#just regular degular robots

[xelsrealm]

can’t believe i live in a reality where its my generation who has to witness the creation of, grow up alongside of, and acclimate to robots being introduced to everyday society

[autobot-ratchet]

I've got the first expression challenge sketched out and lemme tell y'all

I still fuckin got it lmAO

[pinolitas]

I'm pretty sure all those tools people recognize as ai are actually machine learning because isn't ai supposed to be predictive rather than generative

[literaticat]

I have a question about your post regarding AI in which you detailed some agents' concerns. In particular you mentioned "we don't want our authors or artists work to be data-mined / scraped to "train" AI learning models/bots".

I completely agree, but what could be done to prevent this?

(I am no expert and clearly have NO idea what the terminology really is, but hopefully you will get it, sorry in advance?)

I mean, this is literally the thing we are all trying to figure out lol. But a start would be to have something in the contracts that SAYS Publishers do not have permission to license or otherwise permit companies to incorporate this copyrighted work into AI learning models, or to utilize this technology to mimic an author’s work.

The companies that are making AI bots or whatever are not shadowy guilds of hackers running around stealing things (despite how "web scraping" and "data mining" and all that sounds, which admittedly is v creepy and ominous!) -- web scraping, aka using robots to gather large amounts of publicly available data, is legal. That's like, a big part of how the internet works, it's how Google knows things when you google them, etc.

It's more dubious if scraping things that are protected under copyright is legal -- the companies would say that it is covered under fair use, that they are putting all this info in there to just teach the AI, and it isn't to COPY the author's work, etc etc. The people whose IP it is, though, probs don't feel that way -- and the law is sort of confused/non-existent. (There are loads of lawsuits literally RIGHT NOW that are aiming to sort some of this out, and the Writer's Guild strike which is ongoing and SAG-AFTRA strike which started this week is largely centered around some of the same issues when it comes to companies using AI for screenwriting, using actor's likeness and voice, etc.) Again, these are not shadowy organizations operating illegally off the coast of whatever -- these are regular-degular companies who can be sued, held to account, regulated, etc. The laws just haven’t caught up to the technology yet.

Point being, it's perhaps unethical to "feed" copyrighted work into an AI thing without permission of the copyright holder, but is it ILLEGAL? Uh -- yes??? but also ?????. US copyright law is pretty clear that works generated entirely by AI can't be protected under copyright -- and that works protected by copyright can't be, you know, copied by somebody else -- but there's a bit of a grey area here because of fair use? It’s confusing, for sure, and I'm betting all this is being hashed out in court cases and committee rooms and whatnot as I type.

Anywhoo, the first steps are clarifying these things contractually. Authors Guild (and agents) take the stance that this permission to "feed" info to AI learning models is something the Author automatically holds rights to, and only the author can decide if/when a book is "fed" into an AI... thing.

The Publishers kinda think this is something THEY hold the rights to, or both parties do, and that these rights should be frozen so NEITHER party can choose to "feed", or neither can choose to do so without the other's permission.

(BTW just to be clear, as I understand it -- which again is NOT MUCH lol -- this "permission" is not like, somebody calls each individual author and asks for permission -- it's part of the coding. Like how many e-books are DRM protected, so they are locked to a particular platform / device and you can't share them etc -- there are bits of code that basically say NOPE to scrapers. So (in my imagination, at least), the little spider-robot is Roomba-ing around the internet looking for things to scrape and it comes across this bit of code and NOPE, they have to turn around and try the next thing. Now – just like if an Etsy seller made mugs with pictures of Mickey Mouse on them, using somebody else’s IP is illegal – and those people CAN be sued if the copyright holder has the appetite to do that - but it’s also hard to stop entirely. So if some random person took your book and just copied it onto a blog -- the spider-robot wouldn't KNOW that info was under copyright, or they don't have permission to gobble it up, because it wouldn't have that bit of code to let them know -- so in that way it could be that nobody ever FULLY knows that the spider-robots won't steal their stuff, and publishers can't really be liable for that if third parties are involved mucking it up -- but they certainly CAN at least attempt to protect copyright!)

But also, you know how I don't even know what I'm talking about and don't know the words? Like in the previous paragraphs? The same goes for all the publishers and everyone else who isn't already a tech wizard, ALL of whom are suddenly learning a lot of very weird words and phrases and rules that nobody *exactly* understands, and it's all changing by the week (and by the day, even).

Publishers ARE starting to add some of this language, but I also would expect it to feel somewhat confused/wild-west-ish until some of the laws around this stuff are clearer. But really: We're all working on it!

[multifandombullshitbabes]

Considering the SiD fandom is fucking dead. I can do whatever

So Walter x Killian hcs BITCHES. n also before anyone comes tell me that's problematic or whatever 1) i hate antis so just block me thx <3 2) Walter is literally 20-24 years in the movie, most likely 24 years old actually. Go to his wikia page n then to the comments for a pretty good theory/explanation on that. They said they'd put that age range on his profile but it just says 20 yrs old, which just seems false after all the proof from that commenter so. Yh. Fuck u <3

Now, first things first, yall know Walter upgraded the FUCK out of Killians body mods. Like he went "that looks cool! But i can make it better :) just saying :)"; now killian has better, comfier, smoother tech, like an actual robot hand instead of a claw; his eye was already pretty nice, Walter just helped make it more natural looking in case of malfunction, n avoid any pain n shit like that

Walter has Killian wrapped around his lil finger its insane. Anyone with any prior context of everything between them just doesnt know how to act. Walter wants a water? Ok but does he want it flavoured? Iced? Natural? Walter looks at Killian with those big blue eyes and suddenly he just has to touch him in any way.

Walter is definitely the chill half of this couple. Walters the anchor. And im not saying chill like in general, Walter is still is cute energetic self, what i mean is only one of them will become a flustered mess after their first kiss and think abt it forever all the time, especially at night while he watches the other sleep and pets his hair and is overwhelmed by the amount of Feelings he has for the other (killian is so emotionally repressed but then walter is the way he is n he just naturally forces killian not to be that way by just fucking breathing, n its very disorienting for Killian)

Killians not affected by sleep hours all that much, he goes to sleep whenever n then wakes up whenever n he'll be fine. Walter, however, is not a morning person. Can u imagine walter grumpy? Well, killian has now experienced it many times. Its actually how he first realized his feelings for walter. Its stupid endearing (he'd never admit this tho ofc)

Killian bites as a love language. Theyre very soft (sometimes >:)) n walter always turns beet red when he does them

Its hard for both of them to say i love u, but for different reasons. Killian, for ur regular degular emotional repression. Walter, because he never had meaningful emotional n intimate relationships to warrant saying that except for his mom, so saying it gives him anxiety like no other. So, they do that thing where u tap someone 3 times as "i love you" n then the other taps back 4 times "i love you too"

Killian never had the habit for listening to music. Walter introduced him to kpop n it all went downhill from there (his main group is dreamcatcher, because he has taste. His bias is dami)

Walter needs glasses but always forgets them. Killian is now used to carrying around two pairs of glasses: one for himself, n a duplicate of Walters glasses

I could make so many more of these bit its 4am where i am rn so i will go to sleep. If there's any mistakes yknow why that is

[the-whispers-of-death]

angst be upon you

i've been thinking about what my ocs would be like if their lives were just a little different. just imagine

a Hazzard that loves science and knowledge and nature and humanity and wants to use the science to make a better world and sharing his knowledge with people

a Void that is just a regular degular young man going to university, hanging out with his peers, joining a theatre club for fun, not being covered from head to toe, not a blemish on his skin, chatting with friends and preforming in plays

a Romanas who learned to be gentle, who got the help and love he needed, who is just a normal man working a normal job, making friends and the most harm that he has done to himself being a small cut he got while cooking

a Johan who.... well.... he.... hm

a Diana that is going to regular medical school, studying under licensed doctors, healing people and never seeing a military base or a soldier in her entire life

a Vaccine and Dartboard who are known as the eccentric twins in town who do odd jobs and are saving up to one day have their own club

an Otto who is a town mechanic and local robots nerd who fixes cars and teaches kids to make silly little things in his free time, who is a "safety first" kind of man making sure that no accidents happen

a Vendetta that still has no attachments but that's because the whole world is their home, who travels the world painting and photographing the places they visit, who never killed or became a sniper and instead uses their sharp eyes to catch details for their paintings

a Boss who is a business owner, using his mangerial skills to do business, giving jobs to people and making cash in a legal way that involves no violence, who never saw the cruelty of commander or became cruel enough to be part of the inner circle, who is just a fancy old man working towards an early retirement

a Selga who is a regular degular janitor quietly doing his job, singing along to the music in his headphones, who goes back to his little apartment and relaxes on his couch with a cold beer, who's hands are steady as he writes his own songs while he eats a nice heated up snack

and the nameless soldier that killed commander who never became a mercenary and never lost his squad, his sanity or his life, who spent his time working a nice safe job going back home to a loving family, living a life free of cruelty and torture, living out his days and only going over the treshold when he's old and gray, surrounded by the people he loves most knowing he didn't waste his life fighting for nothing

if their lives were just that little different they would've never met eachother most likely.... so as cruel as the current universe is to them we can be thankful that they got to meet eachother :)

except for the nameless soldier rip my guy you freed everyone you the real mvp

What did I do to deserve this angst?? (/lh)

Anyways, yes, let's be thankful they got to meet each other. Nameless soldier, though, hurts my heart. I hope the afterlife is treating him better than the mortal realm ever did.

[lotstradamus]

the image of manchester united being dumb lil shits at your hotel has very much made my evening, thank you. (though i am sure you do not feel the same on this being actually on the receiving end.)

omg I wasn’t allowed to talk about it when I worked there, and then when I left I just plain forgot because I have no cause or desire to think about football, but for your entertainment here is my personal favourite story SLASH NIGHTMARE that happened to me: 

the hotel is within walking distance of Old Trafford, so when Man Utd stayed before games they were sharing the hotel with four other floors all packed full of - if we were lucky - mostly oblivious fans. naturally, they arrived at the quietest possible time, through the back, and didn’t leave their floor. as front office staff we weren’t allowed, under pain of yell, to confirm the presence of Filthy Rich Twenty Year Old Pro Athletes in the building. Manchester Evening News posted pictures of them walking into the hotel, but if someone said ‘hey, so Man Utd are here?’ we had to be like ‘WHO???’ (after the first time they stayed, people started booking with us BECAUSE Man Utd did, which was why they eventually had to start sneaking in through the back, but I did once get to tell a little kid ‘No, sorry, Man United aren’t here, but tell your dad you should definitely be standing in reception at 9pm tonight’ and he got to meet Jesse Lingard and it was precious.) 

anyway, they brought their own security guards with them and posted them at either end of the corridor to make sure no one who shouldn’t be there snuck onto the floor, and DEFINITELY to make sure the players didn’t just come down into the reception in the middle of check-in time and walk straight into lobby full of Man Utd fans because they were told to GO DOWN THE EMERGENCY EXIT STAIRS AT THE END OF THE HALLWAY and they DID NOT LISTEN and were just like Haha, I’ll Get In The Lift ! Weeeee ! (this happened.) truly just epic dinguses. and BECAUSE they were Epic Dinguses, they would constantly call the front desk because they forget to pack a toothbrush or got locked out of their rooms. CONSTANTLY. one shift I talked to what felt like EVERY MEMBER OF THE 2018 TEAM on the GODDAMN PHONE. 

so one time, Ander Herrera (yes I had to google the roster) calls the desk from the massage room and says he was visiting someone else’s room and now he’s locked out of his. a regular degular occurrence; no cause for alarm. I said I would bring a new key up to the massage room for him. the ‘massage room’ was a really poncy name for what was basically a hotel room that housekeeping had taken the bed out of so they could set up their widdle massage tables, and the lock on the door was disabled so everyone could just wander in and out of it without needing a key. despite hearing the words ‘the massage room’ and saying the words ‘the massage room’ and, indeed, understanding the concept of a ‘massage room’, I DID NOT GRASP IT. I WAS TIRED, AND STRESSED, AND EVERY TIME I WENT TO THE FLOORS I HAD TO FIELD 478279 QUESTIONS FROM THE BAR STAFF ABOUT WHETHER I HAD BEEN TO A FOOTBALLER’S ROOM, AND I WAS JUST NOT FIRING ON ALL CYLINDERS.

I get up to the third floor, Foot Ball Habitat, and I’m like ‘hey security guard, Ander Herrera in 315 is locked out of his room, he asked if we could bring a new key to the massage room.’ and then I held out the key to the security guard, assuming that he would take it to The Massage Room. I was mistaken. idk if I was radiating I’m A Huge Professional Who Does Not Care About These Men energy or what, but he was just handwavingly like ‘no problem, you can take it down to him!’ and because I WAS a huge professional who did not care about these men, I TOOK IT TO THE STUPID MASSAGE(!) ROOM(!) MYSELF. 

I knock on the door. I hear ‘it’s open!’ I push the door open. and what am I greeted with? 

of course, I am greeting with the inner workings of A Massage Room!

there are two Manchester Utd players getting massages with tiny towels over their derrières. there are three more Manchester United players just hanging out, wearing tiny towels around their nèther règions. there is half fucking dressed Ander Herrera sitting on the sofa, waiting for his kèy. AND I HAD TO WALK INTO THAT HELLSCAPE AND GIVE THE MAN HIS KEY!!! 

listen: when I say my soul left my body, I am not exaggerating. I felt what only can be described as pure calm settle over me. my consciousness ollied THE FUCK out, and a customer service robot took over. I managed, through sheer force of will, to go totally blind. I have never IN MY LIFE been more professional. I don’t know if my face did anything other than turn freakishly blank, but I said ‘here’s your key’ and Ander Herrera said ‘thank you’ and I said ‘no worries’, and the customer service robot who was Ratatouilling my body got me the hell ass outta there. I even said thanks to the security guard who was partially responsible for the trauma I was currently living on my way past. he had no idea what had Happened To Me. 

I must have been slightly Gone behind the eyes still when I got back downstairs because the guys at the bar were like Uh, Are You Good? and when I relayed what had happened in what I’m sure was a completely normal voice they nearly cried. my front desk colleague wouldn’t let me answer the phone for the rest of the shift just in case nude football players needed anything else bringing to the massage room. (they did not.) when the general manager of the hotel came in on Monday morning he was like ‘sooooo I heard Man Utd gave you a strip tease?’ and I WASN’T. ALLOWED. TO TELL. ANYONE. 

to sum up: you literally never know WHAT is going to happen when you clock in for a shift at a hotel, and Ander Herrera if you’re reading this I hate your guts 

[apathycarestostudy]

“Putting yourself out there -”

Is a necessary evil, and let me tell you why.

(a dash of hopefully helpful rambling for my people with imposter syndrome, variations of the sort, or feel like they don’t deserve stuff)

I have issues I never wanted to acknowledge, but I’m trying to quit being in denial as a gift to myself. I overthink the littlest of things. I feel like I don’t deserve anything unless I do the absolute most and even then, I will never take what I’m owed unless the person I’m doing this for, a regular degular or an authority figure, shows their appreciation in a consistent way, enough to where I’m 100% sure I’m not “bothering” them. I do good by a whole lot of people, but I never cash my efforts in. I have endless opportunities rolling in and rolling right past me, slow enough to where I just need to reach out, but I simply don’t. I believe everything I’ve ever worked for, every accolade I’ve made, every step I’ve ever had the pleasure of taking was set up for me, and I just accepted it as something I had no choice but to do and did them. I unintentionally set up a facet of myself as my entire self to so many people when meeting them, and not only did I accept it for what it was, I continued to diligently play that persona that I absolutely hate just thinking about, and I refuse to give myself an out just because “I need to commit”.

I can keep going on and on, but that’s not the point of this post. I’m writing this to you so you could benefit off of what I had to learn the hard way. I’ve been like this since I was thirteen years old (almost 22 now), and only one instance, one random decision to say, “Screw it!” a couple of weeks ago opened my eyes to what it could be like if I snatched that opportunity slowly rolling right past me.

I was doing an online internship and thought, “Hm, these people don’t know me...so what if I acted like, I dunno, my damn self? I’ll never have to see them again anyways and worry about seeming inhumane.” And so I did. I wanna say it all worked out, but it didn’t. People treated my like an oddity at first, and I was getting aggravated and upset by that, and was about to retreat behind my robotic ways, but then I reminded myself - no, maybe you’re being sensitive. Maybe they’re having a bad day. Maybe you shouldn’t care because you’ll be done in a month and won’t see them ever again?? So I continued being myself. And guess what?

After a while of my ideas being ignored, worrying about it I over spoke or seemed to answer my team’s concerns immediately like I had nothing better to do, receiving everything with open arms yet with a critical eye - I became the most valuable member of our team. They were mad about that in the beginning because I guess I they had an impression about me, but then they started to confide in me personally, or ask for my input first, or give me permission to rip their work a new one because the only thing I’m good at is damage assessing and control. And I left them with such an amazing aftertaste that, for the first time in a while, they wanted to keep in touch with me and it seemed genuine.

But that’s not all. Me being me, I would never go out of my way and talk to a professor and say thank you privately, or hold onto them for future benefit. I just have this weird standard for myself wherein I want to reach my goals absolutely on my own, and not on the backs of anyone else, and I’m hella extreme about it. But this time I reminded myself again that I can try - it wouldn’t take anything away from me if they never responded. And you know what happened?

Not only did that person respond, but they wrote a thank you letter to me for being a good student, told me they recommended me to the place of internship for hire, and then was adamant on staying in touch so they could confirm if I’d gotten it, and if not, that would hook me up with somewhere else.

Like ??????????????????

As the conversations were happening, I was appalled that they were talking about me like that. As if all the good things I’ve accomplished in my opinion wasn’t there as proof that I can do it. I legit started thinking if this was a deeper form of imposter syndrome and if I needed therapy, not gonna lie.

So this was a long-winded build up to what I wanted to leave you with, assuming you’ve read all of that - put yourself out there. With all the crutches I gave myself, I never would’ve thought I’d get more than what I bargained for just by reaching out to opportunity. If I had known being greedy would get me what I needed, I would’ve had my hand out a long time ago. Of course, you gotta put in the work to cash it in, but this post was for the people who do and never put themselves out there. That’s me. That might be you too. Hopefully after this ramble, you reassess what you think you don’t deserve, and I continue to reach out instead of letting opportunity roll right past me.

Here’s to our collective success.

[blackwoolncrown]

like the white powers that be literally overtly ignored climate science for thirty years...but it’s so much worse than that bc this began SO long ago indigenous people have BEEN tellling Europeans ‘you cant use the earth like that it will ruin everything’ so even the narrative of ‘we knew for thirty years’ is white-centric.

But anyway they do nothing nothing nothing while actively making it worse, then a kid stands up and does *something* bc as she sees it no one else is helping then ppl cheer? No be embarrassed this is terrible and pathetic that it came so far, all the way down to kids bc their futures are pretty much nonexistent. Wtf have y’all been doing? The eurocentric pursuit of continuous progress and dogged pressure to prove themselves something more than animal, more than human, has been draining all life on Earth dry. Fucking exploitation in 4D. Billionares fucking planning space resorts and robot bodies and regular degular people conned into supporting the idea-- y’all’s ppl are HIGHKEY batshit dude!

 To this day there are middle class white ppl that just refuse to know what’s going on and I get it they really don’t want to face reality...

But until they do we all suffer bc they stay acting like this shit isn’t happening like white ppl don’t care about jack shit until it physically, personally affects them and no one deserves to suffer y’alls apathy like that just bc you’re hiding from your pasts.