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.

Pretty sure my mom gets that “flying-an-airplane-without-a-manual” feeling whenever she walks in and catches sight of my anarchist flag waving next to the rainbow, trans, and neurodiversity pride flags.
#Autism #ActuallyAutistic

Enlightening thread on Proton's new LLM
https://social.cryptography.dog/@ansuz/114906970072548804

Role of non-thermal processes in the quiescent and active millimeter spectrum of a young M-dwarf
Atul Mohan, Peter H. Hauschildt, Birgit Fuhrmeister, Surajit Mondal, Vladimir Airapetian, Sven Wedemeyer
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.19779

Role of non-thermal processes in the quiescent and active millimeter spectrum of a young M-dwarf
Millimeter (mm) emission from F - M dwarfs (cool stars) primarily traces chromospheric activity, with thermal emission thought to dominate in quiescence. Despite the high chromospheric activity, the quiescent mm spectral fluence (mm-S($ν$)) of young (< 1 Gyr) M dwarfs (dMs) remain largely unexplored. We present the quiescent mm-S($ν$) of a young dM, ADLeo, observed around 94 GHz using the Northern Extended Millimetre Array (NOEMA). The observed quiescent mm-S($ν$) exceeds the thermal flux de…

My wife: "Our friend X has had surgery last week."
Me: "And how does he want to be called now?"
In our bubble of friends, this seemed to me to be the logical first question. Not "What kind of surgery?" where the answer would have been "a growth on his back".

JD Vance flunks the basics on World War II as the White House targets history museums (Steve Benen/MSNBC)
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/jd-vance-flunks-basics-world-war-ii-white-house-targets-history-museum-rcna226952
http://www.memeorandum.com/250825/p67#a250825p67

Calamus 43 O you whom I often
A short and sweet love poem, Whitman at his most writerly. The spare and simple words have a light musicality that's often missing from his more didactic blank verse.
The literal meaning is Whitman telling someone how his very presence inspires feelings of love. It's so short and precise I'm just going to quote the whole poem.
O you whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be with you,
As I walk by your side, or sit near, or remain in the same room with you,
Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me.
I love the lack of action. Whitman simply wants to sit in the same room as his beloved, a quiet devotion I appreciate. And that phrase "subtle electric fire". Electric had a different meaning in pre-Edison America but it works both ways.
Mostly this poem is just a lovely mood.
(The linked video and commentary are more than usually good.)

i'm away this evening, so the great zoe b & the source unlimited is filling in for me on @… from 9 to midnight. get in tune at wfmu.org!

🇺🇦 Auf radioeins läuft...
TOPS:
🎵 Falling on my sword
#NowPlaying #TOPS
https://tops.bandcamp.com/track/falling-on-my-sword
https://open.spotify.com/track/3t6xrRUy8FmhH7XH86RO1O

I have a dual-boot setup with Debian and Elementary on my laptop, because Elementary was my very first Linux distro, so it’s got a place in my heart.
Anyway, here are some shirts I own, along with two logos and a tux I made at work using the Plasma CNC!
#ElementaryOS #Elementary