#AI in Computer Vision Market

[delightfullyatomiccollector-blog]

The global Al in computer vision market size is projected to reach USD 63.48 billion in 2030 from USD 23.42 billion in 2025; it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 22.1% from 2025 to 2030.

The AI in computer vision market is growing at an incredible pace as industries increasingly rely on advanced technologies to improve efficiency, accuracy, and decision-making. In the healthcare industry, it is revolutionizing diagnostics with enhanced image analysis.

[indianahal]

AI, stands for artificial intelligence computer systems,  that conduct tasks that historically required human intelligence to complete.  This includes recognizing human speech, making decisions, identifying patterns,  generating written content, steering a car or truck, and analyzing data.  A lot of people today are wondering if the benefits of AI are worth the resulting human job losses, production efficiencies, cost savings, etc.?  My new program, "Do We Really Want AI To Replace More Human Decision Making?"

[txttletale]

hey what’s up, i think you’re pretty cool but disagree with you on the whole ai can make art thing. to me, without the purpose from an actual person creating the piece, it’s not art but an image; as all human art has purpose. some driving factor in a work, compared to a program which purely creates the prompt without further intention. i was wondering what your insight on this is? either way, hope you have a great day

well, first of all, does art require 'purpose'? there's this view of art which has very much calcified in "anti-AI" rhetoric, that art is some linear process of communication from one individual to another: an Artist puts some Meaning into a unit of Art, which others can then view to Recieve that Meaning. you can hold this view, but i don't! i'm much more of a stuart hall-head on this, i think that there is no such transfusion of Intent and that rather the 'meaning' of a piece is something that exists only in the interplay between text and reader. reading is an active, interpretative process of decoding, not a passive absorptive one. so i dispute, firstly, that 'purpose' is to begin with a necessary or even imporant element of art.

moreover i think this argument rests on a very arbitrarily selective view of what counts as "an actual person creating the piece" -- 'the prompt' is, itself, an obvious artistic contribution, a place where an artist can impart huge amounts of direction, vision, and so on. in fact, i completely reject the claim of both the technology's salesman and its biggest detractors that genAI "makes art" -- to quote kerry mitchell's fractal art manifesto: "Turn a computer on and leave it alone for an hour. When you come back, no art will have been generated." in the past, i've posed questions about generative art pieces to demonstrate this

secondly, of course, the process does not end after image generation from prompt for serious generative artists--the ones who are serious about the artform (rather than tech guys trying to do marketing for the Magical Art Box) frequently iterate and iterate, generating a range of iterations and then picking one to iterate on further, so on and so forth, until the final image they choose to share is one that contains within it the traces of a thousand discrete choices on behalf of the artist (two pretty good explanations of this from people who actually do this stuff can be found here and here)

third and finally, that very choice to share the image is itself an artistic decision! we (and by we, i mean, anyone who cares about what art is) have been talking about this since fountain -- display is a form of artistic intent, taking something and putting it forward and saying 'this is art' is in and of itself an artistic decision being made even if the thing itself is unaltered: see, for example, the entire discipline of 'found art'. once someone challenged me, yknow, "if you did a google search, would that be art?" and my answer to that is, if you screenshot that google search and share it as art, then yes, resoundingly yes! curation and presentation recontextualizes objects, turning them into rich texts through the simple process of reframing them. so even if you granted that genAI output is inherently random computer noise (i don't, of course) -- i still think that the act of presenting it as art makes it so.

since i assume you're not familiar with anything interesting in the medium, because the most popular stuff made with genAI is pure "lo-fi girl in ghibli style" type slop, let me share some genAI pieces (or genAI-influenced pieces) that i think are powerful and interesting:

the meat gala, rob sheridan (warning: body horror!)

secret horses (does anyone know the original source on this?)

infinite art machine, reachartwork

ethinically ambigaus, james tamagotchi

mcdonalds simpsons porn room, wayneradiotv

software greatman, everything everything (the music is completely made by the band, but genAI was partially responsible for the lyrics -- including the title and the several interesting pseudo-kennings)

i want a love like this music video, everything everything

cocaine is the motor of the modern world, bots of new york

poison the walker, roborosewatermasters (here's my analysis posts on it too)

not all of these were necessarily intended as art: but i think they are rich and fascinating texts when read that way -- they have certainly impacted me as much as any art has.

anyways, whether you agree or not, i hope this gives you some stuff to think about, thanks for sharing your thoughts :)

[neetihtfmi]

  AI in Computer Vision Market Growth Holds Strong

Computer Vision, a subset of artificial intelligence, focuses on enabling machines to interpret visual information from the world around them, just like human vision. AI-powered Computer Vision has numerous applications across various industries, including healthcare, automotive, retail, security, entertainment, and more.

[axeeglitter]

Back from the Vault: LifeX

Nathan Brown sat hunched over his desk, the glow of his laptop screen illuminating his tired eyes. His San Francisco apartment was a mess: clothes strewn across the floor, empty takeout containers stacked on the kitchen counter, and a half-empty coffee mug perched precariously on the edge of his desk. Nathan's bed was unmade, a tangled heap of blankets and pillows. The room smelled faintly of stale air and sweat, the result of a broken air conditioning unit and a lack of motivation to clean.

Nathan was staring at his laptop screen, scrolling through yet another round of job listings. His bank account was dangerously low, and the anxiety of unpaid bills was gnawing at him. He was 26 years old, recently graduated with a degree in communications, and he was struggling to find any kind of work. His YouTube channel, where he reviewed video games and shared walkthroughs, was his only source of income, but the revenue it brought in was barely enough to buy groceries, let alone pay rent or bills.

Nathan was average in build, with a light tan from his Latino heritage, and short, dark hair that he usually kept neat. His face was lightly stubbled, a sign of his growing indifference to grooming as stress took over. He sighed and rubbed his eyes, feeling the weight of exhaustion settle into his bones. He was on the brink of giving up when a notification popped up on his screen, breaking his focus.

"Subject: Exciting Opportunity for Collaboration!"

Nathan hesitated, then clicked on the email. It was from a company called LifeX. He didn’t recognize the name, but curiosity got the better of him.

“Dear Nathan,

We’ve come across your YouTube channel and believe we could work well together. LifeX is launching a groundbreaking new game, and we are looking for individuals to help us with beta testing and promotion. Your content aligns perfectly with our vision, and we think this could be a great collaboration. If you accept, you’ll also be able to help us optimize the AI of our games by creating your own NPC character, it’ll be later implemented in the game when it’ll be released. Of course, we offer financial compensation for your work.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards, The LifeX Team”

Nathan’s first instinct was skepticism. It sounded too good to be true, and he’d heard horror stories of scams and phishing attempts. But the desperation for money overrode his better judgment. He quickly searched for LifeX online, finding only a sparse website filled with vague marketing speak about “immersive experiences” and “cutting-edge technology.” There were no reviews, no user testimonials, nothing solid. This should have been a red flag, but Nathan was too desperate to care. He needed this. He needed a break.

Nathan decided to respond. He typed out a quick reply expressing his interest. Almost immediately, another email arrived, containing a download link, setup instructions, and a NDA requesting his personal information: name, age, location, and other details. Nathan filled out the form, barely thinking about the potential consequences. He selected the longest trial period possible: one month, hoping it would give him enough content for his channel and enough time to determine if the collaboration was worthwhile.

As soon as he submitted the form, a melodic chime sounded from his laptop, followed by a smooth, professional voice:

“Thank you for signing up, Nathan. To begin your experience, you will first create the NPC character, and then you’ll be ready to start your experience in the environment you’ll choose. For the trial to run successfully, please ensure that your computer remains on for the entire duration of the test period: one month. Any interruption may result in data loss or corruption. Welcome to LifeX.”

Nathan frowned at the last part but shrugged it off. He figured it was just standard legalese, probably meant for immersion. The screen changed to a character creation window, displaying a basic human figure in a T-pose. Nathan leaned forward, curiosity piqued, and started customizing the avatar.

He named the avatar “Cody,” envisioning him as the polar opposite of himself. Cody would be everything Nathan wasn’t: confident, athletic, and effortlessly cool. He adjusted the height to 6'4", pushed the muscle sliders to the maximum, giving Cody bulging biceps, a broad chest, and thick, powerful legs holding a perfectly muscled ass. From the corner of his eyes, Nathan spotted a slider on the groin area. He laughed as he understood he could also determine how big he could adjust Cody’s penis and balls. Smiling, he selected the largest option possible for his dick and added a huge heavy pair of balls to go with it, watching it grow in proportion to the rest of his body. He added bright hazel eyes, bushy eyebrows, and messy dark brown hairs that would contrast perfectly to the pale sun kissed skin.

After the body customization, Nathan saw a new window open: Clothes and accessories. After thinking about it, he chose a pair of denim shorts that ended mid-thigh, showing off Cody’s muscular legs. Nathan opted for no T-shirt, exposing Cody’s ripped torso and added a ripped sleeve shirt opened on his muscled hair pecs. He then moved on to accessories and decided to put a loop earring on his right ear and a silver chain around his neck.

After the customization was done, it was asked for Nathan to enter some information about the NPC he just created to create a base behavior for him. After a while, Nathan decided to go for the stereotypical fratbro behavior to go with the appearance he just did. He started typing, adding details about Cody’s lifestyle. He entered notes in the behavior interface: “Cody is dumb as a brick. He loves gym, training and being barefoot, feeling the ground under his calloused feet.” He laughed as he added another line: “Cody never takes showers, loves the smell of his own musk, enjoys sniffing his hairy armpits after a workout and scratching his big dick every couple of minutes after what he smells them and always smile enjoying his own musk.” Nathan chuckled, amused at the thought of creating such a ridiculous character. It was so far removed from his real life that it seemed like a fun NPC to talk and interact with. Just a dumb easy-going character that is always down for a fuck and a drink after a gym session barefoot in the woods.

Satisfied with his creation, he confirmed the settings. The game prompted him to select a location, and he chose the Secluded Forest Realm, envisioning Cody as a carefree physical trainer just out of college living in a cabin in the wilderness.

The screen went black for a moment, and the professional voice returned: “Now that your character is complete, it’s time to play! Please keep your computer running at all times to maintain synchronization. Any interruption may lead to data corruption. Enjoy your month-long experience, Nathan, and welcome to LifeX.” Nathan was really getting excited now. He conder what kind of character he would create for himself when he saw a flash of light on the screen. It looked like some kind of swirling mesh, almost like a blackhole. For a moment Nathan thought it was kind of a cool effect, but everything changed when he went to grab his half drink cup of coffee sitting next to him only to realize his right hand was tingling and tiny particles were escaping his nails, flying straight to his screen.

A sudden wave of fatigue hit Nathan, and the lights in his apartment flickered briefly. A sense of unease washed over him, making the hairs on his arms stand up. Before he could react, the tingling sensation spread from his fingertips up through his arms. He stared in disbelief as his fingers began to dissolve into streams of glowing white code, spreading quickly across his body. He tried to scream, but his voice caught in his throat. His vision blurred as the Life X logo was pulsing in bright light in the center of the screen with a loading bar under it going up further and further. The last thing he saw was the 100% before everything went black.

Nathan found himself suspended in a void. He was floating, naked, surrounded by darkness. Panic set in, his heart racing as he tried to move, but his body was frozen in a T-pose. The sensation was bizarre, as if he were trapped in a dream. He wanted to call out, but his voice was muffled, like shouting underwater. The smooth, professional voice returned, echoing through the void:

“Welcome to your new life, Nathan. Don’t panic; this process is normal and painless. In a few moments, you will begin your ideal life in the Secluded Forest Realm. Relax and feel calm. Avatar synchronization will begin in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1…”

“What the fuck, where am I? What is going on? Why can’t I move?! HELP!!” thought Nathan as he tried to scream even though his face remained frozen.

Nathan’s body suddenly stiffened. A pressure built inside him, starting at his core and spreading outward. His bones stretched and cracked, lengthening to match Cody’s new height. His arms and legs grew longer, muscles bulging and expanding to fill out his new form. Nathan could feel his muscles tearing and healing at an accelerated rate, becoming stronger and more defined with each passing second.

His skin began to tighten, smoothing out imperfections and leaving with a perfectly smooth skin all around his muscled body. Nathan would be screaming if his voice mas not muted. Everything was burning and it was like feeling his DNA being rewritten while still being conscious. As he felt tears rising up his eyes, a new sensation invaded his newly modified skin. In his pits, legs and between his pecs, he felt like thousands of needles were piercing holes. The sensation was only multiplied as he started to feel hair sprouting from the holes. They were dark brown and thick but worst, the sensation of piercing needles started to appear around his groin too. Still wondering what was happening to him, Nathan tried to connect the elements he could find and that when he realized. The secluded forest, the muscles, the hair; that was Cody’s information, which means… Just enough time to understand what was happening to him when the hair started to sprout in abondance around his dick and nuts and climbing up his sculpted abs in a thin happy trail. After the hair, the modifications started to appear on his face. His jawline becoming sharper and more angular, his cheekbones more pronounced. His lips filled out, becoming more defined, while his eyebrows grew thicker, framing his eyes. His vision sharpened, colors becoming brighter and more vivid. His brown eyes shifted to a bright hazel as he lost vision for a moment. Everything was happening all at once and still, Nathan felt like it was an eternity of pain.

Nathan’s hair thickened, turning into soft, dark strands that fell casually over his forehead. His ears reshaped slightly to match his new head structure. A sensation of warmth spread through his throat as his vocal cords tightened, his voice box reshaping. When he tried to speak, his voice was deeper, richer, and carried a slight accent, a relaxed, Western drawl.

Nathan felt a growing warmth in his groin and realized what was about to happen now. All of a sudden, he regrated giving Cody such a big dick and heavy nuts. His cock thickened and lengthened, becoming larger than Nathan had ever been. He could feel the veins snaking down his growing dick as his cock head started to grow thicker and bigger. He could feel the cold air surrounding him as the head sneaked out of his foreskin. Wait, his foreskin? He didn’t remember going this far in details. His nuts fall down and grew thicker and full of potent cum as he could feel them going overload working on creating new manly sperm nonstop. Nathan could feel the horniness starting to rise as his body was assaulted by huge amount of testosterone. A drop of precum appeared at the tip of his cock as he could feel the weight of it between his legs, an odd sensation that both embarrassed and intrigued him. His buttocks tightened, becoming firm and lifted, while his thighs and calves thickened with muscle.

The transformation was almost complete when Nathan felt a sharp pain on his left pec. He wanted to scream, but his body was still frozen. The pain was like a branding iron pressing into his skin. “What is this?!” screamed Nathan in his new deep voice. A voice appeared from all around him “Dear user: NATHAN BROWN, as talked with you earlier on, you agreed to review and help us create the new generation of AI used for our NPCs. For that, your character, CODY, will have to be monitored. This assignation, XXIV, is the link to your identity and allow us to track your character. Please relax as your actions will be tracked and then saved. The program will make sure to copy all your movements, thoughts and everything that your character, CODY, might do to make sure to copy human mechanism that will be implemented in our NPCs later on. Thank you for your service.” When it subsided, a Roman numeral tattoo “XXIV” was there, bold and black, as if it had always been part of him. Nathan could feel the tattoo pulsing with energy, as if it was more than just ink on skin.

As his body finished transforming, clothes materialized around him. He now wore a sleeveless, open checkered flannel shirt and a short pair of denim shorts. Then he felt his ear being stabbed as the earing appeared in it and the coldness of the silver metal appeared around his neck. His feet then started to tingle as Nathan could feel the skin of his sole getting thicker and denser to better serve his barefoot lifestyle in the forest.

Nathan was terrified about what he just heard; his humanity was going to be used to program AI that will be implemented in NPCs. How is that even possible? Does that mean he was Cody now? And for a whole month? He didn’t agree to this. He had a life outside, friends, job to find, maybe some interviews if he was lucky. And about the bills? What was he going to do?

As all the questions were swirling in his head, Nathan fell the restriction holding his body in place as it was being modified lift. He could move on his own again, and the first thing he tried to do was take of his shirt or necklace. But every tug on the clothes or metal fell like he was trying to rip a part of him away. The clothes were part of him now. Nathan started to feel tears rise once again in his ears as all he could see around him were the infinite void of this artificial world. “Modification process terminated, Assimilation to the realm starting in 3,2,1…” Out of nowhere, the ground started to shake under Nathan’s barefoot. Then he saw light pierce through the ceiling. As a reflex, he put his hands to cover his bright hazel eyes but the light was way too bright. Nathan could see entire walls of darkness vanish and being obliterated by this bright light coming from above and fear started to raise in him. Nathan closed his eyes as all he could see was the infinite light engulfing the void and him with it. When he opened his eyes, Nathan was alone in a cabin in the woods, standing in front of a mirror. For the first time, he could see from the first person point of view what the body he created really looked like. Everything was looking so life like, even scent of pine and dirt were coming from the opened window next to him. He could smell the woods, feel the sun on his skin, the wood under his foots. Everything was lifelike. As Nathan sight started to look what his transformed body looked like, his head started to spin. Nathan grabbed it with his two manly hands but the pain was growing stronger. And in the blink of an eye, Nathan was no more. Cody stared at his reflection before smiling and flexing his biceps while smiling. His right hand lowered to get inside his shorts and scratch his hairy dick before putting his fingers under his nose to smell his musk. Cody laughed as he walked away, grabbing a snack on his way out to go exercise a bit in the nature.

“New NPC starting test phase. Remaining time 30 days, 23 hours 59 minutes 23 seconds. Behavior analysis… Acting following user NATHAN BROWN encoding. Tester assimilation… Assimilation stable, user will turn back when tests are over.”

______________________________________________________________ Hey guys! Here's another story back from the Vault, and it's my first ever published story: LifeX Hope you guys enjoy this new version of my story. Let me know what you think of it. As always, my asks are open and i'm always looking for new ideas and prompts from you. I try to answer them all and I love to read your ideas so please, don't be afraid to send anything you'd like me to write and I'll do my best to do it :) Take care of yourself! P.S. A follow up to this story should arrive soon ;)

[mariacallous]

Next year will be Big Tech’s finale. Critique of Big Tech is now common sense, voiced by a motley spectrum that unites opposing political parties, mainstream pundits, and even tech titans such as the VC powerhouse Y Combinator, which is singing in harmony with giants like a16z in proclaiming fealty to “little tech” against the centralized power of incumbents.

Why the fall from grace? One reason is that the collateral consequences of the current Big Tech business model are too obvious to ignore. The list is old hat by now: centralization, surveillance, information control. It goes on, and it’s not hypothetical. Concentrating such vast power in a few hands does not lead to good things. No, it leads to things like the CrowdStrike outage of mid-2024, when corner-cutting by Microsoft led to critical infrastructure—from hospitals to banks to traffic systems—failing globally for an extended period.

Another reason Big Tech is set to falter in 2025 is that the frothy AI market, on which Big Tech bet big, is beginning to lose its fizz. Major money, like Goldman Sachs and Sequoia Capital, is worried. They went public recently with their concerns about the disconnect between the billions required to create and use large-scale AI, and the weak market fit and tepid returns where the rubber meets the AI business-model road.

It doesn’t help that the public and regulators are waking up to AI’s reliance on, and generation of, sensitive data at a time when the appetite for privacy has never been higher—as evidenced, for one, by Signal’s persistent user growth. AI, on the other hand, generally erodes privacy. We saw this in June when Microsoft announced Recall, a product that would, I kid you not, screenshot everything you do on your device so an AI system could give you “perfect memory” of what you were doing on your computer (Doomscrolling? Porn-watching?). The system required the capture of those sensitive images—which would not exist otherwise—in order to work.

Happily, these factors aren’t just liquefying the ground below Big Tech’s dominance. They’re also powering bold visions for alternatives that stop tinkering at the edges of the monopoly tech paradigm, and work to design and build actually democratic, independent, open, and transparent tech. Imagine!

For example, initiatives in Europe are exploring independent core tech infrastructure, with convenings of open source developers, scholars of governance, and experts on the political economy of the tech industry.

And just as the money people are joining in critique, they’re also exploring investments in new paradigms. A crop of tech investors are developing models of funding for mission alignment, focusing on tech that rejects surveillance, social control, and all the bullshit. One exciting model I’ve been discussing with some of these investors would combine traditional VC incentives (fund that one unicorn > scale > acquisition > get rich) with a commitment to resource tech’s open, nonprofit critical infrastructure with a percent of their fund. Not as investment, but as a contribution to maintaining the bedrock on which a healthy tech ecosystem can exist (and maybe get them and their limited partners a tax break).

Such support could—and I believe should—be supplemented by state capital. The amount of money needed is simply too vast if we’re going to do this properly. To give an example closer to home, developing and maintaining Signal costs around $50 million a year, which is very lean for tech. Projects such as the Sovereign Tech Fund in Germany point a path forward—they are a vehicle to distribute state funds to core open source infrastructures, but they are governed wholly independently, and create a buffer between the efforts they fund and the state.

Just as composting makes nutrients from necrosis, in 2025, Big Tech’s end will be the beginning of a new and vibrant ecosystem. The smart, actually cool, genuinely interested people will once again have their moment, getting the resources and clearance to design and (re)build a tech ecosystem that is actually innovative and built for benefit, not just profit and control. MAY IT BE EVER THUS!

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Ethics and GenAI, the Justification parade.

Here are some of the top current hits from the pro-GenAI people.

It's not evil as long as it's not done to me.

It's a I'm fine with Gen AI stealing from other people, en masse, but as long as it doesn't steal from ME, it's ethically fine for me to use it.

Uhhhh....

2. It's stealing from other people anyway, so I may as well steal from them too.

Imperialism. So imperialism was A-OK. You see, everyone else was doing it at the time, so I may as well too. This makes you Thomas Jefferson. He was like, I know slavery is wrong, bro, but you know, I gotta have my slaves and my Sally Hemmings.

3. But I'm poor. Like really poor.

So stealing from other poor people makes it A-OK? You don't want to steal from the rich and punch upwards, you want HG Wells vision of the future to be true.

You can get editing for free, if you're patient, kind and generous yourself.

You can get art for 10 sometimes 20 bucks. Or you can simply spend the time to learn. The hardest part of any cover is the typography. You can have a really beautiful cover with well-set type. I posted tutorials. For. Free. Artists share their knowledge. It's only the time you take to learn. And when you learn, you'll create a cover that's far more unique and stands out in the market than if you steal.

4. It's not going to stop anyway...

Other evil deeds in the world are probably not going to stop either, does that mean one should do them. People steal all of the time. People steal my packages in my building. Does that mean I should do it too? Or should I do kind things like make sure my neighbors get the packages they are owed? Should I take action against it.

5. But it's like really mean and shit to harass people who are using genAI.

If someone is being a broker for an art thief, yes, you should let them know if they are doing it wittingly or unwittingly.

The AI bubble was going to break (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3U5UVyGTuQ), but then they fucking forced it back into computers. So no. I, who know technology, can program (a bit shittily), have every right to tell you that using AI is bad for your book, bad for creativity, and bad for you.

Conclusion

I've solidly mocked the hell out AI before. Because it is a law of averages, and the average humanity is not amazing. It is boring, often wrong, and never unique like creativity demands we are. But individual and the collective of humanity can be extraordinary, if we put our minds to it.

If you use the crutch of AI to give you all of your writing advice, all of your research, to never really think how to do things DIFFERENTLY, how to CHANGE what is in front of you, How ANALYZE your information, you give into the humdrum of complacency, and instead of AI being the robot, you becomes the nice conforming drone.

Creativity is the antithesis of averages, or complacency, which is why I love my fellow artist. I refuse to use crutches. I love my fellow human more than the GenAI. I love the individuality, the uniqueness, and I think humanity is better than the mean it spits at us, be it racism, sexism, violence, conflict, or simply a load of wrong. I want to celebrate the right thing in my art: The craft and the ingenuity of humanity in the right way.

BTW, I gave Deepseek a quick and brief go around to see if it knew anything, and it was also very wrong. Like multitudes of wrong. (I expected as much since I gave it a niche question I know the answer to, but the public doesn't)

I ended up finding the answer myself with a lot of elbow grease (and I found a not average way to find the answer), but GenAI would teach you to give up and have no tenacity. And I can't abide by that. Why rob yourself of the plot bunnies to come? That's why you are getting stuck. Enjoy the journey to the answer. Your brain is 38 trillion times stronger than our current computers. Enjoy that, because it also burns less energy than a GenAI machine. https://www.crucial.com/blog/technology/how-does-the-human-brain-compare-to-a-computer

The human brain likes novelty. https://www.ciis.edu/news/novelty-keeps-your-brain-healthy

So keep your brain healthy and make your novel, well, novel, not human average. Find a solution to the problem you posed to yourself in a not average way. Because I guarantee you, that will be far more engaging to read, to enjoy, to see, to experience than anything that the average of humanity has ever come up with. Be not normal. And in that, you are creative.

[elwenyere]

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

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

Guzzling water and electricity

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

Exploiting labor to create its datasets

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

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

Deskilling labor and demoralizing workers

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

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

Enclosing knowledge production and destroying open access

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

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

Enriching tech oligarchs and fueling military imperialism

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

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

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

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

[brettvatcher]

NEUROTECHNOLOGY: CALL IT MIND CONTROL

BRETT MICHAEL VATCHER

The United States is currently testing advanced military-grade weapons and quantum computer systems on the unexpected global population. Targeted Individuals are tortured and tormented every day of their lives through DARPA’s Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N3) Program utilizing CIA agents – acting as Artificial Intelligence [AI]. In the future, the system will be marketed as deviceless “Spatial Technology.” 

IT’S SPATIAL: IT’S ALL IN MY HEAD.

Neurotechnology is a brain-computer interface [BCI] connecting to the central nervous system. Call it Mind Control. 

If one can control the mind, they can control the body.

MIND CONTROL:  Mind reading, mind and body control, 24/7 tracking, brainwashing, dream manipulation, spatial holograms as well as physical assaults and verbal harassment produced by CIA agents. This is accomplished by combining data sets from 5G towers and directed energy weapon satellites [DEW]. The system connects to the central nervous system – including the brain – and operates without a device. Invisible physical assaults are constant. Even if well documented are challenging to prove. The system can cause sensations anywhere on the body.

DOMAIN: Every human has a domain attached to their mind. This is where the agents broadcast their transmissions and control the victim. ​All living things have a domain. Plants, insects, animals and humans. Domains have infinite capabilities. The entire global population is replicated within human domains – in vertical cubicle formation. These replicants, as the agents call them, are tortured constantly. The replicants watch everything you do from your perception. This is the New World Order plan. The subdomain advent calendar is located behind the perception. Everything a person sees, hears and thinks is recorded utilizing a BCI. All memories from 2019-present can be viewed like a film. Domains are recorded, as well.

“EVERYTHING YOU DO, SAY AND THINK CAN – AND WILL – BE USED AGAINST YOU FOR ETERNITY. THIS IS THE NEW WORLD ORDER. PLEASE HOLD WHILE WE COLLECT YOUR THOUGHTS.” –New World Order

BRAINWASHING: Brainwashing the victim leads to behavioral modifications and mood control. The agents create “programs” that can be turned on or off at any time. Subliminal messages come in the form of faint visions flashing in the front of one’s mind. Victim’s vision becomes increasingly grainier over time – and depending on active sequencers.

The agents create intricate dream sequences to affect the victim’s subconscious. Dream sequences combine people, places and things that are familiar with the victim. They can be extremely lucid.

VOICE-TO-SKULL: DARPA started a program called LifeLog in 2003. They refer to it as the V2K era. It’s when they began recording transcripts of all of our thoughts. Mind-reading. This technology is also known as Microwave Hearing, Synthetic Telepathy, Voice-of-God weapon and is utilized for traceless mental torture. Agents constantly disrupt, censor and redirect the victim’s freedom of thought. Victim’s get wrongly labeled as mentally-ill [schizophrenia] when reporting on this. V2K is also used for deception and impersonation of voices.

News reports in the media describedLifeLog as the “diary to end all diaries — a multimedia, digital record of everywhere you go and everything you see, hear, read, say and touch”. –USA TODAY

NO PRIVACY: The system completely disregards fundamental human rights such as: privacy, mental and physical health, safety, data security, family security, financial security, etc. Freedom of thought – or cognitive liberty – is a God-given right. The technology was deployed without implementation of new laws and there is little to no oversight, as the CIA has full control of the system.

Welcome to Infinity. You’re Welcome.

WRITTEN BY: BRETT VATCHER

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[delightfullyatomiccollector-blog]

AI in Computer Vision Market Growth: The Driving Force Behind Smarter Visual Systems

AI in computer vision refers to the use of artificial intelligence techniques, especially deep learning and machine learning, to enable machines to understand, interpret, and analyze visual information from the world. By utilizing neural networks and advanced algorithms, AI-based computer vision systems can recognize objects, detect patterns, and perform image analysis tasks that traditionally required human cognition.

[forgottenfuturist]

We Don't Need a New Thing Every Year

Remember Steve Jobs' big product announcements? It seemed like every year he was on stage announcing some big new product you just had to have. But lately, Apple's product announcements have just been slightly-new iterations of existing things and an occasional weird, wild swing like the Vision Pro, a $3000 wearable face computer that's so dorky-looking it makes Google Glass look like high fashion. So what's wrong?

Nothing, actually.

Ok, the whole Apple Intelligence thing is definitely a dumpster fire. The last time Apple made a demo video for an entirely fictional product, it was that Knowledge Navigator thing back in 1987 and it was understood not to be real. They 100% deserve all the derision and criticism they've gotten for doing a fake demo for a product that didn't exist.

And like many people, I much prefer the live onstage announcements/demos to the current overproduced "events" that are so robotic they look like they were generated with AI. (Not Apple AI, I mean something that's actually advanced.)

But I'm not talking about either of those things. I'm talking about the expectation that Apple will introduce some big new game-changing device or technology at every annual event, or else it's a big failure, and if only Steve Jobs was here we'd have iPhones that could soothe all your worries and teleport you to Mars. This reasoning is wrong and silly, for reasons I will now explain.

Steve Jobs' second tenure at Apple overlapped with a period of rapid technological change in the industry. He first returned to the company in 1997. At the end of the 1990s, the Internet entered the mainstream. And during the first decade of the 2000s, advances in microprocessor, wireless communication, and capacitive touch technology (along with steep drops in the price of LCD displays) made devices like the iPod, the modern smartphone, the tablet, and the modern laptop computer possible.

Sadly, Steve died in 2011. But even if he'd lived, it wouldn't have changed the fact that most of the advancement we've seen in the tech industry since then has mainly been about making those existing devices better, smaller, and less-expensive. The only sorta-new device we've gotten is the smart watch, which a lot of people deride as a "phone bracelet" that mainly exists because the smartphone makers need something else to sell now that everybody has a smartphone.

Some people imagine that Apple's blunders (the "trash can" Mac Pro, Touch Bar MacBooks with bad keyboards, no ports, and thermal issues, etc) wouldn't have happened with Steve in charge. But his tenure wasn't problem-free, either. He oversaw some flops, like the Power Mac G4 Cube and MobileMe. The iMac G3 line became hopelessly convoluted and confusing before the G4 arrived. And there was the whole "antennagate" issue with the iPhone 4 where he publicly insisted that the device was only dropping calls because everyone but him was holding it wrong.

Yes, Apple is a much bigger and unwieldy company than they were 15 years ago. They're starting to fall into the trap that Steve talked about in an interview during his NeXT days in the 1990s, where the company is taken over by marketing and finance people who focus on short-term quarterly gains at the expense of making good products.

BUT . . .

When their overproduced, slick, soulless, and robotic annual commercial starts about an hour-and-a-half from the time I'm writing this, it will not be a failure if the biggest announcement is a new skin and naming scheme for their OSes. Sometimes it's better to announce a slight improvement of an existing thing rather than try to push out a brand new thing that isn't ready yet. Because that's how you get stuff like the Newton, or the Humane AI Pin.

Or Apple Intelligence.

[bellaskelle]

dont understand why ai art is so bad/harmful? ok, lemme break it down for you!

humans need to work if they want to survive. money is an essential no matter how idealistic you are. now, some humans have skills they have spent years—usually their entire lives—perfecting. skills that have a very narrow field of application if you are trying to make money. skills that are constantly belittled as a “hobby” and constantly taken advantage of and insulted by the very people who attempt to employ them. despite the exploitation and disrespect, some of us humans rely on those skills to find work in that narrow, competitive field. we rely on them to be able to work, and make money and survive.

now that field is being mowed down by algorithms trained by work stolen from those very humans who spent years perfecting their craft. ai imaging has destroyed any hope of having a stable career as an artist. the industry IS in shambles. there have been mass layoffs, replacements, lawsuits, entire art departments dissolved in favor of some guy with access to a computer.

artistic vision and intention replaced by soulless algorithms, brushstrokes replaced by strange blurred smudges and extra fingers. you see it in ads, in marketing, in graphic design, in youtube thumbnails and banners. every corporate use of ai imaging is money taken right out of an artist’s hands. and its not just corporate. social media has been flooded with ai. facebook, instagram, pinterest, you NAME it. even art-specific sites like deviantart, redbubble, shutterstock, even ETSY are being taken over. some of these sites even ENABLE it, partnering with these tech leeches, offering up the art of their users on a silver platter to be stolen and fed into a machine. not even tumblr is safe anymore. and EVERY ai image generator is trained on stolen artwork. period. these artists are not being paid to supply the art for those programs to train on, which means any generated images are STOLEN. if they are then used for profit it is STOLEN PROFIT. ai imaging is unethical to its very core and anyone who says differently is naive, ignorant, delusional or a fucking liar.

[carlhofelina]

Why Empowering Your Tech Startup Business is Key to Sustainable Growth

Tech startup businesses face many challenges, and while rapid growth is often the goal, achieving sustainable growth is essential for long-term success. Empowering your tech startup business with strategic planning, innovation, and resilience is crucial to staying competitive and ensuring a strong future.

10 Strategies for Empowering Tech Startup Businesses

1. Defining Vision and Mission

A clear vision and mission are fundamental for guiding your tech startup business. The vision sets long-term goals, while the mission outlines the approach to achieve them. By defining these elements, tech startup businesses can:

Make informed decisions

Align teams

Attract investors

A well-communicated vision also helps keep employees motivated and focused on company goals, providing direction during challenges. [1] 

2. Fostering Innovation and Agility

Innovation drives the growth of tech startup businesses, and agility ensures they can adapt quickly to changes in the market. To support innovation, tech startup businesses should:

Encourage creative thinking and experimentation

Test new ideas and adjust quickly

Stay adaptable to new technologies and consumer behaviors

Agility in response to market shifts helps maintain relevance and competitiveness.

3. Building a Resilient Business Model

A solid business model provides the foundation for sustainable growth in any tech startup business. Many tech startup businesses fail by scaling too fast without a flexible model. Key steps to build resilience include:

Diversifying revenue streams

Focusing on customer retention

Improving operational efficiency

These strategies reduce risks and ensure a stable structure for long-term growth.

4. Leveraging Technology for Efficiency

Tech startup businesses should embrace technology to streamline operations. Automation, AI, and cloud computing help reduce manual tasks, allowing tech startup businesses to focus on growth. Key tools include:

Automated workflows

CRM systems

AI-driven data analytics

These technologies boost productivity and reduce inefficiencies, helping tech startup businesses scale effectively.

5. Prioritizing Customer-Centric Strategies

Customer satisfaction is crucial for sustainable growth in any tech startup business. Startups should build strong relationships with customers by:

Gathering feedback and adapting products or services

Improving user experience

Offering personalized solutions

A customer-focused approach increases loyalty, encourages referrals, and reduces churn.

6. Investing in Talent and Leadership

The strength of your team determines the success of your tech startup business. Investing in talent means fostering an environment of growth through:

Encouraging communication and collaboration

Providing skill development opportunities

Rewarding innovation and problem-solving

When employees feel valued, they contribute to the company's long-term growth and success.

7. Addressing Regulatory and Compliance Challenges

Tech startup businesses must ensure compliance with relevant regulations to avoid risks. Common challenges include:

Intellectual property rights

Data privacy laws

Industry-specific regulations

By staying proactive in compliance, tech startup businesses build trust with investors, customers, and partners.

8. Incorporating Sustainable Practices

Sustainability is now essential for businesses, including tech startup businesses. Startups should integrate sustainable practices, such as:

Reducing environmental impact

Implementing remote work policies

Supporting ethical supply chains

Sustainable practices not only appeal to eco-conscious customers but also contribute to long-term profitability.

9. Forming Strategic Partnerships

Strategic partnerships help accelerate growth for tech startup businesses and provide additional resources. Startups can benefit from partnerships by:

Expanding into new markets

Sharing knowledge and resources

Reducing costs and risks

Strong partnerships increase credibility and provide a competitive edge.

10. Maintaining Financial Discipline

Financial discipline ensures long-term success for any tech startup business. Startups must manage their resources carefully to avoid running out of capital. Key strategies include:

Monitoring cash flow

Diversifying funding sources

Prioritizing profitability

Financial discipline prepares tech startup businesses for unexpected challenges and allows for reinvestment in growth.

Conclusion

Empowering your tech startup business involves focusing on key areas such as vision, innovation, resilience, and financial discipline. By building a strong foundation in these areas, tech startup businesses can ensure long-term growth and success in an ever-changing market.

Additionally, effective lead gen strategies, such as leveraging the services provided by companies like Radius Global Solutions, and maintaining high data quality service, can significantly enhance the growth potential of your tech startup business.

Ready to empower your startup? Start implementing these strategies today and set the foundation for a sustainable, successful future. Visit Best Virtual Specialist to learn how our solutions can help your business grow.

Reference: 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/future-proofing-tech-startups-ensuring-sustainability-sanyal-ho8ec/ 

[aidreamer]

The Science Behind AI Video Tool

AI video platforms rely on three key technologies:

Generative AI: Systems like VidAU’s algorithm turn text or product links into scripts and visuals. Think of it as a “creative assistant” brainstorming ideas faster than any human.

Computer Vision: AI scans frames to ensure lighting, angles, and product placement look professional—no shaky camera mishaps.

Natural Language Processing (NLP): AI writes scripts that sound human and even adjusts tone (funny, formal, or friendly) based on your brand voice.

Real Results: How Businesses Win with AI

Case in point: A small e-commerce brand used VidAU to make 50 product videos in 2 hours. By A/B testing different AI avatars (a friendly mom vs. a tech expert), they boosted their click-through rate by 34%. Another company automated video ads for Black Friday, translating them into 12 languages overnight—sales jumped 200% in regions they’d never targeted before.

The best part? You don’t need a marketing degree to start. VidAU’s slogan says it all: “Generate engaging videos in batches within a few minutes.”

Future-Proof Your Marketing Strategy

AI video production isn’t a trend—it’s the future. Tools like VidAU democratize high-quality content creation, letting small businesses compete with giants. Whether you’re crafting explainer videos, social media clips, or training materials, AI handles the heavy lifting while you focus on strategy.

Ready to experiment? Try VidAU’s free trial (no credit card needed) and watch your engagement—and sales—rise. After all, in a world where 85% of shoppers trust video reviews more than text, staying silent isn’t an option.

Boost your sales with AI-driven videos today. Visit VidAU.ai to start creating.