#automated-irony

[viiridiangreen]

RARE TECH-RELATED VIRI W

i was gonna Fucking Lose It if these were gone tbh.

[alpaca-clouds]

How Capitalism turned AI into something bad

AI "Art" sucks. AI "writing" sucks. Chat GPT sucks. All those fancy versions of "fancy predictive text" and "fancy predictive image generation" actually do suck a lot. Because they are bad at what they do - and they take jobs away from people, who would actually be good at them.

But at the same time I am also thinking about what kind of fucking dystopia we live in, that this had to turn out that way.

You know... I am an autistic guy, who has studied computer science for quite a while now. I have read a lot of papers and essays in my day about the development of AI and deep learning and what not. And I can tell you: There is stuff that AI is really good and helpful for.

Currently I am working a lot with the evaluation of satellite imagery and I can tell you: AI is making my job a ton easier. Sure, I could do that stuff manually, but it would be very boring and mind numbing. So, yeah, preprocessing the images with AI so that I just gotta look over the results the AI put out and confirm them? Much easier. Even though at times it means that my workday looks like this: I get to work, start the process on 50GB worth of satellite data, and then go look at tumblr for the rest of the day or do university stuff.

But the thing is that... You know. Creative stuff is actually not boring, manial stuff where folks are happy to have the work taken off their hands. Creative work is among those jobs that a lot of people find fulfilling. But from the feeling of fulfillment you cannot eat. But now AI is being used to push down the money folks in creative jobs can make.

I think movie and TV writing is a great example. When AI puts out a script, that script is barely sensible. Yet, the folks who actually make something useful out of it get paid less than they would, if they did it on their own.

Sure, in the US the WGA made it clear that they would not work with studios doing something like that - but the US is not the whole world. And in other countries it will definitely happen.

And that... kinda sucks.

And of course even outside of creative fields... There is definitely jobs that are going to get replaced by automation and artificial intelligence.

The irony is that once upon a time folks like Keynes were like: "OMG, we will get there one day and it is going to be great, because a machine is going to do your work, and you are gonna get paid for it." But the reality obviously is that: "A machine is going to do the work and the CEO is going to get an even bigger bonus, while you sleep on the streets, where police will then violate you for being homeless."

You know, looking at this from the point of view of Solarpunk: I absolutely think that there is a place in a Solarpunk future for AI. Even for some creative AI. But all under the assumption that first we are going to erradicate fucking capitalism. Because this does not work together with capitalism. We need to get rid of capitalism first. And no, I do not know how to start.

[elsewhereuniversity]

Archivist, I know I am foolish for my kindness and my heart. I know this softness will be the death of me. That it will bring me pain and suffering. But I want to ease the pain of others, even if it costs me. My entire life has been this way- Constantly seeking the approval of others, never thinking I am worth anything of my own. But I want to give others the kindness I refuse to show myself.

Yet I want to make it out alive. My anxiety was always a burden, but here, it may be keeping me safe.

I study automation and robotics. I work with machines and metal, oil and air and electricity. I keep to myself and make no trouble for anyone. I can hardly get the courage to ask my human professors for help- I would never have the nerve to approach Them for a deal.

But I fear my kindness will kill me. That someone will ask me for something and my desire to help them will be stronger than my fear. I took my safename for a reason- I am easily led and lack a strength of will.

I am praised for my work with the robots. I UNDERSTAND them, and studying the strictness of programming has helped me avoid making any accidental deals thus far. Will my lack of desire for anything from Them keep me safe? Or will my kindness be my undoing regardless? I suppose all I can do is return dropped quarters and fallen IDs, never ask things from strangers, and hope for the best...

A gift for your time and any advice you wish to give- An old music box from my collection. Simple and white, like it belonged inside something more elaborate- What, I am not sure. Like nearly everything I own, it was purchased secondhand. The wind-up key is interchangeable with the wind-up key of any other, it only screws on. The name of the song it plays is printed on the bottom, and the irony is not lost on me.... But I feel it is tempting fate for me to carry something titled "Funeral March of a Marionette".

- A student known as Puppet

Kindness here is often repaid with kindness, especially when repayment is neither sought nor expected. And the iron scattered around your workspace is a fairly significant deterrent, as well. I suspect if any ill fortune was to fall on you, you would have many unknown friends emerging indignantly from the woodwork.

[soundwavereporting]

In Optimus Prime #16, it's shown that Soundwave has somehow* gotten the job of being a supervisor in a mine. This is never mentioned prior to the issue (even in his origin story in issue #22 of exrid), nor is it referenced again after #16 ends. However, in issue #22, Soundwave and the cassettes are shown to be homeless when Ratbat finds them--Ratbat, who would later go on to say he'd played a part in automating the mining jobs that triggered the events of the Megatron: Origin comic, mining jobs that Soundwave been overseeing elsewhere on Cybertron.

I'm not saying that Ratbat inadvertently got Soundwave laid off long before** he got Megatron laid off, but I'm not not saying that would be a delicious piece of irony that may have contributed to Soundwave hating Ratbat enough to keep him alive and as a cassette

*In #16, Prowl does say Soundwave went to 'a school in the north' which is generally accepted to mean the JAAT, but again, this is never remarked upon earlier in the series, and issues #21-22 pretty explicitly state that Soundwave met Shockwave post-shadowplay. One could make the Watsonian argument that at that point, Soundwave's outlier ability had disjointed him to the point where he genuinely believed Senator Shockwave of the JAAT and Senator Shockwave of the Decepticon movement were two different people, one he could hear like a 'normal' Cybertronian, and one he could not), but that's stretching things, imho. I think the Doylist explanation of Barber forgetting what he'd written ~5 years prior and/or wanting a nice lead in to the issue is far more likely. Personally, I tend to leave the JAAT/mining thing out when writing fic

**again, assuming this is true, the timeline gets a little silly here; regardless, it tends to seriously compress the amount of time Soundwave spent with Ratbat from 'indefinitely' to 'prewar, but post-people are shooting neutral ships down', and might not even fit with what Megatron was doing in canon, per the Elegant Chaos arc in MTMTE.

[cuntgarrycuntross]

Nobody thinks about uk hun as much as I do esp the banannadrama version for irony’s sake. I just walk around saying “here to haunt you, it’s Joe black!” At all times like an automated response bot

[willcodehtmlforfood]

The quickest way to second-guess a decision to major in English is this: have an extended family full of Salvadoran immigrants and pragmatic midwesterners. The ability to recite Chaucer in the original Middle English was unlikely to land me a job that would pay off my student loans and help me save for retirement, they suggested when I was a college freshman still figuring out my future. I stuck with English, but when my B.A. eventually spat me out into the thick of the Great Recession, I worried that they’d been right.

After all, computer-science degrees, and certainly not English, have long been sold to college students as among the safest paths toward 21st-century job security. Coding jobs are plentiful across industries, and the pay is good—even after the tech layoffs of the past year. The average starting salary for someone with a computer-science degree is significantly higher than that of a mid-career English graduate, according to the Federal Reserve; at Google, an entry-level software engineer reportedly makes $184,000, and that doesn’t include the free meals, massages, and other perks. Perhaps nothing has defined higher education over the past two decades more than the rise of computer science and STEM. Since 2016, enrollment in undergraduate computer-science programs has increased nearly 49 percent. Meanwhile, humanities enrollments across the United States have withered at a clip—in some cases, shrinking entire departments to nonexistence.

But that was before the age of generative AI. ChatGPT and other chatbots can do more than compose full essays in an instant; they can also write lines of code in any number of programming languages. You can’t just type make me a video game into ChatGPT and get something that’s playable on the other end, but many programmers have now developed rudimentary smartphone apps coded by AI. In the ultimate irony, software engineers helped create AI, and now they are the American workers who think it will have the biggest impact on their livelihoods, according to a new survey from Pew Research Center. So much for learning to code.

ChatGPT cannot yet write a better essay than a human author can, nor can it code better than a garden-variety developer, but something has changed even in the 10 months since its introduction. Coders are now using AI as a sort of souped-up Clippy to accelerate the more routine parts of their job, such as debugging lines of code. In one study, software developers with access to GitHub’s Copilot chatbot were able to finish a coding task 56 percent faster than those who did it solo. In 10 years, or maybe five, coding bots may be able to do so much more.

People will still get jobs, though they may not be as lucrative, says Matt Welsh, a former Harvard computer-science professor and entrepreneur. He hypothesizes that automation will lower the barrier to entry into the field: More people might get more jobs in software, guiding the machines toward ever-faster production. This development could make highly skilled developers even more essential in the tech ecosystem. But Welsh also says that an expanded talent pool “may change the economics of the situation,” possibly leading to lower pay and diminished job security.

If mid-career developers have to fret about what automation might soon do to their job, students are in the especially tough spot of anticipating the long-term implications before they even start their career. “The question of what it will look like for a student to go through an undergraduate program in computer science, graduate with that degree, and go on into the industry �� That is something I do worry about,” Timothy Richards, a computer-science professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, told me. Not only do teachers like Richards have to wrestle with just how worthwhile learning to code is anymore, but even teaching students to code has become a tougher task. ChatGPT and other chatbots can handle some of the basic tasks in any introductory class, such as finding problems with blocks of code. Some students might habitually use ChatGPT to cheat on their assignments, eventually collecting their diploma without having learned how to do the work themselves.

Richards has already started to tweak his approach. He now tells his introductory-programming students to use AI the way a math student would use a calculator, asking that they disclose the exact prompts they fed into the machine, and explain their reasoning. Instead of taking assignments home, Richards’s students now do the bulk of their work in the classroom, under his supervision. “I don’t think we can really teach students in the way that we’ve been teaching them for a long time, at least not in computer science,” he said.

Fiddling with the computer-science curriculum still might not be enough to maintain coding’s spot at the top of the higher-education hierarchy. “Prompt engineering,” which entails feeding phrases to large language models to make their responses more human-sounding, has already surfaced as a lucrative job option—and one perhaps better suited to English majors than computer-science grads. “Machines can’t be creative; at best, they’re very elaborate derivatives,” says Ben Royce, an AI lecturer at Columbia University. Chatbots don’t know what to do with a novel coding problem. They sputter and choke. They make stuff up. As AI becomes more sophisticated and better able to code, programmers may be tasked with leaning into the parts of their job that draw on conceptual ingenuity as opposed to sheer technical know-how. Those who are able to think more entrepreneurially—the tinkerers and the question-askers—will be the ones who tend to be almost immune to automation in the workforce.

The potential decline of “learn to code” doesn’t mean that the technologists are doomed to become the authors of their own obsolescence, nor that the English majors were right all along (I wish). Rather, the turmoil presented by AI could signal that exactly what students decide to major in is less important than an ability to think conceptually about the various problems that technology could help us solve. The next great Silicon Valley juggernaut might be seeded by a humanities grad with no coding expertise or a computer-science grad with lots of it. After all, the discipline has always been about more than just learning the ropes of Python and C++. Identifying patterns and piecing them together is its essence.

In that way, the answer to the question of what happens next in higher education may lie in what the machines can’t do. Royce pointed me toward Moravec’s paradox, the observation that AI shines at high-level reasoning and the kinds of skills that are generally considered to reflect cognitive aptitude (think: playing chess), but fumbles with the basic ones. The curiosity-driven instincts that have always been at the root of how humans create things are not just sticking around in an AI world; they are now more important than ever. Thankfully, students have plenty of ways to get there.

[himbosuplex]

crashdown - pt 1

Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon [Handler Walter x C4-621]

Premise: A badly injured 621 makes a bad landing, and Handler Walter is going to have to get him back to good health.

(he/him 621, slow burn plot) -- [link to the fic on AO3]

Note: Okay so, this is literally the first fanfiction I've written in uhhhh… I think the last time was like literally a decade ago? Like, the last time I wrote fanfiction, Pacific Rim was a new movie. So… keep that in mind I guess. But I wanted more Handler Walter x 621 so I figured I should fill that hole (heh) myself instead of whining.

A deafening roar filled the air as an Armored Core hurtled towards the hangar at breakneck speed. C4-621 was no stranger to playing things a little too loosely when it came to mobility, nor rushing in to a landing. This time, though? This time was different, and Walter could tell that much. Having this level of skill as Handler required an innate understanding of one's pilot, and this Handler knew there was something terribly wrong with his hound.

Walter's gruff voice crackled over the radio. "You're coming in too hot, 621. Pull back on your entry speed."

No response. This wasn't particularly surprising, as 621 was especially taciturn—a trait he shared with most pilots with Gen 4 augmentations. Given the circumstances, it remained worrisome. Unless 621 deviated from the norm, Walter had no means to discern whether the issue lay with the AC, the pilot, or if he was reaching the pilot's ears at all.

Stormy blue-grey eyes darted back and forth between the displays. The first presented a diagram of 621's AC, a nimble reverse-joint mech dubbed 'Crashdown'—a name whose irony wasn't lost in the present chaos. Critical damage indicators flashed red on several parts of the AC, yet the boosters and piloting systems maintained normal operation. Shifting his gaze to the second screen, he observed a live feed of Crashdown rapidly closing the gap between itself and the hangar entryway. The AC struggled visibly, grappling to maintain a stable flight path as it repeatedly drifted to one side and over-corrected to the other.

"621, I repeat: Pull back on entry speed. At your current trajectory, you won't touch down in the hangar entryway safely. If you cannot make the landing, decelerate and find a safe landing zone so you and your AC can be retrieved."

Still no response.

Walter's stomach churned uneasily. He was not often easily fazed, but the idea of losing a pilot to such a preventable crash left a foul taste in his mouth. He'd lost plenty of hounds prior to 621, and to a myriad of endings. Everything from pilots falling in combat to an enemy AC, to sudden and fatal eruptions of coral. But this? This was too much.

The radio abruptly crackled to life, muffled sounds coming through with heavy distortion. None of the noise formed coherent words, but it was clear that 621 was conscious and attempting to communicate. What precisely he was trying to convey remained unclear, but it was, at the very least, an indication that he hadn't reached a point where he couldn't operate his AC at all.

"621! You're still coming in too hot! You need to stabilize your AC before you take out the entire hangar bay!" Walter watched helplessly as the unit bobbed and weaved, making a desperate, last-ditch attempt to decelerate before crossing the threshold.

It was too late. Crashdown grazed the side of the hangar entryway, the impact propelling the AC into one side of the bay retrieval arms. The automated arm violently tore away from the conveyor rail, sliding across the metal floor with a shrill sound before finally lurching to a stop alongside the Armored Core itself. The remaining arm futilely attempted to retrieve the AC, tugging at one side of the mech ineffectively before ultimately surrendering.

Walter exited the lift from the comms room, rushing towards the fallen machine as quickly as his aging legs allowed. His bad leg throbbed as he pushed it beyond its limits, but he shoved the pain to the back of his mind. He wasn't entirely certain whether the urgency stemmed from a desire to salvage such a valuable asset, or a genuine concern for his pilot's well-being. Either way, losing his hound to such a clusterfuck of a crash would be a massive loss.

Walter strained his voice to shout over sirens and loud machinery, his fists clenched so tight his gloves were the only thing stopping him from drawing blood from his palms. Wake up, 621. Get out of there. He repeated these words in his thoughts, nearly convincing himself that through sheer repetition, they could manifest into reality. Seconds felt like minutes. Minutes felt like an eternity.

A quiet creak emanated from the core, followed by a weak thud. Then another. The emergency hatch cover popped off the core, barely missing Walter as it clattered onto the metal grating. He didn't flinch, his body already completely tense, waiting to see 621 emerge from the machine. A slender silhouette materialized, gingerly making its way out of the escape tunnel. The figure tried to descend the sloped nose of the AC's cockpit core, but frailty and injury overwhelmed him, leading to a tumble the remainder of the way, crashing onto the floor below.

Walter rushed to the pilot's side, kneeling to scoop him up off the cold floor. "We'll get you taken care of, 621. Just rest."

621 didn't reply, just squeezed his handler's arm weakly. He was in bad shape, but he was alive, and that was more than Walter could have hoped for.

[theinternetisaweboflies]

Irony Poisoning Chapter 5 (Chapter 1)

When morning came, Wednesday was still on her back, and Enid was still on her stomach, but Enid was also sort of… on… Wednesday.

Not completely, of course. Enid's arms were wrapped around Wednesday's waist, and Wednesday's arms crossed over Enid's back. Their legs were only a little tangled.

Enid was back on her side of the bed before she was even fully awake. She spent several anxious minutes watching Wednesday's chest rise and fall, not daring to breathe herself. Finally letting out a sigh, Enid looked away, only to catch sight of herself in the well-polished blade of the automated guillotine.

She had pillow marks on her face from Wednesday's collar.

"You should talk about your nightmare too."

Enid let out a little shriek that she really hoped no one else in the house had heard. "W- Wednesday! Wh- What did you say?"

Wednesday under her pillow and retrieved a piece of folded typewriting paper. She passed it to Enid.

"What is this?"

"I've been probing my own psyche since the incident at Nevermore. One of the final pieces of advice that Dr. Kinbott gave me was to try writing outside of my comfort genre. This is the first attempt. Its inadequacies should make you feel more confident in sharing your own narrative."

"Thanks," said Enid, "I think?"

She unfolded the paper. It wasn't full to the margins like excerpts from Viper de la Muerte Book 3: Till Breath Do Us Part that Wednesday had finally let Enid read ten days into term just to shut her up. There were only eight lines.

Monday's child was full of shit.

Tuesday's child was done with it.

Thursday's child had not a fuck

to give. Friday's was out of luck.

Saturday's child could finally rest,

and Sunday's child felt truly blessed.

You may think something was withheld,

but Wednesday's child was canceled.

Enid almost laughed, but if this was anything other than a parody of Wednesday's eponymous nursery rhyme, it meant she thought…

"You don't need to be canceled. Why would you think that?"

"I left you alone with a monster."

That came out of nowhere, but there were only two things Wednesday could be talking about, and it probably wasn't Enid's mother. "Um, are you forgetting I'm also a monster? And that I totally kicked Tyler's ass?"

"You got hurt."

"Just a couple of scratches," said Enid, suddenly feeling self-conscious. It was a small bed, and Wednesday's face was barely a foot away. "A little Clinique, and you can't even see the scars."

"How could evidence of your bravery ever diminish your beauty?" asked Wednesday.

Enid had no idea how to respond, but Wednesday spared her by continuing, as if the question had been rhetorical.

"I'm sorry," she said, and the word only sounded a little foreign on her tongue. "I shouldn't have left you alone. It was your first transformation. It was almost certainly your first fight."

Enid was quick to correct her. "I wasn't alone! Thing was there. He held my hand and everything."

"I should have been there," Wednesday barely more than breathed.

"I was glad you weren't there."

Wednesday's brow furrowed, and Enid resisted the urge to smooth it back down.

"You were?"

"Well, duh! It meant I didn't have to worry about you." Enid sighed. "At least, I thought it did, but of course you were running towards danger. I should have known. I did know you had a good reason, and I was right. Saving all Outcasts from genocide is a pretty good excuse for bailing, even on your best friend. Oh, and it meant you trusted me to handle Tyler by myself. That was cool."

Wednesday didn't speak much, but Enid had rarely seen her speechless. Eventually she said, "It wasn't your fight."

"Excuse you," said Enid. "I get to decide what my fights are. Anyway, what makes you so sure it was your fight?"

"I was the one who resurrected Crackstone."

"That's ridic- Wait. What?"

"Goody Addams cursed him," said Wednesday. "So my blood was required to break the curse."

"Your blood?"

"Yes," said said. "Laurel Gates cut my hand and used the blood to initiate the ritual. Did I not tell you about that?"

Enid was trying to remember that night, and things got a little blurry between all the blood and tears, but she was pretty sure…"I thought that was from the sword- the broken sword you used to stab Crackstone?"

"We might make a journalist of you yet," said Wednesday. "Goody healed my wounds right before you saved me from the Hyde."

"Wounds? Plural?"

"Crackstone stabbed me," said Wednesday, in the same sort of voice one might use to describe the weather. "He did a decent job of it too. I don't think I was his first."

The next thing Enid knew for sure, she was back in Wednesday's arms, she was being patted very awkwardly on the head, and a voice from somewhere above her was asking, "There, there?"

"It's not supposed to be a question," said Enid. It was only a little muffled.

"I'm new to this."

"Don't force yourself." Enid tried to raise her head, but Wednesday pressed it gently back to her chest.

"You scare me, Enid Sinclair. I'm not used to it. That does not mean I am forcing myself."

"I scare you?"

"I'm fairly sure it's fear," said Wednesday. "I've certainly never felt it before. I suppose that alone indicates you are… uniquely important to me."

Enid raised her head just in time to see Wednesday's cheeks completely ruin her monochromatic color palette. At first she thought it was a fever, but the flush darkened under further scrutiny. It turned out Wednesday Addams could blush.

Maybe Enid was a little competitive, but that felt like a win.

"You can say it," she said. "You won't get struck by lightning. Well, in this house, you might, but not because-"

"I love you," said Wednesday.

Enid choked on her own spit, and Thing had to come pound on her back.

Wednesday's shouts attracted an audience. They applauded politely when Thing had finished, and he gave a little bow. Then they all dispersed for breakfast, with an invitation for the girls to join them once Enid had caught her breath.

"Well, now they'll never let you leave," said Wednesday. "You owe Thing a life debt."

Enid's breaths were still stuttering and inconsistent, but that was barely a pop-up notification in the corner of her mind.

"Wh- What did you just say, Wednesday?"

"I said they'll never let you leave."

Enid growled. "You know that's not what I'm talking about!"

"Oh," said Wednesday. She put one finger to her chin in a caricature of thought. Between her twin braids and collared dress, she looked so young and innocent that it made Enid want to scream at the duplicity of it all. "You owe Thing a life debt."

"I'll kill you," said Enid, and Wednesday smiled.

"You don't have it in you."

"There's still time, Wednesday." She found it hard not to repeat her roommate's earlier words when everything Wednesday had ever said ran through her head on a loop like a 24/7 news feed.

Wednesday gave her an appraising look. Enid didn't know what it was appraising, but she sucked in her stomach, just in case.

"I suppose there is."

[qtubbo]

not related to the current discussion (or kind of? phil does this too) but i hate when people downplay tubbo's factories. it's not laziness or greed that motivates him to build new machines. he works so hard on everything he makes and a huge part of why he likes doing it is the mental effort of figuring out how to make it work. sure he prefers having an automated process over doing it himself but if he was truly lazy he'd just warp to any of the other create-heavy bases and borrow their machines.

tis upsetting but like i’ve come to accept that is how dramatic irony works the other players see someone making a lot of machines to get a lot of resources after saying he wants to be the richest. It’s gonna look that way unless you know them well, Phil doing it does make me more sad though because he does understand tubbo rather than just observing the whole conversation. It is just the experience, characters make the most face value conclusion because they just don’t enough to really think through it because it doesn’t affect them. Happens.

[midnightfunk]

Several of the journalists banned Thursday had covered the ban of the @ElonJet account, and highlighted the irony of Musk’s self-purported mission to advance free speech.

“Free speech is when the world’s second-richest man threatens legal action against a 20-year-old college student for sharing publicly available data he doesn’t like,” (the New York Post’s Jack) Harwell tweeted before his account was taken down, referring to Jack Sweeney, the college student who runs @ElonJet.

CNN’s (Donie) O’Sullivan, too, had been covering the story, having interviewed Sweeney and his grandmother about the issue.

“I do think this is very important for the potential chilling impact this can have for freelance journalists, independent journalists around the world, particularly those who cover Elon Musk’s other companies, like Tesla and SpaceX,” O’Sullivan told CNN Thursday after his account was suspended.

As the furor over the account suspensions unfolded, some Twitter users reported the platform had begun intervening when they attempted to post links to their own profiles on alternative social networks, including Mastodon.

Those reports were confirmed Thursday evening by a CNN reporter who was blocked from sharing a Mastodon profile URL and was given an automated error message that said Twitter or its partners had identified the site as “potentially harmful.”

Felon Musk thinks Mastodon is “potentially harmful?”

Good enough for me!

[brotheralyosha]

Welcome to the AI Arms Race

I’ve had this tweet bookmarked all week and, to be honest, the more I consider its implications, the more freaked out I get. And the original poster isn’t even the first to suggest a similar idea.

If you can’t really tell what’s happening in the diagram, the user tells ChatGPT they want a job. ChatGPT extrapolates a nice perfunctory email/cover letter. It’s sent to a hiring manager, who takes the text, puts it into ChatGPT, which then spits out a single sentence confirming someone wants the job with a link to their resume. The A.I. could probably go further and summarize the resume if you wanted. It could probably even determine if the work experience or education levels of the applicant were appropriate for the role. You could even set it up so that the humans on either side both never knew that the other one is using ChatGPT and that they never read the information being sent between both instances.

Ignoring for now all the legal and ethical issues with conducting any kind of hiring like this, what’s really freaking me out is that all the socializing is being done between the two A.I. The social content is the work that’s being outsourced here. The fundamental thing that makes human beings human. It’s the enshittification of our own interactions with one another. Or, to put it another way, the humans in the scenario above are the ones communicating like robots.

And, yes, in this context, it’s a largely useless formality that’s being automated, but we know how this goes and where it ends up because we know what we do with technology when it makes things easy, even if what’s being made easier isn’t actually all that great. And it’s not hard to imagine similar uses of A.I. being deployed in other parts of our lives. What if iMessage text suggestions were actually good? But for everything?

The dark irony here is that corporatized communication is what made communicating with each other not fun in the first place. And now, there are corporate-owned A.I. tools that are offering to help us no longer communicate directly at all. And competition from various corporate entities will ensure they keep getting incrementally better, while also, of course, making things more enshitted. Which means A.I. platforms aren’t just enshitting the internet, they’re helping us enshit ourselves.

[contreparry]

Heyo! How about a prompt from the sexual tensions list for Fenders or whoever you'd like? [ UNBUTTON ] : due to heat or stress or other reasons, sender unbuttons the top of their shirt to reveal their neckline.

Here’s some Fenders from the modern!Thedas roommates AU (a prequel to this fill) for @dadrunkwriting !

It was an unmitigated disaster.

Fenris called management when the kitchen sink backed up that morning. He watched the murky water swirl around in the deep stainless steel basin, scraps of potato and carrot peels lazily floating about like boats on a summer lake. As the automated message cheerfully informed him to “please hold” for the third time in ten minutes, Fenris’ gaze wandered over towards Anders.

Anders stood in the middle of the kitchen. He wore turquoise running shorts, slippers shaped like nugs, and a pale pink short-sleeve collared shirt covered in smiling, dancing cats. His hair was tugged back into a stubby tail, tendrils of dark blond hair slipping loose to curl at the nape of his neck. As the dirty water in the sink slowly rose, Anders would methodically dip a large bowl into the mess and deposit the dirty water into a giant plastic bucket.

“Please hold!” the automated voice exclaimed joyously before it cut back to a soundtrack that a charitable person might call smooth jazz. Fenris watched as Anders unbuttoned one button of his shirt, then another and another until it hung open on his skinny frame. Fenris’ mouth went dry. Anders wrinkled his nose dipped the bowl back into the water. A tendril of hair curled along the back of his neck, long and elegant like a swan.

Fenris wanted to bite that neck.

“Please hold! -dooo woooo do da wah wooo-“

Anders bent down, grasped the paint bucket handle, and rose up in a fluid (ha) motion. He shuffled past Fenris on his trip towards the bathroom, and Fenris couldn’t help but wonder when Anders got those shorts. Anders hated running. But they were… nice shorts. Made his long legs somehow longer, as if fabric held that power.

Might be nice to feel those long legs wrapped around his waist again. He was always more of a hands on type of man.

“I’d say we should call in Hawke, but she might tear out the wall to find the damned clog,” Anders called out from the bathroom, and in that moment Fenris wanted to hang up, call Hawke, and get this whole plumbing problem sorted so he could drag Anders into bed and fuck him until the man lost all control of his tongue.

“Please hold! -doo daaah wah waaaah-“

“Hawke,” Fenris croaked, coughed, began again. “Hawke will bring the apartment down around our ears. I want my security deposit back.”

“Cheapskate,” Anders retorted as he emerged from the bathroom. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead and the curve of his cheek into his stubble.

“You’d do the same,” Fenris replied, and he obligingly stepped back as Anders passed by him to return to bailing out the flooding sink. Anders only snorted and returned to his work, lean muscles rippling as he moved. Fenris bit his lower lip until it hurt. This shouldn’t be erotic. They were exhausted, sweaty and miserable as they switched off between calling their apartment’s management and bailing their kitchen sink, but Fenris’ eyes remained glued to Anders.

Anders couldn’t be more seductive if he tried, and there lay the great irony: Anders wasn’t even trying to appeal to him. He was trying to fix their sink! But Fenris’ libido had other ideas, as usual, and Anders in his “laundry day” worst was now the peak of eroticism.

“We’re ordering out tonight,” Anders declared with a huff. “I refuse to cook.”

“You rarely cook,” Fenris pointed out.

“I refuse to make you cook after this,” Anders amended. “This is- Maker’s Balls! I’m texting Hawke. Just to see who answers the call first.” Anders grabbed his phone from the counter and texted furiously, his expression pinched with annoyance.

“… might as well,” Fenris agreed, because the sooner this disaster was solved the sooner he might manage to shuck Anders out of his clothes.

[estoult]

god help me. things i have without a shadow of irony called "good girl" recently include:

computer

car

the amazon alexa

automated tests

there's something wrong with me i think

[the-melting-world]

Entourage

~ In which a young athelete and a handsome chaperone exchange a few words at a party...

Music: “Uniform” by Bloc Party

Khleo x Bakri

~ 1.2k words

Bakri and Theo belong to @landsofnayir. Thank you for letting me borrow them for the fic!

.

Summer of 1922. Long Island Sound, West 

Khlee von Heine found themself circling the poolside of yet another large house party in West Egg. Extravagant, but casual. Unique, but quite typical if you were among the chosen ones. Boring, but bound to be recorded in the morning papers.

Sport was Khlee’s ticket into these parties whether they liked it or not. If they wanted to keep their boxing gloves on – all that rich silk that went into their live fight uniforms, not to mention the well kept gym for their ritual spar – there were certain expectations that needed to be met.

Attend these nights in the labyrinthine lake houses when invited. Smile. Flirt. Drink. Be merry, Khlee, you’re on your way to becoming a household name. 

You’re on the radio. They want to see your face.

They wanted to put a personality to their imaginations while craning around the speakers listening in on Khlee's fights.

It wasn’t all bad, these evenings spent among the upper echelon, Khlee supposed. The boxer got to gaze at the trees and the big, blue water. The trees, by God, were enormous. Hard to imagine that this was not all that far from Manhattan. The irony hit stronger than the bootlegged alcohol – folks were far more authentic in Khlee’s side of Harlem compared to the company kept in these lush, manicured forests. 

Out here in West Egg, there was nothing more artificial than all the buildings and streets and concrete combined besides the people. If you wanted real trees, and real drink, and real china, and real crystal glasses, it came with a price tag. There had to be a price these days. 

Khlee took a sip from the fine drink handed to them, anchoring themself in the shadows of the darkest green silhouettes that castled the property of the Great Jay Gatsby. 

“You’ve met Gatsby. Certainly, you have by now. Tell us what he’s like, Khlee. They hardly say anything in the papers.”

Clearing their throat, they said, “Can’t say I have. No.”

The man of the hour. Fake or hiding like the rest of this company. Whether thrill-chasing, drinking, or dancing under the lights in this hidden island of bombastic elites – that’s who Jay Gatbsy was. Khlee was sure of it.

It wasn’t hard to imagine because even the humble boxer was not who they said they were. Not entirely at least. 

But in crisp, straight-legged cream fabrics and smart buttons and the right shoes, who would know the difference? No one questioned the high rasp in their voice or their general unease when swamped by the visiting fraternities or the young uniformed naval officers. Always wanting to crowd and shake hands, clap the athlete’s back, and breathe their boozey, hot-blooded breath in Khlee’s face as they congratulated them on their last fight.

Smile. Flirt. Drink. Be merry.

You’re on the radio, by God!

Khlee set aside the empty glass before someone else bumped into them and made them drop it in the pool.

More guests had arrived. The warm bodies crowded closer together, sweaty and wine-blushed; the trees felt farther away. 

Movie starlets filed in. Tall and beaming and gorgeous, yes. Khlee paused to have a look at them. Sweeping in with their entourages, coattails and fringes and sparkling fabrics dragging behind them. Gowns that were only meant to be worn once for sure. 

Names came with the faces, popping off in Khlee’s head in automation. 

Tazian.

Armenian old money. An heiress? Khlee had seen her before. Life of the party – she took that role for herself the moment she walked in. As if it already belonged to her. And she didn’t have to share it precisely because it was hers, but she did anyway. This Armenian princess dusted down in red gem finery was more than generous with her vivacity. Those shimmering, shifting reds brought gifts and unforgettable smiles.

To the naked eye, the Tazian socialite’s entourage blended seamlessly into the background. But Khlee, who had eyes sharp enough to appreciate the green in the black umbrella foliage haunting the manor, knew exactly which of the entourage’s company they wanted to keep that evening.

“Wie geht es dir?” Khlee said, so polite like their Papa had taught them. And speaking as clearly as they could.

The suited man-of-sorts occupying the black iron bench did not look back. Though he replied without thinking.

“Es geht.”

It goes.

He spoke in the northern, less foggy dialect than the boxer was used to. Khlee felt the sentiment under those words.

It is a night and I am here. This is my work.

Khlee sat down, thought about offering the other a drink when they noticed that he was holding onto the Tazian heiress’s gloves. 

“Arbeit oder Spiel?” Khlee asked gently, making way for some kind of conversation.

Finally, the bodyguard turned, his wide earrings catching light like the champagne in the flutes spread atop every flat surface. Recognition flickered in his brown, distorted eyes.

“Khlee von Heine,” he said, his tone shifting out of the cold greeting from before.

All Khlee knew about Tazian’s chaperone was that he came from Germany, and before that, Turkey. At least that’s the direction the West Egg gossip had taken anyway. 

“Von Heine,” he said again, mangling the gloves instead of sticking his hand out for Khlee to shake. “You were in the papers.” He swallowed. “And on the radio.”

Khlee leaned back a little, towards him a little too.

“Do you box?”

Not what is your name. Nor do you know Gatsby.

But rather, Do you play my game? Can we play together sometime? Can we box?

Because he too was built strongly. Like Khlee, he was layered in his movements. He was careful. He was acting accordingly. Not in an off-duty naval officer sort of way. Not remotely echoing the chaps straight off the collegiate polo team rosters. 

The chaperone told Khlee that he worked a lot, but indeed yes, he wasn’t a stranger to the boxing ring. In fact, his brother had opened his own gym in the city. 

Khlee’s body language grew more relaxed. Another crystal of champagne found its way into their grasp. The man-of-sort’s name eventually bubbled to the surface of their conversation.

Bakri. 

The two guests seesawed between Deutsch and English. They saw eye to eye. They spoke as equals. 

“You’re like me,” Khlee said. With the same plainness that they asked for sport. “Living and hiding.”

Khlee looked up at the trees as they said it. At the undersides of the authentic, natural world spared only for the rich and famous and fakest. Sharing the burden – the price of it – with Bakri now. With Bakri later, they hoped. Outside of these suits one day, Khlee dared to think. In the ring, between the ropes. In the dark, somewhere plain and utilitarian. Or somewhere fine and decorated. It didn’t matter.

The weight, it was still there, by God. It was.

But Khlee’s shoulders felt comparably lighter with Bakri there sharing that marble bench with them by the poolside.

You’re like me.

Bakri thought for a moment, his eyes studying Khlee’s champagne glass. Then trailing up the boxer’s pale cream suit, drifting about their neckline towards features too strong and charming to ignore.

Bakri was gazing up at the trees now too, the very beginnings of a crooked smile forming there on his face. Unhidden.

“Ja,” he said, “bin ich.”

[arctic-hands]

[Video Description: Caitlin Doughty, a pale woman with dark, shoulder-length hair, is sitting down and talking to the camera for the entirely of the video. The video is closed captioned. End V.D]

YouTube flagged Ask A Mortician's S.S. Eastland video for violating community guidelines on the basis of "showing bodies/law enforcement/violence without educational context", which is bullshit because the entire series is for educational context. Appealing it just resulted in an automated reply saying it's still a violation. The irony of a big corporation black delisting a video about how big corporations don't actually care about people wasn't lost on Caitlin.

The hidden link to the S.S. Eastland video is here, and of course I was immediately bombarded by an ad when clicking because YouTube isn't going to let a simple community guideline violation get in the way of that sweet sweet ad revenue. (This one I can't transcribe as it is very long with multiple scenes, but there's a constant narration. And the video is closed captioned as well.)

[libertineangel]

There's a pretty fucked up irony to how manual workers have been threatened with automation for so many years now, but it turns out in reality the first things computers can actually do well enough to push humans out of the industry are art and music, two things always previously thought to require enough human creative input to be safe

We still need humans to function as cogs in the machine of production, but machines can now replace intrinsic human drives