Mastodawn

Scott Jenson 3d ago

Is #mastodon becoming an echo chamber? This post from @carnage4life has me questioning our community. The Mastodon team is finally getting some traction, the product improvements are increasing, The #UX is improving, yet people posting on multiple platforms are making comments like this. It's confusing.

I *know* people here don't want this to be a classic social media-clone but we'd *like* journalists to be here right? They aren't coming with examples like this!

Scott Jenson 2d ago

As this conversation is spiraling a bit I want to make a few things clear:
1. I'd like Mastodon to be MORE inclusive and bring in more voices
2. Some people don't seem to want that
3. This is core problem to solve: How do we let more in, but not "pollute" your feed?
4. The solution is NOT "gatekeeping", revelling in the fact that AI journalists aren't welcome
5. This is the same reason we lost "Black Twitter" when it came over in 2022

Yes, a lot of you don't want AI posts in your feed (or pick any other topic) but the solution isn't to keep "AI People" from joining Mastodon, any more than it is keeping marginalized communities off of Mastodon.

Eugen Rochko 2d ago

@scottjenson I’m not interested in following any “AI people”. That doesn’t make it an echo chamber. We don’t need equal amounts of people who love puppies and want to kill puppies, not everything needs to be equally represented.

Scott Jenson 2d ago

@Gargron That is a personal choice and one which I totally respect. But I do think Mastodon should be big enough, and open enough, to allow an "AI community" to form, even thrive.

Too many people in my replies don't seem to agree with that.

@scottjenson @Gargron “AI people” are not a protected class. It seems much more important that we focus on being a welcoming and inclusive platform for protected classes, particularly actual marginalized communities.

Todd Sundsted 2d ago

@dgodon @scottjenson @Gargron consider though that there are people in marginalized communities who are also "AI people". are they not welcome? is anti-AI (or anti-whatever) more important than welcoming marginalized people? literally, where is the line?

@toddsundsted @scottjenson @Gargron "AI people" is a very vague group. Quite a bit of AI discussion is hype and mis/dis-info and I don't think needs to be coddled here (just as we shouldn't tolerate puppy killers or fascists, even if they're from marginalized groups). Tho there are many shades of gray and I think it's also fair to say some AI discussion is non-hype/mis/dis-info. But my main point is that welcoming marginalized groups should be the focus, not opinions about AI

Todd Sundsted 2d ago

> But my main point is that welcoming marginalized groups should be the focus, not opinions about AI

i am very very much in alignment with this.

Scott Jenson 2d ago

@toddsundsted @dgodon Too many people thought I was *defending* the entire AI industry and worse, comparing it directly to Black Twitter. Hey it's social media, posts are short, it's easy to connect the dots the wrong way.

My poor writing skills aside, my point was what I think you both are saying: it's a slippery slope. It's no secret that black twitter was not made welcome here (it's a very complex topic but there is some truth to it).

My point wasn't that techbros needed support or coddling but the idea that we "allow" people to be here based on some type of ideological purity test is guaranteed to bite us in the ass. Too many people here get holier than thou and feel morally obligated to harass people. It's short sighted.

Danielle Foré 2d ago

@scottjenson I do not want mastodon to become more amicable to right wing ideas. The more hostile this place is to Nazis and AI and the manosphere etc the safer it is for people like me. See the parable of the Nazi bar etc. This is an inherent concept to queer spaces. You cannot make a space safe that welcomes both sheep and wolves. Keeping the wolves out is a feature not a flaw

A.A. Delafin 23h ago

Cassandra is only carbon now

@danirabbit @scottjenson This. I do not think it's even slightly an exaggeration to say that AI is, in its present and marketed form, fascist. It is good when fascists aren't allowed in the room, actually.

Jo - pièce de résistance 23h ago

@xgranade @danirabbit @scottjenson
Exactly. AI harms marginalized and protected classes the most, including the environment and life itself. It’s not unreasonable to decide to not invite death to dine with us. It is poisoning the food.
It is literally a life or death decision people are making for the world to suffer or survive under. People need to take responsibility and have consequences for their carelessness to community. AI is anti-social in its current form. It must be stopped.

Jakenke 22h ago

@JoBlakely @xgranade @danirabbit @scottjenson

“In its current form” is the key phrase.

Reflexive rejection of emerging technology in its totality is self-defeating.

We need a mass political movement to shape it toward pro-social ends. That means steering it toward scientific and research use-cases, stringent regulatory guardrails, and hardcore trustbusting.

It’s only a fascist technology if we let the fascists control it.

Jakenke 22h ago

@JoBlakely @xgranade @danirabbit @scottjenson

I know that this is a majorly heterodox position on the left right now but we are in the midst of a climate emergency (since well before the AI data center boom) so bad that literally billions of lives (mostly in some of the poorest nations on earth) and untold suffering depend on mitigation, and it is a moral imperative to use every technology available (yes including AI) to help save as much as possible.

Jo - pièce de résistance 22h ago

@Jakenke @xgranade @danirabbit @scottjenson take a look at one version that it could be used for Buckminster Fuller’s World Game - a concept global problem solving & resource and energy management.
I just posted on an example. But until their data is created and assessed ethically, wholistic, with regard to its impact, then it’s not worth the cost when gathering diverse competent people together is a far superior and effective way of problem solving.

Kevin Carson 22h ago

@JoBlakely @Jakenke @xgranade @danirabbit @scottjenson Exactly. Virtually nothing posted by AI techbros will be relevant to our needs.
I feel the same way about AI that Freeman Dyson did about GMOs. He argued that they might be useful if developed in local, open-source community biolabs in varieties suited to low-input intensive horticulture and agriculture, like a faster and more extreme version of traditional climate-hardy varieties. But virtually all adoption of GMOs right now, and all media and political discussion of them, involves proprietary versions developed for integration into large-scale agribusiness using heavily subsidized irrigation and fertilizer inputs, on enormous tracts of stolen land.

Jakenke 21h ago

@JoBlakely @xgranade @danirabbit @scottjenson

I agree with you in theory, I wish all the nations of the world could all just get together and cooperate on mutually beneficial solutions. It’s the obvious rational route for everyone. But our best attempt at doing so (COP) has been a near total failure. Ideal solutions are useless without political will.

Jo - pièce de résistance 21h ago

@Jakenke
All theory, no praxis makes castles in the air, illusions & Ponzi schemes, bubbles, and structures without integrity doomed to fail. They lack substance, are all facade.

@danirabbit @scottjenson

Jakenke 22h ago

@JoBlakely @xgranade @danirabbit @scottjenson

That means using it for things like climate modeling, green energy/storage R&D, green energy deployment, infrastructure resilience research, etc etc.

It bothers me that AI is being used as a scapegoat for the climate crisis by some, as if stopping AI will save us. We were barreling toward the cliff’s edge and arguably already fell over it well before AI started consuming significant amounts of energy.

International House of Death Rays 19h ago

@Jakenke @JoBlakely @xgranade @danirabbit @scottjenson you're a disingenuous toad to conflate genai slop with vertical machine learning applications

Jo - pièce de résistance 22h ago

@Jakenke @xgranade @danirabbit @scottjenson
We must not reward this iteration that does not care about the quality of input or output and doesn’t have the ethics or desire for equality to evaluate data quality.
Techbros are in a circle-jerk bubble within a reality and investment bubble. It’s currently a castle in the air with no sustainable or healthy foundation for humanity to survive alongside it.
But I do see uses similar to Buckminster Fuller’s World Game.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Game

World Game - Wikipedia

Jakenke 22h ago

@JoBlakely @xgranade @danirabbit @scottjenson

Hadn’t heard of that before. Very interesting read, thanks.

Jo - pièce de résistance 22h ago

@Jakenke @xgranade @danirabbit @scottjenson

AI made it exponentially worse just as we were making progress with solar, wind, etc. it derailed progress. That is why it is so terrible. It is not a scapegoat it is a cause. It did not build a foundation for its own sustainability before it was thrust upon us prematurely. They fired their ethics people. They can’t profit from it without it infecting everything.
What it actually is being used as is a Maxwell’s Demon. It must be stopped.

scrottie (he/him/them)21h ago

@JoBlakely @xgranade @danirabbit @scottjenson
Scott, it seems like you are making yourself crystal clear.
Having values is not an "ideological purity test". Attacking having values as "ideological purity test" is itself a value -- a fascist one.
Do we need to make Fedi a safe place for vitamin hucksters? For horrible cults?
Do you understand the idea that some things are *toxic* to communities?
https://webcomicname.com/post/185588404109 , over and over again.
No one owES fascists a platform.
Again...
NO ONE OWES FASCISTS A PLATFORM.
This is the only place that Gates and Musks lackies aren't running. We like this way.
I know there's a lot of discussion of badjacketing and that discussion is valid, but people are often right when calling this out, and groups often get it right, and at this point, it's pretty blatant, even if you personally cannot see it.
If you feel more comfortable on Bluesky otoh, please feel free to step off.

scrottie (he/him/them)21h ago

@JoBlakely @xgranade @danirabbit @scottjenson bro wants to make another LinkedIn

Don't Sweat The Technique ✊21h ago

@scrottie
Also, no one is denying anyone the right to set up their own cryptofascist or ai-shilling server. Just no-one can be forced to federate with it. There is free speech, but listening is also optional 🤷
@JoBlakely @xgranade @danirabbit @scottjenson

shellsharks 🌙18h ago

@Valent @scrottie @JoBlakely @xgranade @danirabbit @scottjenson I mean. Isn't truth social just mastodon with federation turned off? Anyone can do this. They (truth social) at least had enough sense (surprising!) to preemptively defederate themselves from everyone else.