurant manager's office, in bleak windowless rooms that suffocated you with their musk, or even just at the front of the restaurants in one of the booths with disinterested-looking men reading off questions in a monotonous tone. It may have been just a cheap gesture to give the illusion that they care more even though it was the bare minimum of schmoozing but regardless you were ashamed to say it was kind of working.
After months of panicking about bills, barely avoiding eviction, a few dodgy days without electricity, and the hundreds of wasted hours spent on interviews that went nowhere you had to admit it was kinda nice to experience these little luxuries. A small part was even just giddy as you sat down in the nice wide wooden chairs that had plump padding on the seat that made it so much more comfortable to sit on than hard plastic. Plus the windows were open letting in a nice warm breeze that just filled your heart with happiness.
You knew the men sitting across you had fake smiles plastered across their faces as they reached across to shake your hand before you sit down across the wide table from them. You pushed aside the thought as your day brightened up even more as they pushed a box of doughnuts over to you that you immediately took to make up for your lack of breakfast.
“So to start off we just have to ask you,” The middle man across the table started with a wide grin as you shoved another doughnut in your mouth “Ten years in the circus?”
“Mmhm” You mumbled out around your delicious sugary treat, “Joined when I was around twelve."
“Perfect! We really think you would be a nice fit for this position as the animatronic handler. You see we have had some slight issues with staff getting along with it but nothing to worry about especially with your background. It kinda acts like, well, um, fellas how would you describe it?” He motions to the men on either side of him as they each quip up with their own descriptions.
“A jester?” One offers up as the main man hums in agreement.
“Yes! Like a clown, it’s very clown like I would say.” The other man jumps in.
“Exactly, thank you, gentlemen. It’s a bit unnerving for most people but I am quite positive someone with your background will do just fine with that creepy stuff. I’m sure you worked with plenty of horrifying creeps and freaks, am I right?” His smile has yet to waver and the mocking laugh he ends his question with along with the other men following suit with their own degrading laughs is starting to get on your nerves.
The charms of the little gifts and pleasantries have started to wear off. Now it's much easier to see them as not nice or charming but as salesmen. These are professional salesmen whether their job descriptions are actually public relations, business manager, etc. Their jobs were to sell their company and right now their job was selling this position to you which they openly admitted they were having problems with.
Their first big mistake was thinking you would laugh along with their jokes about the other performers you spent a decade with. The second was thinking you couldn’t see right through them, sure you accepted the treats, but you knew you held the power. Their third and most damming mistake was it. They kept referring to their animatronic as it.
You’re not sure why that two-letter word was digging its way into your skin every time they said it but it did. You knew this company, or at least you knew the restaurant and thus the animatronics inside of it. They all seemingly had personalities, big ones at that, and smart A.I. that they took every chance to brag about on the news as their PR team truly worked overtime for the company. The way they spoke about their animatronic as an object turned the energy in the room slowly, prickling your skin. Taking a deep breath you pushed your concerns aside to reply.
“Um yea it won’t be a problem, and I wouldn’t say they were creepy at al-“
“Perfect, see I just knew you would be a perfect fit for this role.” He rudely interrupts you again. “With your background, we would also like to change up the position a bit from handler to performer. You would still accompany it and do the normal job but start offering some fun performances with you and the animatronic on top of the normal job. Of course, we will offer a bit more money to your salary for this as well so don’t worry about that.”
“Oh.” You were shocked, you never made it to a full-fledged performing role in your circus trope as by the time it shut down you were still an apprentice.
You had been training and filling in roles but had yet to become a full-time performer in your own right. You did have the specialties you were working towards more like acrobatics and trapeze work but despite how good you got you never did it solo, without your trusted mentors by your side to correct you.
“If you sign on with us today you’ll start up as just the basic handler until we have our lawyers look over the specialty contract you’ll need for the type of work we want you to do.” He ends by turning to the other men to point to their papers and talk about notes as he thinks about contracts.
You let them drone on as you were swept up in the nostalgia of your family at the circus that you missed dearly. Part of you wanted this opportunity, a chance to feel the overwhelming joy you had used to receive while entertaining crowds of people and more importantly the bright smiles you brought to children. Your head was swimming as you thought through everything, mind contemplating every angle of this new opportunity. You originally just wanted a job but now the perfect job has seemed to just fall into your lap, but nothing in your life was ever quite that easy.
For starters you did not become a full-fledged performer, how could you suddenly jump from apprenticing to doing full-blown shows, especially without your troupe behind you to encourage and support you? You weren’t sure you were ready for that responsibility, and the fact employers of the company so openly mocked your previous profession and friends in front of you made your skin crawl. You doubt they would take the proper precautions when it came to the big performances you were used to.
This shouldn’t be a hard decision though, right? You need a job, that makes money, to pay your bills, and not lose your shitty apartment. This job just so happens to involve the things you love most in the world, performing and making children happy. Something wasn’t quite right though, and your anxiety was not making it any better. Your head was racing as thoughts all shouted out across your mind debating every angle possible and you were sure your body was frozen in front of the men. From what little you could focus on outside your brain it doesn’t seem as though the men have even noticed your situation as they talked among themselves.
“Well then,” The middle man's sharp clap of his hands jolted you back in “We don’t really need to go over too much for the interview part, instead we would love to jump ahead to introductions to see how that all goes.”
Before you could respond they got up and started escorting you to a door connected to the conference room. They were talking more about the job on the short walk but you’re mind was elsewhere. As you reached out to open the handle the main man grabbed onto your wrist, another shock running through you at the suddenness.
His face was still plastered with a saccharine smile but his eyes were filled with fear. Funnily enough, this bizarre smile filled with horror was a rather familiar sight to your eyes from the array of faces in the crowd of shows you would take mental snapshots of for your internal emotions scrapbook.
“Just picture it as a clown, ok? And don’t turn off the lights.” He backs up and releases his grip on your arm. "You'll do great kid, we know you got this."
Your eyes scrunch together as you watch the gaggle of grown men in suits squirm with discomfort at even the thought of what lies beyond the door. Sure you never saw Sun or Moon in person before but you've seen them plenty on the near-constant commercials or news broadcasts praising their technology. They weren't even scary if memory serves you right, you knew plenty of scarier-looking clowns, and they were always the most down-to-earth and kindest people you knew.
Rolling your eyes you slowly open the door, yelling at yourself internally as your body reacted to their fear causing you to sharply inhale as you enter. Just as you remember him, the bright yellow animatronic sat on top of a table in the conjoining conference room. Well maybe not quite as you pictured, he was much bigger and taller than you ever imagined he would be. You could only imagine how colossal he was next to the children.
His head swayed back and forth as he swung his long legs in front of him while humming. It doesn't appear that he has noticed your presence yet. You carefully try to close the door behind you to give you some relief from the sharp watch of the men in the doorway, anxiously awaiting some sort of reaction. Try as you might, the large door still let out a loud bang when it clicked closed.
You turn just in time to watch Sun jerk and jump off the table to back up while curling his arms around himself anxiously. Your mouth pulls in guilt as you watch him.
"Hello, fri-" He starts to shout out with an arm raised out to you before he pulls it back with his other and curls his palm against his faceplate. "Sorry, sorry. You have to be good sun, you have to behave sun."
He mutters out the latter more to himself as you watch with furrowed eyebrows. He is shifting his weight side to side, seemingly locked in a sort of loading screen moment, and his limbs start to raise like he figured out his next move before pulling back again.
"It's Sun, right? My name is Y/N." You start approaching slowly to not frighten him further.
You can't be sure what this poor animatronic had been through but clearly, it wasn't good if the degrading mutters under his breath were any indication. He doesn't respond, still stuck like a broken record player, so you try repeating your question a little bit louder. He notices this time and his face slowly raises to tilt his head at you.
"Yes, yes, yes. You can call me Sun, or Sunny, or Sundrop, or Sunbeam, or-" He starts to ramble on a million different variations of nicknames while nodding frantically, and you laugh knowing you'll have to cut him off if you'll ever get him to stop.
"Ok let's stick with Sunny, I think it's a super cute name." You smile brighter once you see his rays twirl around his head at your statement.
He rushes closer, again you scold yourself at the sharp gasp you let out at just how quickly he crosses the room, and his hand softly grasps onto yours in between you two.
"Yes! I would like that very very much. Does this mean we are going to be friends?"
"Definitely, especially if I come to work with you, Sunny." You delight in the way his plush fingers feel as you grip them but he slowly pulls his hands away and curls his hands up to his chest.
"Oh, that's right. Job, job, it's all about the job Sun. Don't scare the employees' Sun. Don't mess this up again Sun. You can't be trusted Sun. They can be trusted Sun, not you Sun." He starts pacing around again, hands wringing together and clawing at his chest as you try to wrap your head around what is happening.
"Sunny?" You're watching him closely, heart sinking at the way his voice box becomes more staticky as he desperately chokes out his words.
"I promise I'll be good. I won't be scary or too loud or too clingy or too much. I promise." He sounds so soft and sad as he curls his limbs in more to make himself look smaller.
"Who told you those things Sunny?" You have to gulp back the emotion building in your throat as you watch him.
His face turns slightly to look at the door behind you and you quickly connected the dots that apparently management truly only sees them as objects to verbally degrade when things aren't working for the bottom line. Your fists clench and pop in your anger and you take in a heavy breath to calm yourself.
You have felt angry plenty of times. You sure felt angry when small-minded locals would come through and terrorize your troupe. You felt angry every time you were denied entry-level work without even being given a chance. This anger though was something akin to the reason you left your original life behind in the first place.
"Sunny those guys," You motion behind your shoulder and firmly grip his hands in yours. "Are assholes. All those workers who treated you badly were assholes. Fuck them."
"LANGUAGE!" He quickly screeched out and you wince a bit as his hands reflexively gripped yours harder.
His eyes flex wider as he hears his loud voice bounce around the room and he jumps away from you to cower as he watches the door handle turn.
"Is everything-"
"We're fine" You quickly bite out and look over your shoulder to stare the man down.
He takes a moment to look over at Sunny as he hesitates in the doorway but nods and closes the door again. You inhale deeply to calm yourself and slowly kneel down next to Sun's crumpled form against the wall.
"Sunny? It's ok they won't bother you, I promise."
"No no no, I screamed at you. I'm not supposed to scream." He shakes his head repeatedly and refuses to look at you.
"No no it's ok Sunny, I deserved that. I spent most of my life surrounded by foul-mouthed carnies. I guess I have some bad habits I need to work on." You laugh trying to break the tension.
Your smile grows softer as you see him look up at you but he doesn't speak up again. You let the silence linger on a bit as he calms down and think about any way you can help him out. You trail your eyes down his outfit and get a bit lost as you take in all the intricate details and patterns. His pleated peplum brought back vivid images of familiar fabrics and the lightbulb in your brain goes on.
"Hey, would you like to see a little trick I can do?"
His head tilts in response but watches you very attentively so you take that as a yes.
"Ok, uhm, hmm." You hum as you search around the room to find anything hand-sized. "Ah ha!"
You crawl across the floor a bit to grab three different erasers from the sill of the whiteboards mounted on the wall. You shuffle your way back over and lean up onto your knees as his head shifts side to side as he watches you.
Your hands clasp onto the erasers as you try to find a good grip. You throw up the first, positioning to throw the second but fumble as you get used to their square shape as opposed to the round balls you were used to. You try to start up again but fumble once more and the erasers fall onto the ground. How professional you grumbled in your mind, getting a bit embarrassed over your rusty skills.
"Shit." You quickly spit out as you lean down to snatch them but your eyes widen as you realized you slipped. "Fuck, I mean shit, ahh sorry! I am so sorry I promise I'll get better."
You look up at Sunny apologetically but he chuckles while shifting to sit more relaxed against the wall. "It's ok, keep going."
You hum as he seems to be relaxing around you. You're happy to be the clown for once if it means he cheers up. With a steadying breath, you start back up again and manage to juggle the erasers.
He leans forward while cooing, faceplate approaching closer to the arch's range to watch your hands shuffle, toss, and catch the small objects. You only do a few rotations before letting them drop, not even bothering to attempt to hold them all at once again.
He immediately starts clapping his hands once you finished your little performance and you giggle while playfully bowing. “Oh thank you, thank you so much!”
“That was amazing!” He starts bouncing in front of you and scoots closer to pick up the erasers to try tossing them himself.
“Oh, that was nothing but a party trick, you should have seen the real jugglers I worked with. They could throw anything. Knives, bowling balls, lamps. Actually, now that I think about it, you could probably toss like three of me.” You joke, pushing towards his metal arms that don’t budge a bit with your nudge.
“Yes, teach me! You have to teach me, please please please.” His head spun again, and your heart warmed at how happy he was when he was at ease.
“Absolutely, we will have plenty of time during work for me to teach you.”
"So that means you'll work with us?" He quits down again and sits still as he waits for your answer.
"That depends, will you let me work with you knowing I have a sailor's mouth? I promise I will do my best to work on it, and I swear I am great at not slipping in front of children so you don't have to worry about that."
"You.. you want to know if we want to work with you?"
"Of course, you guys have been the ringmasters of the daycare from day one. I respect the chain of command."
He shifts in front of you in thought, his hands clasping each other as he thinks. You can tell he is clearly conflicted and you wouldn’t blame him a bit with what has been happening to him.
“What do you want Sunny?”
“What do I want?” He looks confused and distracts himself by running his fingers along the bumpy ridges of the eraser in his hand.
“Yeah, I mean I would completely understand if you don’t want another coworker after the way you have been treated. I wouldn’t even blame you if you didn’t want to share the spotlight and perform with me. I just want you to be happy, and I want someone to give you a choice for once.”
“I, we want you to work with us. Please I promise I’ll be good!” His shoulders scrunch up as he curls back down and you sigh. This was a start but you knew it would take a lot more time and reassurances to get him to fully trust you.
“And I promise,” You slowly take his hands back in yours and purposeful stare at him. “That I will try my best not to swear, I promise I will always try to do my best, and most important I promise I will always respect you.”
His smile grew more as his inner cheeks pinched and he quickly pounced forward to loop you into a large hug. You are a bit surprised at just how soft he is to hug and find yourself happily nuzzling in. You can feel the soft whir of his internal fans spinning and find it as soothing as a box fan in the window during summer nights.
“Yes! I want that, we want that, please be our friend!”
“I think we are going to be really good friends Sunny.” You hum against his chest, feeling his fingers curl into your back.
You don’t want to leave him, especially now that you are terrified to imagine what goes on between management and him behind closed doors. But you had power, they were desperate and you knew the request your mind has been brewing up would be quickly granted. Reluctantly you pull yourself out of his arms and try not to frown at the sad head tilt he gives you.
“Sorry bud, I gotta go deal with those as-meanie butts.” Your lips pull as you catch the small slip but correct yourself. “See I told you I would try.”
His smile grows even wider if that’s even possible for him and doesn’t seem to be bothered by the mention of the men again which you are grateful for. Instead, he pats the top of your head softly, running his hand down your hair with each pet.
“You are doing so good new friend! I know you’ll get it one day, and I’ll be there with you every day to help!”
As you shift to lift up he places his hands in yours and gives you a small boost. You say a soft ‘thank you’ under your breath and dust off your knees. You take one last meaningful look at the animatronic you’ve sworn to be friends with. You can’t go back now and deny the job you were on the fence about. You still had your reservations but they were all swept away by Sunny.
Even now as he smiles at you there is something so fragile about him, ironically. You can’t help but feel like you're staring up at a much taller version of yourself a decade ago. You didn’t understand the full picture but you didn’t need to so you could understand that emotion. That burning emotion that tore your life apart.
This time though your metaphorical younger self didn’t have to be alone. Everyone made you feel like a burden, that you couldn’t do anything. They all thought you needed help like everyone thinks Sunny needs help. You both needed help but not in the way anyone cared to understand. You needed hope, you needed someone to stand up for you.
You will be that person for them now.
You give a small wave to Sunny as you back up towards the door, turning to open the door but stopping as your hand makes contact with the handle. You didn’t want to leave him alone, but if all goes well it will just be a night. You could do this.
“Hey Sunny?” You turn to look at him and he hasn’t moved an inch from where you last left him.
“Yes, friend?”
“Thank you, and let Moon know that I am excited to work with you both.” Your fingers twirl around your sleeve deciding whether or not you’ll add the next part swirling in your mind.
“I will be back, I promise.” You finally whisper out, skin crawling a bit at the vulnerable tone of your voice.
To break that crippling feeling of vulnerability you shoot out finger guns toward him. He surprises you with his quick improv and immediately dances around to miss being hit by your imaginary bullets. You both giggle and you can only wish that you have given him enough hope to cling onto when you’re gone.
You wave again and walk out the door, managing to close it softer this time. The men looked like they also haven’t moved an inch and are all looking at you expectantly. Just seeing their dumb fear-filled eyes brings the rage boiling back up but you steady your breath to not fuck up this opportunity.
“So where do I sign?” You speak up knowing they don’t dare to ask and risk spooking their golden candidate.
“Excellent! See I just knew you would do per-“
“I have one stipulation.” You seize your chance to interrupt him as he has done nonstop to you. “I really need a job, so I will be signing on to start tomorrow.”
“Well, well, well. Quite the little go-getter. I see that and all of us here at the F.E.C very much respect the work ethic.” He snaps to the man on his right and gets handed the clipboard with the contract.
He takes the pen attached to the clipboard and manually scribbles in what you assume is the start date and flips it around while holding out the pen to you. “Sign right on that line.”
The simple line felt so similar to the dangerous walk of the tightrope but with the same courage you took your life back with you grabbed hold of the pen and signed the dotted line.
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wolfliving · 2 years
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Alexa in crisis
*It’ll be a shock if Alexa is killed, because this was the one alleged consumer mega-hit of the Internet-of-Things smart home.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/amazon-alexa-is-a-colossal-failure-on-pace-to-lose-10-billion-this-year/
Amazon is going through the biggest layoffs in the company's history right now, with a plan to eliminate some 10,000 jobs. One of the areas hit hardest is the Amazon Alexa voice assistant unit, which is apparently falling out of favor at the e-commerce giant. That's according to a report from Business Insider, which details "the swift downfall of the voice assistant and Amazon's larger hardware division."
Alexa has been around for 10 years and has been a trailblazing voice assistant that was copied quite a bit by Google and Apple. Alexa never managed to create an ongoing revenue stream, though, so Alexa doesn't really make any money. The Alexa division is part of the "Worldwide Digital" group along with Amazon Prime video, and Business Insider says that division lost $3 billion in just the first quarter of 2022, with "the vast majority" of the losses blamed on Alexa. That is apparently double the losses of any other division, and the report says the hardware team is on pace to lose $10 billion this year. It sounds like Amazon is tired of burning through all that cash.
A division in crisis
The BI report spoke with "a dozen current and former employees on the company's hardware team," who described "a division in crisis." Just about every plan to monetize Alexa has failed, with one former employee calling Alexa "a colossal failure of imagination," and "a wasted opportunity." This month's layoffs are the end result of years of trying to turn things around. Alexa was given a huge runway at the company, back when it was reportedly the "pet project" of former CEO Jeff Bezos. An all-hands crisis meeting took place in 2019 to try to turn the monetization problem around, but that was fruitless. By late 2019, Alexa saw a hiring freeze, and Bezos started to lose interest in the project around 2020. Of course, Amazon now has an entirely new CEO, Andy Jassy, who apparently isn't as interested in protecting Alexa.
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The report says that while Alexa's Echo line is among the "best-selling items on Amazon, most of the devices sold at cost." One internal document described the business model by saying, "We want to make money when people use our devices, not when they buy our devices."
That plan never really materialized, though. It's not like Alexa plays ad breaks after you use it, so the hope was that people would buy things on Amazon via their voice. Not many people want to trust an AI with spending their money or buying an item without seeing a picture or reading reviews. The report says that by year four of the Alexa experiment, "Alexa was getting a billion interactions a week, but most of those conversations were trivial commands to play music or ask about the weather." Those questions aren't monetizable....
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shakks · 4 months
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Music tech startup closing doors due to low investor, public interest in flagship product
April 18 - ALEPH
Earlier this week, the CEO of AbleSound Acoustics sent out notice that the company would be closing its doors, citing lack of initial investment and poor first impressions of their flagship product, the Tondeker modular guitar.
"While disheartening, we must face the reality of music production in the current day and age. The DAW has its place in the studio, as do those who are serious about recording their own performances. We were searching for that weird combination of live performer, disc jockey, and audio technician, but ended up missing the mark for all three. I'm still proud of my team and the strides that they were able to make in the name of music production, but the world has chosen to head in a different direction."
The CEO continued, citing AI-assisted music generation as one of the many reasons behind the lukewarm audience reception. Critics and reviewers provided a multitude of additional reasons for the Tondeker's failure to launch.
The guitar was lambasted for its appearance among the public, with one such post on social media decrying it as "an ugly metal box that has no right to call itself a guitar". While those willing to give it a chance found it easy to use, they noted that they also had difficulty understanding the niche it was meant for.
"Not every performance needs to be recorded, and not every composition needs to be performed. I play my actual guitar and compose on my tablet. I don't need to tape the two together!"
In spite of its shortcomings, the Tondeker is still technically impressive. It is lauded for its hard-light integration, a first for the emerging technology. However, even there it was not free from criticism, as the idea of interfacing hard-light with music led to safety concerns among testers.
"Take away all the extra doodads, and this thing is nothing more than a fancy theremin. It's fun to mess around with, but the novelty wears off quickly."
AbleSound Acoustics will cease operations in June. The company's employees are hopeful that they will be able to continue collaborating and innovate in a different field that is better suited to their strengths.
Investors speculate that the technological uniqueness of the Tondeker combined with the limited nature of its manufacturing run will lead to both the guitar and its modules being highly sought-after by collectors and enthusiasts.
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mariacallous · 8 days
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A Sam Altman–funded nonprofit studying the effects of giving monthly checks of up to $1,000 to lower-income households in the US espouses transparency in its operations. “We aim to share data, findings, and insights widely,” OpenResearch says on its website, which describes its work as a “public good.”
But like at least two other Altman-linked organizations—OpenAI and UBI Charitable—OpenResearch has decided to withhold information about its finances and governance. In several years of filings to US tax authorities since their founding, each of the organizations has answered a question about their voluntary disclosure of financial statements, governing documents, and conflict-of-interest policies by stating that the public can review them upon request. It remains unclear whether anyone took them up on the offer in those years.
When WIRED requested those records, spokespeople for OpenAI in December and OpenResearch and UBI Charitable this month said their policies had changed, and up-to-date documents would not be disclosed. OpenResearch spokesperson Sourav Das only shared an undated and likely outdated conflict-of-interest policy bearing its old name, while UBI Charitable, which supports programs that offer unconditional cash transfers, didn’t turn over any records.
Both organizations claim their past statements on IRS forms were meant to underscore that they share documents they are required to under law, such as the filings themselves and their original applications to secure an exemption from paying taxes. But there’s already a wholly separate question on the form about access to documents that must be legally disclosed.
A UBI Charitable spokesperson responding with an unsigned email from an account titled “UBI Admin” didn’t respond to follow-up questions about their identity and additional explanation on why records hadn’t been provided. OpenAI spokesperson Kayla Wood says Altman has no formal role at UBI Charitable.
It’s uncommon for nonprofit organizations in the US to publish files they don’t legally have to, and there’s no penalty for shifting policies. But OpenResearch and UBI Charitable shrouding their operations hold particular significance after Altman's fellow board members at OpenAI last year publicly accused him of a lack of candor.
In a podcast interview last month, now-former board member Helen Toner alleged that OpenAI CEO Altman failed to disclose that he was launching ChatGPT and that he owned OpenAI’s years-old startup investment fund, control of which he didn't cede until this March. Toner also alleged that Altman provided inaccurate information about the organization’s procedures for preventing harm from its work. Later writing in the Economist, Toner and ex-board member Tasha McCauley said they believed Altman “undermined the board’s oversight of key decisions and internal safety protocols” and that senior leaders described him as cultivating “a toxic culture of lying.” Former employees claim they were muzzled from raising safety concerns. Toner and Altman declined to comment for this story. McCauley didn't respond to a request for comment.
OpenAI's new board chair Bret Taylor has said prior board members' concerns were not driven by OpenAI’s finances nor its statements to investors, and that Altman enjoys overwhelming support internally.
Elon Musk, who says he contributed over $40 million to help launch and sustain OpenAI, had seized on accusations about Altman to sue him in California state court for allegedly deviating from OpenAI’s original mission to develop AI to benefit humanity. Musk withdrew the lawsuit on June 11, without explanation.
OpenAI had called Musk’s claims meritless. An investigation it commissioned found “a breakdown in trust” between Altman and board members but not sufficient as to require his removal from power, according to a summary that OpenAI released while declining to share the full report.
The alleged concerns about Altman’s behavior wouldn’t necessarily be stopped, exposed, or rectified by transparency into an organization’s finances or rules. Their disclosure, however, could inspire greater public confidence and provide clarity during any future disputes. They could show the process meant to be followed to vet potential partnerships with other Altman-connected entities, how leadership can be ousted, and where money is flowing in more granular detail than generally otherwise available.
No-Strings Cash
The OpenAI-linked nonprofits are putting millions of dollars, including in part from Altman's personal fortune earned through investing in startups, toward a potentially pivotal question in the decades to come: How to uplift people economically as technologies such as AI come for their jobs.
Altman started what became OpenResearch as YC Research, an offshoot of Y Combinator, the startup accelerator he was running at the time in 2015. He said he would be donating $10 million to the nonprofit and set its first cause as funding a five-year study in the US on basic income, the concept of sending people a steady stipend with no strings attached. “I’m fairly confident that at some point in the future, as technology continues to eliminate traditional jobs and massive new wealth gets created, we’re going to see some version of this at a national scale,” Altman wrote in 2016.
He wanted to understand what people did with the extra cash, how they felt, and what effect this had on the rest of society. Elizabeth Rhodes, a then-recent doctoral graduate in social work and political science, came on as research director in 2016, started a pilot project in Oakland, California, dissociated the organization from Y Combinator, and went on to raise a total of about $25 million in contributions through 2022. The full-scale study, which ended up lasting three years across two US states (undisclosed so far), just wrapped. Results are expected later this year.
Altman chairs OpenResearch’s board but has provided “total independence" to the organization, Rhodes recently told Fortune. Yet he is entangled in other ways. OpenResearch was $14.5 million in debt to Altman as of the end of 2022 to repay about $14 million he had personally loaned the organization, according to the organization’s filings to the IRS to stay exempt from paying taxes. OpenAI also contributed at least $75,000 in a grant to OpenResearch.
Its IRS filings, which span 2016 through 2022, maintained that the nonprofit would release records that it’s not under obligation to do so. Das, the spokesperson, says the 2023 filing will clarify that OpenResearch is “happy to provide information required to be shared publicly if it is not available” on websites where the IRS and state of California publish required disclosures.
Neither database mandates nor generally contains up-to-date versions of the records that UBI Charitable and OpenResearch had said they provided in the past.
The original YC Research conflict-of-interest policy that Das did share calls for company insiders to be upfront about transactions in which their impartiality could be questioned and for the board to decide how to proceed.
Das says the policy “may have been amended since OpenResearch’s policies changed (including when the name was changed from YC Research), but the core elements remain the same.”
No Website
UBI Charitable launched in 2020 with $10 million donated from OpenAI, as first reported by TechCrunch last year. UBI Charitable’s aim, according to its government filings, is putting the over $31 million it received by the end of 2022 to support initiatives that try to offset “the societal impacts” of new technologies and ensure no one is left behind. It has donated largely to CitySquare in Dallas and Heartland Alliance in Chicago, both of which work on a range of projects to fight poverty.
UBI Charitable doesn’t appear to have a website but shares a San Francisco address with OpenResearch and OpenAI, and OpenAI staff have been listed on UBI Charitable's government paperwork. Its three Form 990 filings since launching all state that records including governing documents, financial statements, and a conflict-of-interest policy were available upon request.
Rick Cohen, chief operating and communications officer for National Council of Nonprofits, an advocacy group, says “available upon request” is a standard answer plugged in by accounting firms. OpenAI, OpenResearch, and UBI Charitable have always shared the same San Francisco accounting firm, Fontanello Duffield & Otake, which didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Miscommunication or poor oversight could lead to the standard answer about access to records getting submitted, “even if the organization wasn’t intending to make them available,” Cohen says.
The disclosure question ended up on what’s known as the Form 990 as part of an effort in 2008 to help the increasingly complex world of nonprofits showcase their adherence to governance best practices, at least as implied by the IRS, says Kevin Doyle, senior director of finance and accountability at Charity Navigator, which evaluates nonprofits to help guide donors’ giving decisions. “Having that sort of transparency story is a way to indicate to donors that their money is going to be used responsibly,” Doyle says.
OpenResearch solicits donations on its website, and UBI Charitable stated on its most recent IRS filing that it had received over $27 million in public support. Doyle says Charity Navigator’s data show donations tend to flow to organizations it rates higher, with transparency among the measured factors.
It’s certainly not unheard of for organizations to share a wide range of records. Charity Navigator has found that most of the roughly 900 largest US nonprofits reliant on individual donors publish financial statements on their websites. It doesn’t track disclosure of bylaws or conflict-of-interest policies.
Charity Navigator publishes its own audited financial statements and at least eight nonstandard policies it maintains, including ones on how long it retains documents, how it treats whistleblower complaints, and which gifts staff can accept. “Donors can look into what we're doing and make their own judgment rather than us operating as a black box, saying, ‘Please give us money, but don't ask any questions,’” Doyle says.
Cohen of the National Council of Nonprofits cautions that over-disclosure could create vulnerabilities. Posting a disaster-recovery plan, for example, could offer a roadmap to computer hackers. He adds that just because organizations have a policy on paper doesn’t mean they follow it. But knowing what they were supposed to do to evaluate a potential conflict of interest could still allow for more public accountability than otherwise possible, and if AI could be as consequential as Altman envisions, the scrutiny may very well be needed.
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mitchipedia · 2 months
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Bill Gates, ousted for misconduct, is still pulling the strings at Microsoft
Business Insider:
Publicly, Gates has been almost entirely out of the picture at Microsoft since 2021, following allegations that he had behaved inappropriately toward female employees. In fact, Business Insider has learned, Gates has been quietly orchestrating much of Microsoft’s AI revolution from behind the scenes. Current and former executives say Gates remains intimately involved in the company’s operations – advising on strategy, reviewing products, recruiting high-level executives, and nurturing Microsoft’s crucial relationship with Sam Altman, the cofounder and CEO of OpenAI. In early 2023, when Microsoft debuted a version of its search engine Bing turbocharged by the same technology as ChatGPT, throwing down the gauntlet against competitors like Google, Gates, executives said, was pivotal in setting the plan in motion. While Nadella might be the public face of the company’s AI success – the Oz who built the yellow-brick road to a $3 trillion juggernaut – Gates has been the man behind the curtain.
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blazehedgehog · 1 year
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Thoughts on ChatGPT and AI?
I saw something in a tweet (or perhaps on cohost) about the growing sentiment that things like ChatGPT have already attained sentience and people think they are speaking to a consciousness because it accurately simulates human speech. Just last night, a friend of mine was pasting ChatGPT logs where people were having it generate... reviews? pitches? For fake movies that did not exist.
They weren't good, but they were amusing, and seemed to be written intelligently. Not well, mind you. As far as comedy material goes, they were fairly bland, C-grade stuff. But they read as if a boring, average human had written them.
I tried to generate one of my own, and ChatGPT protested, because it considered a fake movie to be "misinformation" and it told me it did not want to be used to generate or spread lies. It was an expression of intent.
And I think back to the Google employee that was fired last year after becoming convinced that Google's internal chat bot, used to interface with their "algorithm", had achieved sentience because he was able to ask it philosophical questions. He said it demonstrated self-awareness, because the answers it provided were written as if a human person was expressing wants and desires.
And here's the deal: I've written chat bots myself. I like to boast about the fact I've written a chat bot that employs markov chains years before I knew what a markov chain was. I stumbled upon the concept completely organically, on my own terms. It makes me feel pretty smart!
The point is, I've built these things before, because the underlying concept just makes sense. Now, ChatGPT is dramatically more complex than the one I built, but the core idea is still the same. It's just their sentence assembly algorithm is a lot better than mine was.
And we as a species will put googly eyes on our roombas and give it pet names and take care of it like it is part of the family. We will see personality in places where there is just cold, unfeeling pattern recognition. Nothing can be random, everything is being controlled by the forces of the universe, and this must be some manifestation and exhibition of "the soul." Right?
That puts us in the realm of like, scrying, or bone-reading, or divination.
For a chat bot.
That's hubris. These machines are not capable of making human decisions. They are something you insert numbers in to, it calculates those numbers, and tells you the result. It's easy to be metaphorical about a description like that, but there is nothing creationary happening here.
When a person creates a piece of artwork, it is because they have the overwhelming desire to express an emotion that is dominating their thoughts. That art -- whether it's a painting, a novel, a song, or whatever -- is a lightning rod to channel their feelings. That is why particularly powerful art makes us feel things when we experience it, because it is human emotion in its rawest form.
When a robot creates a piece of artwork, it is because it has been asked to. Because it has been fed a "prompt." The robot has no overwhelming desires. It only exists because a human asked it to exist.
And what the robot generates isn't a collection of influences from things it picked out for itself because it formed an emotional connection with the source material. It's generated from information it was spoon-fed by someone else. The only reason it is able to generate beauty is because somebody else made an emotional connection and told the robot to copy its homework.
It isn't arrested by anxiety it cannot control, or understands what lovesickness is. It does not feel fear or curiosity. It only thinks when it is told to think, and it can only tell you things other people have already thought.
This is why things like Midjourney sample so many millions of images -- because that allows it to more easily hide just how much of it is simply recycled from existing content, and that obscurity theft sells the lie of creativity where there is none.
Then I think about people who joined the new Bing Search Beta, where instead of searching webpages, you talk to one of these chat bots. And the growing number of people who claim they're making the bot have a "mental breakdown." And how, in order for that to be true, somebody needed to write specific code for this to happen.
But then why would somebody do such a thing? What goal is being attained by making you believe the bot can feel things it clearly cannot? What agenda is this a part of?
Stay human out there, folks.
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sourcreammachine · 12 days
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TORY PARTY MANIFESTO 2024 SUMMARY
tldr: little rishi is liz truss now. words 8, 9 and 10 of the manifesto are 'covid and ukraine', so they're swinging hard on excusemaking, and it's very negativist and defensive - attacking labour and justifying their terrible government. they know they’re losing so it’s a mess in an attempt to stop their base voting reform. this is the only major manifesto whose headings are written in serif, tryna act all official and luxe
💷ECONOMY
flat-rate employee national insurance cuts from 12% to 6% over the next two financial years, allegedly cutting income taxation for a £35k/a worker by £1,350 (their numbers) BUT also giving the highest 'employee' earners this same tax-cut
trickle-down economics: keep corporation tax at extreme lows
exempt the self-employed from national insurance contributions, essentially cutting overall income taxation by a couple percent
specific, direct threat to cut benefits for 'people of working age with a disability or health condition', restrict PIP entitlements with harsher assessments, massively expand 'fit to work' status over people with mental health and mobility conditions to remove benefits from 400k people (despite the current regime leading to misery and deaths), transfer fit note responsibility from GPs to the dwp to restrict more benefits, reduce the 'claimant review' date from 18 months to 12 months without work
transition child benefit entitlements to be based on 'household' earnings rather than individual earnings
"we will not increase the number of council tax bands, undertake an expensive council tax revaluation or cut council tax discounts, as labour is currently doing in wales", preventing councils from getting more property tax revenue whilst not increasing their funding from anywhere, enabling more and more and more and more councils to shit themselves and die, letting them blame labour for "bankrupting" the councils that the central government themselves squeezed to death
ban councils doing four-day week schemes
reduce net borrowing – curious considering the unfunded nature of the manifesto proposals
increase taxes on online distribution warehouses "to help the high street" [citation needed]
"use brexit freedoms" to recategorise many 'large' businesses as 'medium', exempting them from reporting requirements and allowing them to exploit their workers more
more fucking 'freeport' special economic zones
'strengthen the commonwealth' because that's the favourite excuse of europhobic excusemakers acting like severing trade with the mainland wasn't a horrifically bad idea. india and malaysia do not give a shit about us mate and it's ridiculous to think australia and guyana could ever offer as much economic integration as the mainland can
do nothing to supervise or control the City with a specific eye to doing nothing about "fintech" and "ai"
economic commitment to continue union-busting and restricting union rights, 'continue implementing' the so-called 'minimum service levels legislation' to enable strikebreaking and mandatory scabbing
🏥PUBLIC SERVICES
continue the privatisation of the NHS but with a focus on small/medium enterprises
expand, that's right, expand the indefensible multi-academy trusts, build more indefensible 'free schools' (ie with private charters, no oversight, and public cash), expand faith schools, strengthen ofsted to be even more bureaufascistic against attacks after that headteacher's suicide
continue and enforce the ongoing propaganda push into primary schools, "we will always support teachers to uphold and promote fundamental British values"
'close university courses with the worst outcomes' [clarification needed], again, threatening the higher education sector into compliance with their whims
stick all children not in school on a register
make the NHS app a single frontend for all NHS stuff
slash the size of the civil service and 'bring quango spending under control', incorporate so-called 'ai' into the civil service [clarification needed]
🏠HOUSING
lax planning laws including environmental protections and opportunities for legal challenge, and force councils to set aside land for builders, to allow more private-finance soulless newbuild sprawl, with no new infrastructure, no new community, only house-for-sale after house-for-sale
target the building of mcmansions on inner-city brownfields
expand help-to-buy for these horrible newbuilds
restrict social housing along xenophobic and classist lines: "we will legislate for new ‘local connection’ and ‘uk connection’ tests for social housing in england, to ensure this valuable but limited resource is allocated fairly"
'reform' leaseholds and cap ground rents, not abolishing this indefensible stain
give 105 towns a pathetic £20m
🚄TRANSPORT ?
build northern powerhouse rail including Bradford Station "using money saved from HS2" and £12b more, and upgrade the east midlands mainline
lax planning restrictions on new strategic (big and polluting) roads
deliver money centrally for transport projects: £1.75b for the midlands rail hub, a pathetic £1b for buses in the north AND in the midlands, and £13b for 'local priorities' to 'cut congestion' (read: roads)
introduce a specific 'death by dangerous cycling' offence
"automated vehicles will be on British roads in the next parliament"🤮
ban low-traffic neighbourhoods except on a 'road by road basis' 'with the support of the people who live there' and create a statutory right to challenge existing LTNs
"labour’s incoherent and ideological nationalisation plan would put the trade unions in charge", ie the incoming british railways (being set up) will continue the indefensible franchise-concession system that emerged after the final collapse of the franchise system in 2020
"include measures to reform outdated working practises in the rail industry" – ie forcing through driver-only trains and other things the drivers are striking against, possibly requiring strikebreaking them
👮FORCE
"in recent months we have seen shocking increases in protests being used as a cover for extremist disruption and criminality. we cannot allow a small and vocal minority to destroy our democratic values. that is why we unveiled a new extremism definition under which certain groups that promote an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance will be blocked from government funding and meeting officials. we have passed tough new laws to curb disruptive protests. our public order act 2023 [ie the Bill that the kill the bill protests were trying to kill] gave the police new powers to intervene where protests cause serious disruption to communities, leading to the arrests of over 600 just stop oil and extinction rebellion protestors in London alone. we will introduce further powers to ban face coverings, pyrotechnics and climbing on war memorials. we will strengthen police powers to prevent protests or marches that pose a risk of serious disorder, by allowing police to take into account the cumulative impact of protests"
"building on our new powers for the police, we will further speed up the use and enforcement of powers to remove illegal traveller sites, while giving councils greater planning powers to prevent unauthorised development by travellers", furthering the ongoing clampdown on the civil rights of our country's GRT people
surge funding for the armed forces
deliberate target to be europe's largest arms exporter by 2030 no i am not fucking joking
sabrerattle at the 'Axis of Hostile Actors' (russia, china, iran), giving a catchy name to the other side of this little cold war of theirs
abuse the permanent un council seat as much as possible
"we will push for a two-state solution in the middle east - our long-standing position has been that we will recognise a palestinian state that is most conductive to the peace process" [oxymoronic – SEE ME]
roll out broken windows policing
mandatory minimum of life for 'most heinous murderers', prohibit parole for rapists
not enact Leveson 2 and allow the press hate speech and corruption to continue, proceed with centralised renegotiation of BBC funding with all statecapture (or the effects of the threats thereof) that may entail
half-baked national service proposal. look, they know they're gonna lose so they've come up with this faff to win over their base. all 18-year-olds (no specific enumeration given so i'm guessing it means from yer 18th birthday to 19th birthday, interfering with exams and start of uni) forced to do one weekend a month 'community volunteering', or get one of 30k places in the military (out of a typical annual cohort of 400k) for a year, so the troops get distracted from their warcrimes by being forced to do childcare lmao. the compulsion to do this is not enumerated, with one rogue minister suggesting fines could fall at the feet of the parents of these adult people. takeaway: this is total nonsense and they don't have to make it make sense so who cares
legal cap on work and family visas, screen migrants for health conditions and force them to pay if they need treatment, do the rwanda concentration camp scheme, ban asylum seekers from countries 'that don't work with us', mass deportations of illegals [clarification needed]
LEAVE THE EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS if it finds against the rwanda concentration camp scheme
expand the NCA with a focus on being the hostile environment
promote the imperialistic ambitions of the anglosphere and english as the cosmocratic imperial lingua franca
only 30k of the so-called 'national service' would in the military, so basically forcing the military to do daycare
commitment to continued strikebreaking and union-busting
force landlords to evict "antisocial" tenants in a 'three strikes and you're out' policy
ban mobile phones in schools
pledge for a Bad Internet Bill to restrict online content, 'carefully consider' the bertin review to implement hostile measures against pornography
🌱CLIMATE ?
build new gas power stations and accelerate oil and gas extraction in the north sea
treble offshore wind, in line with labour's proposals
invest £1b into green energy – a pathetically small amount
approve more nuclear reactors
carbon credit scheme for imports of materials
restrict the mandate of the climate change committee
force solar power stations to be a minimum distance from another solar power station 'to protect rural landscapes'
allow nimby organisations to prevent onshore wind
reverse the ultra-low emissions zone expansion
slowly work towards a deposit-return system
a new national park. a new one. a. one
🗳️DEMOCRACY ?
"we remain committed to the first past the post system for elections, maintaining the direct link with the local voter. we will not change the voting age rom 18. we will maintain rules to tackle voting fraud, including the requirement to show id"
"we believe the governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland now have the right balance of powers"
"we will bring forward legislation to reapply the entirety of the trade union act 2016 (ie restricting the rights of unions) to wales. and a welsh conservative government would reverse labour's plans to expand the senedd" [relevance - this isn't a manifesto for the senedd election]
expand the useless sticking-plaster combined authorities, give powers first to Tees Valley in bare-faced partisan corruption
🏳️‍⚧️REACTIONARY AGENDA
"biological sex is a reality. the overwhelming majority of people in this country recognise that. it has been more than a decade since the equality act was passed by a labour government. it has not kept pace with evolving interpretations and is not sufficiently clear on when it means sex and when it means gender. the next conservative government will introduce primary legislation to clarify that the protected characteristic of sex in the equality act means biological sex. this will guarantee that single sex services and single sex spaces can be provided, for example in healthcare and sports settings, to ensure women and girls are protected"
"in recent years, an increasing number of children have started questioning their gender, the consequences of which are still unknown. parents will have a right to know if their child wants to be treated as the opposite sex and schools will have to involve parents when it comes to decisions about their children"
"attempts at so-called 'conversion therapy' are abhorrent. but legislation around conversion practices is a very complex issue, with existing criminal law already offering robust protections. in light of the cass review final report, it is right that we take more time before reaching a final judgement"
"we will work to strengthen the relationship between schools and parents, including by delivering new legislation which will make clear, beyond all doubt, that parents have a right to see what their child is being taught in school [they made it bold not me] and schools must share all materials, especially on sensitive matters like relationships and sex education. this builds on the progress [citation needed] we have already made, having updated relationships, sex and health education guidance to introduce clear age-limits on what children can be taught [the rightist outrage at 'sex education for five year olds' is literally stuff like gay people exist so don't bully billy two-dads for having two dads, which is of course fucking unacceptable to the daily mosley] and guarantee the contested concept of gender identity is not taught to children [clarification needed -- or not, because the vagueness is the point, it's Section 28 two, terrorising the entire public sector into silence about anything the daily mosley might clench their pearls about]."
commitment to implement the cass review, ban the private prescription of puberty blockers, accelerate the increasing prohibition of their NHS prescription, fight 'ideologically-driven care' and follow 'evidence' (in the context of the case review meaning absolute prohibition and literal torture)
stop public sector DEI [clarification needed]
'not allow the word woman to be erased'
🤔STRAIGHT UP NON-POLICIES
a load of stuff in the manifesto, especially in the economic section, is just 'maintain funding for...', including 'maintaining' the living wage (ie without even making it legally mandatory), and do ongoing plans instituted by public sector organs that wouldn't be theirs to organise
the so-called 'triple lock plus' or 'quadruple lock': the triple lock legally mandates three possible minima for the state pension, depending on which is highest. it's currently below the tax-free personal allowance, but it is forecast to go above the current personal allowance at some point, which would mean pensioners would start paying tax on the income above the allowance. the tories have made a huge song and dance about raising the personal allowance for pensioners in line with the triple lock. George W Bush 'Mission Accomplished' energy. they're trying to present 'removing' this weird and unhelpful discrepancy as a 'tax cut', even though it is currently not a 'tax' and would be easily rectified by any incumbent government facing this situation by just raising the allowance, because all pensioners would cause a hell of a storm were the government to forget to solve the discrepancy. and it totally ignores any possibility of the personal allowance being raised anyway
prevent first-time buyers from having to pay stamp duty! except there's been a 'temporary' lien for years so this is nothing
'maintain the ban on prisoners voting' is listed as an actual policy
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