#problem reduction in ai

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

once again furious at how AI has been implemented and fucking. hyped up and goddamn bullshit. the way its being used to steal creative works and fuck with artists and create porn of real people is fucking NASTY. but god fucking damnit it could be so useful. fucking. ai voice reader for my stupid incomprehensible textbooks where the voice isn't datamined against the person's will. ai npcs that didn't steal their fucking data. ai routine builders that can learn a person's typical day and preferences and help build checklists for people who struggle w tasks. they could be SO USEFUL. but no. no. we can't have useful things. improving lives??? nahhhhhh we've gotta make Pretty Pictures and Steal Fucking Everything to do it

[grubloved]

do u have a set of little brain tools u like to use to think about things? here are some of mine

grass sheep: based on the story of an ai who identified photos of sheep correctly, but then it turned out it was recognizing photos with grass in the background. i try to find the grass of a sheep when i'm thinking about the "proof" of something to identify possible other things that could produce that result other than the thing that is assumed to be being proven

hot swap: when thinking about something's place in the world, i like to try to imagine what would need to be different about the larger context for something else to take its place. what would need to be different? what would follow as a change? i often do this to two things that are presented as opposites.

sterility vs bioactivity: there's two solutions to reptile husbandry, one of having sterile and frequently cleaned items to manually remove waste and kill disease, and the other of creating a small ecosystem to reduce and process waste and prevent disease by having other things living there. i use this to think about what alternate routes of solutions could be other than manual control/reduction/elimination of problems

third axis: if i get stuck on a problem that seems to have only two answers, i try to move "vertically" away from it. if something must be either true or false, what would it mean for it to not matter either way? if something must be either supported or fought against, what would it mean to make it irrelevant entirely?

[txttletale]

I don't quite understand your analogy of generative ai as a magic eight ball. I also thought you wanted to avoid being too reductive toward the topic?

so it stems from a post i made about AI a bit ago to illustrate the divide between "AI", the cultural object, and "LLMs" (and indeed, more broadly "machine learning"), the actual cluster of technologies. obviously, i think LLMs are obvsies more impressive technologically and probably have more legitimate uses than a magic 8ball -- but the point of the analogy is that, like, the cluster of claims about and social effects of "AI", the cultural object, are completely detached from its real capabilities and so arguing over the tech itself as though the connection is actually substantive is vacuous.

like, to kind of put this into practice: for any given problem being 'caused' by chatGPT, you can substitue 'chatgpt' for 'a magic 8ball', then think about if the problem would still exist if magic 8balls had billions of dollars in marketing telling you theyre super smart and theyre gonna take over the world. stuff like "people aksing chatgpt for help with high stakes things that it fucks up because its a silly talking computer", yknow, that is really not on anything about LLMs inherently (although i would note that ofc the tendency of the mass-market ones towards sycophancy and confidence exacerbates this) but simply what happens when you extensively advertise a technology as having the capability to advise you on or even make decisions. does that make sense?

[creacherkeeper]

the reliance of college students on gen ai thing is particularly crazy to me as a college writing instructor whos also about to finish an educational psychology certificate because like one huge thing ive learned in my classes is that the american college system is pretty dogshit at teaching students when it comes both to content mastery and also preparing them for the workforce. like these kids are graduating college and going into jobs that they have their degrees in and dont know how to thrive in the workforce and Also dont really know much about the thing they got their degree in. and theres a lot of reasons for that that i could go over in depth but i'll spare yall

BUT the thing that college is like the most decent at is changing the way people think about knowledge itself. further education (high school to undergrad to graduate school) is a huge factor in what develops your epistemological beliefs (epistemology being the nature and theories of knowledge). like your epistemology does naturally change as you get older, but with further education you learn that knowledge itself is complex, ever changing, and interrelated, meaning you inherently trust "facts" less and actually perform critical thinking when presented with new information

but,,,,,, with that new study microsoft did on generative ai showing that usage of gen ai in the workplace can lead to the degradation of independent problem solving skills and that people who trust gen ai actively use less critical thinking to do tasks,,, and that giving yourself fewer opportunities for critical thinking degrades your ability to think critically at all even when it comes to important tasks,,,

like. all these students are using gen ai and sometimes their classes are actively encouraging them to use gen ai and i fear were losing like the one big thing american undergrad is good for bc lets be real its pretty dogshit at everything else

and considering the nature of the topic:

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., Anderson, J. R., Gelman, R., Glaser, R., Greenough, W. T., Ladson-Billings, G., Means, B. M., Mestre, J. P., Nathan, L., Pea, R. D., Peterson, P. L., Rogoff, B., Romberg, T. A., & Wineburg, S. S. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. National Academy Press. (pp. 31-50) Lee, H.P., Sarkar, A., Tankelevitch,L. Drosos, I., Rintel, S., Banks, R., & Wilson, N. (2025). The impact of generative AI on critical thinking: Self-reported reductions in cognitive effort and confidence effects from a survey of knowledge workers. CHI Conference in on Human Factors in Computing Systems. https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3713778 Mezirow, J. (2000). Learning to think like an adult: Core concepts of transformation theory. In J. Mezirow (Ed.), Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory in progress (pp. 3-34). Jossey-Bass. Svinicki, M. D. (2004). Learning and motivation in the postsecondary classroom. Boston: Anker Publishing Company, Inc. Torff, B., & Sternberg, R. J. (1998). Changing mind, changing world: Practical intelligence and tacit knowledge in adult learning. In M. C. Smith & T. Pourchot (Eds.), Adult learning and development: Perspectives from educational psychology (pp. 109-126). Lawrence Erlbaum

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Brian Barrett at Wired (02.27.2025):

If you’ve felt overwhelmed by all the DOGE news, you’re not alone. You’d need too much cork board and yarn to keep track of which agencies it has occupied by now, much less what it’s doing there. Here’s a simple rubric, though, to help contextualize the DOGE updates you do have time and energy to process: It’s worse than you think. DOGE is hard to keep track of. This is by design; the only information about the group outside of its own mistake-ridden ledger of “savings” comes from media reports. So much for being “maximally transparent,” as Elon Musk has promised. The blurriness is also partly a function of the speed and breadth with which DOGE has operated. Keeping track of the destruction is like counting individual bricks scattered around a demolition site.

You may be aware, for instance, that a 19-year-old who goes by “Big Balls” online plays some role in all this. Seems bad. But you may have missed that Edward Coristine has since been installed at the nation’s top cybersecurity agency. And the State Department and the Small Business Administration. And he has a Department of Homeland Security email address and, by the way, also had a recent side gig selling AI Discord bots to Russians. See? Worse than you think. [...] Similarly, you’ve likely heard that the United States Agency for International Development has been gutted and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been put on ice. All true, all bad. But here’s what that means in practice: Fewer people globally have access to vaccines than they did a month ago. More babies are being born with HIV/AIDS. From here on out, anyone who gets ripped off by payday loan companies—or, say, social media platforms moonlighting as payments services—has lost their most capable defender. Keep going. The thousands of so-called probationary employees DOGE has fired included a significant number of experienced workers who had just been promoted or transferred. National Science Foundation staffing cuts and proposed National Institutes of Health grant limits will combine to kneecap scientific research in the United States for a generation. Terminations at the US Department of Agriculture have sent programs designed to help farmers into disarray. On Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration canceled a meeting that would have given guidance on this year’s flu vaccine composition. It hasn’t been rescheduled.

Don’t care about science or vaccines? The Social Security Administration is reportedly going to cut its staff in half. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is going to be cut by as much as 84 percent. Hundreds of workers who keep the power grid humming in the Pacific Northwest were fired before a scramble to rehire a few of them. The National Parks Service, the Internal Revenue Service, all hit hard. So don’t make any long-term bets on getting your checks on time, keeping your lights on, buying a home for the first time, or enjoying Yosemite. Don’t assume all the things that work now will still work tomorrow.

Speaking of which, let’s not forget that DOGE has fired people working to prevent bird flu and to safeguard the US nuclear arsenal. (The problem with throwing a chainsaw around is that you don’t make clean cuts.) The agencies in question have reportedly tried to hire those workers back. Fine. But even if they’re able to, the long-term question that hasn’t been answered yet is, Who would stay? Who would work under a regime so cocksure and incompetent that it would mistakenly fire the only handful of people who actually know how to take care of the nukes? According to a recent report from The Bulwark, that brain drain is already underway. And this is all before the real reductions in force begin, mass purges of civil servants that will soon be conducted, it seems, with an assist from DOGE-modified, automated software. The US government is about to lose decades of institutional knowledge across who knows how many agencies, including specialists that aren’t readily replaced by loyalists.

Wired has a solid article on how bad the DOGE-ificiation of government has gotten.

[beatrixst0nehill]

And We're Back

Sorry for the hiatus and self-nuke, let's get down to business.

1.) Minors DNI, anyone who DMs me about anything related to minors/high school students/etc will be blocked.

2.) Do not try to bang me. I will not send you photos. Attempt to flirt with me, send me dick pics, or ask for photos will result in a block.

3.) I do not RP, but I like discussing fantasies in DM, on my own time.

Edit: If you wish to discuss fantasies, please make sure it's a good fit for me based on the content I make. If you want to discuss Furry Porn or overly elaborate male humiliation kinks/cucking please read the room. I beg you. I discuss the topics I post, if you aggressively try to DM me about stuff I have no interest in I might end up blocking you. No hard feelings. Topics I cover: BE, WG, Pregnancy, Detrans, Trans Girl WG, Body Modification, Breast Reduction/Destruction, Free Use, Bimbo, Age Progression, etc etc. The general theme is women are the subjects of the fantasy, undergoing bodily alterations for better or, often, for worse.

4.) I do not take requests, but I do take suggestions. You can suggest me content in my asks or DMs and if you're lucky, I just might make it.

5.) If you have concerns about my content or I have used your photo in a caption and you want it removed, let me know.

Edit: None of the images in my pictures are original works, most are copies of a copy of a copy; the transformative aspect of my blog is my writing, not the images, which are all everywhere online, repeated by thousands of accounts (and never meant to be representative of the actual people in said images). Don't want your image or video in one of my captions? I will delete it immediately. No problem. If you are the creator of the image/morph/video and like my work, DM me and I will linky you in the text of the caption!

Note: I do not consider AI works original, even if there is a watermark I missed. AI art is stolen from images of real creators and people, regurgitated and repurposed. It is NOT original material, even if you make money on it. If I can buy the same software and tell it the same prompts and create an image identical to yours, but 'original' you have not created a work worth protecting. Art is made by human hands; AI art is best used to supplement human creations. I will not take claims of stolen AI art seriously, you will be blocked.

6.) Have fun.

This is a dark erotica blog where sexual fantasy is expressed through hopefully cathartic parodies of our modern world, its corrupt policies and the people who fund them, with a healthy dose of sass. I do not condone anything I write about in any fashion, it's purely to release that primal frustration of wanting to indulge taboo kinks while not wanting to support the abhorrent ghouls who'd unironically yearn for the sort of topics my erotica touches on. Fantasy should be in good fun, never consume content that gives you harmful thoughts or makes you in any way unhappy.

[danger-bird]

Touchstarved Astrology Headcanons🌠

Mostly based on my own irl observations over the years, as well as my bookworm era a few years ago . Also taking into account my own impressions & feelings for the LIs, so sufficiently biased and I'm not sorry. In the words of Danny DeVito: "I'm right, you're wrong, and there's nothing you can do about it!" /lovingly❤️

Ais

Venus in Virgo. Period. I'm dying on this hill. Fight me. No but fr, first he's a diehard animal lover and will jump into a dog fight to save a puppy. Second, he's giving "mother hen" behavior - says "watch your step", then grabs you when you trip and scolds you "told you to watch your step"(Virgo 101); sends you off with an ESCORT, jumps in fists first when the roughneck tries fighting you then hides you from the purple gang later and escorts you back himself - need I say more? Not to mention he VERY likely helped Kuras save us (his scent lingers in the clinic when MC wakes up), and helps in the clinic regularly (so a part-time nurse, most likely helped save Mhin too). Also, he was definitely watching over us even before the Seaspring (the scarred woman knew our name from somewhere, also the Unnamed can feel Ocudeus' presence outside the clinic). He craves taking care of someone - people, animals, soulless, poor unfortunate souls - you name it. And it's not for show - that's just how he is. That's how he shows love - by being attentive. All my favorite people have this placement, they're all like him in this regard - best Venus placement imo (yes, I'm a biased Venus in Taurus, BUT I'm also right, lol)

Scorpio Ascendant I mean... come on. Come on. He's LITERALLY a gang leader! Not that anybody needs convincing, but aside from the sharp, intense eyes and the fact he oozes sex appeal, this would place his Sun in 10th House- he is known publicly as a leader, his presence demands respect and attracts attention. BDE for sure. Also he's very smart, intuitive and observant. Very aware of his surroundings, can pick up on people's moods & intentions like it's nothing. I'm convinced he can literally read our mind. A smart, sexy and caring bastard, lord help me...

Kuras

Virgo Signature sign Kuras is very service-oriented, focused on helping the community and always looking for ways to assist others. Very mindful of people’s problems and what they’re in need of - and ready to provide it, no matter what it may cost him. He’s also very polite, but comes off rigid, like he’s read “Social Etiquette for Humans 101” and is following it to the letter lol. Also kinda nerdy – has his special interests, and if you let him he’ll talk about reductions and concoctions all day, every day. I don't think it's a specific placement that influences this behavior, it's the whole picture, thus - a signature sign!

Saturn Dominant This man is a Capricorn already, sure, but there’s a difference. Capricorn placements have an inner spark, a fire about them – they’re ambitious and driven while being practical and disciplined. Saturn, however, is a dry and dark, malefic - almost apocalyptic planet. It’s the last visible planet – the gatekeeper of the divine knowledge (depicted by the outer planets). It represents time, boundaries, a sense of duty and responsibility, guilt and the consequences of one's actions. A symbol of Kronos and the Devil, it represents the falling of God, the grotesque expression of divinity. Kuras has a curious mind, fascinated by science and humanity, and in light of the Kuras character lore (and his not-too-subtle mischievousness) he def has strong Uranus & Jupiter influence as well. But the Saturnian themes in particular parallel the themes and main conflict in his story most strongly.

Mercury Retrograde I had to. The way he's so precise and eloquent, but roundabout when he talks? How he's so tight-lipped and takes his sweet time before answering a question? Mercury retrograde, 100 percent. I don't make the rules.

Mhin

Moon in 1st House. How do I know? I have it. The color of printer paper (the sun hates us), emotions written all over their entire existence and impossible to hide, as well as rather intense emotional outbursts? Yes, yes and yes. Big-time tsundere? Yes. Big softy, too? Yes. We could be twins, honestly. I stg they have a crush on Ais, but unlike with Kuras they're not happy about it. I dunno, call it twin telepathy. The Christmas photo doesn't help either.

Water moon, most likely in Cancer. Not Scorpio, because their emotions fluctuate rapidly, and are overtly moody. The difference between big waves and a rip current, for example. But more so, this makes for a Sun-Moon square - the dissonance and lack of harmony between their outer persona and their inner needs and desires is clear. They have difficulty expressing their emotions, not difficulty as in showing them, but in a way where they come off wrong and get interpreted the wrong way. Very protective, like a smol soft crabbie shielding themselves with their shell. Pushes people away consciously, but hoping for someone to have enough of a "spine" to handle them and protect them, giving them a safe space to finally relax. Most of all they need love, reassurance and acceptance (my poor little meow meow💙)

Mars square Mercury That Mercury is in Aries, you can't tell me otherwise. The extra 'angry' coming from Mars in Capricorn is helping, too. But not only that, it also makes a square to their Sun AND an opposition to their Moon - a T-square, a highly difficult & stressful configuration. The Mars is in Capricorn because they like a partner with authority and attitude (Cap in 7th), and it makes for good synastry with Kuras (my cutie patooties). Also for how small they are, they're very agile and skilled with knifes (ruled by Mars).

Leander

Venus conjunct Pluto. Sexy. Magnetic. He pulls you in with the gravitational force of his tits. These people are the definition of an intense lover. Obsessive and hungry for love - and pain, equally, very big on extreme and overwhelming sensations. You have a terrible curse? Oooh, danger - gimme! You can never give them too much attention - they want it all, and they're not sharing. Possessive, wants to draw you into their little world and keep you for themselves.

Leo Ascendant, for a few reasons. I was initially thinking Libra, but after looking at everything, I decided on Leo. He has a noble presence - not surprising considering his upbringing. He's a very charismatic talker, well-spoken, lovely voice, can charm anyone into trusting him (Libra in 3rd coming through). To his credit, he takes his work seriously and comes off as a reliable boss (Cap in 6th, also Taurus in 10th). He wants to take care of people... or rather, wants to be seen as a savior. I really see him as a Gemini-Cancer cusp, but technically he's a Cancer so his sun will be in 12th house. It’s a house of self-undoing, the afterlife, illusions - ego and reality go to disintegrate here. All that connects into the life-and-death theme surrounding him and his design. The sun here becomes a fantasy, a goal rather than reality – a dream of being a leader, a hero, someone who people look up to for help and answers. He’s really giving Jesus-wannabe, with the resurrection and savior complex he has going on, as well as the over-the-top generosity. A big red crab, with a big red flag... and the tits to match (Cancer rules the booba).

Vere

Venus conjunct Midheaven, Midheaven being in Scorpio. With Sun in Scorpio. Lots of Scorpio. He’s so pretty! Pretty in an elegant, sensual, effortless yet manicured to perfection way. Apparently, the BBC (Big Bulky Collar) on him does not signal “DANGER!” to the rascals who take him for an easy target, because all they see is the approachable, delicate face and inviting voice. He knows the effect he has on people, and he’s using it to his advantage – to get a free drink, or to make people trust him juuust enough to get what he wants. He is attracted to power, powerful people, and wants power for himself – and he’s ruthless about achieving his goals, too (Scorpio in 10th); there’s a lot of gossip surrounding this man’s public image, his reputation. Venus conjunct Midheaven places a focus on art – he is an artist, appreciates art as well as creating it himself. He IS the art, or that’s the perception of him anyway.

Venus in Scorpio As Venusian as he appears, Venus is in detriment here – there’s conflicting emotions regarding his looks, and the perception of him – or rather, the expectations placed on him because of it. He'll break rules on purpose, act outrageous, play coy, use his beaty for all its worth – he’ll purposefully play the ‘bad guy’ as a form of rebellion, a defense mechanism. He can’t find comfort in a traditional relationship dynamic and has a hard time liking someone who likes them back - he’s afraid of commitment. I believe his confidence is a façade; there’s an underlying fear of betrayal and rejection, and a paranoia that any good thing that comes his way is a trick, a trap, or a lie. That he doesn’t deserve love or care, really. Buuut… if you’re like Ais and see him for all his ‘ugly’, and accept him anyway… then you’re really something💜.

1525 words. Yikes. I tried keeping the word count down.

Unsuccessful. Obviously.

If you’ve read this far, go have some water, a snack, a stretch – you deserve it! Doctor’s orders!!!

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.

P.S. : Ais' side profile sprite is giving me "ex-punk mom wearing a cozy cardigan", is it just me? Anyone? Are you seeing it? Am I crazy? Do I need help?...

...I'll see myself out.

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[tired-pidgeon]

A China-based startup just released DeepSeek, a new AI model that the company said was produced in 2 months for under $6 million. In comparison, Meta alone said it plans to spend $65 Billion on AI this year. OpenAI is spending $100k-$700k a DAY to run their AI models.

DeepSeek is good enough to rival ChatGPT and Anthropic, and has an open-source model

(Source: CNN, watch from 2:38 onward)

Meanwhile, Trump just announced the Stargate Project, an AI investment initiative that includes OpenAI, Arm, Nvidia and Oracle. The project aims to invest $500 billion over the next four years to build data centers across the U.S. that will support AI models and allow them to continue developing

DeepSeek’s launch — it is now the most downloaded app on the App Store, ahead of ChatGPT — caused tech stocks to fall today, but according to tech consultant Shelly Palmer during the linked interview with CNN, American tech companies are likely to rise to this challenge.

The wide disparity in cost and training time between the DeepSeek and other AI models is staggering, and it begs some questions: how did DeepSeek do it faster and cheaper? Are they telling the truth? Why haven’t American firms figured this out? Why are American firms charging so much?

Mr Palmer attributes this to the different ways AI models functions. DeepSeek relies on algorithmic efficiency, while American AI models rely on brute force. Mr Palmer notes that since China has had restricted access to chips and tech (thanks to U.S. sanctions), it has had to find another way to solve the problem.

If I were to take an optimistic perspective, I’d hope that this new model will encourage American companies to step up their game and create even more efficient models. It’s the open market after all. I hope this will result in the reduction of AI’s environmental damage, which is currently proceeding on an unsustainable level. AI can be good or bad, but its current devouring of limited resources is unbearable. I’m glad DeepSeek was able to find a better way to create a more efficient model. Not only that, but since its model is open source, anyone can look at it and learn from it. It could actually prove to be an important springboard for AI technology

If I were to take a pessimistic perspective, the U.S. might take this as a threat instead of an invitation to innovate and win in the free market. TheUS might impose even more isolationist policies, possibly banning tech apps from China and ironically creating its own Great Firewall. In doing so, its people are stuck having to rely on domestic AI models, while China’s influence in the tech sphere grows through the rest of the world. Meanwhile, the US continues to spread Sinophobia and consequently misses out on new tech because it is throwing a tantrum at not having figured out the AI puzzle first, possibly accusing DeepSeek of IP theft

[foxgirltail]

Yes, microsoft trying to make a "zero-water" data center (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-unveils-zero-water-data-170002064.html) is unambiguously a good thing. Obviously any reduction of pollution or water usage is a good thing. No, I don't think that means that ai's usage of water is something to singlehandedly be up in arms about.

By all means, be upset about ai! Just don't only be upset about ai for this or that when basically every other industry on the planet has the same exact problems.

A single cotton t-shirt requires 2700 liters of water, 5 trillion liters of water are used annually for fabric dying, and 20% of all water pollution is from garment production (source: https://www.wri.org/insights/apparel-industrys-environmental-impact-6-graphics)

This medium article (https://medium.com/@notkavi/stop-acting-like-ai-uses-a-lot-of-water-fafea5573c63) compares the numbers cited in the same study as the latest news articles about ai water usage ("Making AI Less 'Thirsty' by Pengfei Li et al https://arxiv.org/pdf/2304.03271) to the water needed to make beef. GPT-3 used as much water to train as it takes to feed 12 usamericans their average annual burger-patty supply. One quarter-pounder uses as much water as 36k GPT-3 queries or 3.6k GPT-4 queries.

Here is a comparison of Microsoft's water usage in 2022 to the water usage of golf courses:

In 2022, Microsoft claimed it used 1.7 billion gallons (6.44 billion liters) of water. Between 2003 and 2005, the golfing industry used approximately 2.08 billion gallons (7.87 billion liters) of water DAILY for course irrigation. (water usage of golf courses has dropped an estimated 29% between 2020 and 2005 - https://www.gcsaa.org/media/news-release/2022-news-releases/2022/07/26/golf-courses-reduce-water-usage-by-29-percent-according-to-national-survey - this still amounts to ~1.48 billion gallons or ~6.74 billion liters daily. 2 days of golf is more than a year of Microsoft's water usage)

Source for golf water use: https://www.usga.org/content/dam/usga/pdf/Water%20Resource%20Center/how-much-water-does-golf-use.pdf

Source for ai water use: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tech/ai-chatgpt-water-power-usage-b1106592.html

Yes, the world would benefit from less water usage for ai. But when you posit ai as uniquely evil for it's water usage, I have a hard time believing you actually have an issue with the water usage. Instead it seems like you just want a reason to dislike ai.

My goal is for all of these industries, and many more, to severely reduce their water consumption, or to even stop existing as industries at all! Is that yours as well? If so, why doesn't it feel like it.

[ollieofthebeholder]

Hi! I know you do NaNo every year and are quite involved with it; have you seen their new AI policy? And what are your thoughts on it?

https://nanowrimo.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/29933455931412-What-is-NaNoWriMo-s-position-on-Artificial-Intelligence-AI

Hi!

So first off, nonnie: My involvement with NaNoWriMo has, uh, declined significantly in the last year. I was an ML through last November, and there were...a lot of problems that all culminated in me (and my co-ML ) not only making the decision to step down as MLs, but disaffiliate our region from NaNo altogether. We're not stopping people from participating, just taking the groups we manage independent and starting our own, localized version. Global communities are great, but when you get to as big as NaNo got and start having to implement rules and make them apply to wildly diverse regions - and then have absolutely no policies in place for people in those specific regions to adapt those policies - it stops being fun, frankly. For organizers and participants.

All of which is to say, no, I hadn't seen this until now.

My thoughts are that, like so many other things NaNo has tried to do since November, it's well-intentioned (probably) but poorly thought out and even more poorly executed. It's also too broad and overencompassing. And it violates the spirit of the program they've been belaboring us with for the last 25 years.

AI - Artificial Intelligence - covers a lot of ground. Spellcheckers are technically AI. Speech to text programs could be construed as AI. Predictive text is AI. ChatGP and its ilk is essentially an advanced form of predictive text, at least at this point. And if you had suggested five years ago that someone might write a novel entirely based on predictive text, the official NaNoWriMo stance would have been "I mean, sure, you CAN do that, we can't really stop you, if that's what you're happy with." If your goal is just to have 50,000 words, do whatever you want. I guess from their wording, they're saying that this is in general, not specifically for NaNoWriMo, but this is still a pretty bizarre stance for an organization that pushed for years for everyone to start on November 1 with a blank document and not a single word written ahead of time.

Arguing that "opposition to AI is classist and ableist" is the kind of reductive bullshit I expect from Tumblr, not a major organization that is supposed to promote literacy. I especially don't get the "not everyone has access to all resources" bit. Yeah...that's true...but if you have access to AI, you have access to everything you need to participate in NaNoWriMo, i.e. a computer with a keyboard and an internet connection. If you just want the fifty thousand words to get the prize and don't care if they're good, just fucking write "banana" over and over again until you hit it. Boom, you're a winner, and you've done just as much work as someone prompting ChatGPT, and it'll probably make about as much sense.

Also, most AI programs in existence use up a ridiculous amount of energy and resources, and encouraging their use is kind of an iffy stance for any company to take, let alone one that's been making this much of an effort to be sustainable.

Frankly, I think this policy is just one more sign that NaNo has gotten a) too big to be sustainable and b) too far from what it was originally meant to be, and I'm honestly debating if I'm even going to participate in the global one this year.

[bug-the-chicken-nug]

preliminary note: if this resonates with you at all. I would very much appreciate you reblogging it. a problem with so much anti ai sentiment is like. for such a self-professed pro-human movement. it sure does have a lot of misanthropy implicitly baked in.

which in turn comes off like its basically kinda constantly running the risk of turning more and more artists into dogmatic elitists

because it essentially kinda constantly risks "artists are intrinsically pure angels who deserve everything and are always inherently superior to Icky Computer. but normal people are icky dumb irresponsible sheep who are always totally selfish and will blindly do whatever the rich tech companies say! surely there is no nuance! surely, no one can care about two things at once, or have a coherent reason to not be wholly and rigidly against something with flaws! if they say they do, they just have no integrity! they're making excuses and trying to normalize oppressing us, so it's secretly okay to give in to black and white us vs them thinking after all! won't anyone think of The Artist?! you know, even though a huge portion of 'anyone' is all the people I just shunted into my out group and am now completely blocking and ignoring anyway?"

"won't anyone stand up for the Little Guy, even though, in this instance, a ton of we Little Guys keep showing worrying early precursor signs of temporarily embarrassed millionaire syndrome and claiming humble goals, but lowkey wanting to be the new Big Guys over at least Some people in the process? so by our own logic, actually you should shun and ignore us and reverse the same black and white thinking on us for having these faults?"

oh, but you probably realize: that would be a bad faith thing to do, now that it's about *you*. this whole argument is unfair, reductive, and insensitive, now that it's about *you*.

Yeah. You're right. It is veering into hyperbolic overgeneralization, huh? It is very convenient and cherrypicked, isn't it?

And yet so many people in this crowd never try to consider if *they're* being unfair, reductive, and insensitive too.

but tbh it Does smack of like. Strong precursors to TERF logic, doesn't it? A proverbial "Little" group becoming so frothingly mad at the "Big" group that they become self-righteous, and shunned and reviled by many of those they said they wanted to protect, all while now coming to see those same people as enemies and continually becoming more bitter and insular.

it also smacks of often feeling like a fresh new iteration of the underlying stuff behind that issue i personally had in middle/high school, where I was always shy and lonely in a way that spiralled into a weird and lowkey self-absorbed inferiority/superiority complex

"I hate mostly everyone and I'm smarter than them, but also I still deep down REALLY want them to be my friends and validate me and prove themselves Worthy, all while I do barely any outward work in challenging my perceptions of them, meeting them halfway, or positively enticing them to behave that way, and instead just continue waiting for them to miraculously decide to do all the work themselves, because I'm Entitled to that, even though I'm also wildly insecure and think I suck"

with an insidious extra trick because this time you can go "ohrr but we keep telling them to roleplay with us instead of char.ai!"

as if you Don't immediately block them the moment they're honest about it or sharing anything positive or even just suspiciously neutral at all about it?

as if you can at all actually guarantee that across the board, your RP communities are always inclusive, welcoming, non-judgmental, and accessible?

as if you don't love to just blame the ai folk for not "trying hard enough" to find you or put themselves out there... as you then follow that sentiment up with a self-deprecating reblog of a hugely popular post about how a ton of you are soooo bad at replying to people?

like. i'm sorry. really. your mental illness is not your fault. this part especially is a low blow on my end. but this behavior is still one of the things that erodes accessibility and feelings of inclusiveness while also risking hurting the feelings of others. you still have to do your best to work on it instead of just apologizing or joking about it over and over. particularly because you kind of brought that responsibility upon yourself the moment you starting tooting your side's own horn about how much more "fulfilling" and "positive" it is.

otherwise, you come off like you want way too much praise and credit for the bare minimum.

And some of you probably thought "but im NOT self-absorbed, you have me all wrong, i'm doing this in the name of All Artists!"...

as if there aren't like an assload of harmful dogmas that are self-evidently harmful even though they are, just like this, still motivated by genuine care for a large group of people, and coinciding hatred of a large group of people who seem to pose a threat to them. (racism, for one. much of it is in fact a loving desire to "protect" your entire group, and your perceived ideas of its best interests.)

and you'll notice that the vast majority of those dogmas are self-destructive, irrational, overly fixating on punishing and isolating the threat and all who are even vaguely too sympathetic (hence a major reason for their self-destructive tendency) and reliant on cherry-picking, even though the goal is pretty noble when you reduce it to sound similar to the prevalent anti-ai ethos. (does "protect the children!" ring a bell? does it sound all that dissimilar to "protect artists!" on the face of it?)

[mariacallous]

Tariffs, another chaotic venture of the barely four-month-old Trump administration, are set to rollick every sector of the economy and nearly all the goods and services people use across the world. But tariffs could also cause the tech in your phone and other devices you use every day to stagnate as supply chains are hit by the rise in costs and companies scramble to balance the books by cutting vital development research.

Let’s get a couple important caveats out of the way here, starting with the possibility that the US might just come to its senses and back down on tariffs after all. President Trump promises he won't, of course, but he has now enacted a 90-day delay on higher tariffs for all countries except China, which has had its tariffs hiked from 34 to 145 percent.

While the tariff reprieve may ease pressures elsewhere, it is terrible news for Big Tech, which has supply chains that rely heavily on Chinese companies and Chinese-made components. Some companies have already gotten very creative about trying to dodge those additional costs, like Apple, which Reuters reports airlifted about 600 tons of iPhones to India in an effort to avoid Trump’s tariffs.

Whether tech leaders more broadly can yet negotiate special exemptions that allow their products to swerve these costs remains to be seen, but if they don’t, sky-high tariffs are likely to limit what new technologies companies can cram into their devices while keeping costs low.

“There's absolutely a threat to innovation,” says Anshel Sag, a principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategies. “Companies have to cut back on spending, which generally means cutting back on everything.”

Smartphones in particular are at risk of soaring in price, given that they are the single largest product category that the US imports from China. Moving the wide variety of manufacturing capabilities needed to produce them in the US would cost an amount of money that’s almost impossible to calculate—if the move would even be possible at all.

The trouble tariffs cause smartphone makers will come as they try to battle rising costs while making their products ever more capable. Apple spent nearly $32 billion on research and development costs in 2024. Samsung spent $24 billion on R&D that same year. Phone companies need their devices to dazzle and excite users so they upgrade to the shiny new edition each and every year. But people also need to be able to afford these now near essential products, so striking a balance in the face of exponentially high tariffs creates problems.

“As companies shift their engineering teams to focus on cost reductions rather than creating the next best thing, the newest innovation—does that hurt US manufacturers?” asks Shawn DuBravac, chief economist at the trade association IPC. “Are we creating an environment where foreign manufacturers can out innovate US manufacturers because they are not having to allocate engineering resources to cost reduction?”

If that’s how it goes down, the result will be almost the exact opposite effect of what Trump claims he intended to do by implementing tariffs in the first place. Yet sadly it’s a well-known fact of business that R&D is one of the first budgets to be cut when profits are at risk. If US manufacturers are forced to keep costs low enough to entice customers in this new regime, it’ll more than likely mean innovation falters.

“Rather than focusing on some new AI application, they might want to focus on reengineering this product so that they're able to shave pennies here and pennies there and reduce production cost,” DuBravac says. “What ends up happening is you say, ‘Ah, you know what? We're not going to launch that this year. We're going to wait 12 months. We’re going to wait for the cost to fall.’”

Sag says that a lower demand—likely caused because people will have less money as we potentially careen toward a recession—also leads to a slowdown of the refresh cycle of a product. Less people buying a thing means less need to make more of the thing. Some products may get to the point where there is just no market for them anymore.

He points to product categories such as folding phones, which after six years of adjustment and experimentation at high price points have finally started to come into their own. The prices have come down as well, meaning folding phones are nearly at the phase of being at an attractive price point for more regular buyers.

It has been rumored that Apple has a folding phone close to debuting, but who knows how that plays out in a world where Apple is subject to the same trade tariffs as everyone else with a heavy reliability on China production? A complicated or potentially risky device might be delayed, or be deemed too ambitious, because tariff costs forced budgets elsewhere.

“It definitely affects product cycles and which features get made—and even which configurations of which chips get shipped,” Sag says. “The ones that are more cost optimized will probably get used more.”

[jbird-the-manwich]

I also don't think most people know that foundation language models only have to be trained twice, and that's only if it needs instruction following. Or that they don't actually have to be trillions of parameters to function. or that dedicated tensor processing units exist that make their computations more efficient. or that you can run distillations on a raspberry pi. or that there are actually many many options in implementation. or that most every current problem with ai stems from corporate malfeasance at scale.

previous waves of headlines on AIs resource use that many are still citing on tumblr today were found to be grossly inflated and misrepresented due to an error. and consistent reductions in energy use continue to be achieved in the current state of the art. also the term "AI" refers to a field of computer science rather than a badge of attainment of human levels of prediction in a program.

I will leave you with this:

[jadeharleyinc]

@sadcatprince hi, i'm moving this conversation to tumblr posts because tumblr replies are horrible and this would quickly become a tangled mess otherwise.

i am available if you would like to have a chill discussion and my offer to help de-escalate your arguments with other members of AWAY still stands.

long post below the cut.

The issue is I think "experimenting with AI" can very quickly become a way to just turn your brain off and avoid the introspection the art practice is meant to encourage.

ok, well i disagree with several of your premises here. 1- i don't think art is intrinsically a practice that is "meant" to encourage introspection and discourage "turning your brain off". that seems extremely reductive. art is an activity humans engage in. it can have all sorts of purposes and can involve 0% or 100% of your brain. trying to "turn your brain off" and exercise minimal thinking is a pretty important part of automatist techniques in surrealist art, for example.

2- i don't think experimenting with AI is "very quickly" liable to turn people's brains off. like, this is a vibes-based observation, not supported by the studies we have so far.

The human capacity to anthropomorphize and experience a false sense of accomplishment because of a dopamine rush NEED to be mitigated through thorough FREQUENT criticism of this technology.

3- when we feel that "people doing art wrong, not learning from art, experiencing unearned happiness, or missing out on spiritually fulfilling journeys" it's not those people's problems. some people simply find different aspects of the human experience fulfilling or have different priorities in life.

it is not your place - or mine - to determine whose satisfaction is "real" and whose is "false", and i think poking one's nose in other people's activities to remind them that their satisfaction is false, and the joy they express joy is unearned, is pretty damaging to everyone involved.

even if this unearned satisfaction caused measurable harm, which it doesn't, it cannot be "mitigated through thorough frequent criticism of the technology", that is not how you change people's behaviors.

it seems like a really nasty side effect of our society to turn an act of consumption (requesting an image from an AI) into a "creative" activity. there's a DISTINCTION between art creation and consumption. Reading a book isn't creative. Nor is playing a video game. These are still fun hobbies you can have.

4- consumption is always in the mind of the beholder, it is not objective and measurable. taking random pictures with your phone can be a ravenous act. playing a video game can be a form of artistic expression - character creators, sandboxes, speedrunning, or just developing a unique competitive playstyle that expresses your personality and aesthetics. and so on.

personally i'm a programmer and RPG designer: i think generating d&d ideas with dice and random tables, markov chains, procedural algorithms or simple neural networks is creation, not consumption, and doing this with a pretrained transformer neural network is no different. these are all creative activities to me.

The issue is when you call requesting images an "artform".

5- why is that an issue? is this creating harm, or is this just annoying? again: i'm a game programmer. i "request images" without using AI all the time, for example when i procedurally generate a game texture or a level layout.

it's generally accepted, in tech and art, that the result of computer instructions is art: see, for example, fractal art and (non-AI, generally procedural) generative art. i see no meaningful difference between writing these instructions in English to AI software, or in C# to 'regular' software.

requesting objects at a source and presenting them as your artwork is also an established non-digital art form (see: the famous works of Marcel Duchamp or Félix González-Torres). i understand that you don't respect the art world for its money laundering, but you're saying things like they're obvious when they've been a subject of artistic debate for over a century now.

If you really ARENT generating images to be "meaningful art" that distinction should NOT be a problem for you.

6- well, i don't really care about meaning. i think meaningless art is pretty cool! abstract art, "you sir are a space too!" and all that.

Just like a person with a healthy outlook on human relationships whos just "playing with AI chatbots" shouldn't react so aggressively when I point out they arent talking to a REAL person.

7- this is a normal thing to do to a friend and a very weird thing to tell a stranger though. you understand why "hey, this fake thing you're doing is fake, are you aware of that? just checking that you're not totally disconnected from reality. if you get mad at me for asking, it's your fault" sounds weird right?

i don't know what interactions you're referring to exactly but i think maybe people have a reason to be frustrated with this behavior, especially if you use the same angle of approach as in your original ask.

Like all of you keep saying "its not meaningful it's not DEEP im not that ATTATCHED to my work".

​8- i don't know who is saying that. personally i'm not saying that. i like my work! i have some attachment to it. some of my work is meaningful or even deep. though, i don't think all works have to be.

so why do you care if it's art? Why do you care if its creative?

9- well, everyone has different answers to this, but if by "you" you mean AWAY: AWAY's mission is to ask questions and spark conversation, to help people use AI ethically, and also to offer a view of AI as a fun thing you can use to express yourself artistically.

personally, i think it's overall good for society when people discover new ways to create things and find fulfilling activities on the computer. i also think it's generally good for culture when art communities are open-minded about the definitions of "art" and "artists": this enables the cross-pollination of ideas from different fields, or collaborations between different types of artists, which are things i find cool and valuable.

If you really have no skin in this being a form of meaningful self expression... me pointing out AI is a consumptive activity and not a creative one shouldn't bother you. If it does... idk..

10- personally i'm not bothered, i have no issue with your definition of art, how you relate to art, and what you believe is or isn't art. it makes me a little sad, but only in the same way that someone confronting a "video games are art" group by saying "hey guys! you're wrong btw! video games aren't art!" does. like, that's a shame and i would love to have a chat with that person and change their mind about video games, but it's not a big deal.

maybe be more honest with yourself about your creative needs and pick up a pencil. Im not going to sugarcoat things to spare your feelings, so you can get away false sense of creative accomplishment from typing a search request into an algorithm.

11- this is what i take issue with. if you're trying to have a "discussion", as you said, then don't assume everyone who disagrees with you doesn't already have a creative hobby, don't accuse people of lying to themselves, and don't justify that by saying "i'm just telling it how it is, just making you confront the harsh truth".

this isn't just inappropriate, it also makes for a very ineffective conversation. whatever goals you have with this conversation (changing minds, gaining information, etc), you're not going to achieve them that way. unless your goal is to be rude at people online, and feel justified when they're rude in return or decide you're not worth talking to.

but you've been curious enough to check my blog and read my essay about art, so i get the feeling you are interested in this conversation. if you set aside the snide - sorry, "non sugarcoated" remarks, and tell me your goals for this conversation, we can continue. if not, this seems like a good place to stop.

[catgirlapologist]

ok i'm majoring in computer science right? and i fear i'm gonna get whiplash over how differently people treat AI at my university and online. i feel like a lot of people here hate AI without even really knowing what it is, how it works, etc. there are a lot of unethical areas in AI but at my uni everyone uses it for their schoolwork and it's helped me solve assignments and problems in programming that i definitely couldn't have done on my own. AI has a lot of different areas and not all of them are inherently bad. you should oppose stealing people's work, but i think the way some of y'all view AI is really reductive. i'm not saying you should like it or use it, i'm saying if you're gonna speak up about it you should do a decent amount of research about it first because i've seen a lot of misinfo