Mastodawn

ProfWhatsHerName 10h ago

"I want to talk about an under-represented group on Fedi"

Young people? "No"
Africans? "No"
Less techie folks? "No"
Indigenous folks? "No"
Women? "No"
Non-English/German speakers? "No"
Anyone not white? "No"
South Americans? "No"
Minority religious folks? "No"
People with cognitive differences? "No"
Non-graduates? "No"
Working class folks? "No"
Retired people? "No"
Occupied people? "No"

Emmmm, the Sentinel Island people? "No"

Ok, who?

"Tech journalists who love AI"

Fuck all the way off.

Putting on my "not taking the piss" hat, I think sometimes people get frustrated, ultimately, by the fact that fedi isn't about shared values as much as it is overlapping values.

And it's cool cuz everyone can play their part in that context.

But there are tendencies that many of us are here to _escape_. Call it Big Bad Tech. Anti-BBT sentiment is a major, well-established building block of this thing.

And the LLM boom is a distillation of some of the worst BBT tendencies.

It's hard to be polite when people pretend not to understand what exactly people hate about this stuff.

I've been around so many tech debates over the years and LLM hype is the winner for patronizing absolute bullshit.

It comes down to people who want to do what they like, and still want to be liked. Sorry, but we're all adults, you have to pick one.

You can't fuck people over and still expect them to play with you.

Tagging on one more thing about "tech folks" and I technically am one so I'm allowed say it.

There's loads of intelligent, friendly people in tech who are so used to not thinking about certain things, that they think you're weird if you do.

- stealing from artists
- pollution for speculation
- causing psychological harm
- invading privacy
- participating in war crimes
- doing business with tyrants

"That's business! You're weird for thinking it's weird."

They spend half their career in companies which do the bad things and take a position of "I would have noticed. Everyone I worked with was lovely."

When you point out things, you're wrong.
When the CEO admits those things, "I'm shocked"

They will be shocked every one of the dozens of times this happens.

You're still a clown if you don't like the 3 employers they list on their bio.

"Business is business. I'm nice and so are my friends. There'd be no internet if you had your way."

"If you're so smart, why don't I see Google on your CV" is the tech industry's version of "If you're so smart why aren't you rich?"

That's why they're so hard to argue with. Any difference of opinion is evidence that your brain isn't as good as theirs. They worked with the smartest people ever you know. They were the Albert Einsteins of invasion of privacy.

@davey_cakes considering what people there get paid, it's pretty much the same "question"

María Arias de Reyna 6h ago

> "If you're so smart, why don't I see Google on your CV"

Oh! Oh! I can answer that one!

Because after the on-site job interviews, I decided I didn't want to work like they offered me at the time (exploited while migrated to a foreign country and without a huge salary raise).

The recruiter told me I didn't look very excited, we discussed... and it ended there.

What do you mean working in Google is a mark of smart people?

GinevraCat 6h ago

@davey_cakes Yup. Willfully blind.

Process "Tedious" Parsnip 10h ago

@davey_cakes right? It's bad on so many axes, and up pops a clown with this "marketplace of ideas" attitude.

Deborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦7h ago

@davey_cakes @ShaulaEvans if, by "underrepresented" they mean "not followed, not boosted," then they've missed how things work here …

Mark Dennehy 1d ago

@davey_cakes "Dear Adrian...

Glitzersachen 18h ago

In the case of those AI journalists --- if they feel under-represented, why don't they just come into the Fedi? Mastodon accounts are literally free. Of course, if their they define themselves by loving AI and are vocal about it, they should bring asbestos trousers.

@davey_cakes
"I want to talk to you tonight about a minority group of people who have no physical or mental handicaps, and who, through no fault of their own, have never been deprived, and consequently have been forced to live in conditions of extreme luxury. This often ignored minority is seldom brought to the attention of the general public. The average man in the street scarcely gives a second thought to these extremely well-off people..."
-- Graham Chapman, "Monty Python's Flying Circus"

Orca 🌻 | 🎀 | 🪁 | 🏴🏳️‍⚧️10h ago

@davey_cakes
I would be less angry if they ever once mentioned Dr. Timnit Gebru and other AI ethics specialists that was fired by Google because they speaked up against algorithmic bias in LLMs (the only kind of "AI people" I can accept).
But NO of course they're talking about AI journalists.
lol. lmao even.

Wouter 🇳🇱🇧🇷🇧🇪10h ago

@davey_cakes As far as I’m concerned, they can go on and on about AI amongst themselves as much as they like. But I couldn’t care less, so yes: fuck off.

Simon Zerafa 7h ago

To be fair the folks on Sentinel Island are probably underrepresented though 🙂🤷‍♂️

@simonzerafa I would spend my own money sending sterilized, hermetically sealed diagrams extolling the appeal of Fedi to the people on Sentinel Island before I'd spend five minutes on the feelings of tech boosters.

Simon Zerafa 7h ago

Assuming that was legal and desirable then I would join you in that project 🙂🖖

@simonzerafa @davey_cakes Anyone knows what kinda memes they like? 🤔

Loving all these flowers popping up after the spreading of manure and rain.

Seems to me the AI booster journalists are the ones wanting a monoculture echo chamber.

And they can get that on the Fedi now by Blocking and Muting non-cultists.

But they think they've got the AI-gospel and we should be their eager-listening, receptive and grateful disciples.

They need an instance of their own, with swarms of rapt disciple-bots begging for their AI golden showers.
#AIJournalism