"But you can't deny that it's useful" is what I hear often when I criticize "AI". But that's not the argument because everything is useful to someone for some purpose usually at someone's cost. "Child labor" is _useful_. Question is: Do the uses bring more social value than the cost?

📈 Quantity Without Quality: Will the use of genAI just lead to research 'slop'? 💩 📆 Thu 4th June 🕒 3-4pm 👇 Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/9WXUcvrIT3macDD4LubI9w#/registration In this session in our series on #AI in […] [Original post on dair-community.social]

It’s not a full-fledged argument, but I was just thinking how a standard narrative is “early computers were so large they filled complete rooms, then came the personal computing revolution, and now we carry computers much more powerful in our pockets” when actually the way we use our mobile […]

Hi y'all - I am travelling in China this month and it would be handy to keep in touch with some peeps via #signal. If you are running a #signalproxy, please DM. (Please don't recommend VPNs unless you have recent, detailed 1st hand experience.)

IDK, but when I saw the video my first reaction was shock at a police officer kicking someone lying on the ground during an arrest. That cannot be police procedure, surely? Then Mark Rowley said something about fearing he had explosives. IDK, but my hunch is that Tasering someone carrying […]

Your phone is about to stop being yours. https://keepandroidopen.org/en/ 125 days until lockdown Starting September 2026, a silent update, nonconsensually pushed by Google, will block every Android app whose developer hasn't registered with Google, signed their contract, paid up, and handed […]

And if you look closer it's fascism all the way down, as per usual. Exactly how are they expecting a free-to-attend, volunteer run event to verify any participant's identity: name, age, gender or sex-assigned-at-birth? Papers, please. All of #parkrun is self-identification. You list whatever […]

By an odd coincidence, I watched Inglourious Basterds last night.

While we are transfixed by the antics of our supposed "leaders", a catastrophe of astonishing proportions has been creeping up on us. Climate scientists now believe it is more likely than not to happen, and soon. This week's column. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

👾 Are generic AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Co-pilot ever a genuine aid to learning or only ever a time-saving short cut? ⏳ #2 of discussion series on #ai in #highereducation #academia, we will share our joys and woes regarding AI being used in teaching and learning! Join us to find out how […]

RE: https://social.freedom.press/@freedomofpress/116330719564304531 We should all start using @torproject for completely useless traffic to create noise for those that need to use it. It's like speeding on a busy interstate, they can't pull us all over.

"On the acceptance of GenAI" https://smallsheds.garden/blog/2026/on-the-acceptance-of-genai/

This is a screenshot from #indeed, a popular platform for advertising and applying for jobs in the UK. What job do you think might need all those skills? What are the contractual terms? And what is the rate of pay? Please reply with your guesses ... #skillsshortage #unemployment #jobs #work

This is a screenshot from #indeed, a popular platform for advertising and applying for jobs in the UK. What job do you think might need all those skills? What are the contractual terms? And what is the rate of pay? Please reply with your guesses ... #skillsshortage #unemployment #jobs #work

🎓 What is the future for AI in Higher Education and Research? 👾 📆 Wed, 15th Apr 🕖 7-8.30pm 👇 Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/CVItzHYjQwy4ZD0-7nj0BQ#/registration Whether it's in teaching, assessments, publishing, research […] [Original post on dair-community.social]

Due to the recent popularity of #conversations_im, I've already earned more than enough money this month and have decided to make the app free this week. Use this opportunity to onboard friends who might otherwise have a hard time paying for the app […]

"More fundamentally, we must ask why so much of official Britain, and especially its security establishment, keeps clinging for dear life to the United States, behaving for all the world like someone stuck in an abusive personal relationship" #Trump #WarCrimes #irancrisis#warcrimes#trump…]

From overheard snippets of conversations in public, I would say that the desire to ditch the #smartphone is gaining popular momentum. Many people commenting they have a phone for work. It looks like we need a return to the #featurephone which will allow keeping in touch with friends and family […]

"UK Biobank said the re-identification scenario tested by the Guardian did not highlight a privacy risk because without additional information it would be impossible to identify individuals." Do these people understand nothing about #DataPrivacy or #ethics? Or are they just swimming in a deep […]

#nowruzmubarak to all Persian Mastodonians! If you have family or friends in #iran, I hope you hear from today and that they are safe and well.

The Dartmoor Commoners’ Council might sound as if it represents humble salt-of-the-earth types. But it's the opposite. Commoning rights there have become a highly lucrative commodity. Some people have made millions in public subsidies, while trashing our national park. We're being duped.

Two thoughts about https://office.eu/ which looks like Nextcloud on European servers being offered to business as #SaaS. It is a good thing that exists for SMEs that cannot self-hosting, but this is leaning in to a model of #digitalsovereignty where the only issue is the 'nationality' of the […]

Today is the last day of the #bigplasticcount. As I was handing over passport and having a #facialrecognition scan for a financial platform this morning (allegedly to help reduce money laundering), I realised we need to do a #bigidcount and all spend a week logging every time we have to hand […]

Today is the last day of the #bigplasticcount. As I was handing over passport and having a #facialrecognition scan for a financial platform this morning (allegedly to help reduce money laundering), I realised we need to do a #bigidcount and all spend a week logging every time we have to hand […]

one would think that “do you prefer personal convenience over the use of tools produced by a company closely collaborating with a concentration camp administration” is not a hard question.

The Iran regime cuts off internet to millions. UAE bans people taking pictures or filming drone strikes. Authoritarians everywhere hate ordinary people having internet freedoms.

Yesterday I was proudly told by a senior academic now a senior researcher at #google #DeepMind that they are hiring more philosophers and ethicists. This is a BAD THING. Settingaside teh fact that these are insecure jobs since corporations may change their mind about this direction on a whim […]

Israel and the US appear to want to do to Tehran what they have done to Gaza: reduce a busy and complex society to a toxic wasteland.

Great video. Watch it!

An I the only one annoyed by "A donor has agreed to match your donation up to £xK"? Either they have decided to donate £xK or not. If they have, this is deceptive and in fact small donors are being asked to match the big donor, not vice versa. If they haven't and will only give e.g. £0.5xK if […]

Rewatching #andor, it strikes me that the significance of #nemik is that he sees that the real power of the Empire is not the visible coercion through violence and fear, but the all pervading sense that there is no alternative. That too is coercion. In our world we see a separation, but […]

#AI in 2026:

Last Saturday I was at the #marchagainstthemachines organised by #pulltheplug. It was the first march of protest against the direction of #ai development in the UK and called for true democratic control of our future through a #citizensassemblynow. A nice video has been released. If you support […]

Yesterday I learned - from the friend who took me to #golestan Palace 15 years ago - about the importance of the Battle of #karbala (680CE) in #shia Islam, how it is still celebrated every year, and how #arbaeen has been largest gathering of humanity on the planet at ~20m. The key message, so […]

We can play the headline game every time their imperialist wars start.

One conclusion from the by-election seems to be that the @thegreenparty is likely to benefit from #FPTP in the near future because their opposition is split between Reform and Labour. So it will be a real test of their commitment to democracy for them to continue emphasis on #pr as a policy […]

Great coverage from @reuters.com this morning on our days of action to #StopDirtyDataCentres, in solidarity with people across the country opposing Big Tech's hyperscale data centres being built at the expense of communities and climate. www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

#stopdirtydatacentres #marchagainstthemachines #pulltheplug

14 year old Max has the right diagnosis (designed to maximise engagement), politicians have wrong solution (bans which require everyone to be policed on the internet). The problem is the business model so politicians need to regulate *that*. #socialmedia #agegating #overpolicing […]

Nothing to see here. Just the US Department of War (sic) threatening #Anthropic to allow it to use its #AI models for military purposes, including unsupervised targeting. #AIEthics #Trumpland www.bbc.com/news/article...

Irony meter aside, what I find striking about this story is: 1. She posted her "rookie error" for everyone to see (and laugh at her) ... 2. ... on Twitter not Insta or Threads or FB or anything else #meta owns ... 3. ... also posting screenshots which reveal she was using #openclaw as a bot in […]

A note on #explanation and #understanding (and a likely limitation on the possibility of LLMs providing genuine #personalisedlearning ) tl;dr - A more effective explanation is not just a reformulation of a less effective one, it involves working out what was taken to be obvious (to the […]

Oh FFS - LLMs are even enshittifying #AbeBooks. I search using an ISBN only. The book I was looking for is an 2011 English Translation of a 17th century Latin translation of Confucius. The translator is Thierry Maynard SJ. "Closest match" was: *Machine […] [Original post on dair-community.social]

If anyone is planning to #marchagainstthemachines on 28 Feb (in Kings Cross) and fancies saying Hi in person, drop me a DM. #ai #aihype #aiethics #datacentres https://pulltheplug.uk/matm-sign-up/

RE: https://gruene.social/@Gerbsen/116052492129846084 Money transfer from the German Federal Administration to Microsoft: 2023: 274.091.361,75 Euro 2024: 347.665.579,71 Euro 2025: 481.369.660,77 Euro (Source: German Parliament 21/4006 page 96 […]

"My friends, if you’re the kind of person who is better attuned, due to your introversion, to the missteps and omissions that frequently make social events unbearable, then you have a huge potential gift to offer the rest of us. You have a unique insight into how to craft an invitation and a […]

“Build community, my friends, because our lives do, in fact, depend on it.” https://thewhitepages.net/p/seven-reasons-why-hosting-a-silly

Why do I find #SSH authentication keys so difficult to implement? The closest I have found to an idiot's guide didn't work and now I have messed with so many config files I will probably have to do a fresh install to have a chance. Does anyone know of a really simple walk-through *which is not […]

At this time of year I get to read a lot of research proposals on #aisafety. Fortunately, most are grounded in reality, not some fantasy of #exitentialrisk. However, this year I have noticed that a lot of specific problems candidates identify boil down to protecting people from their own […]