#Data Center Comparison

[jcmarchi]

Google AMIE: AI doctor learns to ‘see’ medical images

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/google-amie-ai-doctor-learns-to-see-medical-images/

Google AMIE: AI doctor learns to ‘see’ medical images

Google is giving its diagnostic AI the ability to understand visual medical information with its latest research on AMIE (Articulate Medical Intelligence Explorer).

Imagine chatting with an AI about a health concern, and instead of just processing your words, it could actually look at the photo of that worrying rash or make sense of your ECG printout. That’s what Google is aiming for.

We already knew AMIE showed promise in text-based medical chats, thanks to earlier work published in Nature. But let’s face it, real medicine isn’t just about words.

Doctors rely heavily on what they can see – skin conditions, readings from machines, lab reports. As the Google team rightly points out, even simple instant messaging platforms “allow static multimodal information (e.g., images and documents) to enrich discussions.”

Text-only AI was missing a huge piece of the puzzle. The big question, as the researchers put it, was “Whether LLMs can conduct diagnostic clinical conversations that incorporate this more complex type of information.”

Google teaches AMIE to look and reason

Google’s engineers have beefed up AMIE using their Gemini 2.0 Flash model as the brains of the operation. They’ve combined this with what they call a “state-aware reasoning framework.” In plain English, this means the AI doesn’t just follow a script; it adapts its conversation based on what it’s learned so far and what it still needs to figure out.

It’s close to how a human clinician works: gathering clues, forming ideas about what might be wrong, and then asking for more specific information – including visual evidence – to narrow things down.

“This enables AMIE to request relevant multimodal artifacts when needed, interpret their findings accurately, integrate this information seamlessly into the ongoing dialogue, and use it to refine diagnoses,” Google explains.

Think of the conversation flowing through stages: first gathering the patient’s history, then moving towards diagnosis and management suggestions, and finally follow-up. The AI constantly assesses its own understanding, asking for that skin photo or lab result if it senses a gap in its knowledge.

To get this right without endless trial-and-error on real people, Google built a detailed simulation lab.

Google created lifelike patient cases, pulling realistic medical images and data from sources like the PTB-XL ECG database and the SCIN dermatology image set, adding plausible backstories using Gemini. Then, they let AMIE ‘chat’ with simulated patients within this setup and automatically check how well it performed on things like diagnostic accuracy and avoiding errors (or ‘hallucinations’).

The virtual OSCE: Google puts AMIE through its paces

The real test came in a setup designed to mirror how medical students are assessed: the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE).

Google ran a remote study involving 105 different medical scenarios. Real actors, trained to portray patients consistently, interacted either with the new multimodal AMIE or with actual human primary care physicians (PCPs). These chats happened through an interface where the ‘patient’ could upload images, just like you might in a modern messaging app.

Afterwards, specialist doctors (in dermatology, cardiology, and internal medicine) and the patient actors themselves reviewed the conversations.

The human doctors scored everything from how well history was taken, the accuracy of the diagnosis, the quality of the suggested management plan, right down to communication skills and empathy—and, of course, how well the AI interpreted the visual information.

Surprising results from the simulated clinic

Here’s where it gets really interesting. In this head-to-head comparison within the controlled study environment, Google found AMIE didn’t just hold its own—it often came out ahead.

The AI was rated as being better than the human PCPs at interpreting the multimodal data shared during the chats. It also scored higher on diagnostic accuracy, producing differential diagnosis lists (the ranked list of possible conditions) that specialists deemed more accurate and complete based on the case details.

Specialist doctors reviewing the transcripts tended to rate AMIE’s performance higher across most areas. They particularly noted “the quality of image interpretation and reasoning,” the thoroughness of its diagnostic workup, the soundness of its management plans, and its ability to flag when a situation needed urgent attention.

Perhaps one of the most surprising findings came from the patient actors: they often found the AI to be more empathetic and trustworthy than the human doctors in these text-based interactions.

And, on a critical safety note, the study found no statistically significant difference between how often AMIE made errors based on the images (hallucinated findings) compared to the human physicians.

Technology never stands still, so Google also ran some early tests swapping out the Gemini 2.0 Flash model for the newer Gemini 2.5 Flash.

Using their simulation framework, the results hinted at further gains, particularly in getting the diagnosis right (Top-3 Accuracy) and suggesting appropriate management plans.

While promising, the team is quick to add a dose of realism: these are just automated results, and “rigorous assessment through expert physician review is essential to confirm these performance benefits.”

Important reality checks

Google is commendably upfront about the limitations here. “This study explores a research-only system in an OSCE-style evaluation using patient actors, which substantially under-represents the complexity… of real-world care,” they state clearly. 

Simulated scenarios, however well-designed, aren’t the same as dealing with the unique complexities of real patients in a busy clinic. They also stress that the chat interface doesn’t capture the richness of a real video or in-person consultation.

So, what’s the next step? Moving carefully towards the real world. Google is already partnering with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center for a research study to see how AMIE performs in actual clinical settings with patient consent.

The researchers also acknowledge the need to eventually move beyond text and static images towards handling real-time video and audio—the kind of interaction common in telehealth today.

Giving AI the ability to ‘see’ and interpret the kind of visual evidence doctors use every day offers a glimpse of how AI might one day assist clinicians and patients. However, the path from these promising findings to a safe and reliable tool for everyday healthcare is still a long one that requires careful navigation.

(Photo by Alexander Sinn)

See also: Are AI chatbots really changing the world of work?

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[virtualizationhowto]

RAID 5 vs RAID 6: Which one is the best?

RAID 5 vs RAID 6: Which one is the best? #homelab #RAID5vsRAID6Comparison #RAIDLevelsExplained #DataProtectionWithRAID #OptimalRAIDForSSDs #UnderstandingParityData #RAIDDataRecovery #ChoosingRAIDLevel #RAIDForBusinessServers #RAIDForDataCenters

Using a single “hard drive” is bad when it comes to the availability of your data. If you lose that single hard drive and have no backup, you have no means to recover it. Combining multiple disks forms a “raid array” to achieve specific benefits, such as resiliency against failures. RAID, or Redundant Array of Independent Disks, is designed to increase storage performance and data security,…

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive

By Sarah Schwartz

Test after test of U.S. students’ reading and math abilities have shown scores declining since the pandemic.

Now, new results show that it’s not just children whose skills have fallen over the past few years—American adults are getting worse at reading and math, too.

The connection, if any, between the two patterns isn’t clear—the tests aren’t set up to provide that kind of information. But it does point to a populace that is becoming more stratified by ability at a time when economic inequality continues to widen and debates over opportunity for social mobility are on the rise.

The findings from the 2023 administration of the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, or PIAAC, show that 16- to 65-year-olds’ literacy scores declined by 12 points from 2017 to 2023, while their numeracy scores fell by 7 points during the same period.

These trends aren’t unique in the global context: Of the 31 countries and economies in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that participated in PIAAC, some saw scores drop over the past six years, while others improved or held constant.

Still, as in previous years, the United States doesn’t compare favorably to other countries: The country ranks in the middle of the pack in literacy and below the international average in math. (Literacy and numeracy on the test are scored on a 500-point scale.)

But Americans do stand out in one way: The gap between the highest- and lowest-performing adults is growing wider, as the top scorers hold steady and other test takers see their scores fall.

“There’s a dwindling middle in the United States in terms of skills,” said Peggy Carr, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which oversees PIAAC in the country. (The test was developed by the OECD and is administered every three years.)

It’s a phenomenon that distinguishes the United States, she said.

“Some of that is because we’re very diverse and it’s large, in comparison to some of the OECD countries,” Carr said in a call with reporters on Monday. “But that clearly is not the only reason.”

American children, too, are experiencing this widening chasm between high and low performers. National and international tests show the country’s top students holding steady, while students at the bottom of the distribution are falling further behind.

It’s hard to know why U.S. adults’ scores have taken this precipitous dive, Carr said.

About a third of Americans score at lowest levels PIAAC is different from large-scale assessments for students, which measure kids’ academic abilities.

Instead, this test for adults evaluates their abilities to use math and reading in real-world contexts—to navigate public services in their neighborhood, for example, or complete a task at work. The United States sample is nationally representative random sample, drawn from census data.

American respondents averaged a level 2 of 5 in both subjects.

In practice, that means that they can, for example, use a website to find information about how to order a recycling cart, or read and understand a list of rules for sending their child to preschool. But they would have trouble using a library search engine to find the author of a book.

In math, they could compare a table and a graph of the same information to check for errors. But they wouldn’t be able to calculate average monthly expenses with several months of data.

While the U.S. average is a level 2, more adults now fall at a level 1 or below—28 percent scored at that level in literacy, up from 19 percent in 2017, and 34 percent in numeracy, up from 29 percent in 2017.

Respondents scoring below level 1 couldn’t compare calendar dates printed on grocery tags to determine which food item was packed first. They would also struggle to read several job descriptions and identify which company was looking to hire a night-shift worker.

The findings also show sharp divides by race and national origin, with respondents born in the United States outscoring those born outside of the country, and white respondents outscoring Black and Hispanic test takers. Those trends have persisted over the past decade.

[wilwheaton]

The most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicate that as of August 12, COVID hospitalizations had increased by 21.6%. In comparison, during the week ending on August 5, hospitalizations had increased by 14%. On July 8, there were 6,454 confirmed COVID hospitalizations in the United States, but since then those numbers have nearly doubled, now sitting at 12,613 hospitalizations nationwide.

COVID Hospitalizations Now Up Nearly 22%

I know that we are all super over it. I know we all want to go back to our lives, and not think about masking indoors.

I feel it. I really do. And as much as I hate it, the reality is that Covid is still out there, still contagious, and it does not care if we are over it, or not.

I don’t agree with the minimizing “it’s just the flu” or “it’s just a cold” rhetoric. I suspect that’s coming from people who are tired, and really WANT Covid to be “just like _____” instead of what it is. But even if the rhetoric were true, I don’t want to get a cold, and I don’t want to get the flu. I don’t like feeling shitty. So I will continue to be cautious. I will continue to mask indoors, not because I’m modeling anything, not because I am afraid, but because I want to minimize my exposure risk to all airborne illnesses, even the ones that aren’t as unpredictable as Covid (and the Long Covid cases, which we still do not fully understand.)

Please be safe, take care of yourselves, and stay healthy.

[archaospetryx]

I’m back with art, I’ll get straight to the point. Anyone interested in

Bigger Vessel Harley au?

I lost the first draft to Tumblr not wanting me to post this stupid thing I’ll make it quick

This au centers around Harley’s consciousness being transferred as data for this bigger vessel to mimic him— so in a way the REAL Harley is dead while this one has half of the memories of the real Dr. Sawyer bc it’s an AI and mostly functions to HOW Harley would act if he were still alive but in comparison to the real Harley, this vessel acts differently.

And this vessel has some form of amnesia because Harley can’t recall recent events(such as Yarnaby’s death)) and in the OC route where my oc Otto Tormentula/Arthur Quinntel exists, he loses every form of memory he had of him

He retains the memories of Penelope Huntsman/Octavia and Mary Anne/Octavio but doesn’t recall who Otto/Arthur was because the real Harley wanted to have no memory of Otto/Arthur if his consciousness lives on in the new vessel because as much as he loves him, he doesn’t want Otto to get involved with whatever they would do in their new vessel

This vessel acts differently compared to the real Harley. Yeah they have similarities such as how Harley acts and his high intelligence, but this version is more passive and refuses to be spotted by the Prototype because knowing that his original self died/failed the Prototype, he wouldn’t wanna risk getting the only living memory of Dr. Sawyer torn to shreds and used for parts by the Prototype.

This au splits into two routes which don’t change much; the original storyline and the oc route.

The oc route is just there cuz this is Ottley’s happy ending compared to canon where yeah, both Harley and Otto are offed. In the oc route it’s just Otto and their fanchild existing which thankfully Otto still had that rizz to get Harley back with him and they’re much closer now compared to before given that yeah sadly this isn’t the real Harley

And yeah the fanchild bit is silly but I have an angst audio on standby to use,

Here’s a reference to how tall Bigger vessel Harley is with my oc

Oh,,

Oh also,,

I got a cameo from the voice actor and one of my moots pointed out how it’s literally my au Harley where he forgets abt Otto

[tvmblrsillyman]

Where do I even begin?

@thislovethatslostcantbefound Assuming from the way you phrase "computer programs" and with my current status as the only executable file present, no, we do not use the bathroom. There are no functions the bathroom can provide for personality modules.

Perhaps in a virtual environment where it takes advantage of the API from the engine that glues my conscious together could.... emulate human functions if someone were to program it. But that is not the case here.

There is an itch that has been bothering me lately, so if anyone asks questions abt my ocs/world building/ect, I can draw them out w/ Oliviam as the voice to answer them.

[spacetelescopescience]

For 30 Doradus to look like this, it needs data in X-ray, visible, infrared, and radio wavelengths. Data from the Hubble Space Telescope was paired up with data from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array to produce this composite image.

The massive young stars in 30 Doradus send out strong winds into space. Along with the matter and energy ejected by stars that have previously exploded, these winds have carved out arcs, pillars, and bubbles.

A dense cluster in the center of the nebula contains the most massive stars astronomers have ever found, each only about one to 2 million years old. (Our sun, for comparison, is about 5 billion years old.)

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State Univ./L. Townsley et al.; Infrared: NASA/JPL-CalTech/SST; Optical: NASA/STScI/HST; Radio: ESO/NAOJ/NRAO/ALMA; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt, N. Wolk, K. Arcand.

[anumberofhobbies]

O Christmas Tree! by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center Via Flickr: A new version of the “Christmas tree cluster” is now available. Like NGC 602, NGC 2264 is a cluster of young stars between one and five million years old. (For comparison, the Sun is a middle-aged star about 5 billion years old — about 1,000 times older.) In this image of NGC 2264, which is much closer than NGC 602 at a distance of about 2,500 light-years from Earth, data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (red, purple, blue, and white) has been combined with optical data (green and violet) captured from by astrophotographer Michael Clow from his telescope in Arizona in November 2024. Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Clow, M.; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and K. Arcand #NASAMarshall #NASA #astrophysics #NASAChandra #NASA #JWST #NASAWebb #star #starcluster Read more Read more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory NASA Media Usage Guidelines

[reasonsforhope]

I'm sorry I'm sending so many asks. I've been struggling like this for a year now, and it's barely gotten easier, but you've often been a good help with my anxiety. I really appreciate everything you do. It's hard to have hope.

I've had a really bad moment again recently. I have to be honest, the worst thing, that makes me the most anxious out of everything else, is COVID. Because it feels like nobody is paying attention, and that there is no good news. There is never any good news. COVID is always the catalyst for the worst of my anxious slumps. It's really bad. COVID is very, very scary. If you somehow have anything for that, I'd be thankful. Often I've only been able to set my heart on nasal vaccines, or next gen vaccines in general, but they're not going fast enough whatsoever.

I'm sorry, again. I don't want to try and treat you like a therapist. I just trust you. If this is too overwhelming, you can just delete it, but if you do, I'd like to know. Just so I'm not waiting for it to be answered.

I just ravaged through someone's doomy collapse blog, again, after stumbling on it in my rising anxiousness, and it was not good. I think I'm clearly too open-minded of a person to some degree, and I feel so pulled around by information that I see. I don't want to be placated, out of the loop, or lied to, but I don't want to feel hopelessly depressed. Everything is too complex. I feel like I've been through this maze, top to bottom, over and over again, and again. I just wish I knew how much truth their words held, or anyone else's words held.

And I wish we were all masking, at the very least. I'm holding myself back from swearing. I don't know if you'd have a good way to counteract general "collapse" thoughts, either. But that's also a thing.

<3 I'm touched by your trust.

I just found some good news about COVID - the first genuinely good covid-related news article I've seen in a while, instead of all of the "ah but young abled people are fine!" bs - and remembered this ask.

"As new varieties of the coronavirus took center stage during the COVID-19 pandemic, the odds of developing long COVID dropped. Those who were vaccinated against the virus saw the biggest plunge over time.

For every 1,000 unvaccinated people, 104 developed long COVID up to one year after an infection during the pre-delta phase of the pandemic. That fell to 95 per 1,000 during the delta variant’s era and 78 during omicron’s reign. Among vaccinated people, just 53 out of 1,000 developed long COVID up to a year after infection during delta and only 35 during omicron, researchers report July 17 [2024] in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study of U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care System data looked at people who had a COVID infection from March of 2020 — the month the pandemic began — to the end of January in 2022. The researchers, from the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System, compared the rates of long COVID during three phases of the pandemic among those who had and had not gotten vaccinated...

A comparison of omicron infections with infections from prior eras found that 72 percent of the drop in the long COVID rate during omicron was attributable to vaccines. The remainder was due to changes in the virus and improvements in medical care and the use of antiviral treatments during the omicron phase.

Even with the steep decline in the occurrence of long COVID for vaccinated people, there is still a risk, the researchers write. With “the large numbers of ongoing new infections and reinfections, and the poor uptake of vaccination,” they continue, this “may translate into a high number of persons” with long COVID."

-via ScienceNews, July 17, 2024

--

Masking continues to be important. The virus continues to be a problem. But especially given the decline in masking, I'm really encouraged to see this news. Because long covid IS scary. And I'll take any good news on this front that I can get.

It's especially encouraging because it shows how much staying on top of your vaccinations really does matter and really can prevent long covid.

I'm also really hopeful (though I don't have a related background and have no idea how realistic my hopes are) that this trend has been continuing past the end of the study (2022).

[royal-cupidity]

"You're So Cool"

| Modern AU | Senku x Oc | Mutual Denial + Shitty Letters

It was a regular Tuesday until Senku opened his locker and nearly got a paper cut to the cornea.

A folded note, dead center on top of his textbooks. Plain lined paper, no dramatic heart doodles, no glitter glue. It wasn’t even folded well. It just sat there—slouching, like it didn’t want to be caught trying too hard.

He blinked once. Pulled it out with two fingers. Read:

Senku, You’re so cool. (You’re smart. Like, terrifyingly smart. You talk like you’re solving a thesis in your head 24/7. You make ugly science jokes and laugh at your own thoughts. It’s weirdly endearing. Don’t let it go to your head.)

Senku squinted at the handwriting. Small. Slanted. Consistent. Too neat to be Chrome. Too dry to be Gen. And absolutely not from Yuzuriha—she’d at least use a smiley face or a sticker.

He tucked the letter into his coat like it was a lab sample and closed the locker slowly.

Across the hall, Tomi was staring at her own locker like it had just declared war.

She reached in, pulled out a folded note that looked… suspiciously familiar.

Her eyes scanned it once.

Then she froze.

Senku didn’t blink.

Tomi looked up.

So did he.

Their eyes met.

And neither of them breathed.

She slowly held up the note.

He raised his eyebrows.

She pointed at it.

He tilted his head.

She signed, “You?”

Senku made a show of pretending to be deeply offended, placing a hand to his chest and faking a gasp. “Why would I waste time writing myself a love letter? I have actual data to review.”

Tomi rolled her eyes so hard it was practically a gravitational event. She held up her note—then pointed at his.

Senku unfolded his again. Read it out loud. “I’m weirdly endearing, huh? That sounds familiar.”

Tomi unfolded hers. Cleared her throat and read, very flatly, “Tomi, you’re so cool. You’re precise, and sharp, and you notice things other people don’t. You don’t say much, but when you do, it matters. Also, your glare is kind of hot. Just saying.”

A beat.

Senku deadpan: “That proves nothing.”

Tomi blinked.

Then—

She signed: “Liar.”

Senku grinned. “Come on. The sarcasm per word ratio alone screams you.”

Tomi raised an eyebrow. Crossed her arms. “You first.”

Senku stepped forward, holding both notes side by side like a crime scene comparison. “Same pen. Same paper. Same neurotic left-tilt in your lowercase y’s.”

Tomi grabbed the paper from his hand, squinting at the handwriting, then slowly pointed at the loops in his g’s.

Senku: “That proves nothing.”

Tomi gave him a look that could carbonize steel. Then—finally—spoke.

“…You wrote yours first.”

Senku blinked.

“Did not.”

She raised both eyebrows.

He folded.

“…Okay, maybe I did.”

Tomi nodded once. Folded her paper back into a square and slipped it into her sleeve like a card up her wrist.

Senku leaned against the locker beside her, arms crossed, smirking like a smug little bastard. “So. Secret admiration letters, huh? Cute move.”

Tomi didn't answer. She tapped the edge of the locker with one finger, expression unreadable.

Senku waited.

And then, quietly:

“…You smiled.”

It wasn’t a question. He was just recording data.

Tomi huffed through her nose. Barely a sound.

“I’m still not saying it to your face,” she signed, sharp and quick.

Senku laughed under his breath. “You kind of already did.”

She paused.

Then—middle finger up, slow and dramatic.

Senku nodded solemnly. “Touché.”

[anachrosims]

Blocking the “inzoi” tag.

I’ve done my research, though I’d like to do more, specifically on what their models were trained on, and electricity usage locally.

Keep in mind that: Though their AI is generating textures and models based on local and user-input, afaik it’s using stable diffusion, which was trained with stolen material. As I sit here typing on an iPhone that probably has a supply chain that would make Nestle blush, I have to wonder just how much I want to pick and choose in my complicity, and how much I want to scream at others over it. (There are more productive ways to have this conversation and a little self awareness doesn’t hurt, is what I’m saying.)

Regarding sources:

SustainabilityByNumbers has a good breakdown of AI and data center energy usage and includes a comparison to other industries. (Generation is far less costly than training.)

Carbon Emissions on Writing and Illustrating outlines the emissions for those things with AI vs humans.

How much does rendering at home cost? (Renderstreet) A serious look at the cost of non-AI rendering.

However. H o w e v e r.

It’s articles like this (Inzoi’s use of AI on TheGamer.com) that ultimately have swayed me toward not buying the game.

Setting aside the grey area of locally-generated, user-based material and its costs vs non-AI rendering and modding, we need to consider what we are condoning and supporting when purchasing a game like this. We do not need to be telling the industry that a flagship for in-game AI tools is OK—especially when it was created by a company that is on the forefront of using that tech to the active detriment of so many careers.

The above article does a good job summarizing Krafton’s shady practices with its other investments; suffice to say that this is about boycotting a company who would rather use AI, even if it’s supposedly “”ethical””, than support game developers, who are already actively used and abused by the video game industry (which we are supporting by buying things like the Sims, Dragon Age, etc).

For me at least, it’s also about how much I want to support the shitty techno-feudalistic, zombie capitalism that companies like Krafton and others continue to get away with. The only good thing I can say about Krafton is that, unlike most of the big gaming companies, they’re wearing this use of AI on their sleeve. If you think no AI is being used in other game studios, you are sadly mistaken.

Until companies can show they’ll be flexible in maintaining healthy, safe employment for people, without the massive layoffs the gaming industry is so infamous for, I’m just not signing off on this.

I’m well aware that using Blender, playing video games, owning an iPhone, or a car, or taking public transit, still makes me complicit. I think people forget that they are just as complicit when harassing and sending threats to people who are playing InZoi. I’m not any better of a person for not buying and not playing it. It’s just not something in which I will personally take part.

I’m not going to harass anyone— I can’t stop y’all from doing what you want to do. If you play it, then… you’re playing it. You’re not a worse person for doing so.

I just want nothing to do with it and that’s that.

[curio-queries]

Are You Sure?!

Episodes 5 & 6 Notes

It was very fortuitous that I've been so busy over the last couple of weeks as I really needed both of these episodes together to make sense of my thoughts. This post is definitely far more conceptual than my last ones so if you're up for it, click on though the cut!

AYS's Main Character?

I would like to propose that AYS has a main character OTHER than the individual humans we're following along on screen. (I warned you, this post was going to be conceptual.) And the main character is the relationship itself, how each of the members relate to one another.

Here's Google's AI overview on what this concept means:

A story can center on the relationship between characters as the primary protagonist, with the dynamic and evolution of that connection acting as the main driving force of the narrative, rather than the individual characters themselves.

Key points to consider:

Relationship-centric stories: Many genres, particularly romance, often focus heavily on the relationship between the main characters, exploring its complexities, challenges, and growth throughout the story.

No single protagonist: In such cases, the "character" is the bond between the individuals, not just one person's perspective or journey.

Exploring the dynamic: The narrative would then focus on how the relationship changes, adapts, and reacts to external situations or internal conflicts.

Examples:

"Before Sunrise": The entire plot revolves around the single night encounter between two strangers, with the developing connection being the central focus.

"Brokeback Mountain": The story primarily explores the forbidden love between two cowboys, highlighting the complexities of their relationship in a restrictive environment.

"Steel Magnolias ": A group of girls in a small town in Louisiana experience grief together, including weddings, fatal illnesses, and the loss of loved ones.

Now before anyone comes for me saying I'm just pitching an argument for xyz fanwar, please note that I included the above just to illustrate the concept of a non-person main character rather than stating any of the above are comparisons to the individual member's relationships. We're talking about a show that was produced and distributed for entertainment, nothing further.

Episode 5

My main feeling after finally being able to watch episode 5 was overall unsettled. There was something sticking with me about that episode and I could NOT figure out what it was.

I knew I was feeling like the entire episode was stretched well beyond what the footage wanted for a complete episode. I'm all for getting to spend more time with our fellas but the Jeju trip would have benefited from being cut down to 2 episodes rather than 3, in my opinion.

There was just a whole lotta nothing happening. The guys eat, travel around a little bit, and eat some more. I had some vague thoughts about how I could quantify some data for y'all to explain this point but then it was time for the next episode...

vs. Episode 6

And what an absolutely lovely breath of fresh air this episode was. I know there have been some Run eps that I review with a smile on my face throughout the whole episode but AYS6?? That was 73 minutes of pure bliss.

So I started thinking about what must be different between the two eps. The guys eat, travel around a little bit, and eat some more...wait, that's exactly what I said about ep 5! Lol

But I think the main difference between the two is episode 6's plot points continually focus on the relationships between the members, while 5 falls a little stagnant.

Some examples:

JM/cat & JK/dog. I'm ALWAYS down for more footage of BTS with pets but this is frankly too much time spent on these scenes. It's honestly footage I would have expected in the bonus content instead of the main product. It's not just an establishing beat or a setup for a callback, this is supposed to be a scene but since it doesn't contribute to the journey of the main character aka the relationships. It could maaaybe work if they'd cut it to highlight the juxtaposition of how JM is calm with the cat vs JKs energy with the dog but that would have shortened the time it occupied and they were clearly trying to keep absolutely everything in that would lengthen the episode.

JKs stew. The ONLY thing that ties this plot point into the narrative of this show (other than it happening while he's in Jeju and Jimin is nearby) is the offhand comment he made that Jimin would like it while he was in NY. I'm going to talk more about this footage below but this was absolutely crucial for this whole beat making it into the episode. This is also why the footage of JM eating it and randomly taking off his shirt was kept in. The cut they chose is actually pretty bad story-wise but they used it anyway. We hear JM saying how much he loves it and how glad he is that JK is a good cook. It ties all of this time we spent watching JK do something alone back into the real main character of the show (the members' relationships between eachother in different circumstances).

Anyway, I won't belabour the point any further. With Tae constantly disappearing from scenes and the slightly diminished lack of focus on the member's relationships, episode 5 left me on an odd note.

A Little Production Note

I was completely thrown by the footage of JK in NY that we got this episode. But not for the reasons you may be thinking. (I do wonder if the anon that was sending in asks about the financing behind the documentaries is still around because we're getting into some of tidbits finally.)

So, all along we've been trying to sus out as much as we can, just a few details about how AYS came to be. We've had some hints but the inclusion of this footage may be another indicator.

The facts as we know them:

AYS is distributed by Disney.

Jungkook's documentary is being distributed by Trafalgar Releasing NOT Disney (at least not now, maybe it'll make it onto streaming after cinematic release but who knows?)

Questions due to the footage of JK in NY:

Was this footage captured as part of JKs documentary?

If so, when was it pulled to be utilized for AYS? Did the editors find it or were the writers involved?

We know that HYBE gathers behind-the-scene content without always having a full plan of how it will be used. But there are times where it did seem intentional for a specific purpose. Where did JKs Golden footage fall in?

Once upon a time, production houses would make deals with distributors about quantities of projects that would be delivered. Was that the case with the Disney deal or has every single project been negotiated separately and we only heard about it once there was a confirmed quantity. Somewhere in the middle perhaps?

And that's all I've got to say for now. I do have some more thoughts about things I've gleaned during these last couple of episodes but it'll likely keep until the end.

Anyway, this footage bumped me because it broke the rules of cross-project production. They got away with it for JKs SEVEN footage in ep 1 because they likely were using the same production crew since it was literally the same day so it doesnt feel like they're'breaking the wall'. But the NY-Jeju crews could have been completely different.

Editing to add further clarification to this point in this ask.

On a sidenote, do y'all remember the last time we got footage of jikook in a hotspring?? I'll jog your memory if not, it was in BV:4 and they 'washed each other's faces'. I can't even imagine what we're about to see in episode 7.

Link to my AYS MasterList

[covid-safer-hotties]

With the toll of new COVID-19 infections regularly topping 1 million a day and weekly deaths creeping toward the 1,000 mark, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has launched a campaign aimed not at protecting the public from this ongoing pandemic, now in its fifth year, but at washing its hands of responsibility.

CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen held a press conference August 23 to review the state of the COVID-19 pandemic and encourage the public to get their winter COVID-19, RSV and flu vaccines once they are made available. While bluntly acknowledging that “COVID is with us,” she tried unconvincingly to assure reporters and viewers that “we have the tools to protect ourselves.” She then added, as a way of shifting the blame, “We just need to use them!”

Dr. Cohen was silent on who was responsible for the failure of most Americans to get booster shots or otherwise protect themselves from a disease, which can be fatal for many and cause lifelong debilitation for many more.

She could have named the Democratic administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, which ended the COVID-19 emergency more than a year ago and treats the pandemic as a thing of the past. She could have named Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, the promoter of quack remedies like ivermectin and bleach, who recently welcomed into his campaign the anti-vaxxer and enemy of science and public health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

And if she had been equipped with a mirror—and a conscience—she could have pointed to herself and other top CDC officials, who have collaborated in the anti-scientific rampage to shut down both mitigation efforts and even elementary data collection on cases of illness, hospitalization and death.

Most importantly (and therefore least likely) she could have acknowledged that within the framework of the capitalist system, the profits of giant banks and corporations are far more important than the lives of human beings. That is the meaning of the incessant claims that schools, factories, public transportation and facilities must be kept open, to save “the economy,” despite the inevitable spread of the infection as a result.

Dr. Cohen, like her predecessors and colleagues at the top of the public health establishment, puts political pressures above science and medicine. The nearly hour-long briefing was simply political theater, where a panel of experts attempted to place the public health agency in the best light despite acknowledging the monumental number of daily infections that have seen hospitalizations and fatalities climb.

Meanwhile, schools across multiple states have announced closures—affecting thousands—just as the new academic year has begun, in response to mass infections among faculty and students.

So far this year, more than 26,000 Americans have died from acute COVID-19 complications, and more than 800 per week are being killed by a preventable infection, a figure 20 percent higher than last year this time. At the current rate, it is expected that between 50,000 to 60,000 Americans will die from COVID-19 in 2024, a rate two to three times higher than fatalities from flu. However, these do not take into consideration excess deaths, and given the complete dismantling of the reporting systems, these figures are known undercounts.

Such figures could only appear low in comparison to the colossal death toll of the first three years of the pandemic, when 352,000 died in 2020, 464,000 in 2021 and 260,000 in 2022. In 2023, 76,000 COVID-19 deaths were recorded. All these numbers are underestimates, as excess mortality figures are considerably higher. The cumulative death toll from COVID-19 is likely well over 1.4 million in the United States and approaching 30 million worldwide.

Neither did the panel address any concerns over the fact that millions continue to suffer from Long COVID, which has taken a significant toll on the health of Americans and the world over. It bears mentioning that a recent study noted that 410 million people across the world have had Long COVID with a $1 trillion impact on global GDP. Yet, no treatment for this condition exists. Without health insurance and means, issues of brain fog, chronic fatigue and sleep disturbances become part of one’s physiognomy.

Much about Dr. Cohen’s characterization of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is deeply flawed and should have been taken up by the press, who remained silent on the matter. First and foremost, her claim, in response to a direct question that COVID-19 “is endemic,” is completely misleading.

An infection is endemic when it is contained, not spreading uncontrolled and not causing significant impact on the society. COVID-19 is none of these. It remains a pandemic, with new waves of infections where millions are being infected daily by a virus whose mutation far outstrips the efforts of public health agencies and pharmaceutical companies to provide vaccines, medicines and mitigation practices. It continues to cause large-scale social disruption, economic loss and general hardship.

The opposition of both capitalist parties to any significant effort to fight the pandemic was on display last week. The Democratic National Convention, like its Republican counterpart in July, was a massive superspreader event, with thousands of delegates and media personnel congregating in an enclosed arena, where there was continuous cheering, shouting and singing. There are already anecdotal reports of widespread sickness in state delegations returning from Chicago.

As for the Republicans, Trump staged his appearance with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Friday afternoon, beaming as Kennedy announced he was folding up his independent presidential campaign and endorsing the ex-president and would-be dictator. Kennedy said he was working with Trump on staffing agencies like the CDC, NIH, FDA and USDA from the standpoint of ending the “chronic disease crisis.” By this he means, of course, ending efforts to fight diseases and letting children, the elderly, and the entire American population suffer the consequences.

Fundamentally, all large epidemics and pandemics are serious social issues that require broad-scale infection control in place to disrupt and prevent disease. And with respect to COVID-19 and all future pandemics, these require an international collaborative perspective.

In 2024 so far, 179 million people were infected in the United States, a total that is eventually expected to surpass 2023, when more than 248 million Americans, or three-quarters of the population, caught COVID-19. SARS-CoV-2 wastewater levels throughout the pandemic suggest that there have been more than 1.1 billion infections in the United States, between three and four for every person in the country.

This begs the question how are those most vulnerable, such as the elderly, immunocompromised, and those with chronic disabling medical conditions, which represent a significant portion of the population, to protect themselves from perpetual mass infection?

For the CDC director to present public health efforts as a matter of individual, personal choice is a gross falsification of reality. The policy of mass infection has been forced on the population.

As for having the tools to protect themselves, what is being offered are simply vaccines and more vaccines as a means to prevent COVID-19. As the WSWS recently noted, “Despite the limitations, the uptake of the vaccines is vital for the health of the population. The shots have a strong, proven safety record and do prevent severe disease and potentially reduce the risk of Long COVID, as studies have indicated. However, they do not prevent infections and the immunity they offer is short-lived given the constant mutation of the virus.”

The vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna carry a cost of $120 to $130 per shot. In some regions, these can be as high as $160 or even $200. However, the rescinding in March of $4.3 billion from the Department of Health and Human Services in COVID-19 supplemental funding means access to free vaccines for the 26 million uninsured and tens of millions more underinsured, essentially all from working class families, will only mean that the vaccination campaign will simply languish as it did last year when only 7 million Americans accepted the boosters within six weeks of their delivery to pharmacies.

As for other tools in their toolbox, Cohen refers to anti-viral treatments like Paxlovid, which are regularly being denied to patients by their physicians or when they actually are given a prescription, face the daunting price tag of $1,300 to $2,400 per course because their insurance denies them coverage. Meanwhile, repurposed medications like Metformin, a drug that treats diabetes, which has shown anti-viral properties and shown in randomized trials to reduce COVID-19 viral loads and decrease risk of Long COVID, remain unmentioned. In particular, this raises the question of why there are so few tools in the toolbox, and why some are being removed, such as the ability to wear N95 masks in public.

The arrest of an 18-year-old New York man in Nassau County on Tuesday who was wearing a black ski mask utilizing the recently passed mask-ban legislation will only embolden police departments and threaten the public who face possible detentions and arrest simply on charges of police suspicion.

At the Democratic National Convention, guidance was issued forbidding mask wearing by attendees unless “it was necessary due to a disability” and this at the discretion of security.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Berkeley Lovelace Jr. at NBC News:

The Food and Drug Administration is planning major changes for how Covid vaccines are rolled out and who will be able to get the updated shots this fall. In a paper published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary and Dr. Vinay Prasad, the FDA’s new vaccine chief, wrote that any new Covid vaccine now must undergo placebo-controlled clinical trials — meaning, some people would get the actual vaccine while others get an inactive substance like a saline shot, to compare results. At a planned FDA vaccine panel meeting on Thursday, agency advisor are expected to advise the vaccine makers which strains to target for new shots. The new clinical trial requirement isn't expected to affect the fall rollout for older adults and other people at high risk for severe illness because drugmakers are exempt from additional testing for those groups. Makary and Prasad said in a question and answer session later Tuesday that annual shots for healthy children and adults would no longer be routinely approved. They also suggested that the vaccines may not be updated each year. ”Instead of having a Covid strategy that’s year to year, why don’t we let the science tell us when we should change?” Prasad said. “The virus doesn’t have a calendar.” Previously, updated Covid vaccines had been cleared by the FDA similar to flu vaccines.

The original Covid shots, from Pfizer and Moderna, approved in late 2020, went through placebo-controlled trials. Then, the drugmakers transitioned to smaller studies to test how well the updated shots triggered an immune response against the current variants circulating in the U.S. In the journal article, Makary and Prasad cast doubt on the flu vaccine model, noting that only a quarter of people in the U.S. get the updated shots each year, including less than a third of health care workers. In comparison, about 75% of health care workers get seasonal flu shots, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Covid shot policy, the officials wrote, “has sometimes been justified by arguing that the American people are not sophisticated enough to understand age- and risk-based recommendations.” “We reject this view,” they added. Dr. Jesse Goodman, a professor of medicine and infectious disease at Georgetown University and a former chief scientist at the FDA, agreed that people can understand their own health risks, but was skeptical of the agency’s new approach, saying it limits people’s “freedom to choose.” “What about people with elderly or high risk relatives/housemates?,” he wrote in an email. “What about people who are not at increased risk of severe disease who want to reduce their risk of infection or time off from work?,” Goodman asked.

[...]

Who will be able to get the Covid shots?

Under the FDA’s new guidance, the drugmakers will need to run new trials that track participants for at least six months. The main goal of the trials should be showing that the shots help prevent symptomatic Covid, the officials wrote, with data showing at least 30% effectiveness. People who’ve had Covid in the past should still be included in the trial to better reflect the general population, they said. Drugmakers can still use smaller studies, known as immunogenicity studies, to get approval for adults 65 and up, as well as children and adults with at least one medical condition that puts them at higher risk for Covid. The FDA said many people are considered at high risk, including pregnant women and those with obesity or who have mental health conditions such as depression. Other conditions linked to severe Covid illness include diabetes, heart disease and asthma. “Ultimately, these studies alone can provide reassurance that the American repeat-boosters-in-perpetuity strategy is evidence-based,” the officials wrote. Estimates, they said, suggest that 100 million to 200 million Americans will have access to the updated vaccines.

[...]

Kennedy's influence on vaccine rules

A change to the way Covid vaccines are updated was expected. Earlier this month, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. mandated that all new vaccines must undergo placebo-controlled clinical trials. Until Tuesday, it wasn’t clear whether HHS considered Pfizer’s and Moderna’s updated shots “new vaccines,” requiring new clinical trials. Former government health officials feared that the FDA, under Kennedy, was moving to slow-walk vaccine approvals. Over the weekend, the FDA approved Novovax’s vaccine after weeks of delay. In an unexpected turn, however, the agency limited the use of the shot to people 65 and up and teens and adults with at least one medical condition that puts them at risk of severe illness. Typically, it’s the CDC that makes recommendations about who should get the vaccines.

Coming this fall, thanks to the FDA and the Trump Regime’s pandering to the anti-vaxxer crazies: the COVID vaccine eligibility criteria has been significantly tightened to adults 65 and older as well as children and younger adults with at least one high-risk health problem.

See Also:

Reuters: FDA tightens requirements for COVID vaccine, adding trials for healthy adults

AP, via HuffPost: Annual COVID-19 Shots For Healthy Younger Adults, Children Will No Longer Be Routinely Approved

Finding Gravity (Jamison Foser): Anti-science Trump regime moves to ban vaccines

[skellseerwriting]

Claderus Lore Theories and Observations

Spoilers for some of Calderus's gifts

I'm going to go into depth on the dragon statues and statuettes, and what I think they mean, along with data I've obtained from the official wiki

First: The Calderus statue on our farm and the dragon statue in the mines are NOT the same dragon/statue (I used to think they were the same and I'm sure I'm not alone)

Here is a side by side comparison, with the most notable difference being the horns. The mines statue has its horn arching nearly to the center of its head, whereas Calderus's barely reaches above his eye. Similarly, the snouts and front legs have a different thickness, and there's also a difference in eye shape

I also want to note that the little engravings on the pedestal look exactly the same, so I'm curious if they have any meaning

Another thing to note, and I'm not sure if this is intentional or an error on the devs' part, but different parts of the official wiki says different things about the mines statue

Under skill perks, the dragon statue in the mines is referred to as just that. If you go into the specific mining and combat pages however, you get something else (I only used the mining page for reference)

Here, the mines statue is referred to as the Calderus statue in the mines. I would understand if the devs want us to think this statue is Calderus as a sort of red herring, but the inconsistency of wiki claims makes me second guess that theory. Maybe they originally wanted us to think it was Calderus but forgot to update certain pages?

Regardless, one thing is certain: there is intentional mystery being shrouded over this dragon statue. If not by the incorrect data, then by the mere fact that this strange dragon isn't being brought to the player's attention in any significant way while playing the game

Eye Break

Now, lets compare the statues to the statuettes

On the left is the Calderus statuette, and on the right is the unknown one. If you look at the circled horns you'll see they match their respective statue above (taking the limited pixels into consideration). The cool-toned unknown statuette also reflects the coloring of the mines statue better (considering its in darker lighting too)

As you may have noticed, Calderus's statuette is a loved gift, while the other one is a hated gift. So clearly, there’s some bad blood of sort between Calderus and the dragon that this statuette represents. Whether it be because of something saddening or out of hatred, I don’t know. What I am sure of is that we will probably get more backstory from Calderus as he gets integrated into the game more, and I can’t wait for crumbs

What interests me most is that we have no lore, no hints about this other supposed dragon. Calderus never brings them up. Never brings up someone from his past (for now). The only mentions we have on this other dragon comes from Eiland's comments on the unknown statuette

One thing that intrigues me about this line is the pluralization of "dragon statues". This implies their are other dragon statues of Calderus in Mistria (that we haven't seen) OR that there are other dragons who aren't Calderus (or he's referring to the countless Calderus statuettes you can find). Regardless, this dragon statuette is different

That leaves the questions: Who is this dragon? What is their history with Calderus? With Mistria? Will we get more lore on them? (I think so)

As always folks, continue to romance that dragon <3

[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.