#technology and human qualities

[reasonsforhope]

Here's the top 2 stories from each of Fix The News's six categories:

1. A game-changing HIV drug was the biggest story of 2024

In what Science called the 'breakthrough of the year', researchers revealed in June that a twice-yearly drug called lenacapavir reduced HIV infections in a trial in Africa to zero—an astonishing 100% efficacy, and the closest thing to a vaccine in four decades of research. Things moved quick; by October, the maker of the drug, Gilead, had agreed to produce an affordable version for 120 resource-limited countries, and by December trials were underway for a version that could prevent infection with just a single shot per year. 'I got cold shivers. After all our years of sadness, particularly over vaccines, this truly is surreal.'

2. Another incredible year for disease elimination

Jordan became the first country to eliminate leprosy, Chad eliminated sleeping sickness, Guinea eliminated maternal and neonatal tetanus, Belize, Jamaica, and Saint Vincent & the Grenadines eliminated mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis, India achieved the WHO target for eliminating black fever, India, Viet Nam and Pakistan eliminated trachoma, the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, and Brazil and Timor Leste eliminated elephantiasis.

15. The EU passed a landmark nature restoration law

When countries pass environmental legislation, it’s big news; when an entire continent mandates the protection of nature, it signals a profound shift. Under the new law, which passed on a knife-edge vote in June 2024, all 27 member states are legally required to restore at least 20% of land and sea by 2030, and degraded ecosystems by 2050. This is one of the world’s most ambitious pieces of legislation and it didn’t come easy; but the payoff will be huge - from tackling biodiversity loss and climate change to enhancing food security.

16. Deforestation in the Amazon halved in two years

Brazil’s space agency, INPE, confirmed a second consecutive year of declining deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. That means deforestation rates have roughly halved under Lula, and are now approaching all time lows. In Colombia, deforestation dropped by 36%, hitting a 23-year low. Bolivia created four new protected areas, a huge new new state park was created in Pará to protect some of the oldest and tallest tree species in the tropical Americas and a new study revealed that more of the Amazon is protected than we originally thought, with 62.4% of the rainforest now under some form of conservation management.

39. Millions more children got an education

Staggering statistics incoming: between 2000 and 2023, the number of children and adolescents not attending school fell by nearly 40%, and Eastern and Southern Africa, achieved gender parity in primary education, with 25 million more girls are enrolled in primary school today than in the early 2000s. Since 2015, an additional 110 million children have entered school worldwide, and 40 million more young people are completing secondary school.

40. We fed around a quarter of the world's kids at school

Around 480 million students are now getting fed at school, up from 319 million before the pandemic, and 104 countries have joined a global coalition to promote school meals, School feeding policies are now in place in 48 countries in Africa, and this year Nigeria announced plans to expand school meals to 20 million children by 2025, Kenya committed to expanding its program from two million to ten million children by the end of the decade, and Indonesia pledged to provide lunches to all 78 million of its students, in what will be the world's largest free school meals program.

50. Solar installations shattered all records

Global solar installations look set to reach an unprecedented 660GW in 2024, up 50% from 2023's previous record. The pace of deployment has become almost unfathomable - in 2010, it took a month to install a gigawatt, by 2016, a week, and in 2024, just 12 hours. Solar has become not just the cheapest form of new electricity in history, but the fastest-growing energy technology ever deployed, and the International Energy Agency said that the pace of deployment is now ahead of the trajectory required for net zero by 2050.  

51. Battery storage transformed the economics of renewables

Global battery storage capacity surged 76% in 2024, making investments in solar and wind energy much more attractive, and vice-versa. As with solar, the pace of change stunned even the most cynical observers. Price wars between the big Chinese manufacturers pushed battery costs to record lows, and global battery manufacturing capacity increased by 42%, setting the stage for future growth in both grid storage and electric vehicles - crucial for the clean flexibility required by a renewables-dominated electricity system. The world's first large-scale grid battery installation only went online seven years ago; by next year, global battery storage capacity will exceed that of pumped hydro.

65. Democracy proved remarkably resilient in a record year of elections

More than two billion people went to the polls this year, and democracy fared far better than most people expected, with solid voter turnout, limited election manipulation, and evidence of incumbent governments being tamed. It wasn't all good news, but Indonesia saw the world's biggest one day election, Indian voters rejected authoritarianism, South Korea's democratic institutions did the same, Bangladesh promised free and fair elections following a 'people's victory', Senegal, Sri Lanka and Botswana saw peaceful transfers of power to new leaders after decades of single party rule, and Syria saw the end of one of the world's most horrific authoritarian regimes.

66. Global leaders committed to ending violence against children

In early November, while the eyes of the world were on the US election, an event took place that may prove to be a far more consequential for humanity. Five countries pledged to end corporal punishment in all settings, two more pledged to end it in schools, and another 12, including Bangladesh and Nigeria, accepted recommendations earlier in the year to end corporal punishment of children in all settings. In total, in 2024 more than 100 countries made some kind of commitment to ending violence against children. Together, these countries are home to hundreds of millions of children, with the WHO calling the move a 'fundamental shift.'

73. Space exploration hit new milestones

NASA’s Europa Clipper began a 2.9 billion kilometre voyage to Jupiter to investigate a moon that may have conditions for life; astronomers identified an ice world with a possible atmosphere in the habitable zone; and the James Webb Telescope found the farthest known galaxy. Closer to Earth, China landed on the far side of the moon, the Polaris Dawn crew made a historic trip to orbit, and Starship moved closer to operational use – and maybe one day, to travel to Mars. 

74. Next-generation materials advanced

A mind-boggling year for material science. Artificial intelligence helped identify a solid-state electrolyte that could slash lithium use in batteries by 70%, and an Apple supplier announced a battery material that can deliver around 100 times better energy density. Researchers created an insulating synthetic sapphire material 1.25 nanometers thick, plus the world’s thinnest lens, just three atoms across. The world’s first functioning graphene-based semiconductor was unveiled (the long-awaited ‘wonder material’ may finally be coming of age!) and a team at Berkeley invented a fluffy yellow powder that could be a game changer for removing carbon from the atmosphere.

-via Fix The News, December 19, 2024

[otherworldlyinfo]

A Groundbreaking Study Conducted by IBM Tells Workers to Embrace AI

The Comprehensive Study by IBM: Illuminating the AI LandscapeA Vision Beyond Apprehension: Augmenting Roles with AIStrategic Reskilling and AI Integration: A Recipe for SuccessEvolving Skills: From Technical Proficiency to Interpersonal AcumenSeizing the Future: Leveraging AI for Unprecedented Growth The rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have ignited both excitement and…

[passiveagreeable]

The marvel of technology is that a large wall clock in my living room quits working, and I order a new movement for ten bucks, but when the quartz movement goes out in my watch, I’m quoted more than $200 to replace it when the watch wasn’t worth that to begin with.

When the backlight goes out on my laptop screen, I’m quoted anywhere from $300 to $700 to fix it (and highly discouraged to do so because despite working perfectly it’s almost ten years old), then told its a motherboard issue, thereby forcing me to buy a new laptop anyway for hundreds more. But a lightbulb in my room costs like three bucks to replace.

[transcriptioncity]

The Importance of Chinese Transcription Services - A Gateway to Accessibility and Global Connection

Chinese transcription services play a crucial role in modern communication. These services bridge communication gaps and foster international connections. By converting spoken Mandarin or Cantonese into written text, they make information accessible to a wider audience. Transcription services facilitate understanding between diverse linguistic communities. In business, this means smoother…

[nasa]

Spinoffs: Space Station Innovations in Your Cart (and Heart!)

You might think NASA technology is just spaceships and telescopes, but did you know the camera in your cell phone is, too? It’s one of many NASA innovations now found everywhere on Earth.

The International Space Station has had crew living on it for 25 years straight. In that time, the space station has enabled a tremendous amount of research, helping NASA and scientists better understand long-term living in space – but it’s not just knowledge coming back down to Earth! Technologies developed for the space station and experiments conducted aboard the orbiting lab also benefit people on the planet below. Here are a few of these inventions, or spinoffs, you can find in your everyday life.

A Sunscreen That Blocks Radiation in Space – and on Your Face

After surviving for 18 months outside the International Space Station, an extremely hardy organism is now improving sunscreens and face cream products from a cosmetics company, which licensed use of the organism from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Build Muscle With or Without Gravity

Muscles atrophy quickly in space, so when astronauts began long stays on the International Space Station, they needed some specialized exercise equipment. A resistance mechanism made of a coiled metal spring formed the basis of the first way for astronauts to “lift weights” in space. Soon after, that same design became the heart of compact home gym equipment.

Fresh Greens Every Day of the Year

The need to grow fresh food in space pushed NASA to develop indoor agriculture techniques. Thanks to the agency’s research, private companies are building on NASA’s vertical farm structure, plant-growth “recipes,” and environmental-control data to create indoor farms, resulting in higher crop yields and better-quality produce while conserving water and energy and eliminating the need for pesticides.

Cultivating Hearts and Knees in Space

Gravity is a significant obstacle to bioprinting cells and growing human tissue on Earth because heavier components settle to the bottoms of petri dishes. In the absence of gravity, each cell layer stays in place, which is how it’s possible to grow heart and knee tissue on the space station. The same principle also allows mixing of complex pharmaceuticals on orbit.

Storing Oodles of Energy

NASA chose nickel-hydrogen batteries to power the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station because the technology is safe, reliable in extreme temperatures, and long-lived. NASA’s improvements brought down the cost of the technology, which is now used by large-scale utilities and renewable power plants that need to store energy generated by intermittent sources.

You can read about many more products sourced from the ISS on spinoff.nasa.gov.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[jcmarchi]

Challenge: Technology That Can Evaluate the Impact of Food Ingredients on Lactate Metabolism - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/challenge-technology-that-can-evaluate-the-impact-of-food-ingredients-on-lactate-metabolism-technology-org/

Challenge: Technology That Can Evaluate the Impact of Food Ingredients on Lactate Metabolism - Technology Org

NineSigma, representing a major food manufacturer, seeks a technology that can evaluate the impact of food ingredients on lactate metabolism.

At this point, the client welcomes a wide range of proposals, including technology currently under research, as long as it is at a level where it can be published in academic papers, even if it is not in practical use.

Crossfit athlete. Image credit: Unsplash, free license

The client also looks forward to proposals from organizations that have not achieved results in evaluating lactate metabolism by using food ingredients but have a technology that can be applied to it in principle.

The client, a food manufacturer, currently aims to develop a product that uses food ingredients to promote lactate metabolism. Lactic acid accumulates in the human body during exercise. As lactic acid is known to be an energy source during exercise, it is thought that technology promoting lactate metabolism may improve performance during exercise.

Therefore, the client has issued this open request to discover and implement a technology that can evaluate the impact of food ingredients on lactate metabolism. This will be important in accelerating the development of the above product.

Submissions to this Challenge must be received by Feb 8, 2024.

Source: NineSights

You can offer your link to a page which is relevant to the topic of this post.

[bixels]

End-of-Splatoon thoughts.

Thinking about how since the very start, Splatoon has had a feature where players can draw and post artwork and spot them as graffiti on walls or billboards. Or how the weapons have always been paint brushes and rollers and ballpoint pens. Since its inception, Splatoon has been dedicated to engaging its players with the act of creation and creative expression, showing them how their art can build communities and (literally) change the world.

Thinking about finding golden human-made music discs buried underground for thousands of years, and a grand finale music festival. About the Voyager Golden Records. About those human handprints etched into concrete in Alterna. Did those human artists know it would end like this? First a fiery death and then, eventually, a worldwide celebration of music to represent our shared past, present, and future. Did they know that their songs, insignificant in the face of extinction, would one day become the solution that will save the next dominant life-form from the same fate?

Thinking about how eerily similar the Octarian domes are to Alterna. About how close Inklings and Octolings were to repeating the same mistakes as humans. But their doomed fates were undone not by some miracle technology or military power or a rocket, but by music.

Thinking about how humans wiped themselves out with war, and our parting gifts were liquid crystals that somehow paired with the DNA of primeval inklings and somehow infused them with our memories and culture and a Song. And 12,000 years in the future, that same Song will end a war.

Thinking about how art and music and punk culture and rock & roll and friendly competition and petty arguments and water guns aren’t uniquely human concepts, but the fundamental qualities of intelligent life. An inheritable spirit that can cross evolutionary bounds.

Thinking about the theme of Splatoon, that art and music and fun will not die with the human race. That every piece of art we create is a seed we sow for future generations to reap. That our legacy is ingrained into the crust of the earth. That long after we’re gone, the oceans will remember, and they’ll pick up where we left off.

Thinking about how Splatoon says that the essence of humanity –– the thing that will outlive us –– isn't war or prejudice or destruction or greed, it's a song.

[txttletale]

what did you mean by "... produces ptsd on an industrial scale"? just trying to understand, thank u!

content moderation for platforms like facebook and tiktok employs thousands of people, sometimes in the usa but more commonly in the global south (so they can be paid less) to sit at computers and view hundreds of flagged posts a day, including graphic violence and csem, for awful wages, under ridiculously stringent conditions. this results in many, many of the people who work in this field developing PTSD -- and of course they are not given adequate treatment of support, one article cites facebook giving its moderaties nine minutes of 'wellness time' for employees to recover if they see something traumatic.

here's some articles on the topic that can give you a good overview of what working conditions in this field are like, but warning, there's pretty graphic descriptions of violence, animal abuse, and child sexual abuse in these articles, as well as frank discussion of suicidal ideation:

Nearby, in a shopping mall, I meet a young woman who I'll call Maria. She's on her lunch break from an outsourcing firm, where she works on a team that moderates photos and videos for the cloud storage service of a major US technology company. Maria is a quality-assurance representative, which means her duties include double-checking the work of the dozens of agents on her team to make sure they catch everything. This requires her to view many videos that have been flagged by moderators “I get really affected by bestiality with children,” she says. “I have to stop. I have to stop for a moment and loosen up, maybe go to Starbucks and have a coffee.” She laughs at the absurd juxtaposition of a horrific sex crime and an overpriced latte.

For Carlos, a former TikTok moderator, it was a video of child sexual abuse that gave him nightmares. The video showed a girl of five or six years old, he said [...] It hit him particularly hard, he said, because he’s a father himself. He hit pause, went outside for a cigarette, then returned to the queue of videos a few minutes later.

Randy also left after about a year. Like Chloe, he had been traumatized by a video of a stabbing. The victim had been about his age, and he remembers hearing the man crying for his mother as he died. “Every day I see that,” Randy says, “I have a genuine fear over knives. I like cooking — getting back into the kitchen and being around the knives is really hard for me.”

[patricia-taxxon]

So wait, let me just ask for clarity because I want to understand. Do you support AI art?

i support art made with spontaneous and hands-off processes, i support the creation of art tools that are more art than tool & allow people to "participate" in someone else's creation vicariously a-la picrew, i don't support the institution of "AI" as a consumer grade technology industry that promises impossible things and prioritizes appearances and marketability over usability, i believe that if "AI" allowed people to siphon images directly from their brain with no effort required then it would be a good thing but I believe this is fundamentally impossible until we figure out how to read minds and the focus on arguing for or against accessibility is missing the point, i believe AI art can only ever be a pale imitation of the process of commissioning an artist who can't ever ask questions and cannot be trusted with object permanence, I believe copyright law is a head on the hydra of capitalism and doesn't serve artists, i believe that AI art isn't necessarily art theft but it CAN overfit to its data and create illegal works without telling you, which constitutes criminal levels of negligence, I believe all art is derivative in some way and some of the most seminal art made in this era of history has been far more dubiously infringing than AI art ever can be because AI art does not steal in the way a human does, I think the focus on energy consumption is transparently just a post-hoc justification for hating the thing you all already hated under the guise of environmentalism because it is a problem far from unique to AI, I think the focus on environmentalism was a distraction at best during the NFT craze too, i don't think AI art takes artists out of a job any more than stock photos or clipart does, but the proliferation of consumer-grade tools DOES run the risk of engendering bad client practices similar to the rise of machine translation and asking translators to simply "fix" a machine translated run of text at a marked down price, but this is not the fault of the technology itself and is instead a result of the ideological push being made by the biggest actors in the industry, i think AI art is ugly as sin and carries the pervasive quality of looking normal at a glance but getting worse and worse the longer you look at it, which can be interesting but often isn't, i think ai art is shit google images and the controversy is overblown but I think machine learning is here to stay and it will inevitably decentralize again after the immense costs catch up to all the corpos relying on it to win the future.

so like, yes and no.

[deenbandhuchhoturamuniversity]

Deenbandhu Chhotu Ram University of Science & Technology

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[approximately-32-leafcutter-ants]

I listen to anime intro music the way God intended.

shitty free remixes posted on 20 yr old forums, and shitty sound quality on the piracy website full of horny singles in my area

[thick-monster-thighs]

Warlord Yautja/Reader; An Act of Rebellion

Title: An Act of Rebellion Rating: Explicit Fandom: Predator: Killer of Killers Ship: Warlord Predator/Grendel King (Male Yautja) x AFAB!Reader Warnings: Non/Dubcon, captivity, canon typical violence Author Note: This is the first third of this fic. The whole work can be read on AO3! Summary: You are one of the few chosen by the Yautja to fight for their entertainment. Before you are taken to the arena, however, you catch the attention of the Warlord. Fighting back seems like a good idea at first - until he effortlessly turns the tables and demonstrates his power and control over you.

You spit onto the floor, releasing a mixture of saliva and old blood from your aching mouth. Your head throbs as if it had been slammed repeatedly against the metal wall of the room, even though you only fell out of the capsule holding you. A dull pain radiates from your hip, knee, and left hand—the parts of your body that broke your fall.

Who comes up with such nonsense as a floating cryo capsule?!

Dizziness makes the entire room dance and spin around you, causing deep, oppressive nausea. You have to muster all your willpower not to vomit on the cold floor beneath you.

"Fuck..." Blinking against the dizziness helps, if only a little. Don't throw up. Luckily, after a few seconds, your vision slowly becomes clearer. And your throat stops itching, mouth stops producing extra saliva.

Your weak knees can barely hold the weight of your own body. Cold muscles scream in silent agony, trembling and shaking as they threaten to give way. The cryo capsule you're pulling yourself up on is technology your foggy brain doesn't quite recognize. It's certainly not a Weyland-Yutani pod. Its rough, angular design is made for beings larger than humans. It's alien technology, an alien ship.

What's the last thing you remember?

It takes a moment for your brain to search for memories. The fog is thick, hiding what brought you to this creepy room lit only by narrow red lamps on the walls. The floor is cold. You hear the roar of an engine that doesn't belong to one of the company's large haulers. The vibrations in the material of this ship are more penetrating, reaching into your bones. Weyland-Yutani ships sound different. They sound hollow and somehow... cheaper. Their ships sound like cost-cutting measures and a willingness to lose entire crews if it means saving a little money.

This is not a human ship. Its high-quality engine emits a deep growl that resonates in your chest like a steady purr. A purring monster made of metal, on its way to who-knows-where. You gasp for air as your brain finally locates the missing memory in the darkness. The Karattera. The strange cargo the company wanted to be transported to one of the research facilities back home. The crash on Vokila-2. And the black creatures that wreaked havoc. As this tidal wave of memories washes over you, accompanied by the lingering smell of blood, a trembling sob escapes you.

It's a sound as unstoppable as it is desperate. There are no tears, just the realization that the entire crew of the Karattera is dead. Just like the mining company team on the planet. You remember killing three of those black, fast beasts with long skulls using the Vokila-2 station's trash compactor. You heard the sound of bones breaking, of monsters screaming out in agony, of acid eating through metal - and then you sensed movement behind you, followed by a click and a growl. And then? Nothing. Only the floating emptiness remains, waking up in the cryo capsule with the stale taste of blood in your mouth. With trembling hands, you touch the back of your head, where there should be a wound because you were knocked down - or were you? It's the obvious conclusion to the blackout, to the lack of memories, but there's nothing there. Just a small bump that is hardly worth mentioning. The unanswered questions pile up in your stomach like a bunch of needles. What the hell is going on here?!

The door opens with a hiss. Every muscle in your body tenses in panic when you see the huge figure in the hallway. Ah, fuck.

It's a Yautja.

Rumors about these warriors - as fearless as they are brutal - have spread to the farthest corners of the company's colonies. People whisper on the freighters that these massive warriors are monsters who kill without mercy, whether with blades, plasma cannons, or their bare hands. They hunt for fun, pleasure, and the thrill of success. If that's true, then you're either a trophy or their afternoon entertainment. Double fuck. The Yautja makes harsh growling noises - it's a command, that much is clear. Given the situation, move your ass is the only logical conclusion. He's coming to get you. But why? And to where? With your legs trembling from the long, cold sleep, you stagger toward the door, trying not to appear threatening. Supposedly, the Yautja don't attack defenseless people: They don't attack the unarmed, the sick, children, or pregnant women. Hopefully, there's some truth to these rumors because you don't want to end up on the wrong end of that huge spear he's holding. Nevertheless, your pride demands that you lift your chin and walk as upright as possible. You make smooth movements despite the jelly knees. Don't appear threatening, but don't appear easy prey either. This phrase echoes in your brain over and over again like a mantra or a prayer to reason. The chance of survival is probably slim, but not zero. If it happens, it happens. At least take one of these bastards with you. This attitude was helpful when the black alien beasts overran the Karattera and Vokila-2. It kept you alive and gave you the courage to fight back. Maybe it'll save your out of luck ass again. The spaceship's corridor is long and empty. Several doors lead to other rooms, but they are locked, and you can't peek inside any of them. A rough, deep rumbling sounds from somewhere. It's an animalistic roar that echoes off the ship's walls until it becomes a distorted sound of rage. Your heart skips a beat in despair. Getting out of here alive is going to be difficult.

Suddenly, the Yautja grabs you with an incredibly strong grip. Before you can dodge his hand, the cold of the walls and floor wraps around your neck. There's a click, and something heavy hangs around your neck, pulling you slightly down. The weight and the realization what it is sends hot rage shooting through your head.

A fucking collar!  

"Hey, what?!" Your angry hiss is drowned out by the mocking growls and clicks of your opponent, who seems to be thoroughly enjoying your expression of stupor. Trembling, weak human fingers pull at the metal holding your neck like an iron grip of death. But the collar won't come off; it just rubs uncomfortably against your sensitive skin. With a fiery gaze, you look up at the Yautja, nodding slightly and twitching your shoulder in a demanding manner. "What is this? What's going on here?! Am I your prisoner?" The collar is beeping almost audibly, making you increasingly aggressive. Like a fucking time bomb around the neck. The Yautja raises and lowers his chest with a deep, flat growl and lets out a snort. Mocking and amused. Then, he pushes you toward the end of the corridor to get you moving. Apparently, there's a schedule here because he pushes you again, urging you to pick up the pace.

The corridor itself is long with a floor of metal grates that echo your footsteps. It leads to another corridor, then another, and finally, a last one that is significantly wider and shorter than the rest. This cursed ship is a labyrinth and must be enormous. How are you supposed to get out of here? Hide in a ventilation shaft if you can escape at all. And then what? Steal a rescue pod and drift off into nothingness? Honestly, the options don't look good.

"C'jit, this one's particularly unimpressive." Another Yautja approaches you and your guide. He's armed with a long spear as well, though he has a much more relaxed demeanor than the guy who's been pushing you around. The loud hissing of a door at the other end of the hallway drowns out the words whispered into your ear by the collar. It's a translation of the warriors' language. Granted, it's useful that this thing around your neck acts as a translator, though that's definitely not its main function. It's probably more like... a shock collar. Or a real bomb. Oh god, please don't let it be a bomb. The hissing of the double doors announces the arrival of more inhabitants of this ship. Heavy footsteps thunder on the grated floor, sending vibrations through your whole body until the inside of your ears starts to hurt. And the closer the footsteps come, the faster your heart beats. Three. Two guards and a monster that can only be described as such emerge from the gloom of the dimly lit corridor. The two guards stop and lower their heads as the third emerges from the dimly lit corridor.

Oh man... The newly arrived Yautja is massive. The chances of making it out alive are closing in on zero.  

His stature easily surpasses that of the others of his kind, and his cloak of bones and spines makes him look even bigger, more powerful, and more terrifying. The vertebrae protruding from his shoulders and upper back are a stark, ominous warning not to mess with this specimen, a warning reinforced when the other two Yautja take a subtle step back as he glances at them.

The urge to look away is so strong that your neck muscles tense up. However, looking away now would be a sign of weakness, and weakness is something you can't afford right now. These people crush the weak like bugs between their giant hands, amused by emotions like fear and terror. And yes, of course you're afraid. It would be stupid not to be. A few deep breaths, though, allow you to think somewhat logically. You clench that fear into a tight little knot below your diaphragm and think back to the mantra:

If it happens, it happens. At least take one of those bastards with you.

So, you straighten your back, pull your shoulders back, and stare stubbornly ahead.

>>> Continue on AO3

[rainydetectiveglitter]

Your Midheaven Brand Identity:

A Guide to Boosting Your Social Media Presence

When it comes to building a strong brand identity, your Midheaven (MC) sign can offer invaluable insights. This astrological point reflects your career, public image, and how you’re perceived by the world. While many focus on their Rising sign to guide their personal brand, the Midheaven is actually more influential in shaping how you're perceived professionally. Also, consider how this relates to your IC for a more rounded approach.

Midheaven in Capricorn (Aries Rising)

Brand Identity: Your public persona should project authority, reliability, and professionalism. You’re seen as a goal-oriented and disciplined figure. Highlight your achievements, strategic thinking, and leadership skills.

Social Media Tips: Focus on structured content such as detailed guides, case studies, and professional milestones. Use a polished, business-like tone. Incorporate posts that reflect your strategic planning and long-term vision. Share behind-the-scenes looks at your projects to show the effort and planning involved.

Brand Colors: Deep green symbolizes growth and stability, gray for professionalism, and navy blue for authority and trustworthiness.

IC Connection: Leverage Cancer's emotional depth and nurturing qualities to soften the Capricorn edge. Share personal stories that reveal your emotional investments and how they drive your professional goals. This adds a relatable human element to your otherwise authoritative presence.

Ambitious and Professional: Emphasize your leadership skills and career-driven mindset.

Structured and Goal-Oriented: Showcase your strategic approach to achieving success.

Public Image: Present yourself as competent, disciplined, and reliable.

Social Media Tips:

Share content that highlights your achievements, career milestones, and strategic insights.

Use strong, authoritative visuals and a professional tone.

Midheaven in Aquarius (Taurus Rising)

Brand Identity: Your brand should emphasize innovation, originality, and a forward-thinking mindset. Showcase your unique perspective and contributions to progressive ideas.

Social Media Tips: Create content that reflects cutting-edge trends, technological advancements, or visionary concepts. Use engaging formats like interactive posts, futuristic graphics, and thought-provoking discussions. Position yourself as a leader in new ideas and unconventional solutions.

Brand Colors: Electric blue represents innovation, silver for technology, and neon green for modernity.

IC Connection: Infuse your Leo charisma into your Aquarius content to make it more engaging and personal. Share your passionate insights on future trends and show how your creativity shapes your forward-thinking approach. This blend enhances your appeal and relatability.

Stability and Luxury: Focus on high-quality, luxurious content and the practical aspects of your field.

Innovative and Unique: Bring a fresh, unique perspective to traditional topics.

Aesthetic Appeal: Use rich, earthy colors and visuals to create a soothing, attractive profile.

Social Media Tips:

Share content related to comfort, luxury, and tangible results.

Use high-quality images and engaging, thoughtful posts.

Midheaven in Pisces (Gemini Rising)

Brand Identity: You are seen as empathetic, artistic, and intuitive. Your brand should be focused on creativity, emotional connection, and spiritual or philosophical insights.

Social Media Tips: Use your platform to share evocative stories, inspirational content, and artistic expressions. Emphasize emotional resonance and creativity in your posts. Engage your audience with reflective and soulful content, such as personal journeys or meditative practices.

Brand Colors: Soft pastels evoke calm and creativity, sea green for emotional depth, and lavender for spirituality.

IC Connection: Incorporate Virgo's analytical skills to add depth and clarity to your Piscean content. Provide well-researched insights and practical advice wrapped in a creative or emotional narrative. This combination balances creativity with substance, appealing to a broad audience.

Versatile and Communicative: Showcase your adaptability and ability to handle a variety of topics.

Inspirational and Imaginative: Focus on creative and philosophical insights.

Intellectual Engagement: Share informative and engaging content that stimulates thought.

Social Media Tips:

Use diverse content formats, such as articles, videos, and infographics.

Share posts that combine creativity with intellectual depth.

Midheaven in Aries (Cancer Rising)

Brand Identity: Your public persona should be dynamic, confident, and pioneering. Emphasize your leadership abilities and proactive approach.

Social Media Tips: Share bold, decisive content and take a stand on relevant issues. Use energetic visuals and assertive language to engage your audience. Highlight your initiatives, new projects, and leadership moments to convey authority and drive.

Brand Colors: Bright red for passion and leadership, orange for enthusiasm, and black for strength and sophistication.

IC Connection: Balance Aries’ assertiveness with Libra’s charm and diplomacy. Engage with your audience in a way that is both bold and approachable, showing your leadership qualities while maintaining a sense of fairness and balance.

Dynamic and Courageous: Emphasize your proactive and pioneering approach.

Balanced and Harmonious: Highlight your ability to bring harmony to challenging situations.

Community Focus: Showcase your role in fostering positive change and leadership.

Social Media Tips:

Share bold, action-oriented content that reflects your leadership and dynamic nature.

Use harmonious and engaging visuals that balance professional and personal elements.

Midheaven in Taurus (Leo Rising)

Brand Identity: Your public persona should reflect stability, practicality, and an appreciation for quality. Focus on your reliable and steady approach to success.

Social Media Tips: Share content that highlights your achievements, high standards, and practical advice. Showcase luxurious or high-quality aspects of your work or lifestyle. Use a consistent, polished visual style to emphasize reliability.

Brand Colors: Earthy tones for stability, gold for luxury, and deep green for growth.

IC Connection: Integrate Scorpio’s intensity and depth into your Taurus-centric content. Share powerful personal experiences and transformative moments that underline your commitment to quality and reliability. This adds a rich, emotional layer to your dependable image.

Creative and Charismatic: Showcase your artistic talents and strong presence.

Stability and Practicality: Focus on grounded, practical aspects of your creativity.

Transformational Experiences: Share stories of personal growth and resilience.

Social Media Tips:

Create visually striking content that highlights your creativity and achievements.

Use a combination of dramatic and practical elements to engage your audience.

Midheaven in Gemini (Virgo Rising)

Brand Identity: Your public persona should be adaptable, communicative, and intellectually curious. Highlight your versatility and wide-ranging interests.

Social Media Tips: Create diverse and engaging content, from informative articles to interactive posts. Showcase your quick thinking and adaptability by covering a range of topics and trends. Use engaging formats like quizzes, debates, and live interactions to connect with your audience.

Brand Colors: Bright yellow for creativity, turquoise for communication, and light gray for neutrality.

IC Connection: Blend Sagittarius’ enthusiasm and philosophical insights with Gemini’s adaptability. Share your adventurous experiences and broad interests in a way that stimulates curiosity and engagement among your followers.

Analytical and Knowledgeable: Emphasize your expertise and practical solutions.

Versatile and Communicative: Highlight your ability to adapt and share diverse insights.

Movement and Learning: Incorporate elements related to continuous learning and exploration.

Social Media Tips:

Share detailed, informative content that offers practical value and insight.

Use a clear, organized visual style with engaging, versatile formats.

Midheaven in Cancer (Libra Rising)

Brand Identity: Your brand should be nurturing, empathetic, and community-focused. Emphasize your caring approach and ability to create supportive environments.

Social Media Tips: Share content that highlights your commitment to community and emotional well-being. Use personal stories, testimonials, and supportive messages to build a sense of belonging. Engage with your audience through compassionate and encouraging interactions.

Brand Colors: Soft blues for calm and trust, warm whites for purity and care, and sea green for emotional balance.

IC Connection: Incorporate Capricorn’s professionalism and structure into your Cancer-centric content. Present your nurturing approach in a way that also highlights your organizational skills and strategic thinking. This creates a well-rounded and credible public persona.

Balanced and Nurturing: Focus on creating harmony and providing support in your field.

Professional and Caring: Highlight your ability to blend professionalism with a caring approach.

Community and Relationships: Showcase your role in fostering connections and support.

Social Media Tips:

Post content that emphasizes balance, community, and supportive interactions.

Use elegant, harmonious visuals and empathetic messaging.

Midheaven in Leo (Scorpio Rising)

Brand Identity: Your public persona should be dramatic, charismatic, and authoritative. Emphasize your creative flair and leadership.

Social Media Tips: Share powerful, impactful content that showcases your expertise and creative achievements. Use bold visuals and compelling narratives to engage your audience. Position yourself as a leader and visionary in your field, using confident and inspiring messaging.

Brand Colors: Gold for leadership, royal purple for creativity, and bright red for passion.

IC Connection: Incorporate Aquarius’ innovative and unconventional ideas into your Leo-centric content. Highlight how your creative vision is informed by progressive thinking, adding a unique and forward-looking dimension to your leadership.

Intense and Impactful: Showcase your deep insights and transformative impact.

Creative and Bold: Highlight your innovative and charismatic approach.

Power and Influence: Emphasize your leadership and ability to inspire change.

Social Media Tips:

Share powerful, thought-provoking content that reflects your depth and creativity.

Use bold, dynamic visuals and impactful language.

Midheaven in Virgo (Sagittarius Rising)

Brand Identity: Your public persona should be detail-oriented, analytical, and practical. Focus on your ability to provide valuable, well-organized information.

Social Media Tips: Share well-researched content, practical tips, and detailed insights. Use a methodical approach to present information clearly and effectively. Highlight your expertise and problem-solving skills through structured posts and informative articles.

Brand Colors: Earthy tones for reliability, navy blue for professionalism, and muted green for practical growth.

IC Connection: Use Pisces’ creative and philosophical perspectives to add depth and richness to your Virgo-centric content. Combine practical advice with imaginative insights to engage your audience on both intellectual and emotional levels.

Adventurous and Insightful: Focus on exploration, learning, and philosophical insights.

Practical and Organized: Showcase your ability to apply your expansive ideas in practical ways.

Health and Movement: Incorporate elements related to well-being and personal growth.

Social Media Tips:

Create inspiring content that reflects your adventures and learning experiences.

Use clear, organized visuals and practical advice.

Midheaven in Libra (Capricorn Rising)

Brand Identity: Your public persona should be balanced, diplomatic, and aesthetically refined. Emphasize your ability to mediate and create harmonious environments.

Social Media Tips: Share content that reflects your sense of balance and aesthetics. Use a polished, graceful approach in your posts and interactions. Highlight your ability to bring people together and foster collaboration.

Brand Colors: Soft pink for harmony, light blue for balance, and neutral tones for sophistication.

IC Connection: Incorporate Aries’ boldness and assertiveness into your Libra-centric content. Show how your diplomatic approach is driven by strong convictions and proactive leadership, creating a balanced yet dynamic presence.

Ambitious and Balanced: Highlight your strategic approach and ability to create harmony in your field.

Professional and Diplomatic: Showcase your leadership and ability to handle complex situations with grace.

Success and Influence: Emphasize your achievements and your role in fostering professional relationships.

Social Media Tips:

Share content that highlights your career milestones, strategic insights, and professional network.

Use strong, balanced visuals and a professional tone.

Midheaven in Scorpio (Aquarius Rising)

Brand Identity: Your public persona should be intense, transformative, and powerful. Emphasize depth, passion, and your ability to handle complex issues.

Social Media Tips: Share content that delves into deep topics, transformative experiences, and impactful insights. Use powerful imagery and compelling narratives to engage your audience. Position yourself as an authority on complex or intense subjects.

Brand Colors: Deep reds for intensity, black for power, and rich purples for transformation.

IC Connection: Integrate Taurus’ steadiness and practicality into your Scorpio-centric content. Balance your intensity with reliable, grounded insights to provide a comprehensive and credible perspective.

Innovative and Transformative: Focus on cutting-edge ideas and profound impact.

Practical and Grounded: Highlight your ability to make innovative ideas practical and effective.

Personal Transformation: Share stories of growth and change.

Social Media Tips:

Post forward-thinking content and transformative ideas.

Use striking visuals and impactful, thought-provoking messaging.

Midheaven in Sagittarius (Pisces Rising)

Brand Identity: Your public persona should be adventurous, philosophical, and enthusiastic. Focus on your broad vision and love for exploration.

Social Media Tips: Share content that inspires and excites. Highlight your travels, philosophical insights, and adventurous pursuits. Use engaging formats like storytelling and exploration to connect with your audience.

Brand Colors: Vibrant oranges for enthusiasm, blues for expansiveness, and purples for creativity.

IC Connection: Use Gemini’s versatility and communication skills to enhance your Sagittarian content. Present your adventurous insights and philosophical reflections in an engaging, accessible way, appealing to a wide audience.

Creative and Visionary: Showcase your imaginative and expansive approach.

Exploration and Inspiration: Focus on your passion for discovering new ideas and inspiring others.

Versatility and Insight: Highlight your ability to communicate diverse insights and inspirations.

Social Media Tips:

Create content that reflects your creativity, exploration, and visionary ideas.

Use imaginative visuals and engaging, inspirational messaging. Alright! Now go and ...

[nasa]

Athletes Go for the Gold with NASA Spinoffs

NASA technology tends to find its way into the sporting world more often than you’d expect. Fitness is important to the space program because astronauts must undergo the extreme g-forces of getting into space and endure the long-term effects of weightlessness on the human body. The agency’s engineering expertise also means that items like shoes and swimsuits can be improved with NASA know-how.

As the 2024 Olympics are in full swing in Paris, here are some of the many NASA-derived technologies that have helped competitive athletes train for the games and made sure they’re properly equipped to win.

The LZR Racer reduces skin friction drag by covering more skin than traditional swimsuits. Multiple pieces of the water-resistant and extremely lightweight LZR Pulse fabric connect at ultrasonically welded seams and incorporate extremely low-profile zippers to keep viscous drag to a minimum.

Swimsuits That Don’t Drag

When the swimsuit manufacturer Speedo wanted its LZR Racer suit to have as little drag as possible, the company turned to the experts at Langley Research Center to test its materials and design. The end result was that the new suit reduced drag by 24 percent compared to the prior generation of Speedo racing suit and broke 13 world records in 2008. While the original LZR Racer is no longer used in competition due to the advantage it gave wearers, its legacy lives on in derivatives still produced to this day.

Trilion Quality Systems worked with NASA’s Glenn Research Center to adapt existing stereo photogrammetry software to work with high-speed cameras. Now the company sells the package widely, and it is used to analyze stress and strain in everything from knee implants to running shoes and more.

High-Speed Cameras for High-Speed Shoes

After space shuttle Columbia, investigators needed to see how materials reacted during recreation tests with high-speed cameras, which involved working with industry to create a system that could analyze footage filmed at 30,000 frames per second. Engineers at Adidas used this system to analyze the behavior of Olympic marathoners' feet as they hit the ground and adjusted the design of the company’s high-performance footwear based on these observations.

Martial artist Barry French holds an Impax Body Shield while former European middle-weight kickboxing champion Daryl Tyler delivers an explosive jump side kick; the force of the impact is registered precisely and shown on the display panel of the electronic box French is wearing on his belt.

One-Thousandth-of-an-Inch Punch

In the 1980s, Olympic martial artists needed a way to measure the impact of their strikes to improve training for competition. Impulse Technology reached out to Glenn Research Center to create the Impax sensor, an ultra-thin film sensor which creates a small amount of voltage when struck. The more force applied, the more voltage it generates, enabling a computerized display to show how powerful a punch or kick was.

Astronaut Sunita Williams poses while using the Interim Resistive Exercise Device on the ISS. The cylinders at the base of each side house the SpiraFlex FlexPacks that inventor Paul Francis honed under NASA contracts. They would go on to power the Bowflex Revolution and other commercial exercise equipment.

Weight Training Without the Weight

Astronauts spending long periods of time in space needed a way to maintain muscle mass without the effect of gravity, but lifting free weights doesn’t work when you’re practically weightless. An exercise machine that uses elastic resistance to provide the same benefits as weightlifting went to the space station in the year 2000. That resistance technology was commercialized into the Bowflex Revolution home exercise equipment shortly afterwards.

Want to learn more about technologies made for space and used on Earth? Check out NASA Spinoff to find products and services that wouldn’t exist without space exploration.   

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

AI turns Amazon coders into Amazon warehouse workers

HEY SEATTLE! I'm appearing at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival NEXT SATURDAY (May 31) with the folks from NPR's On The Media!

On a recent This Machine Kills episode, guest Hagen Blix described the ultimate form of "AI therapy" with a "human in the loop":

https://soundcloud.com/thismachinekillspod/405-ai-is-the-demon-god-of-capital-ft-hagen-blix

One actual therapist is just having ten chat GPT windows open where they just like have five seconds to interrupt the chatGPT. They have to scan them all and see if it says something really inappropriate. That's your job, to stop it.

Blix admits that's not where therapy is at…yet, but he references Laura Preston's 2023 N Plus One essay, "HUMAN_FALLBACK," which describes her as a backstop to a real-estate "virtual assistant," that masqueraded as a human handling the queries that confused it, in a bid to keep the customers from figuring out that they were engaging with a chatbot:

https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-44/essays/human_fallback/

This is what makes investors and bosses slobber so hard for AI – a "productivity" boost that arises from taking away the bargaining power of workers so that they can be made to labor under worse conditions for less money. The efficiency gains of automation aren't just about using fewer workers to achieve the same output – it's about the fact that the workers you fire in this process can be used as a threat against the remaining workers: "Do your job and shut up or I'll fire you and give your job to one of your former colleagues who's now on the breadline."

This has been at the heart of labor fights over automation since the Industrial Revolution, when skilled textile workers took up the Luddite cause because their bosses wanted to fire them and replace them with child workers snatched from Napoleonic War orphanages:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/26/enochs-hammer/#thats-fronkonsteen

Textile automation wasn't just about producing more cloth – it was about producing cheaper, worse cloth. The new machines were so easy a child could use them, because that's who was using them – kidnapped war orphans. The adult textile workers the machines displaced weren't afraid of technology. Far from it! Weavers used the most advanced machinery of the day, and apprenticed for seven years to learn how to operate it. Luddites had the equivalent of a Masters in Engineering from MIT.

Weavers' guilds presented two problems for their bosses: first, they had enormous power, thanks to the extensive training required to operate their looms; and second, they used that power to regulate the quality of the goods they made. Even before the Industrial Revolution, weavers could have produced more cloth at lower prices by skimping on quality, but they refused, out of principle, because their work mattered to them.

Now, of course weavers also appreciated the value of their products, and understood that innovations that would allow them to increase their productivity and make more fabric at lower prices would be good for the world. They weren't snobs who thought that only the wealthy should go clothed. Weavers had continuously adopted numerous innovations, each of which increased the productivity and the quality of their wares.

Long before the Luddite uprising, weavers had petitioned factory owners and Parliament under the laws that guaranteed the guilds the right to oversee textile automation to ensure that it didn't come at the price of worker power or the quality of the textiles the machines produced. But the factory owners and their investors had captured Parliament, which ignored its own laws and did nothing as the "dark, Satanic mills" proliferated. Luddites only turned to property destruction after the system failed them.

Now, it's true that eventually, the machines improved and the fabric they turned out matched and exceeded the quality of the fabric that preceded the Industrial Revolution. But there's nothing about the way the Industrial Revolution unfolded – increasing the power of capital to pay workers less and treat them worse while flooding the market with inferior products – that was necessary or beneficial to that progress. Every other innovation in textile production up until that time had been undertaken with the cooperation of the guilds, who'd ensured that "progress" meant better lives for workers, better products for consumers, and lower prices. If the Luddites' demands for co-determination in the Industrial Revolution had been met, we might have gotten to the same world of superior products at lower costs, but without the immiseration of generations of workers, mass killings to suppress worker uprisings, and decades of defective products being foisted on the public.

So there are two stories about automation and labor: in the dominant narrative, workers are afraid of the automation that delivers benefits to all of us, stand in the way of progress, and get steamrollered for their own good, as well as ours. In the other narrative, workers are glad to have boring and dangerous parts of their work automated away and happy to produce more high-quality goods and services, and stand ready to assess and plan the rollout of new tools, and when workers object to automation, it's because they see automation being used to crush them and worsen the outputs they care about, at the expense of the customers they care for.

In modern automation/labor theory, this debate is framed in terms of "centaurs" (humans who are assisted by technology) and "reverse-centaurs" (humans who are conscripted to assist technology):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

There are plenty of workers who are excited at the thought of using AI tools to relieve them of some drudgework. To the extent that these workers have power over their bosses and their working conditions, that excitement might well be justified. I hear a lot from programmers who work on their own projects about how nice it is to have a kind of hypertrophied macro system that can generate and tweak little automated tools on the fly so the humans can focus on the real, chewy challenges. Those workers are the centaurs, and it's no wonder that they're excited about improved tooling.

But the reverse-centaur version is a lot darker. The reverse-centaur coder is an assistant to the AI, charged with being a "human in the loop" who reviews the material that the AI produces. This is a pretty terrible job to have.

For starters, the kinds of mistakes that AI coders make are the hardest mistakes for human reviewers to catch. That's because LLMs are statistical prediction machines, spicy autocomplete that works by ingesting and analyzing a vast corpus of written materials and then producing outputs that represent a series of plausible guesses about which words should follow one another. To the extent that the reality the AI is participating in is statistically smooth and predictable, AI can often make eerily good guesses at words that turn into sentences or code that slot well into that reality.

But where reality is lumpy and irregular, AI stumbles. AI is intrinsically conservative. As a statistically informed guessing program, it wants the future to be like the past:

https://reallifemag.com/the-apophenic-machine/

This means that AI coders stumble wherever the world contains rough patches and snags. Take "slopsquatting." For the most part, software libraries follow regular naming conventions. For example, there might be a series of text-handling libraries with names like "text.parsing.docx," "text.parsing.xml," and "text.parsing.markdown." But for some reason – maybe two different projects were merged, or maybe someone was just inattentive – there's also a library called "text.txt.parsing" (instead of "text.parsing.txt").

AI coders are doing inference based on statistical analysis, and anyone inferring what the .txt parsing library is called would guess, based on the other libraries, that it was "text.parsing.txt." And that's what the AI guesses, and so it tries to import that library to its software projects.

This creates a new security vulnerability, "slopsquatting," in which a malicious actor creates a library with the expected name, which replicates the functionality of the real library, but also contains malicious code:

https://www.theregister.com/2025/04/12/ai_code_suggestions_sabotage_supply_chain/

Note that slopsquatting errors are extremely hard to spot. As is typical with AI coding errors, these are errors that are based on continuing a historical pattern, which is the sort of thing our own brains do all the time (think of trying to go up a step that isn't there after climbing to the top of a staircase). Notably, these are very different from the errors that a beginning programmer whose work is being reviewed by a more senior coder might make. These are the very hardest errors for humans to spot, and these are the errors that AIs make the most, and they do so at machine speed:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

To be a human in the loop for an AI coder, a programmer must engage in sustained, careful, line-by-line and command-by-command scrutiny of the code. This is the hardest kind of code to review, and maintaining robotic vigilance over long periods at high speeds is something humans are very bad at. Indeed, it's the kind of task we try very hard to automate, since machines are much better at being machineline than humans are. This is the essence of reverse-centaurism: when a human is expected to act like a machine in order to help the machine do something it can't do.

Humans routinely fail at spotting these errors, unsurprisingly. If the purpose of automation is to make superior goods at lower prices, then this would be a real concern, since a reverse-centaur coding arrangement is bound to produce code with lurking, pernicious, especially hard-to-spot bugs that present serious risks to users. But if the purpose of automation is to discipline labor – to force coders to accept worse conditions and pay – irrespective of the impact on quality, then AI is the perfect tool for the job. The point of the human isn't to catch the AI's errors so much as it is to catch the blame for the AI's errors – to be what Madeleine Clare Elish calls a "moral crumple zone":

https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

As has been the case since the Industrial Revolution, the project of automation isn't just about increasing productivity, it's about weakening labor power as a prelude to lowering quality. Take what's happened to the news industry, where mass layoffs are being offset by AI tools. At Hearst's King Features Syndicates, a single writer was charged with producing over 30 summer guides, the entire package:

https://www.404media.co/viral-ai-generated-summer-guide-printed-by-chicago-sun-times-was-made-by-magazine-giant-hearst/

That is an impossible task, which is why the writer turned to AI to do his homework, and then, infamously, published a "summer reading guide" that was full of nonexistent books that were hallucinated by a chatbot:

https://www.404media.co/chicago-sun-times-prints-ai-generated-summer-reading-list-with-books-that-dont-exist/

Most people reacted to this story as a consumer issue: they were outraged that the world was having a defective product foisted upon it. But the consumer issue here is downstream from the labor issue: when the writers at King Features Syndicate are turned into reverse-centaurs, they will inevitably produce defective outputs. The point of the worker – the "human in the loop" – isn't to supervise the AI, it's to take the blame for the AI. That's just what happened, as this poor schmuck absorbed an internet-sized rasher of shit flung his way by outraged social media users. After all, it was his byline on the story, not the chatbot's. He's the moral crumple-zone.

The implication of this is that consumers and workers are class allies in the automation wars. The point of using automation to weaken labor isn't just cheaper products – it's cheaper, defective products, inflicted on the unsuspecting and defenseless public who are no longer protected by workers' professionalism and pride in their jobs.

That's what's going on at Duolingo, where CEO Luis von Ahn created a firestorm by announcing mass firings of human language instructors, who would be replaced by AI. The "AI first" announcement pissed off Duolingo's workers, of course, but what caught von Ahn off-guard was how much this pissed off Duolingo's users:

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/05/25/0347239/duolingo-faces-massive-social-media-backlash-after-ai-first-comments

But of course, this makes perfect sense. After all, language-learners are literally incapable of spotting errors in the AI instruction they receive. If you spoke the language well enough to spot the AI's mistakes, you wouldn't need Duolingo! I don't doubt that there are countless ways in which AIs could benefit both language learners and the Duolingo workers who develop instructional materials, but for that to happen, workers' and learners' needs will have to be the focus of AI integration. Centaurs could produce great language learning materials with AI – but reverse-centaurs can only produce slop.

Unsurprisingly, many of the most successful AI products are "bossware" tools that let employers monitor and discipline workers who've been reverse-centaurized. Both blue-collar and white-collar workplaces have filled up with "electronic whips" that monitor and evaluate performance:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/02/despotism-on-demand/#virtual-whips

AI can give bosses "dashboards" that tell them which Amazon delivery drivers operate their vehicles with their mouths open (Amazon doesn't let its drivers sing on the job). Meanwhile, a German company called Celonis will sell your boss a kind of AI phrenology tool that assesses your "emotional quality" by spying on you while you work:

https://crackedlabs.org/en/data-work/publications/processmining-algomanage

Tech firms were among the first and most aggressive adopters of AI-based electronic whips. But these whips weren't used on coders – they were reserved for tech's vast blue-collar and contractor workforce: clickworkers, gig workers, warehouse workers, AI data-labelers and delivery drivers.

Tech bosses tormented these workers but pampered their coders. That wasn't out of any sentimental attachment to tech workers. Rather, tech bosses were afraid of tech workers, because tech workers possess a rare set of skills that can be harnessed by tech firms to produce gigantic returns. Tech workers have historically been princes of labor, able to command high salaries and deferential treatment from their bosses (think of the amazing tech "campus" perks), because their scarcity gave them power.

It's easy to predict how tech bosses would treat tech workers if they could get away with it – just look how they treat workers they aren't afraid of. Just like the textile mill owners of the Industrial Revolution, the thing that excites tech bosses about AI is the possibility of cutting off a group of powerful workers at the knees. After all, it took more than a century for strong labor unions to match the power that the pre-Industrial Revolution guilds had. If AI can crush the power of tech workers, it might buy tech bosses a century of free rein to shift value from their workforce to their investors, while also doing away with pesky Tron-pilled workers who believe they have a moral obligation to "fight for the user."

William Gibson famously wrote, "The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed." The workers that tech bosses don't fear are living in the future of the workers that tech bosses can't easily replace.

This week, the New York Times's veteran Amazon labor report Noam Scheiber published a deeply reported piece about the experience of coders at Amazon in the age of AI:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/business/amazon-ai-coders.html

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is palpably horny for AI coders, evidenced by investor memos boasting of AI's returns in "productivity and cost avoidance" and pronouncements about AI saving "the equivalent of 4,500 developer-years":

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andy-jassy-8b1615_one-of-the-most-tedious-but-critical-tasks-activity-7232374162185461760-AdSz/

Amazon is among the most notorious abusers of blue-collar labor, the workplace where everyone who doesn't have a bullshit laptop job is expected to piss in a bottle and spend an unpaid hour before and after work going through a bag- and body-search. Amazon's blue-collar workers are under continuous, totalizing, judging AI scrutiny that scores them based on whether their eyeballs are correctly oriented, whether they take too long to pick up an object, whether they pee too often. Amazon warehouse workers are injured at three times national average. Amazon AIs scan social media for disgruntled workers talking about unions, and Amazon has another AI tool that predicts which shops and departments are most likely to want to unionize.

Scheiber's piece describes what it's like to be an Amazon tech worker who's getting the reverse-centaur treatment that has heretofore been reserved for warehouse workers and drivers. They describe "speedups" in which they are moved from writing code to reviewing AI code, their jobs transformed from solving chewy intellectual puzzles to racing to spot hard-to-find AI coding errors as a clock ticks down. Amazon bosses haven't ordered their tech workers to use AI, just raised their quotas to a level that can't be attained without getting an AI to do most of the work – just like the Chicago Sun-Times writer who was expected to write all 30 articles in the summer guide package on his own. No one made him use AI, but he wasn't going to produce 30 articles on deadline without a chatbot.

Amazon insists that it is treating AI as an assistant for its coders, but the actual working conditions make it clear that this is a reverse-centaur transformation. Scheiber discusses a dissident internal group at Amazon called Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, who link the company's use of AI to its carbon footprint. Beyond those climate concerns, these workers are treating AI as a labor issue.

Amazon's coders have been making tentative gestures of solidarity towards its blue-collar workforce since the pandemic broke out, walking out in support of striking warehouse workers (and getting fired for doing so):

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/14/abolish-silicon-valley/#hang-together-hang-separately

But those firings haven't deterred Amazon's tech workers from making common cause with their comrades on the shop floor:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/19/deastroturfing/#real-power

When techies describe their experience of AI, it sometimes sounds like they're describing two completely different realities – and that's because they are. For workers with power and control, automation turns them into centaurs, who get to use AI tools to improve their work-lives. For workers whose power is waning, AI is a tool for reverse-centaurism, an electronic whip that pushes them to work at superhuman speeds. And when they fail, these workers become "moral crumple zones," absorbing the blame for the defective products their bosses pushed out in order to goose profits.

As ever, what a technology does pales in comparison to who it does it for and who it does it to.

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/2025/05/27/rancid-vibe-coding/#class-war

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[kokii-omii]

Random fun facts with my Twst ocs

(not drawn cuz i dont have my tablet with me rn)

Pan Nikos

He bit a kid once cuz the kid was badmouthing his brother

Is the Heir to the Hermes branch of Olympos

Was the team captain on his middle school spell drive team

likes to cosplay and crossplay

the magestone he has is located on the right side of his headphones instead of a pen like it normally should be

once sent a message via pigeon because his phone died and he was NOT gonna ghost someone because it was just that important (it really wasn't)

his room is an absolute MESS, wires on the floor, foam, blankets everywhere, plushies scattered on the bed, books everywhere except the shelves

used to be in a club called "Bug Collector's Club" before him and jade saw each other in the mountains doing club activities and just decided to merge clubs

the ignihyde first years are low key scared of him because they pissed him off so bad he actually started yelling at them and threatened to leak everyone's search history if they misbehaved again

he has photographic memory

Pan knows how to play the electric guitar, the flute and the lyre

teched out his shoes so he could fly

flew into a tree when he was testing it out (always wear a helmet kids)

his love language is gift giving

Peyn Algos

Has a grandma that's fae and lives in briar valley

he visits her for winter break and often helps her with the modern technology

he's his family's tech support

his mother is human and his father is fae, his mother works as an archeologist while his father is a librarian

has an older sister that's a model

has a tamagotchi named Peggy that him and Pan take care of (it was a gift from Pan)

is more magically connected than technologically (he was taught by fae after all)

he fully thought he would be put in Diasomnia given his background, but learned and adapted pretty easily to techno-magic science and stuff within the first month

Peyn's an absolute beast at DDR and any rhythm game

beefs with riddle sometimes

memorized all 810 rules of heartslabyul just so he could argue with Riddle about how absurd they are

he is VERY spiteful

is actually two weeks older than Riddle (his bday is on August 10)

probably the only ignihyde student that likes PE and sports

his love language is quality time

Ezmond Morado

has rook on his hit list (dont ask why)

has been a genius at potion making since he was 7

the feather on his hair is a quill, he sometimes writes with it

he gets mistaken for a beautiful girl almost every day (deuce thought he was a girl at first)

his mother is a doctor while his father is a botanist

he knows how to draw really detailed plants and landscapes (cant draw people tho)

there was one time a potion brewing went wrong and accidentally turned him into a cat

has beef with leona because he's constantly making krohn do things for him (he literally does the same)

Ace is also on the said hit list (i don't think i need to explain why)

he holds grudges and NEVER lets them go

His love language is words of affirmation

Krohn Luteus

He's fully fluent in squirrel, he sometimes has full on conversations with the squirrels at school

Can absolutely boogie down and groove

he has no enemies 😌

seriously nobody beefs with the guy cuz a. he's built like an absolute unit and b. the entirety of savanaclaw would jump them if they tried anything (the pros of being Savanaclaw's chef)

he's REALLY strong

he could lift Jack, Ruggie and, Leona all at once and STILL be able to run full speed

he was a boy scout

he's also probably vargas' favorite student idk

he's dumb, maybe even a little dumber than deuce but he got the spirit

his love language is acts of service

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Pt.2 with my Yuus