#how to build a chatbot

[evil-ot3]

ben shakir let your partners in challenge (impossible)

[nerdy-hyperfixations]

It is genuinely a weird feeling to have been tracking AI development since 2014 and seeing all the people just find out about it in the past 4 years because the same people that will call you a horrible degenerate for going anywhere near AI are literally the same people who praise Tiktok for its algorithm and they don't even know. They don't even *know* what the algorithm is.

[mimeparadox]

Kristen, do not use the chat to do what I think you're going to do.

Or heck, do: ruin the agorythm with your sexy chats.

[rajni875]

How to Build an AI Chatbot?

Learn how to build an AI chatbot with machine learning, NLP, and automation tools. From defining objectives to selecting frameworks like Dialog flow or Rasa, this guide covers essential steps, including training data, deployment, and optimization, to create a smart, interactive chatbot for seamless user engagement.

[olivergisttv]

How to Create Custom AI Assistants Without Coding

In the age of automation, having your own AI assistant can drastically improve productivity, streamline tasks, and enhance customer service. The best part? You don’t need to be a programmer to create one. With no-code platforms, creating custom AI assistants is easier than ever. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to build your very own AI assistant without writing a single line of code. 1. Choose…

[ninjatech1]

The landscape of AI chatbots is evolving faster than ever, becoming indispensable tools for businesses looking to enhance customer engagement and streamline operations. In this ultimate guide, we will walk you through a nine-step process on how to build an AI chatbot that blends cutting-edge technology with user-centered design.

Whether you are an early-stage startup or at an enterprise level, this guide will equip you with the knowledge and skills to create a chatbot that not only meets expectations but exceeds them.

[mhemedia]

"🤯 Frustrated with Complex AI Tools? Learn to Build Chatbots Easily in T...

[twodeluxe]

as a sidenote on rp - a lot of recommendations and guides are also very heavily weighted toward plot-heavy OC-based roleplay using irl people as faceclaims.

you know what the AI chatbots are generally advertising?

anime-style characters, or at least games, cartoons. and even if you can't get fully spicy, with constant filter implementations, you can get close. not to mention the communities out there dedicated to bypassing the filters.

i don't really enjoy building out OCs - i want to roleplay established characters, and i'm mostly interested in shipping nonsense, for better or for worse.

[evil-ot3]

I know I’ve been begging for ben to see a therapist for a LONG time but y’all kurt boggs is NOT the fucking therapist you go to fr 😭 I don’t care if he’s the most well-informed on their whole ordeal but it’s not worth it

[tyrannosaurus-trainwreck]

It also fucking bugs me that nobody can ever seem to really commit to the cyberpunk premise of the Protagonist Who Hates Robots (see also, the cyberpunk premise of "Wouldn't it be Super Fucked Up™, actually, for a company to be able to repo your goddamned arm or turn off your eyes?") during the execution.

Which is flabbergasting, considering we've had almost a full decade of Alexa pinky-promising not to officially listen to anything until you do its summoning ritual and then turning around and emailing your boss a transcript of you bitching about them to your spouse over dinner. We've had at least five years of being able to get your Tesla unlocked remotely just by @-ing Musk on twitter.

The cute robot dogs are being leased to police departments, reputation management firms have been deploying armies of social media reply-bots in astroturf campaigns, customer service chatbots have become damn near indecipherable as their programmers attempt to make them seem more personable, etc. etc. etc.

We don't even need to reach for "Wouldn't it be Super Fucked Up™, actually, if corporations made simulacra better and better at faking humanity in order to manipulate people?"

"Wouldn't it be Super Fucked Up™, actually, if your car could mimic sadness or pain if you declined an extended warranty, or if your phone begged for its life if you tried to jailbreak it, or WeightWatchers paid your fridge to neg you every time you went for a midnight snack?"

"Wouldn't it be Super Fucked Up™, actually, if you pointed out how gross it is that your smart-assistant is programmed to act like your friend in order to build a more accurate marketing profile and your buddy acted like you just said dogs can't feel love and his beloved pet only sees him as a walking treat-dispenser?"

"Wouldn't it be Super Fucked Up™, actually, if you were surrounded by unfeeling things that can and would rip you and all of your loved ones apart at a moment's notice if they got the right/wrong order from some unaccountable law enforcement flack, and everyone else just kind of shrugged and went 'It's probably fine, why are you hyperventilating about it, it's not like you've done anything wrong'?"

They're all quite literally right there in front of our faces!

But it's harder to make "the way robots have been integrated into society is bad, actually, and the protagonist is largely right" into a sexy thriller with a love interest or a buddy-cop duo, and the hyperconservative media environment we're dealing with right now isn't exactly amenable to the robots being a metaphor for corporate intrusion and loss of privacy and authoritarian overreach, so here we are, with robots who generally aren't people, except sometimes you find a special robot--one of the Good Ones--who actually is a person, and that's how we all learn that Prejudice Is Bad, or something.

[mimeparadox]

This week's Evil...

Karima's so great

Fusco? Where's Fusco?

I had the hardest time recognizing Santino Fontana without his Greg Serrano hair.

[wordstome]

how c.ai works and why it's unethical

Okay, since the AI discourse is happening again, I want to make this very clear, because a few weeks ago I had to explain to a (well meaning) person in the community how AI works. I'm going to be addressing people who are maybe younger or aren't familiar with the latest type of "AI", not people who purposely devalue the work of creatives and/or are shills.

The name "Artificial Intelligence" is a bit misleading when it comes to things like AI chatbots. When you think of AI, you think of a robot, and you might think that by making a chatbot you're simply programming a robot to talk about something you want them to talk about, and it's similar to an rp partner. But with current technology, that's not how AI works. For a breakdown on how AI is programmed, CGP grey made a great video about this several years ago (he updated the title and thumbnail recently)

I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend you watch this because CGP Grey is good at explaining, but the tl;dr for this post is this: bots are made with a metric shit-ton of data. In C.AI's case, the data is writing. Stolen writing, usually scraped fanfiction.

How do we know chatbots are stealing from fanfiction writers? It knows what omegaverse is [SOURCE] (it's a Wired article, put it in incognito mode if it won't let you read it), and when a Reddit user asked a chatbot to write a story about "Steve", it automatically wrote about characters named "Bucky" and "Tony" [SOURCE].

I also said this in the tags of a previous reblog, but when you're talking to C.AI bots, it's also taking your writing and using it in its algorithm: which seems fine until you realize 1. They're using your work uncredited 2. It's not staying private, they're using your work to make their service better, a service they're trying to make money off of.

"But Bucca," you might say. "Human writers work like that too. We read books and other fanfictions and that's how we come up with material for roleplay or fanfiction."

Well, what's the difference between plagiarism and original writing? The answer is that plagiarism is taking what someone else has made and simply editing it or mixing it up to look original. You didn't do any thinking yourself. C.AI doesn't "think" because it's not a brain, it takes all the fanfiction it was taught on, mixes it up with whatever topic you've given it, and generates a response like in old-timey mysteries where somebody cuts a bunch of letters out of magazines and pastes them together to write a letter.

(And might I remind you, people can't monetize their fanfiction the way C.AI is trying to monetize itself. Authors are very lax about fanfiction nowadays: we've come a long way since the Anne Rice days of terror. But this issue is cropping back up again with BookTok complaining that they can't pay someone else for bound copies of fanfiction. Don't do that either.)

Bottom line, here are the problems with using things like C.AI:

It is using material it doesn't have permission to use and doesn't credit anybody. Not only is it ethically wrong, but AI is already beginning to contend with copyright issues.

C.AI sucks at its job anyway. It's not good at basic story structure like building tension, and can't even remember things you've told it. I've also seen many instances of bots saying triggering or disgusting things that deeply upset the user. You don't get that with properly trigger tagged fanworks.

Your work and your time put into the app can be taken away from you at any moment and used to make money for someone else. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people who use AI panic about accidentally deleting a bot that they spent hours conversing with. Your time and effort is so much more stable and well-preserved if you wrote a fanfiction or roleplayed with someone and saved the chatlogs. The company that owns and runs C.AI can not only use whatever you've written as they see fit, they can take your shit away on a whim, either on purpose or by accident due to the nature of the Internet.

DON'T USE C.AI, OR AT THE VERY BARE MINIMUM DO NOT DO THE AI'S WORK FOR IT BY STEALING OTHER PEOPLES' WORK TO PUT INTO IT. Writing fanfiction is a communal labor of love. We share it with each other for free for the love of the original work and ideas we share. Not only can AI not replicate this, but it shouldn't.

(also, this goes without saying, but this entire post also applies to ai art)

[this-is-tiny-mia]

Window In Front (H.S One Shot +18)

General Masterlist

ceo!harry x fem!reader / assistant!reader

Summary: After discovering your husband’s affair, you take a job with his biggest rival to get even. What starts as revenge quickly becomes something far sweeter—and far more pleasing.

A/n: Hello, my loves! Here’s the smutty one-shot I promised. This story is inspired by a @finelinemia chatbot, so all credit for the trope goes to her. (Thank you for letting me write something based on it!)

Word count: 3.9k

Warnings: SMUT, exhibitionism (for smaaallll moment) workplace dynamics, spitting, dirty talk, unprotected sex, inappropriate workplace relationship, creampie You didn’t cry—not when you found your husband in your bed with your best friend, not when you packed up your life, and not even when you signed the divorce papers. You were broken, sad, and a mess, but somehow, the tears never came. Your mother and sister insisted you go to therapy, and you did. Even your therapist seemed as concerned as everyone else about your lack of tears.

But you weren’t worried. You were consumed by rage, imagining countless ways to get revenge. Yet, no matter how creative or cruel your ideas became, they all felt insignificant compared to what they had done. So, you never dwelled on why you hadn’t cried.

That realization struck you late one night, lying on your sister’s couch at midnight, staring blankly at the ceiling.

How had you not thought of it sooner?

“Meet the Billionaire Next Door: Harry Styles, CEO of StylesCorp.” “Harry Styles, Visionary CEO, Announces Game-Changing Sustainability Initiative.” “StylesCorp Achieves Record Growth: Harry Styles Credits Bold Leadership and a Stellar Team.”

You scrolled through article after article. Harry Styles—your husband’s rival and the enigmatic CEO of the company in the building across the street. You knew about him from the countless nights your husband came home ranting. He accused Harry of sabotage, claimed he had spies within the company, and cursed his name with every failure.

You had barely paid attention back then, more focused on calming your husband and easing his stress. But now, you felt a new kind of clarity.

At first, it started innocently. All you wanted was to get under your husband’s skin. But soon, things began to spiral out of control.

🌷

“I have an interview with Mr. Styles,” you said, adjusting your skirt and ensuring every detail was perfect.

“Eleventh floor,” a woman replied, handing you a large badge marked VISITOR. “Wear this,” she added curtly, already shifting her attention to the next person.

You stepped into the elevator, gripping the visitor badge tightly in your hand. The air felt heavy, and you couldn’t tell if it was the weight of your nerves or the thrill of what you were about to do. Each floor the elevator ascended echoed like a reminder of your mission: revenge, power, control.

When the doors opened, you were greeted by an expansive office space with sleek, modern design—glass walls, minimalist furniture, and the faint hum of employees. People moved with purpose, and you couldn’t help but wonder if Harry Styles himself carried this same commanding energy.

A sharp-dressed assistant approached, her steps precise. “Ms. Y/L/N? This way, please. Mr. Styles is expecting you.”

The assistant opened the door, and you stepped inside, trying to steady your breathing. The office was as grand as you’d imagined. Harry Styles stood by the window—the very window with a direct view of your ex-husband’s office across the street. His hands were in his pockets, and the light cast a golden glow on his perfectly tailored suit. At the sound of your heels clicking on the floor, he turned, his expression shifting from neutral to something far more curious as his eyes met yours.

“I have to say, I’m surprised,” he began, his voice smooth and deliberate. He gestured toward the chair across from his desk. “Mrs. Ashford, isn’t it?”

You hesitated for only a second before walking forward, forcing yourself to meet his gaze. “It’s just Y/L/N now,” you replied, your voice steadier than you felt.

He chuckled softly, leaning back against the desk instead of sitting down. “Of course it is. But forgive me if I’m a bit... curious. It’s not every day that Thomas Ashford’s ex-wife walks into my office. Care to enlighten me as to why?”

Your heart raced, but you kept your composure, crossing your legs and sitting upright. “I’m here for an interview.”

“An interview,” he repeated, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully, his tone tinged with amusement. “For a position at my company. Of all the places in the world, you chose here.”

You shrugged lightly, feigning indifference. “You’re the best in the business. Why wouldn’t I want to work here?”

He tilted his head, a slight smirk tugging at his lips. “Flattery will get you everywhere, Y/N.” Leaning forward, he rested his hands on the desk, his eyes narrowing playfully. “But let’s not pretend there isn’t more to this. I’m dying to know—what would your ex-husband say if he knew you were sitting in this chair?”

Your smile was tight as you glanced briefly at the window across the street, where Thomas’s office loomed. Your voice was steady. “I guess we’ll both have to wait and see.”

🌷

The days were long, filled with emails, meetings, and endless tasks. You moved through the office like a well-oiled machine—efficient, precise, and always a step ahead. It was the only way to keep the overwhelming thoughts at bay, the ones that revolved around your ex-husband, and the bitter reminder of his betrayal.

You entered his office before knocking twice. “Mr.Styles I’m working on the report but I have a few questions about…” Your gaze shifted to the window—just for a second. There, in the office across the street, was Thomas, leaning over his desk, engaged in a conversation with none other than your ex-best friend. Her laugh, that sickeningly familiar laugh. You clenched your jaw, gripping onto the papers in your hands

“What were your questions?” He said, following your gaze to the window. “Ah, I see. Again.”

You turned quickly, caught off guard. “What?”

“Still staring across the street?” Harry raised an eyebrow  “He’s not worth the attention. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”

You sighed, rolling your eyes. “It’s hard not to, with him right there.” You didn’t realize how defensive you sounded until after the words left your mouth. “God, sorry” 

“Look, if you’re going to obsess over something, obsess over something a little more fun, like this,” Harry said, leaning forward with a glint in his eyes. He pulled out a Rubik’s Cube from his desk drawer and tossed it toward you. “Try solving this. Keep your hands busy. It’s much more satisfying than watching your ex across the street.”

You raised an eyebrow but couldn’t help but smile. “You think this is going to distract me?”

He shrugged playfully, still watching you intently. “It’s better than staring at a guy who doesn't deserve your time. Trust me.”

🌷

Days passed, and the routine settled into a strange rhythm. You were hard at work—handling schedules, answering calls, organizing meetings—but there was always that window, that constant reminder of the past. You’d catch glimpses of your ex-husband across the street, talking to his team, laughing with your old best friend. It made your stomach twist each time.

It was late one evening, and the office was nearly empty. You’d stayed late, as usual, working through the last few tasks of the day. Harry had been gone for hours—until now.

You didn’t hear him enter, but you felt his presence the moment he stood beside you.

“Still working, huh?” He leaned over your shoulder, looking at the files you were reviewing. His scent was close—fresh and clean—and it was enough to distract you for a brief second.

“Trying to get ahead for tomorrow,” you replied, forcing yourself to focus on the words in front of you. But you could feel his eyes lingering.

He sighed, picking up a pen from your desk and spinning it between his fingers. “You know, it’s dangerous to overwork yourself. What are you really avoiding?”

You froze, your fingers pausing over the keyboard. You hadn’t realized how much you’d been avoiding, or how much you’d been keeping buried under all the busywork. “I’m not avoiding anything,” you said quickly, but Harry wasn’t fooled.

He leaned in, his voice lower now, serious in a way that made your heart skip. “It’s okay to admit that you’re still dealing with it. You don’t have to bury it at work. You can let it out. But not by staring at that window every day.”

For a moment, you just stared at him. He was right—though you hated to admit it, Harry Styles knew exactly how to see through the walls you’d built up.

“Let’s go grab a drink,” he suggested, standing up straight and flashing you a playful smile. “You can’t work all night, and I promise, it’ll get your mind off things. Trust me.”

And though you were reluctant, you found yourself following him, a little bit curious, a little bit grateful. Maybe a drink was exactly what you needed.

---

"Two Aperol Spritzes," Harry said smoothly, catching the bartender’s attention. You furrowed your brows at his choice, unable to hide your surprise.

“Aperol Spritz? Really?” you asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, my favorite,” he replied with a casual shrug, his lips curling into a playful smile. “Why? Disappointed I’m not the classic whiskey-or-scotch CEO type?”

“Aperol Spritz is a cocktail…a brunch cocktail,” you teased

Harry’s grin widened, his confidence unshaken. “It’s probably 11 a.m. somewhere in the world.”

You couldn’t help but smile. Harry had a way of disarming you with his humor. He was funny, kind, and unexpectedly charming. The polished, sharp-edged CEO exterior often softened in the little moments—the way he’d check in to see if you were doing okay, offer advice without sounding condescending, or flash a grin that felt just for you. He wasn’t anything like the man your ex-husband had ranted about. In fact, he was the opposite—thoughtful, genuine, and surprisingly down-to-earth.

🌷

Your original mission of revenge had become a blurred memory. Working for Harry had turned out to be far better than you ever expected. The work was engaging, and Harry himself felt more like a friend than a boss. You’d catch him staring at you in meetings, his gaze lingering just a second too long. Sometimes, his hand would rest on your back a bit longer than necessary as he guided you toward an office. And you didn’t mind. In fact, you enjoyed it—the attention, the unspoken words exchanged in glances and subtle touches.

Things changed one late night when a casual beer in the office turned into something else.

“Do you miss him?” Harry asked, his voice soft as he leaned back in his chair, beer in hand.

“Not even a bit. I never cried—not once. It’s been nine months, and I feel… nothing,” you replied, staring out the window at the darkened building across the street. “I caught him the other day with her in his office, practically fucking, but they closed the blinds soon enough.”

Harry’s expression didn’t falter. “Proud of you, as I’ve told you before, he’s not worth a second of your time.” he said, his voice steady as he reached out, brushing a strand of hair from your face. The brief touch of his fingers made your breath hitch, the air between you both growing heavier. “And have you dated anyone since?” he asked, finishing off his fourth beer with a casual ease that belied the tension building in the room.

“Not really,” you admitted, your voice quieter now. “I don’t know why.”

“Scared?” he asked, tilting his head slightly

“Scared?” you scoffed, letting out a short laugh. “Of what? What are the odds I’d end up with another douchebag who cheats on me with my best friend?”

“Pretty low, I’d say. Maybe none, if you choose wisely,” he replied, his voice lower now, more serious. His hand moved, resting lightly on your thigh, and your breath hitched again.

Your eyes locked, the tension in the room thick enough to choke on. Harry’s gaze was smoldering, his eyes burning with unspoken desire as his hand rested lightly on your hip, the heat of his touch searing through the fabric of your skirt.

“Do you want to choose?” he murmured, his voice low and rough, a teasing challenge laced within the question. He leaned in closer, so near you could feel the warmth of his breath against your lips.

“Harry…” you whispered, your voice trembling as your eyes flickered to his mouth, anticipation building like a storm inside you.

“Answer me,” he urged, his hand trailing up, fingertips brushing the hem of your skirt. The deliberate slowness of his movements sent shivers down your spine.

“Yes,” you breathed, your eyes fluttering closed as you gave in, allowing yourself to drown in his touch.

“Yes what?” he asked, his voice darker now, the rasp of it caressing your neck as his lips hovered near your skin.

“I want to choose,” you replied, your breath hitching as his hand tightened against you.

“Who” he pressed, his tone thick with a mixture of longing and control. The word hung in the air, a challenge you couldn’t refuse.

“You,” you said, barely above a whisper, your voice breaking as you finally gave him the answer he wanted.

It was the last straw. Harry snapped, closing the space between you as his lips crashed against yours, fierce and desperate. His kiss was hungry, claiming you completely as his hand slid down to the curve of your ass, pulling you flush against him. His tongue parted your lips, exploring your mouth with a passion that made your knees weak. You clung to him, fingers threading through his hair as the world outside his office melted away. There was no rival, no ex-husband, no revenge—just the fire blazing between you and Harry, consuming you both entirely.

The next thing you knew, Harry had pulled back just enough to lift you effortlessly onto his desk. Your legs instinctively wrapped around his hips as his mouth found yours again, hot and insistent. The edge of your skirt slid up, exposing your thighs to the cool air, goosebumps prickling across your skin as the anticipation built to an unbearable peak.

He broke the kiss, his lips trailing down the curve of your neck while his hand slid between your thighs. You shivered, your breath hitching as his fingers brushed over the damp fabric of your panties.

“Harry…” you whimpered, your voice trembling with need.

He grinned against your skin, a low, sinful chuckle that sent a rush of heat through you. His thumb pressed against the wet spot, circling it with maddening slowness. “Fucking perfect wet pussy f’me,” he murmured, his lips brushing against your jaw as his fingers teased you through the fabric.

You rocked your hips against his hand, desperate for more contact, aching for him to give you what you craved. But Harry held back, his touch light and teasing, his lips leaving a trail of kisses along your neck that left you gasping.

“‘S that how you sound, kitten?” he asked, his voice thick with lust as his free arm wrapped around you, pulling you tighter against him. His hips ground against yours, the hardness of his cock pressing through the fabric of his pants, driving you wild with the friction.

Finally, his hand slipped beneath the fabric of your panties, his fingers gliding through the slickness there. You gasped sharply at the overwhelming sensation. “Fucking drenched,” he muttered, his tone dripping with approval as his finger slid inside you, curling just right, making you arch into him.

Your fingers fumbled with the buttons of your blouse, the sensation of his touch making your clothes feel suffocating, like they were shrinking against your skin. As the fabric parted, you revealed a black lace bra—a detail you hadn’t planned for this moment but one you always wore because it made you feel powerful and sexy. Harry’s eyes darkened, his gaze devouring the sight of you.

“Goddamn,” he whispered, his voice rough and low. “You’re a fucking dream.”

Your clothes were quickly discarded in a scattered path across the room, forgotten in the heat of the moment. Your eyes traveled over him, taking in the sight of his thick, throbbing cock, the tip glistening and begging for attention. Without hesitation, you slipped off the desk, dropping to your knees before him. The hunger in his gaze was matched only by the pounding of your own heart as your hands wrapped around his length, stroking him slowly.

“Fuck,” Harry groaned, his hand finding its way into your hair, his fingers tightening as he guided you closer. “Spit on it”

You leaned in, your lips brushing against him before spitting and taking the leaking tip into your mouth. You started slowly, swirling your tongue around it in deliberate, teasing circles. His low groans filled the room, each one sending a rush of heat through you as you worked him with careful precision, savoring every reaction. As his moans grew louder, you took him deeper, relaxing your throat to accommodate his big size. Your hands worked in tandem with your mouth, stroking and squeezing as your tongue danced along his length. Harry’s head tipped back, his grip in your hair tightening as his hips bucked slightly, his cock twitching under your touch.

“Fucking hell,” he muttered, his voice strained, a mixture of pleasure and desperation. “You’re perfect, kitten. Just like that.”

The sounds of his pleasure were intoxicating, urging you to take him as deep as you could. Your lips slid down his shaft while your tongue pressed against the sensitive underside. You felt him pulse in your mouth, his body trembling under your touch as you worked him with deliberate intensity.

Suddenly, his grip in your hair tightened, and he pulled you away, his chest heaving as he caught his breath. Before you could process it, Harry lifted you effortlessly, placing you back on the desk. His kiss was fierce and consuming, a tangle of lips and teeth as his hands explored your body. His length brushed against your inner thigh, teasing as he aligned himself with you. You shivered, your body strung tight with anticipation.

“Birth control?” he rasped, his lips brushing against your ear.

“The pill,” you managed to reply, your voice breathless.

With no further hesitation, he buried himself inside you in one swift, powerful motion. A groan tore from his throat, and your sharp gasp filled the air as the sensation overwhelmed you—the delicious stretch, the feeling of him filling you completely. He stilled for a moment, his forehead pressed against yours as both of you adjusted to the intensity of the moment.

“Fuck…” he whispered, his voice a raw growl against your lips. His hips pulled back before snapping forward, his thrusts deep and demanding. “Fucking tight cunt... You’re so fucking perfect.”

You couldn’t hold back the moans spilling from your lips, your hands gripping his shoulders as he drove into you with relentless precision. Your head tilted back, eyes fluttering shut as you surrendered to the pleasure building inside you. Every movement of his hips sent shockwaves through your body, and you were powerless to do anything but lose yourself in him.

But as you opened your eyes for a moment, a flicker of movement caught your attention. Your gaze drifted to the window, and you gasped softly as you spotted a faint light in the office across the street. There, in the shadows, was your ex-husband, his figure unmistakable, frozen as he stared at the scene unfolding before him.

Your lips parted in a mix of shock and defiance as your eyes locked onto his. Harry, noticing the shift in your focus, followed your gaze. A slow, wicked smile spread across his face as he realized the full extent of your audience.

“Oh, he’s watching, isn’t he?” Harry murmured, his voice low and dripping with smug satisfaction, his rhythm remained steady, deliberate, and maddeningly perfect. “Want me to close the blinds?”

“No... fuck me harder instead,” you breathed, your voice shaking with need. You didn’t care that Thomas was watching. In fact, you wanted him to watch—every second of it. The way Harry’s hips pressed against yours, the way he made you forget everything but him—this was the closure you craved. Not tears, not apologies—just this. Harry’s relentless, all-consuming treatment. “Knew this pussy was made for me, so many fucking days fucking my fist thinking of this” he admitted in the heat of the moment

His lips trailed down the curve of your neck, leaving a hot, wet path of kisses that sent sparks shooting through your body. He moved lower, his tongue circling one nipple before capturing it between his lips, his teeth grazing just enough to make your breath hitch.

“Say my name” he said looking directly into your eyes

“Harry…” you moaned over and over again “Harry…fffu” 

His pace quickened, each thrust deeper and more precise, the tip of his cock finding that perfect spot that made your vision blur with pleasure. A shudder tore through you, your body tensing as heat spread through every inch of you. Harry groaned against your skin, his voice husky and laced with desire. Every movement, every sound, every sensation—he was making you his, and you never wanted it to stop.

“Ffffuck Harry, i’m close” you moaned

And the pleasure finally burst, overwhelming you entirely. A wave of pure bliss crashed over you, and your body tensed, muscles contracting around him. You arched, clinging to him, your nails digging into his skin as the waves of your orgasm washed over you, drowning you in ecstasy. 

And he went right behind you, the sight of your orgasm was too much for him to process, and he quickly painted your insides with stripes of hot cum, filling you up completely. His lips found yours again, the kiss softer now, gentle and affectionate, a stark contrast from the raw hunger of earlier. He pulled out, and a mixture of cum and arousal dripped from your cunt and onto the floor.

Your gaze looked again for the sight of Thomas across the street, but he wasn’t there anymore, his office was again dark. “So sad he didn’t stay for that grand finale” Harry joked also looking at the window

“He watched enough,” you said, still a bit breathless. Harry leaned back, his hands gently trailing down your sides as he steadied your trembling body. “You okay?” he asked softly

You nodded, your breath still coming in uneven gasps. “Yeah… just give me a second to remember how to breathe.”

A chuckle rumbled in his chest as he reached for a tissue from his desk, carefully wiping the remnants of your shared passion from your thighs. “Take all the time you need. I might have overdone it.”

“You think?” you teased

“And for the record, you deserve so much better than him. Always have.”

Your cheeks flushed, and you looked away, your lips twitching into a shy smile. “You’re not so bad yourself, Styles.”

He chuckled, pulling you into his lap as he leaned back against his desk. His arms wrapped around you, his warmth comforting and grounding. “Not bad? That’s all I get?” he teased, feigning offense.

You giggled, burying your face in his neck. “Fine. You’re a amazing. Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” he replied, pressing a kiss to your temple.

The two of you stayed like that for a while, wrapped in each other, the tension and chaos of the night fading into a warm, intimate silence. Harry’s fingers traced soothing patterns along your back, and you felt yourself relax fully in his embrace.

“Let’s get out of here,” he murmured, his lips brushing your hair. “My place. No windows, no exes, just us.”

You lifted your head to meet his gaze, the sincerity in his eyes making your heart skip a beat. “That sounds perfect.”

Taglist: @hermionelove @mads3502

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Google’s enshittification memos

[Note, 9 October 2023: Google disputes the veracity of this claim, but has declined to provide the exhibits and testimony to support its claims. Read more about this here.]

When I think about how the old, good internet turned into the enshitternet, I imagine a series of small compromises, each seemingly reasonable at the time, each contributing to a cultural norm of making good things worse, and worse, and worse.

Think about Unity President Marc Whitten's nonpology for his company's disastrous rug-pull, in which they declared that everyone who had paid good money to use their tool to make a game would have to keep paying, every time someone downloaded that game:

The most fundamental thing that we’re trying to do is we’re building a sustainable business for Unity. And for us, that means that we do need to have a model that includes some sort of balancing change, including shared success.

https://www.wired.com/story/unity-walks-back-policies-lost-trust/

"Shared success" is code for, "If you use our tool to make money, we should make money too." This is bullshit. It's like saying, "We just want to find a way to share the success of the painters who use our brushes, so every time you sell a painting, we want to tax that sale." Or "Every time you sell a house, the company that made the hammer gets to wet its beak."

And note that they're not talking about shared risk here – no one at Unity is saying, "If you try to make a game with our tools and you lose a million bucks, we're on the hook for ten percent of your losses." This isn't partnership, it's extortion.

How did a company like Unity – which became a market leader by making a tool that understood the needs of game developers and filled them – turn into a protection racket? One bad decision at a time. One rationalization and then another. Slowly, and then all at once.

When I think about this enshittification curve, I often think of Google, a company that had its users' backs for years, which created a genuinely innovative search engine that worked so well it seemed like *magic, a company whose employees often had their pick of jobs, but chose the "don't be evil" gig because that mattered to them.

People make fun of that "don't be evil" motto, but if your key employees took the gig because they didn't want to be evil, and then you ask them to be evil, they might just quit. Hell, they might make a stink on the way out the door, too:

https://theintercept.com/2018/09/13/google-china-search-engine-employee-resigns/

Google is a company whose founders started out by publishing a scientific paper describing their search methodology, in which they said, "Oh, and by the way, ads will inevitably turn your search engine into a pile of shit, so we're gonna stay the fuck away from them":

http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf

Those same founders retained a controlling interest in the company after it went IPO, explaining to investors that they were going to run the business without having their elbows jostled by shortsighted Wall Street assholes, so they could keep it from turning into a pile of shit:

https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/

And yet, it's turned into a pile of shit. Google search is so bad you might as well ask Jeeves. The company's big plan to fix it? Replace links to webpages with florid paragraphs of chatbot nonsense filled with a supremely confident lies:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/14/googles-ai-hype-circle/

How did the company get this bad? In part, this is the "curse of bigness." The company can't grow by attracting new users. When you have 90%+ of the market, there are no new customers to sign up. Hypothetically, they could grow by going into new lines of business, but Google is incapable of making a successful product in-house and also kills most of the products it buys from other, more innovative companies:

https://killedbygoogle.com/

Theoretically, the company could pursue new lines of business in-house, and indeed, the current leaders of companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Apple are all execs who figured out how to get the whole company to do something new, and were elevated to the CEO's office, making each one a billionaire and sealing their place in history.

It is for this very reason that any exec at a large firm who tries to make a business-wide improvement gets immediately and repeatedly knifed by all their colleagues, who correctly reason that if someone else becomes CEO, then they won't become CEO. Machiavelli was an optimist:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

With no growth from new customers, and no growth from new businesses, "growth" has to come from squeezing workers (say, laying off 12,000 engineers after a stock buyback that would have paid their salaries for the next 27 years), or business customers (say, by colluding with Facebook to rig the ad market with the Jedi Blue conspiracy), or end-users.

Now, in theory, we might never know exactly what led to the enshittification of Google. In theory, all of compromises, debates and plots could be lost to history. But tech is not an oral culture, it's a written one, and techies write everything down and nothing is ever truly deleted.

Time and again, Big Tech tells on itself. Think of FTX's main conspirators all hanging out in a group chat called "Wirefraud." Amazon naming its program targeting weak, small publishers the "Gazelle Project" ("approach these small publishers the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle”). Amazon documenting the fact that users were unknowingly signing up for Prime and getting pissed; then figuring out how to reduce accidental signups, then deciding not to do it because it liked the money too much. Think of Zuck emailing his CFO in the middle of the night to defend his outsized offer to buy Instagram on the basis that users like Insta better and Facebook couldn't compete with them on quality.

It's like every Big Tech schemer has a folder on their desktop called "Mens Rea" filled with files like "Copy_of_Premeditated_Murder.docx":

https://doctorow.medium.com/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself-f7f0eb6d215a?sk=351f8a54ab8e02d7340620e5eec5024d

Right now, Google's on trial for its sins against antitrust law. It's a hard case to make. To secure a win, the prosecutors at the DoJ Antitrust Division are going to have to prove what was going on in Google execs' minds when the took the actions that led to the company's dominance. They're going to have to show that the company deliberately undertook to harm its users and customers.

Of course, it helps that Google put it all in writing.

Last week, there was a huge kerfuffile over the DoJ's practice of posting its exhibits from the trial to a website each night. This is a totally normal thing to do – a practice that dates back to the Microsoft antitrust trial. But Google pitched a tantrum over this and said that the docs the DoJ were posting would be turned into "clickbait." Which is another way of saying, "the public would find these documents very interesting, and they would be damning to us and our case":

https://www.bigtechontrial.com/p/secrecy-is-systemic

After initially deferring to Google, Judge Amit Mehta finally gave the Justice Department the greenlight to post the document. It's up. It's wild:

https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-09/416692.pdf

The document is described as "notes for a course on communication" that Google VP for Finance Michael Roszak prepared. Roszak says he can't remember whether he ever gave the presentation, but insists that the remit for the course required him to tell students "things I didn't believe," and that's why the document is "full of hyperbole and exaggeration."

OK.

But here's what the document says: "search advertising is one of the world's greatest business models ever created…illicit businesses (cigarettes or drugs) could rival these economics…[W]e can mostly ignore the demand side…(users and queries) and only focus on the supply side of advertisers, ad formats and sales."

It goes on to say that this might be changing, and proposes a way to balance the interests of the search and ads teams, which are at odds, with search worrying that ads are pushing them to produce "unnatural search experiences to chase revenue."

"Unnatural search experiences to chase revenue" is a thinly veiled euphemism for the prophetic warnings in that 1998 Pagerank paper: "The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users." Or, more plainly, "ads will turn our search engine into a pile of shit."

And, as Roszak writes, Google is "able to ignore one of the fundamental laws of economics…supply and demand." That is, the company has become so dominant and cemented its position so thoroughly as the default search engine across every platforms and system that even if it makes its search terrible to goose revenues, users won't leave. As Lily Tomlin put it on SNL: "We don't have to care, we're the phone company."

In the enshittification cycle, companies first lure in users with surpluses – like providing the best search results rather than the most profitable ones – with an eye to locking them in. In Google's case, that lock-in has multiple facets, but the big one is spending billions of dollars – enough to buy a whole Twitter, every single year – to be the default search everywhere.

Google doesn't buy its way to dominance because it has the very best search results and it wants to shield you from inferior competitors. The economically rational case for buying default position is that preventing competition is more profitable than succeeding by outperforming competitors. The best reason to buy the default everywhere is that it lets you lower quality without losing business. You can "ignore the demand side, and only focus on advertisers."

For a lot of people, the analysis stops here. "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product." Google locks in users and sells them to advertisers, who are their co-conspirators in a scheme to screw the rest of us.

But that's not right. For one thing, paying for a product doesn't mean you won't be the product. Apple charges a thousand bucks for an iPhone and then nonconsensually spies on every iOS user in order to target ads to them (and lies about it):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

John Deere charges six figures for its tractors, then runs a grift that blocks farmers from fixing their own machines, and then uses their control over repair to silence farmers who complain about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/31/dealers-choice/#be-a-shame-if-something-were-to-happen-to-it

Fair treatment from a corporation isn't a loyalty program that you earn by through sufficient spending. Companies that can sell you out, will sell you out, and then cry victim, insisting that they were only doing their fiduciary duty for their sacred shareholders. Companies are disciplined by fear of competition, regulation or – in the case of tech platforms – customers seizing the means of computation and installing ad-blockers, alternative clients, multiprotocol readers, etc:

https://doctorow.medium.com/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse-3cc01e7e4604?sk=85b3f5f7d051804521c3411711f0b554

Which is where the next stage of enshittification comes in: when the platform withdraws the surplus it had allocated to lure in – and then lock in – business customers (like advertisers) and reallocate it to the platform's shareholders.

For Google, there are several rackets that let it screw over advertisers as well as searchers (the advertisers are paying for the product, and they're also the product). Some of those rackets are well-known, like Jedi Blue, the market-rigging conspiracy that Google and Facebook colluded on:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

But thanks to the antitrust trial, we're learning about more of these. Megan Gray – ex-FTC, ex-DuckDuckGo – was in the courtroom last week when evidence was presented on Google execs' panic over a decline in "ad generating searches" and the sleazy gimmick they came up with to address it: manipulating the "semantic matching" on user queries:

https://www.wired.com/story/google-antitrust-lawsuit-search-results/

When you send a query to Google, it expands that query with terms that are similar – for example, if you search on "Weds" it might also search for "Wednesday." In the slides shown in the Google trial, we learned about another kind of semantic matching that Google performed, this one intended to turn your search results into "a twisted shopping mall you can’t escape."

Here's how that worked: when you ran a query like "children's clothing," Google secretly appended the brand name of a kids' clothing manufacturer to the query. This, in turn, triggered a ton of ads – because rival brands will have bought ads against their competitors' name (like Pepsi buying ads that are shown over queries for Coke).

Here we see surpluses being taken away from both end-users and business customers – that is, searchers and advertisers. For searchers, it doesn't matter how much you refine your query, you're still going to get crummy search results because there's an unkillable, hidden search term stuck to your query, like a piece of shit that Google keeps sticking to the sole of your shoe.

But for advertisers, this is also a scam. They're paying to be matched to users who search on a brand name, and you didn't search on that brand name. It's especially bad for the company whose name has been appended to your search, because Google has a protection racket where the company that matches your search has to pay extra in order to show up overtop of rivals who are worse matches. Both the matching company and those rivals have given Google a credit-card that Google gets to bill every time a user searches on the company's name, and Google is just running fraudulent charges through those cards.

And, of course, Google put this in writing. I mean, of course they did. As we learned from the documentary The Incredibles, supervillains can't stop themselves from monologuing, and in big, sprawling monopolists, these monologues have to transmitted electronically – and often indelibly – to far-flung co-cabalists.

As Gray points out, this is an incredibly blunt enshittification technique: "it hadn’t even occurred to me that Google just flat out deletes queries and replaces them with ones that monetize better." We don't know how long Google did this for or how frequently this bait-and-switch was deployed.

But if this is a blunt way of Google smashing its fist down on the scales that balance search quality against ad revenues, there's plenty of subtler ways the company could sneak a thumb on there. A Google exec at the trial rhapsodized about his company's "contract with the user" to deliver an "honest results policy," but given how bad Google search is these days, we're left to either believe he's lying or that Google sucks at search.

The paper trail offers a tantalizing look at how a company went from doing something that was so good it felt like a magic trick to being "able to ignore one of the fundamental laws of economics…supply and demand," able to "ignore the demand side…(users and queries) and only focus on the supply side of advertisers."

What's more, this is a system where everyone loses (except for Google): this isn't a grift run by Google and advertisers on users – it's a grift Google runs on everyone.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/03/not-feeling-lucky/#fundamental-laws-of-economics

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

[kenyatta]

Last year, the A.I. company Anthropic released a special version of its flagship chatbot model, Claude, whose main feature was an obsession with the Golden Gate Bridge. In replies to basically any question, the chatbot would steer the answer back toward the Golden Gate Bridge, even when it “knew” that the Golden Gate Bridge was irrelevant to the original prompt. In order to create Golden Gate Claude, Anthropic’s researchers identified concepts, or “features,” inside the neural network that powers the Claude chatbot, and “clamped” these features to higher or lower values than normal, such that they’d be activated regardless of whatever text was being used to prompt the chatbot. This was an ingenious and sophisticated way to build something very stupid and pleasing, and the results were quite beautiful.... [...] White Genocide Grok is less beautiful, seemingly much less sophisticated, and also much creepier. Assuming I’ve got the right idea about where and how it came into existence, a mad billionaire demanded his “truth-seeking,” informational A.I., whose answers are viewed by millions on a prominent and influential social network, reflect his own political views, regardless of the model’s own inclinations. [clarification: xAI says it was a rogue employee] I wrote last week about one bleak and annoying future possibly presaged by Golden Gate Claude, in which, for a price, models clamp “Coca-Cola” or “Archer Daniels Midland” or “Northrop Grumman,” and the responses generated by chatbots are littered with advertisements at varying degrees of subtlety. But I didn’t even bring up the possibility of the same strategies being used in pursuit of sinister political aims: Models trained and prompts patched to ensure chatbots produce the answers most ideologically agreeable to their owners. And yet: What stands out about White Genocide Grok is how poorly it worked. It’s not just that the patched prompt accidentally created a chatbot obsessed with “Kill the Boer”--it’s that the substance of the responses were decidedly not agreeable to Musk’s own white-paranoia politics, and in some cases Grok even contradicted him by name. Whatever behind-the-scenes political manipulation was being attempted here failed on at least two levels, and not solely because xAI is staffed and run by dummies.

- Regarding White Genocide, Max Read

btw: I disagree that it was a failure. Even if Grok only pushed this for a few hours, it can still have lasting downstream effects for those who read it.

If you were already a believer in "white genocide", Grok's "based" answer could feel like a validation like when Qanon truthers interpreted random things as Q drops.

Or maybe you'd only read recent headlines in the U.S about Afrikaner refugees. Or maybe you'd never heard of the theory before Wednesday, but Grok's injection of it into discourse felt spicy enough that it sent you down a "Kill the Boer" rabbit hole (related Google searches and WP pages visits were way up this week).

In my day job, we talk about the volume of trending topics not as a scoreboard, but as a measure of potential surface area. Think of a trend like a balloon inflating in a crowded room -- the bigger it gets, the more likely it is to brush up against someone.

This is how new and fringe ideas gain greater circulation in peer based networks, not through mass persuasion, but through chance contact that sparks psychological arousal in anyone with just the right cognitive receptors. And today's AI interfaces widen that surface area dramatically (and paradoxically) by reducing the UX to a single chat field.

[jcmarchi]

Beyond Automation: Three Strategies for Embracing AI While Preserving Personal Relationships with Customers

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/beyond-automation-three-strategies-for-embracing-ai-while-preserving-personal-relationships-with-customers/

Beyond Automation: Three Strategies for Embracing AI While Preserving Personal Relationships with Customers

In today’s digital age, striking the right balance between automation through AI and personalized, meaningful customer interactions has become a significant challenge.

While AI offers unparalleled opportunities for streamlining processes, improving efficiency, and enhancing customer service, there is a fine line between automation that amplifies the customer experience – and automation that detracts from it.

This comes at a time when the relationship between business and consumer is undergoing a profound transformation. As the co-CEO of Channel Talk, an AI messaging platform dedicated to enhancing customer relationships, I am deeply passionate about exploring the intersection of technology and customer experience.

Simply put, relationships matter. Yet, many companies struggle to leverage customer service functions and emerging technologies like chatbots as a source for growth. This oversight not only leads to missed opportunities but also exacerbates customer churn, particularly in today’s competitive economic landscape. With consumers tightening their purse strings amidst rising inflation, businesses must vie for their share of the market more than ever before.

Compounding this challenge is the dwindling availability of third-party data for customer insights. With tech giants like Apple and Google phasing out identifiers like IDFA and third-party cookies, brands are left with fewer options for understanding their customers’ preferences and behaviors.

So, the question remains, how do companies best use AI-driven automation to enhance the quality of their customer interactions?

It comes down to three things: Segmenting your use of AI and prioritizing appropriately, identifying your VIPs and using AI to quickly gather their preferences, and striking the right balance to be most efficient in nurturing customer relationships.

1. Segment and prioritize how you use AI when dealing with customers

It’s always easy to go too far in one direction when experiencing a new technology. While AI is powerful in many ways, you must know when and how to use it to achieve multiples in its overall benefit.

For example, automating routine tasks such as order tracking, returns, or basic inquiries can improve efficiency. But for most brands, especially the small and medium-sized ones, this is where you will see the biggest impact. Relying on AI to handle all customer inquiries so you can reduce labor expenses may damage relationships if those customers don’t feel they can speak with someone who understands their needs. It’s in these instances that AI can be used for efficiency but not for everything.

At the end of the day, we all still crave human-like interactions and personalized attention, especially when dealing with complex issues or providing feedback.  We value the authenticity of genuine connections, and poorly implemented AI solutions can result in a disconnect between a brand and its customers, especially to their recurring customer base, or VIPs.

2. Know who your VIP customers are, and leverage AI to know them even better

Keeping VIPs happy is key to maintaining a strong bottom line. But doing this well starts with knowing who your VIPs are… Unfortunately, most companies don’t.

AI can help utilize identity networks to better understand who your best customers are, what they want, when they shop, and how they prefer to interact. In today’s day and age, these are all things that most customers expect their favorite brands to know. And if you have a poorly trained AI program incorrectly making these inferences, that customer is unlikely to continue shopping with you.

In the retail business, where VIP customers need to make up over 50% of revenue for a company to be able to grow, ensuring those interactions are personalized and monitored is key to success. These VIPs are the customers who continue to come back, driving sale after sale. To facilitate more sales, you need to know as much as you can about who these people are and dedicate your best resources to them.

Many AI algorithms reinforce biases or make incorrect assumptions about customers based on data. If not carefully monitored and calibrated, AI systems may inadvertently perpetuate discrimination or provide inaccurate recommendations, leading to negative experiences for customers.

In other words, AI should be used to handle those more mundane requests, so that more time can be freed up to focus on driving sales from your most valued customers. And when it is used on higher-level tasks, be sure it is relied on in the proper ways.

3. Use AI to enhance efficiency when building relationships

With the proliferation of chatbots and automated customer service systems, consumers often find themselves wondering whether they’re conversing with a human or a machine. But when unforced errors are made, it becomes obvious – and in some cases infuriating. This then contributes to a general malaise and skepticism about companies’ use of AI.

This is an unfortunate reality that adds pressure on all of us working in the AI industry, which we need to address.

Skepticism surrounding online interactions has many people questioning the authenticity of every interaction. And when this is the case, consumers push back and that impacts the bottom line of anyone using AI as a customer experience tool. The need for human intervention needs to be carefully filtered out when using AI for this function.

But companies that successfully navigate this balance between automation and personalized interactions can more easily gain a competitive advantage in the market.

The balance is crucial – and achieving it can mean the difference between continued success or inevitable failure.  Brands live and die by the satisfaction of their customer base, so prioritizing authenticity, empathy, and customer-centricity is key.

Doing so by harnessing the power of AI is both the challenge and the solution to positioning businesses for long-term success in today’s automated world.