There are very few things that will effectively stop a governements thirst for more control over its citizen. and naming them will get you blacklisted immediately.

Es erstaunt mich immer wieder aufs Neue mit welcher Akribie und mit wieviel Einfallsreichtum Territorialstaaten über ihr Eigentum und ihre Haupteinnahmequelle wachen: Staatsbürger

Magnolia

"When you work with governments from all around the world and see what crooks and grifters these people are you start questioning the need for government." Anonymous, United Nations

Bricks #space

There is a reason why Raccoons are the favoured beta testers of every airline-seat designer.

Ox

"... Anger at AI, smartphones, and social media—and more specifically, at the exploitative practices of the companies operating them—has galvanized people all over the world, from the youth above, to artists and advocates and academics. " www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-luddit...

Swing it

I agree. Unfortunately this is not surprising, because sadly I know of no organization where the extraction of manual and intellectual work from individuals, to the benefit of the upper level hierarchies, is not the raision-d'etre.

#SciFi #plants

Fascism, plain and simple.

" 'AI' is a tool of behavioral engineering, data surveillance, and total information control." 2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com/how-do-you-w...

"... The only counterweight is resistance. That begins with the recognition that affect is not a commodity, and that opacity (the refusal to be fully legible) can be a political right. Without it, every sigh, pause, and gesture becomes part of the profit system."

You would also be surprised to know that in all organizations I have personally known, governmental, corporate etc, promotion into higher ranks *requires* you to do just that: Follow instruction no matter what, even if they could be considered unethical. People like to call this loyalty.

This is true. But you would be surprised how many people are actually quite ok with carrying out unethical instructions when they come from a higher authority and when the bitter pill is sweetened by phrases such as "someone's got to do it", "necessary for the survival of the organization" etc.

When your oh-so-glorious legal and bureaucratic "protection mechanisms" fail because much stronger and older forces such as complacency love for authority and leadership (of any kind) "let someone else fix it" mentality and many others are constantly at work against you.

So what should one do, if one actually cared more than just three flying f*cks about a particular country sliding into fascism proper, other than complain about it online (which equals doing nothing)?

Nur eine einzige Avocado-Pflanze am Leben zu halten, kann schon eine ganze Menge Arbeit sein. Hat sich Mineralstoffmangel eingestellt? Was fehlt? Mg ? Fe ?

Bien dicho y justamente lo que hacia falta! Hay que tener mucho cuidado con respecto al uso de las (supuestas) inteligencias artificiales en las universidades.

... YT is not showing me the videos it thinks could interest me. Instead, it is showing me videos in line with the company's pro-AI policy that it thinks could interest me. Do I have to explain why this difference is important and why you should worry about it?

Both are correct.

Excellent policy on llm use.

I am in full agreement here.

I am so glad that Season three of Star Trek - Strange New Worlds is finally over! Naked statistics will provide an idea of what I think of it: 1 Episode: Excellent 2 Episodes: So so 7 Episodes: Abysmal Season four can only get better.

Warum lesen Leute gerne Krimis? Ich tue es nicht. Und trotzdem versuche ich mich gerade an einer KG im Kriminal-Stil.

I like that PISS acronym idea!

That little hawkmoth is burning through calories faster than a startup company through its series A funding :)

Die kleinen, natürlich menschlichen und unterbezahlten, Helfer der KI-Industrie. Es ist nicht anders als in anderen Industrien auch.

Rauchen im Alter Scheint gerade ein Ding zu sein. Hat natürlich viele Vorteile erst oder wieder anzufangen wenn man schon über 60 ist. Bevor sich richtige Raucherkrankheiten entwickeln können ist man eh tot. Also, auf geht's. Oder noch besser: Pfeife rauchen ... jaaa!

Definitely a recurring nightmare.

Dies ist wahrscheinlich eines der letzten wirklich warmen Sommerwochenenden. Ich bleibe aber drinnen. Draußen ist es zu heiß. Tee hält mich kühl.

Bureaucrats are just a side-effect of ever bigger (administrative/governance) structures. Maybe it is time to think about becoming small again, to eliminate the bureaucratic overhead once and for all and give people back what they have lost in the race for growth&scale: A sense of purpose.

This (parasitic) business model which relies on monetization through the collection, repackaging and reselling of a free resource (formerly behavioral and location data, now actual knowledge extracted from users) is not new. It is just being scaled to unprecedented levels.

"Companies such as Meta and OpenAI work with subcontractors (like Sama) mostly located in the United Arab Emirates, North America, and Europe, that then hire African data labourers to do content moderation, customer service, and data annotation for AI models, among other jobs."

United we stand: Plants that physically touch each other are more resilient to stress https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.02.673745v1

Experiments with abiotic chemical gardens blur the boundary between nonliving chemistry and systems with lifelike properties. This work suggests that life may be best understood as an emerging process rather than a fixed state. www.seti.org/news/can-we-...

I agree. And the parasitism metaphor in general is also applicable to the vast majority of AI companies (parasite), and the human users on the other end (host) who inadvertently give away their knowledge to chatbots in return for nothing, while the companies will resell it to paying customers!

Ab und zu gibt es auf meiner Website Besucher. Drei bis vier pro Tag sind schon viel. Immer wenn das passiert frage ich mich natürlich wo die herkommen und was sie motiviert. Vielleicht begutachtet gerade jemand eine meiner Kurzgeschichten und sieht sich den Autor an. Soll ja vorkommen.

Insgesamt drei Kurzgeschichten von mir sind bei Ausschreibungen und SF Magazinen hinterlegt. Ich drücke mir selbst die Daumen. Wenigstens eine davon soll es bis zur Veröffentlichung schaffen. Ich habe beim Schreiben der drei so oft geschmunzelt, dass mir die Mundwinkel jetzt noch wehtun. :)

"We have learned about how GenAI works and its educational, social, environmental and economic impacts. What we have learned leads us to deliberately avoid GenAI in our own work and to emphasise authentic human thinking and experience in our teaching."

Plants!

Why doesn't the scientific establishment finally discover something useful AND fun like how to turn yourself into a large marine mammal (and back, if you want) within a matter of months by swallowing a couple of pills and a bit of gene therapy. It maybe our only escape from global techbroism.

When will all the bright and exiting futures which the CRISPR community promised us a cpl. of years ago finally arrive? Imagine you could schedule a metamorphosis then turn into a portugese man-o-war and float throught the oceans for the rest of your days. I'd do it without hesitation.

I’ve polled 40 students at my liberal arts college in the Pacific Northwest. 60% report that they avoid AI chat bots like the plague. 75% report having a generally or strongly negative opinion about how AI will impact the future.

".... walk away and build something new!"

!

The flower transforms into an open hanging basket, seeds on display! #biology #plants

"... if we don't feel stupid it means we're not really trying." #science