Tootfinder

Overly academic/distanced ethical discussions
Had a weird interaction with @/brainwane@social.coop just now. I misinterpreted one of their posts quoting someone else and I think the combination of that plus an interaction pattern where I'd assume their stance on something and respond critically to that ended up with me getting blocked. I don't have hard feelings exactly, and this post is only partly about this particular person, but I noticed something interesting by the end of the conversation that had been bothering me. They repeatedly criticized me for assuming what their position was, but never actually stated their position. They didn't say: "I'm bothered you assumed my position was X, it's actually Y." They just said "I'm bothered you assumed my position was X, please don't assume my position!" I get that it's annoying to have people respond to a straw man version of your argument, but when I in response asked some direct questions about what their position was, they gave some non-answers and then blocked me. It's entirely possible it's a coincidence, and they just happened to run out of patience on that iteration, but it makes me take their critique of my interactions a bit less seriously. I suspect that they just didn't want to hear what I was saying, while at the same time they wanted to feel as if they were someone who values public critique and open discussion of tricky issues (if anyone reading this post also followed our interaction and has a different opinion of my behavior, I'd be glad to hear it; it's possible In effectively being an asshole here and it would be useful to hear that if so).
In any case, the fact that at the end of the entire discussion, I'm realizing I still don't actually know their position on whether they think the AI use case in question is worthwhile feels odd. They praised the system on several occasions, albeit noting some drawbacks while doing so. They said that the system was possibly changing their anti-AI stance, but then got mad at me for assuming this meant that they thought this use-case was justified. Maybe they just haven't made up their mind yet but didn't want to say that?
Interestingly, in one of their own blog posts that got linked in the discussion, they discuss a different AI system, and despite listing a bunch of concrete harms, conclude that it's okay to use it. That's fine; I don't think *every* use of AI is wrong on balance, but what bothered me was that their post dismissed a number of real ethical issues by saying essentially "I haven't seen calls for a boycott over this issue, so it's not a reason to stop use." That's an extremely socially conformist version of ethics that doesn't sit well with me. The discussion also ended up linking this post: https://chelseatroy.com/2024/08/28/does-ai-benefit-the-world/ which bothered me in a related way. In it, Troy describes classroom teaching techniques for introducing and helping students explore the ethics of AI, and they seem mostly great. They avoid prescribing any particular correct stance, which is important when teaching given the power relationship, and they help students understand the limitations of their perspectives regarding global impacts, which is great. But the overall conclusion of the post is that "nobody is qualified to really judge global impacts, so we should focus on ways to improve outcomes instead of trying to judge them." This bothers me because we actually do have a responsibility to make decisive ethical judgments despite limitations of our perspectives. If we never commit to any ethical judgment against a technology because we think our perspective is too limited to know the true impacts (which I'll concede it invariably is) then we'll have to accept every technology without objection, limiting ourselves to trying to improve their impacts without opposing them. Given who currently controls most of the resources that go into exploration for new technologies, this stance is too permissive. Perhaps if our objection to a technology was absolute and instantly effective, I'd buy the argument that objecting without a deep global view of the long-term risks is dangerous. As things stand, I think that objecting to the development/use of certain technologies in certain contexts is necessary, and although there's a lot of uncertainly, I expect strongly enough that the overall outcomes of objection will be positive that I think it's a good thing to do.
The deeper point here I guess is that this kind of "things are too complicated, let's have a nuanced discussion where we don't come to any conclusions because we see a lot of unknowns along with definite harms" really bothers me.

"Donald Trump Jr. tweeted in July 2023, "Show us all the Epstein client list now!!! Why would anyone protect those scum bags? Ask yourselves this question daily and the answer becomes very apparent!!"
Critics Bring Receipts As Don Jr Tries To Defend Dad Over WSJ Story | Crooks and Liars
https://crooksandliars.com/2025/07/critics-bring-receipts-don-jr-tries-defend

Anyone who follows me has probably gathered that I've become a fan of Discourse after running a few Discourse instances. They are currently requesting feedback.
I was pleased to see that they used a survey vendor that appears to have meaningful a11y — I didn't look for aria labels so I won't speak to that, but what I did notice is that there is explicitly-labeled support for keyboard-only interaction on every page, and I really appreciated that thoughtfulness.

FourCastNet 3: A geometric approach to probabilistic machine-learning weather forecasting at scale
Boris Bonev, Thorsten Kurth, Ankur Mahesh, Mauro Bisson, Jean Kossaifi, Karthik Kashinath, Anima Anandkumar, William D. Collins, Michael S. Pritchard, Alexander Keller
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.12144…

FourCastNet 3: A geometric approach to probabilistic machine-learning weather forecasting at scale
FourCastNet 3 advances global weather modeling by implementing a scalable, geometric machine learning (ML) approach to probabilistic ensemble forecasting. The approach is designed to respect spherical geometry and to accurately model the spatially correlated probabilistic nature of the problem, resulting in stable spectra and realistic dynamics across multiple scales. FourCastNet 3 delivers forecasting accuracy that surpasses leading conventional ensemble models and rivals the best diffusion-ba…

"how are free people supposed to stay free? One short answer: don’t trust anyone over thirty. Paine, reversing centuries’ worth of regard for age and experience, argued that freedom is not a privilege that the old may confer, but a right that the young must demand. Every rising generation should hold its predecessors accountable, boldly taking its rights from them"
I am an old man and I approve this message.

Inventing the American Revolution: On Thomas Paine’s Guide to Fighting Dictatorship
Back in 2018, two years into the first Trump presidency, when the ground was shifting beneath our feet in ways that, today, might barely register on our wearied internal seismographs, political ana…

@… That's bullshit. Got guns lying around, people gonna use them. Children shoot themselves, other kids or their parents, people get drunk and shoot anyone that gets them angry, someone threatening you takes your gun off you and shoots you with it. Ban firearms.

A constant with #metrolinx is
1-they don’t seem to have deadlines. A culture based on having no deadlines goes against every project management principles
2. They can never answer you about what’s happening and what’s taking so long. You don’t have anyone to pressure to get answers
That’s what make Metrolinx much more undemocratic than the TTC.

My late father had a lot of old (c. 2000?) Macintosh books. Are these of interest to anyone?
I can't guarantee I'd be able to dig up any CD-ROMs that came with them, but it's possible. And you'll need to be patient because they're located 100 miles from me.

Short question to anyone with a Mobilizon account:
If I send you from Mastodon a private message, are you able to receive it / read it in Mobilzon? Thx.
(I'm still waiting for an answer, so maybe it's just not working...)
#fediverse #mastodon