कारतोफ्फेलस्क्रिप्ट™6d ago
varx/tech

I very much get a "we just discovered radium and want to put it in everything" vibe from this whole generative AI bubble.

(Including the thing where companies used to slap the word "radium" on existing products even though they thankfully did not actually have any radioactive materials. Like "radium butter".)

May 21 at 3:47amWeb
Show threadJeff MartinMay 21
@varx I think the rich people that run the world are utterly fascinated by AI because it lets them access skills for the first time ever without needing to hire people. So more of this everywhere all the time just seems like bliss to them.
Show threadNicole ParsonsMay 21

@cuchaz @varx

Examine the motives of the wealthy investors behind AI.

The Saudi royals like Alwaleed bin Talal and Mohammed bin Salman want an AI-enabled international state surveillance platform.
https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-google-hand-dissident-data-to-saudi-arabia-activists-say-2023-7

So do Larry Ellison & Peter Thiel.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/omnipresent-ai-cameras-will-ensure-good-behavior-says-larry-ellison/

https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/12/larry_ellison_wants_all_data/

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/03/silicon-valleys-quest-to-live-forever

Koch Network wants AI-enabled price fixing, stock market manipulation, and profitable housing cost inflation.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/08/ai-price-algorithms-realpage/679405/

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/5/2244971/-FBI-raid-on-real-estate-company-linked-to-Harlan-Crow-s-RealPage-rental-price-fixing

Microsoft and Google may have to surrender people's data to Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia is seeking to be an innovation hub, but activists are warning that tech firms could be complicit in the repression of dissidents.

Business Insider
Show threadDavidMay 21

@Npars01 @cuchaz @varx And as you've pointed out before (Nicole), the Saudis and Kochs want the continued sink for ever more electricity, to sustain demand for fossil fuels while transportation and other major sectors move the now and henceforth more-economical renewable electricity.

Along with the surveillance and the market manipulation, the waste is the point.

Show threadMartin RundkvistMay 21

@Npars01 @cuchaz @varx

"May have to"? Nonono, if the price is right, they simply want to.

Show threadEsme CiredutempsMay 21
@cuchaz @varx
They even don't think that if they don't pay people to produce things, they don't get consumers to buy them ?
Show threadPete Alex Harris🦡🕸️🌲/∞🪐∫May 21

@ciredutempsEsme @cuchaz @varx

They don't care if anything works as long as they can own it.

Show threadEsme CiredutempsMay 21
@petealexharris @cuchaz @varx
They do but they'll remain sure that they've been conned by workers (because hey, that's what they're doing to workers)
Show threadiamsMay 21
@cuchaz @varx Have you seen those terrible ads where the techset use AI glasses or AI apps to assist them in performing basic tasks? Like reading, driving, speaking, cooking, doing maths, completing an email... etc. They look like complete idiots. I think you're right, and I feel saddness that there are many people who can both function and have the intelligence to run international business - lacking only for opportunity, social connections, and wealth. AI will ruin so much and solve nothing.
Show threadiamsMay 21

@cuchaz @varx Or, to put it another way... the ones that control it are neither imaginative, nor invested, in making the world better.

Original post, yes. Radium, and the "i" before everything when iPhone was introduced...

Show threadvarx/techMay 21

@iams @cuchaz Now I want to make a spoof ad where someone performs basic-ass tasks "with the power of brain!"

all sparkles and swirls and swooshy overlays as they write on paper with a pencil

Show threadPhil Ashby  🍵May 21

@varx @iams @cuchaz

This makes me think of the passengers on the Axiom in Wall-E...

Show threadWulfy5d ago

@iams @cuchaz @varx

Counterpoint:

Intelligentsia is distressed by #AI because they see it as encroaching on their ability to sell their labour to the oligarchs.

But when physical labour of the proletariat was eroded by automation over the last 80-100 years. The replacement of physical effort and reduction in the proletariat and stability of menial and semi-skilled #labor was seen as progress and efficiency.
Any opponents of the destruction of Labor and consequently industrial democracy (#tradeunions) were seen as simpletons, #luddites, #communists and troglodytes.

TLDR; AI opponents are the living embodiment of Martin Niemöller poem, which must be remembered condemns complicity of German #intellectuals in the purges.

Show threadMartin Vermeer FCDMay 21
@cuchaz @varx I think it is not that. Rather, it is about the *political* power to set the narrative. The same reason that rich people also buy media outlets for. For an LLM, reality is what the training corpus says it is, and the owner of the model controls that. And the big tech monopolies have a captive audience...
Show threadJeff MartinMay 21
@martinvermeer @varx Oh yeah. I definitely think that's another reason rich people love AI. They can finally get a "search engine" to lie the way they want.
Show thread60sRefugee6d ago
@martinvermeer @cuchaz @varx On the corporate level it's about *agency*: the people at the top being able to set an absolute agenda that won't get watered down or filtered by intermediaries. Call centers used to be staffed by humans who were drilled to robotically follow a script with language carefully crafted by the lawyers. Now call centers are actual robots.
Show threadJake in the desertMay 21
@cuchaz @varx absolutely. I worked at this place and this big fancy overpaid rich dude came in and just thought they could automate everything this team of people I was leading was doing. I just told him, you can't automate everything, all this stuff. He insisted there was a way. Until he tried and tried and could never get one to work. Hmmm
Show threadMartin Owens May 21

@varx

"Wrist watch! Now with 3 radiums. Hour minute and seconds!"

Show threadRejZoRMay 21
@doctormo @varx Not so fun fact, they used tritium for watches and while it is harmless for the wearer, a lot of workers in watch factories got radiation poisoning because of prolonged exposure to tritium.
Show threadlizzzzardMay 21
@rejzor @doctormo @varx and because they were taught to lick the brush so it had a fine point...
Show thread0x5cMay 21

@lizzard @rejzor @doctormo @varx tritium is a gas, you can't paint it on watchfaces
You're thinking of radium, and the "Radium Girls"

Tritium is also both radioactive and used for some (rare) dials, but it has to be encased in glass vials, which are produced in tightly regulated factories where you can't just breathe it in

Radium watchfaces and instrument dials are banned for new products, now replaced by plain phosphorescent pigments and, rarely, tritium vials

Show threadvarx/techMay 21

@0x5c I was wondering earlier why tritium isn't simply covalently bonded into other molecules so they could have a solid-phase version of the indicator.

...and then I realized that that would probably be a greater hazard, as it could be ingested that way, while a broken tube of gas-phase tritium is more likely to dissipate before it can be inhaled.

Show threadvarx/techMay 21

@rejzor @doctormo Indeed, although I've only heard of medical cases involving radium. (Tritium would have to be inhaled, I believe.)

The negative externalities are more diffuse with AI, but I've had the Radium Girls on my mind a lot recently. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls

Radium Girls - Wikipedia

Show threadRejZoRMay 21
@varx @doctormo I forgot to mention they ingested tritium by licking the paintbrush tips to apply tritium easier on thin watch hands. As mentioned by someone in this thread.
Show threadvarx/techMay 21

@rejzor Yes, although as I mentioned, it was radium, not tritium.

(Tritium is indeed used for self-luminous watch hands today. But it's in gaseous form, in little capsules.)

Show threadVel 💽May 21
@varx I'd try the radium butter
Show threadvarx/techMay 21
@Velveteen Radium brand butter, straight from Nucla, Colorado! (Although the name is just an amusing coincidence, despite being derived from "nucleus".)
Show threadVel 💽5d ago
@varx i keep getting notifications for this and last night I had taken a med immediately before going to sleep and saw a notif about this post and then had a dream that I had said "radlum" butter and it had thousands of boosts and people wanted to send me "radlum" butter to eat
Show threadBebef 🦦🇪🇺🏴‍☠️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🚙🐼🥦🚩🏴May 21

@varx I hope we will eventually come to the same insight eventually.

It is BS that nobody needs and does more harm than good. It needs to go.

Eventually....

Show threadReinald KirchnerMay 21
@varx indeed everything that uses any algorithm is now labeled AI, no matter if there is any machine learning or pattern recognition involved or not.
Show threadChris PearceMay 21
@varx Mmmmm, forbidden butter 😋
Show threadI see Dud people!May 21
@varx Radium condoms, radium toothpaste, radium tablets... I see the similarities.
Show threadMedea Vanamonde🏳️‍⚧️ ♀3d ago
@BackFromTheDud @varx somewhere in my archives is advertisements for Radium Rectal Stimulators …
Show threadI see Dud people!3d ago
@MishaVanMollusq That sounds like a more "specialised" line of products... @varx
Show threadbituur esztreymMay 21
@varx
now trying to imagine "AI butter". i don't thank you `w;7[)
Show threadFluffgar 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿May 21
@varx If you want to know more about radium and other radioactive stuff Kyle Hill is pretty good. Fair warning though, he does not hide the severity of the consequences of misuse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIoIn6iDZgY
The Radium Worked Until His Jaw Fell Off

We'd like to thank Luciteria for the loan of the element samples and the display in today’s episode. To learn more please check them out here: https://www.lu...

YouTube
Show threadvarx/techMay 21
@fluffgar Yeah, I've seen some of the Radium Girls stuff and it is *extremely horrifying*.
Show threadStoneface VimesMay 21
@varx yes.
Show threadWhy you, gee May 21
@varx like this 🤗
Show threadvarx/techMay 21

@fetchezlavache Amazing. 😆

(I sure hope they were lying about the first part of that guarantee.)

Show threadCurmudgeonMay 21

@varx

Mmmmmm, radium butter. So tasty on asbestos biscuits.
And it keeps them warm all day!

Show threadUltra Verified 🇺🇦May 21

@varx

The Newest AI marketing campaign:

Convince MAGA geniuses that radium suppositories will cure bad breath.

Show threadAndrew4d ago
@Ultraverified @varx great until they give them to their kids
Show threadUltra Verified 🇺🇦4d ago

@cinebox @varx

If the bad breath doesn't prevent reproduction, the radium will

Show threadʙᴇɴ ᴄᴏᴛᴛᴇяɪʟʟMay 21
@varx Problem is there are many Eben Byers out there.
Show threadJordan Maris 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 #NAFOMay 21
@varx surely, we won't discover it has some horrific consequences in the future, right? 😅
Show threadJL Johnson May 21
@varx perfect!
Show threadBonkersMay 21
@varx there were "radium" candies in the Soviet union :)
Show threadMarko VujnovicMay 21
@varx That is actually an excellent comparison. Thank you.
Show threadPatrick Morris MillerMay 21
@varx This is the best analogy I have seen in a very long time.
Show threadBuck MoonMay 21
@varx oh I was thinking about this the other day. LLM and AI does feel like Those victoriana advertisements talking about the power of magnetism or doctors recommending tobacco brands.
Show threadMaria Langer | 📝 🎬 ⚒️🛥️May 21
@varx @User47 What a perfect analogy.
Show threadJohn BalestrieriMay 21
@varx
Show threadFi 🏳️‍⚧️May 21

@varx @GrumpusNation

and much like with radium, it's getting put (radium underpants) in a lot of places (radium suppositories) where you really ( radium tooth powder, my fucking gods ) don't want it.

Show thread$out/bin/pentane (soon @GPN)May 21
@varx yeah, same with "nuclear" in the 50s basically
Show threadPxl PhileMay 21
@varx oh radium too?uranium glassware comes immediately to mind
Show threadExtra_Special_Carbon6d ago
@ppxl @varx Fundamentally, Uranium glassware isn’t terribly dangerous.
Show threadPxl Phile6d ago
@Extra_Special_Carbon @varx agreed but to press it into things was still a weird flex 😁
Show threadJürgenMay 21
@varx you mean like block chain Softdrinks...
Show threadMark vWMay 21
@varx Yes. One South Sea Bubble after another...and a US President hellbent on making the financial world more volatile.
Show threadAlexis, ENDLESS HORNETSMay 22
@varx Who's getting phossy jaw so the middle class can masturbate, this time around?