HexesofVexes

Ooh, this is actually a more controversial take among academics than you can imagine!

Around week 3 of my course I ask the question “what percentage cut do academics get for published articles”. They are always appalled to learn it is 0% (we get nothing, we are literally paid in exposure).

Below are some other issues with the journal industry as a whole:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serials_crisis?wprov=sfla1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_journal_publishing_reform?wprov=sfla1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Criticism_and_controversies%3Fwprov=sfla1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Knowledge?wprov=sfla1

My mate Anna has a great archive of papers. Look her up some time!

You don’t want to look. The level of emotional damage it inflicts is just too damn high.

Alumni: I’ve never heard of this university before in my life officer!

Students: I’ve paid for this, it’s my right to get a degree in return, even if I never attend.

Lecturers: No! That’s not ho-

University Leadership: Yes valued customer, course content will be simplified to facilitate this. We will also pressure modules to be 100% coursework, so that your AI can do it for you my liege.

Lecturers: FFS…

So Lemmy and Mastodon are mirrors of two popular forms of social media; what I think might be the next real step is innovation.

No, not a fediverse AI, something more human and “old web”. A federated forum system paired with a solid fedi-search engine could do slot of good - especially with the walled gardens and AI slopfest that the surface net is becoming.

Alas, this isn’t a post about Linux - the bar can go nae higher.

That carries more self-awareness than one can reasonably imply from vulture-capitalist shareholders.

Honestly, Microsoft may be full of arseholes, but moves like this at least one sane human works for the company.

It takes balls to admit you fucked up , and this is one employee showing some balls.

Sonic Robo Blast 2 anyone?

https://www.srb2.org/

https://github.com/stjr/srb2

The argument in the paper is a bit more nuanced - it’s mostly arguing that we over-anthropomorphise AI, and this taints out results on AI sentience by pre-biasing towards some human like qualities already. Part of this comes from the AI attempting to emulated a human notion of identity.

Using a contrived goat powered AoE II AI would likely yield less assumed human-like quality bias. It would also be hilarious.

“If it continues long enough, even a reign of terror may become a fondly remembered period. People believe they want justice and wise government but, in fact, what they really want is an assurance that tomorrow will be very much like today.” - Terry Pratchett

It’s a good quote, and it tells you a lot about the idea of organising to forcefully change things. Change comes through education, patience, kindness, and self-sacrifice; it comes from teaching people that tomorrow can really be better. It’s never quick, it’s rarely (if ever) a great leader who brings it about, and it’s never such leaders who pay the price.

Already a member of the EFF, and I teach privacy to my students and coworkers already.

It’s more a rearguard than a fight at this point - most Brits are too distracted to care.

I’m not entirely sure how that’s panning out in Aus (a quick search suggests it’s a flop, but the sources aren’t great). I think the general consensus is that it’s not as enforceable as they hoped.

We are moving towards an era of a more locked down web in the UK. The main flag here is “robust age verification” - i.e. we’re moving from “you must provide ID to view adult material on social media” to “you must provide ID to use social media”.

One can quickly see “your id must be retained and linked to your account to reduce crime” and “any officer of the law may view this ID to better support crime reduction” slipping in over the next 20 years or so.

Overall, this feels like another Trojan horse to move towards a China-style de-anonymised web. Bad move all around really.

Not the first troll community here, won’t be the last. There are a few really popular ones that are far worse though - this one just sounds unhinged.

That’s actually a really good summary of the issue. It’s the tacitly implied authenticity and “goodness of match” that being the top result implies that shifts the balance.

If they’d put a “generate AI summary of search” button to display the AI result, I the they’d be on firmer ground.

They’re speed lines, they make you type faster.

Dear Matty_r,

I’m writing to inform you that your bone insurance has just been cancelled as you have been deemed an unacceptable risk by our new “BONED™” AI.

We’re sorry for the inconvenience, and offer our deepest condolences for your bones.

Kind Regards,

Dr Bonius of BONE medical

thank mr skeltal