@tiotasram@kolektiva.social2025-07-22 00:03:45
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.
@cdarwin@c.im2025-08-22 19:56:19
Curtis Yarvin wears racial hatred as a badge of honor
—and clearly doesn't come into contact with people of color on a regular basis.
Yarvin, who hides behind a screen, wouldn't have the guts to utter these slurs on the street. -- In the real world, that kind of talk tends to carry consequences.
Instead, he flings epithets from the safety of his tony Craftsman home in ultra-liberal Berkeley, performing racism online for an audience of anonymous far-right Twitter use…
@UP8@mastodon.social2025-09-23 00:55:26
Echinacea in front of my barn, I was seeing these everywhere two months ago and now they're all gone
#photo #photography #flowers
@Mediagazer@mstdn.social2025-09-22 17:20:48
NYC's Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani cancels a planned town hall with WABC News following ABC's suspension of Jimmy Kimmel's show (Ethan Stark-Miller/AM New York)
https://www.amny.com/news/mamdani-pull-abc-town-hall-jimmy-kimmel-suspension…
@mgorny@social.treehouse.systems2025-07-21 20:15:49
Do you know what I truly hate? Biting horse-flies.
Like, a whole swarm of them just starts flying around you, and won't let go. If you're walking fast, they usually don't manage to sit on you, but that doesn't stop them from trying. So they keep bouncing off your legs, trying to fly into your nose, walking over your glasses… and after a little time your skin is so irritated that you can't tell anymore if it managed to sit this time, or just bounced — until you feel the painful bite.
I think I've killed a record number of them today.
@AimeeMaroux@mastodon.social2025-09-22 15:24:16
Happy #Equinox to all who celebrate ❤️
Here in the Northern Hemisphere, days will be shorter than the nights, Autumn begins and brings us the months with the most abundance of fruit and vegetables. This is the time of year when deities like Demeter and Dionysos were praised with harvest festivals. Persephone either returns or descends to the underworld, depending on the interpretation.
@arXiv_csSE_bot@mastoxiv.page2025-07-22 11:38:31
Butterfly Effects in Toolchains: A Comprehensive Analysis of Failed Parameter Filling in LLM Tool-Agent Systems
Qian Xiong, Yuekai Huang, Ziyou Jiang, Zhiyuan Chang, Yujia Zheng, Tianhao Li, Mingyang Li
https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.15296
@aral@mastodon.ar.al2025-07-22 08:24:40
Just had a video call with @… from Gaza. Like every family there, they need your help to survive.
Our governments have failed us, we are the only ones who can help. Your donations go directly to keeping families like Aseel’s alive as they struggle to survive Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people.
Please help Aseel and her family if you can.
@rasterweb@mastodon.social2025-08-22 21:07:21
I was feeling pretty drained last night and wasn't sure if I should bike to work today. My knee was really bugging me going up steps (more than usual) and I decided I would wait til morning to decide, based on how I felt.
I felt totally fine this morning. Reset! I think it's because I walked nearly 5 miles yesterday, and also spent a lot of time on the floor fixing a laser cutter.
@cdarwin@c.im2025-08-19 22:05:33
In the latest act of retributIion targeting public servants in the federal government’s intelligence community
— the Trump administration moved Tuesday to revoke the security clearances of 37 current and former national security officials
A memo posted online by Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence,
accuses the targeted officials of having engaged in the “politicization or weaponization of intelligence” to advance partisan goals,
as well as failure to …
