Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 16h

I don't know what a "high value man" is but I'm 100% sure what it ain't.

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 16h

Lack of effort *does* mean bad. And it's a very different kind of bad from when someone makes a lot of effort and still fails. Art isn't supposed to be easy.

Do you at least agree that you're probably in a minority in being willing to pay money to watch an AI generated movie?

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 18h

Agreed, and tbh, if someone can't see why it's insulting to put less effort into making a movie just because you can... I doubt they're capable of making a good movie.

1

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 18h

“The wave is coming and it’s impossible to stop it,” one producer told a Cannes roundtable. “Our only option is to surf on it.”

Imagine telling artists that they have no choice.

1

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 18h

Steven Universe?!

1

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 18h

It wouldn't bother you that no one made much effort to make it, but they still expect you to pay money for it?

I don't think there's a movie that's been made that is less deserving of your attention than any AI video.

1

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 19h

Wait, so "people consume crap that isn't AI so AI can be crap and still make money" *is* a good argument?

Would you ever pay money to watch an AI generated video?

1

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 19h

Well, if we're doing analogies, imagine a construction company that puts up lots of scaffolding and pays guys to stand around on it in hard hats holding tools, so it looks like they're going to build lots of cool stuff... and then they never actually build anything.

1

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 19h

Now, this is outside my technical expertise, but it seems like everyone with tech knowledge who isn't actively trying to sell an AI product says that it's producing steadily diminishing returns, and that its very nature makes it unlikely to ever be reliable in any situation where accuracy matters.

1 1

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 19h

If there's no way to monetise their product, there's no way to justify the valuation, and the truth is... probably 99% of the demand for AI slop would evaporate if people had to pay even a penny to generate it. So either they figure out how to make AI generate non-slop... or the bubble bursts.

2

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 19h

AI really does not do the same thing, but I'm not going to argue that point.

The fact that these companies can't turn a profit with their product actually matters a lot, because it means that their absurdly high valuation is fake. When the bubble bursts, it takes all that "value" with it.

2

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 1d

They say school prepares you for real life but I say I wasted years perfecting the wedgie and now apparently it's "inappropriate workplace conduct".

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 1d

This is why Altman is now claiming that companies are begging him to allow their copyrighted characters to be generated. He hasn't named them, obv, and no one believes him, equally obv.

1 1

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 1d

Sure, but we're talking about a business model. All the evidence suggests that you can't monetise AI barf unless you charge people for it, and people won't pay to generate public domain/generic versions of IP.

1 1

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 3d

Not only voted for it, but encouraged others to do it.

2

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 3d

Mel Stride looks like someone stuffed Piers Morgan inside Piers Morgan

Tory politician Mel Stride, standing behind a podium, ham hands outstretched and gamy gullet belching forth some kind of barely-concealed racism, I have no doubt, looking like he's passing a kidney stone the size and shape of Margaret Thatcher and having the time of his life.

1

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 4d

tbh I just found it obnoxious because Trek is a lot funnier when it's not Doing A Comedy Episode. I can't imagine having 10 episodes a year and deciding to waste one of them on that.

5

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 4d

"But he's rich and white and a guy! Why doesn't he agree with us that fascism is awesome?!"

1

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 4d

Yeah, and who wants cheaper electricity anyway?

4

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 4d

I doubt these guys tell their families what they do for a living. They probably tell them they sell drugs at elementary schools or something, just to explain where the money's coming from.

2

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 6d

The White House Twitter account has already shared it 482 times with the hashtags #hubbahubba and #MakeAmericaBoobsAgain

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 6d

This is what qualified immunity does. Even if this isn't legal, the men who do it feel emboldened, believing (probably rightly) that they will face no consequences for doing it.

1 4

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 7d

We must imagine Sisyphus.

That's it.

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 7d

An edited screenshot of a real Fox News item in which Jesse Watters claims to be talking to an "Ex-Antifa". The "Ex-Antifa" man is wearing a lime-green baseball cap and a black rag over his face and looks exactly like if someone asked a retired cop to pretend to be an Antifa.

I have added the chyron headline "Oli London Reveals Shocking New Self-Identity". Oli London is a person who turns up on Fox News a lot to play the part of a detransitioner, despite never having transitioned and also claiming to be "trans-racial".

Special Pleading Service @ftzpltc.bsky.social · 9d

"And what we see in California is an attorney general of the state has estimated that for every dollar they spent on lawsuits against the federal government’s threats to withhold funding, they won more than $30,000 in what would otherwise have been lost.”

Now *that's* efficiency!

2