My friend seems genuinely baffled that I am an AI researcher who refuses to use AI! Not only that, but I argue against it from theory, not experience. Why don't I just give it a try for a while, and see what it's really about before I judge it?

I guess I see where he's coming from. Part of the problem is the word "AI." LLMs are not my research focus, so it's less of a contradiction than it sounds. But I admit, being a non-user makes my arguments against LLMs less credible.

I just don't understand why I owe it to anybody to give AI a shot. I know how LLMs work in gory detail, and I don't trust them. I've seen the mediocre work they produce. I've read studies about the seductive illusion of competence and caring they create, and how people fall for that. I know it's all built on an incredibly exploitative business model.

I feel entirely justified in not giving them a chance. I guess I'm just as baffled by how badly he wants me to try it, and how sure he seems to be that it would change my mind.

"Whatever" is a brilliant essay on "AI" by @eevee:

"But I think the core of what pisses me off is that selling this magic machine requires selling the idea that doing things is worthless. Because if doing something has some value, then it must be somehow better than pushing a button and receiving Whatever for essentially no cost."

https://eev.ee/blog/2025/07/03/the-rise-of-whatever/

I am working on an app to connect people with lawyers in emergency situations (ICE raids, police encounters, protests). Looking for a Flutter developer and someone with legal background (lawyer, paralegal, legal aid experience) who want to help build something that could literally save lives and protect rights. DM me if interested.

Boost for reach.

#nokings #law #lawyers

You know the terms of service you don't read but accept? Here's a great website that summarises what you've agreed to.

It includes platforms and services like LinkedIn, Facebook, Amazon, Reddit, Wikipedia, and many, many more.

Read it and weep.

Or just switch platforms to more ethical providers, if you can.

https://tosdr.org/en

Edit: And here's their profile on Mastodon! @ToSDR

#TermsOfService #SocialMedia #Platforms #DataPrivacy #DataSecurity

Has anyone called it the Department Of Government Enshittification yet?

#DOGE #USpol

Joan Westenberg (@Daojoan) lays out the cold truth of what's happening around us...
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The future of the United States is no longer decided in Washington. That ship has sailed. It's now dictated in the bunkers, private jets, and compounds of an ideological Silicon Valley, by billionaires and wealth extremists intent on treating democracy as a nuisance that must be swatted away. These men — raised on a rabid press that mythologized their existence in their lifetimes, called them Wunderkind and treated them as something above and beyond mere mortality — have consumed a steady diet of libertarian and authoritarian fan fiction and, in its throes, conceived of a new order, designed to serve their lofty egos at any and all cost.

The Internet was supposed to be the great equalizer. It was meant to be a force that shattered hierarchies and gave power to ordinary people. Instead, it enabled the wealth extraction and avarice of a cartel of overfed, over-pampered despots who enriched themselves in the name of innovation, bled the world to the point of near-total collapse, intellectualized their power fetish and now view public institutions as the final obstacles to be dismantled in their egotistical, delusional pursuit of More.

America's decline into fascism was enabled, supported, nurtured, and encouraged by tech billionaires and CEOs who are so far removed from humanity and human flourishing that they imagine themselves better stewards of our existence than we are. It was preventable. It is deplorable. And it should be an affront to anyone who believes in freedom, determination, and autonomy.

This is not an abstract debate or a distant concern. This is not a conspiracy theory, although, on some level, it is clearly a conspiracy. The authoritarian slide in the United States is happening today, enabled by billionaires who see governance as a tool for personal gain. Democracy is being dismantled in real-time, not through military coups but through corporate takeovers, algorithmic propaganda, and the unchecked influence of wealth.
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FULL ESSAY -- https://www.theindex.media/the-fascist-tech-bro-takeover-is-here-2/

#USA #Trump #Musk #Politics #Fascism