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In further evidence of the very concept of intellectualism crumbling before our eyes, Geoffrey Hinton has been awarded a #NobelPrize in .... #Physics.
🙄
Hinton is a key purveyor of the #ExistentialThreats of #AI, AKA the #Singularity. Absolutely bonkers.
@timnitGebru https://dair-community.social/@timnitGebru/113272698607132931
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@gutocarvalho @isik5 @jt_rebelo @netblocks
#X operates in & generates profits within #Brazil. & it broke Brazil's laws.
On one hand, the judiciary is simply seeking some recourse to enforce their laws. This is commonplace & expected. X & #Musk have no leg to stand on.
But, is #blocking #domains an appropriate lever for #lawEnforcement to use?
I would argue it isn't. I believe #openInternet access should be a #humanRight. Restricting access always hurts the #disadvantaged.
1/2
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Goddamn it #LedZeppelin, is there nothing you didn't rip off?
I'm trying to include a good *original* Zep song in a playlist. "Since I've been loving you" was a favourite for years. But after hearing "Never" by #MobyGrape, I can't, in good conscience, include it.
I've decided to go with "Rock and Roll", because even though "#Bonham's" famous drum intro is directly lifted from #LittleRichard's "Keep A-Kockin'", I think it's arguably honourably intended as an homage.
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#TechPolicyPress offers about the only #sociopolitical analysis of tech available anywhere, so I listen.
Today there's an interview with #Mozilla's president. Surely a radical thinker, I hoped.
He spoke about Mozilla's focus on AI, how it will generate "trillions of dollars of new wealth", how excited he is about #capitalism.
And how great it is that #Firefox offers you more choice by letting you "change the default search engine" - WTF does that mean?
🙄🥱
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@pensionerpilgrim Nice. I'm in #Bicester now, but I did my BSc and MSc at #Nottingham uni, and my now wife and I lived there for about 6 years after that. We miss it. It's a much friendlier and more diverse place than #Oxfordshire, unfortunately.
Although I hear it's been hit hard by bankruptcy 😔
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By @RichardJMurphy:
'#KamalaHarris could say, “I am going to defeat the #monopolists who are #gouging profits out of the markets & suppressing #wages in the #US economy.”
She would break #politics in the US free from the power of corporate influence, which is very heavily related to the power of the monopoly-owning #billionaires.
She could require that these companies like #Google operate fairly & appropriately in all markets, including the #UK, the #EU, & way beyond'
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/08/07/google-is-a-monopolist-what-next/
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@alexhern's description of #AI is succinct & accurate - unusual for @TheGuardian:
> Once you [understand that AI can't handle outliers], almost everything that people like #Altman, #Musk & #Kurzweil are saying about #AGI being nigh seems like sheer fantasy, on par with imagining that really tall ladders will soon make it to the moon.
A timely reinforcement of the question:
> What if the bubble is about to burst?
#AIHype #StochasticParrots #GPT #SamAltman
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/aug/06/ai-llms
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Wow! I clearly haven't been to #TheSun website for a while. Now their #cookie banner makes you *pay* if you want to #rejectCookies? I didn't think that was legal. I assume this is #Brexit coming home to roost?
(I think I also saw last night that #chrome on my #Android phone now automatically blocks 3rd party cookies? So it looks like #google caved on that one?)
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Squeezing questionable promises of "#AI" features into every product imaginable is probably hurting companies:
> "The findings consistently showed products described as using artificial intelligence were less popular"
This is an important finding, that I hope #Marketers pay attention to.
(Via https://social.vivaldi.net/@brucelawson/112885864976318258)
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What would it look like for the #Gartner #HypeCycle to break?
I think it's a helpful & broadly true description of market behaviour.
But I doubt it actually reduces harmful hype-chasing by huge companies. They are all primed to assume that they must be at the start of the ramp-up, instead of near the apex.
The way it's usually drawn, the height of the eventual "plateau" is way higher than it should be in most cases, and certainly with #AI.
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Well, it looks like he's a #postKeynesian. I'd say that's pretty encouraging.
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Like @oliphant, I was astounded at this apparently completely un-evidenced claim by #politico *in the headline* that there were #Hamas flags at this #antiApartheid #AntiWar #protest.
https://oliphant.social/@oliphant/112843816303516271
So I wrote to them at [email protected], as they recommend. I guess we'll see if they care at all.
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I had this thought while listening to this #PoliticsTheoryOther episode about the success of the opposition parties in #India's election in June:
https://pca.st/episode/a5c4d4de-6740-48c6-ad40-601af86c4fbf
I strongly recommend #PoliticsTheoryOther in general.
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I've never liked #tacticalVoting. I particularly dislike how certain party activists castigate voters who won't vote tactically for their candidate ("you're electing #Trump!!!").
But recent elections in #UK, #India & #France, show how powerful it can be for opposition parties to team up against incumbents & the #right.
Strategy is important. But as with #climate activism, let's #lobby the parties, who have the power to have impact; judging everyday people is unhelpful.
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From reading Wikipedia, it seems to me like #Antifa is a phantom; more defined by the reaction against it than by an independent definition.
It's not, as I had thought, an organisation. Not even a decentralised one like #Anonymous. That view of it is a fake construction of the right.
And it's not a clear and useful #leftist philosophy. Unlike #CriticalRaceTheory or #Wokism which are useful ideas corrupted by the right, #Antifa seems to be used more often as a pejorative for #leftism in general
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3. Since this interview, I've been pretty interested in #LeanneMohamad's bold & explicitly #Gaza-focused campaign against Labour's shadow health secretary, #WesStreeting. This seemed like a truly long shot.
https://pca.st/episode/c9e24016-81ac-4588-8d9c-63f8c88113d5
She came *extremely* close, losing to #Streeting by 528 votes (~1%).
Labour's heavyweight didn't quite fall, but alongside #Corbyn, four more pro-#Palestine #independents did win seats from #Labour:
3/3
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2. How many of the #greens' expected 0-4 MPs could they get?
For a while they've had 1 MP, the exceedingly popular #CarolineLucas in #BrightonPavilion. But when she stepped down, could anyone else win it?
They have also been targeting #BristolCentral for a while, and then had some muted hopes about #NorthHerefordshire and #WaveneyValley.
The #ExitPoll had them winning 2 seats, which sounded like solid going given the circumstances.
But now the count has come in, they've won all four!
2/?
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#Labour's huge majority in #parliament had been long predicted. In the end it was a bit less than they'd hoped, and the mere 33% it represents is frankly embarrassing.
But there were some other #Leftist details of the #UKElection I was particularly focused on:
1. Would #JeremyCorbyn win as an independent in #IslingtonNorth after being deselected as a Labour MP? You know Labour threw everything they could at beating him.
Corbyn won with 49.2% of the votes, to Labour's 34.4%
1/?
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Since the blockbuster release of #ChatGPT, so many $billions have flowed into #OpenAI and many other #AI ventures, presumably paying even larger salaries to many many more #LLM engineers.
And #GPT has barely improved. #GPT4 has new interfaces and is quicker, but it's fundamental functionality is pretty comparable to #GPT3. These abused content moderators might genuinely be improving it more than the engineers.
You could almost say more money = less improvement.
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The major #ExitPoll stories might not be entirely obvious:
#Labour will be outwardly triumphant, but are in fact on the back foot having fallen short of expectations
#Tories live to fight another day, but are crippled & likely to be muted in opposition
Instead, #LibDems look like the strongest opposition group, having both done well and somewhat beaten expectations
#SNP are weak and embarrassed
We'll see what the #Greens can do, having doubled their seats to 2, adding #BristolCentral
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This was such a refreshingly sensible conversation about the #tech industry.
Ed Zitron coolly describes how the entirety of the #stockMarket is toxically, morbidly addicted to #growth, but in #tech they've turned it up to 11.
Everyone's looking for the next "#unicorn", and #bigTech is in big trouble if they stop reporting record growth.
But the opportunities for growth have run dry, so they're left with no choice but to #overhype everything.
And hence, #AI.
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Really exposing my lameness here, but OMG I'm so ready to listen to this collaboration between #macrodose and #pto! It'll have to wait for my drive back home this evening.
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#JeremyCorbyn came across particularly well here. I'm rooting for him in #IslingtonNorth
He made an interesting point:
#Labour are banking a basic truth: Foreign policy is rarely the deciding issue for voters, they'll vote to prioritise their family & friends through policies about housing, social services or tax
BUT, as #Corbyn observes, many do completely reject #Labour over #Gaza. They'll decide based on other factors, *after* excluding #genocide supporters
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@shane ooh what are your favourite podcasts Shane?
Mine are mostly political or tech and I assume would bore most people: #LateNightLinux, #BigPicture, #Macrodose, #Deconstructed, #OnTheMedia, #TechPolicyPress, #PoliticsTheoryOther, #factually.
Always looking for more good ones 😊
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I need to follow more interesting people. Any recommendations?
I'm interested in #Tech, #monopolies, #UKPolitics, #socialism, #Sociology, #SocialJustice, #restorativejustive, #pacifism, #geopolitics, #HumanRights, #migrantRights, #Palestine, #economics, #MMT, #Philosophy, #Realism, #leftism, #nonviolence, #psychology, #management, #systemsdesign, #unions, #WorkerRights, #solidarity, #intersectionality, #history, #heterodox views, anti-#techhype etc. and probably a fair few other things.
🙏
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Ok so #MehdiHasan does this #MonkDebate against extreme #Zionist #DouglasMurray on "is #antizionism #antisemitism?". Mehdi "lost" because 2% of the Zionist audience moved to Murray's side.
On every factual point, Mehdi destroyed Murray, but instead of being embarrassed Murray is doing victory laps.
https://youtu.be/OBmLUvzZhmw?si=FB6JgoiAXtCcCji1
The main factual point Zionists seem to think "discredited" Mehdi was when he portrayed #ArthurBalfour as a raging #Antisemite. Which he unquestionably was. Very strange.
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I have this wild idea that simply defining #techJobs by their #responsibilities instead of their #techskills could ease many ailments of the #techsector :
- #imposterSyndrome
- #techExcptionalism
- failure to hire & promote #women and #minotities
- chronic under-appreciation of #softSkills
- #engineer tunnel vision
- over-focus on a specific #Technology
- lack of definition around senior roles
- #manager Vs IC tension
- EMs doing #coding rather than #management
- The #10x / #rockstar #Dev myth -
I just installed the #Moshidon Android app for #Mastodon / #ActivityPub, after having used #Tooot for the last year or two.
Man is Moshidon slick! I've really been missing out.
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"many people think that the #US and the #UK support #Israel because of some Israel #lobby"
"It's not Israel controlling #American policy making, it's precisely the other way around"
Another really interesting episode of #macrodose, laying out how central Israel is for the west's global #Oil interests.
This fact deeply bonds the #FreePalestine movement to #Climate activism, and both movements should understand their connection.
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This interview with Iyad el-Baghdadi in the middle of the latest episode of #OnTheMedia is so important.
The only conscienable solution to the #IsraelPalestine conflict is #OneState which champions human rights & equality for all.
Or, put another way, #decolonisation following the #SouthAfrica model.
And this will require building a huge amount of empathy on both sides.
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I just wrote to my MP and #UK Attorney General #VictoriaPrentis about this.
It's now clear that #Israel's accusations against #UNRWA were baseless, and so #Britain's withdrawing of a crucial £70m of funds was based on no evidence at all.
Strangling the central humanitarian agency in Gaza goes directly against #ICJ instructions, and likely makes #Britain and #USA legally complicit in the most significant #Genocide of our age.
https://gist.github.com/nottrobin/d971d7b8399ede7bb80f47df21630f3e
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Wow. What century is this?
The #EveningStandard have totally caricatured themselves
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This amazing episode of #intercepted really gets at my main frustration with the #left right now.
There's complete lockstep compliance among #Democrats - even #bernie and #AOC - in support of military industrial authodoxy.
Now we honestly have to look to #Republicans and the #GOP for any serious #AntiWar sentiments 🙄
https://theintercept.com/2023/04/26/intercepted-ukraine-war/
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This justification for #nontheism really resonateds with me.
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#legalmastodon is this legal position from the government as radical as it sounds?
It's quite incredible for the government to be making threats of CPS criminal cases beyond what any streaming service has any appetite for.
Netflix password sharing may be illegal, says UK government - BBC News