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Liam Hogan

@liamjhogan.bsky.social

1.3K followers 1.7K following 1.6K posts

Award winning #Shortstory #Writer #SciFi 📚: A Short History of the Future, Northodox Press #Fantasy 📚: Happy Ending Not Guaranteed, Arachne Press Oxford Physics, Codexian. Everything, Ever ✍️: http://happyendingnotguaranteed.blogspot.co.uk

happyendingnotguaranteed.blogspot.co.uk

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · Mar 17

A Short History of the Future: 42 modern twists on retro themes from time travel to multiverses, via aliens, pocket spaceships, teleportation mishaps, dinosaurs, and space pirates! #ScienceFiction #ShortStories

www.northodox.co.uk/product-page...
@northodoxpress.bsky.social

Read it? Review it!

Book cover, A Short History of the Future. Two passengers wait in a spaceport on seats with Tel-A TV screens, one a woman in bubble helmet, the other a robot in a coat.

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 14h

"For Remembrance": In the aftermath of a war, a squad of soldiers investigates reports of a psychic. It takes one to know one.
Pre-order @bulletpoints.bsky.social #11 now, to get it on release day! 16 military #Sci-Fi stories!

www.amazon.co.uk/Bullet-Point...

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 14h

Okay, you'll probably wander back out with books you didn't expect to buy... but is that REALLY a problem?

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 14h

It is not too late, on this, #BookshopDay, to wander into your local bookshop (be it chain or otherwise) and order a copy of A Short History of the Future: 42 retro themed #sci-fi short stories, including some award winnners. From @northodoxpress.bsky.social, promoting Northern writers.

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 15h

"OpenAI wants to secure $500bn to build a 10-gigawatt complex, under construction in Texas, by the end of this year."

Some idiot is going to claim that OpenAI are going to solve climate change. When they ARE climate change. Half a trillion to microwave the Earth. All to ram AI down our throats.

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 15h

"AI" isn't a bubble, because "AI" isn't a business, it's a technique, but ChatGPT etc very much are businesses, except they steal work as an inherent part of their "creative" process, and then set about destroying the actual creatives they rely upon. Very shaky grounds...

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 15h

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Of course its a bubble. One that's built on such shaky grounds (half trillion company never turned a profit) that LLM AI's are being driven down our throats. As usual, the article conflates AI and LLMs/gen art (the ones that need data centers).

A tangled web of deals stokes AI bubble fears in Silicon Valley

Some are worried that the rapid rise in the value of AI tech companies may be a bubble waiting to burst.

www.bbc.co.uk

Reposted by Liam Hogan

Nathan W. Toronto @bulletpoints.bsky.social · 2d

Bullet Points 11, from @jamesaaron.net @slashnburnett.bsky.social @gioclair.bsky.social @henryherz.bsky.social @liamjhogan.bsky.social @gerrileen.bsky.social @grigorylukin.bsky.social @kurtnewton.bsky.social ‪@natashabennett.bsky.social @jeremyszal.bsky.social 30% off: zurl.co/f6tnk

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 3d

Dear UK government: Please define "offshore marine protected area"?

Mongabay @mongabay.com · 3d

The U.K. government has rejected calls to fully ban bottom trawling in its offshore marine protected areas, despite evidence that the fishing practice tears up seabed habitats and releases large amounts of carbon.

UK rejects total ban on bottom trawling in offshore marine protected areas

The U.K. government has rejected calls to fully ban bottom trawling in its offshore marine protected areas, despite evidence that the fishing practice tears up seabed habitats and releases large…

news.mongabay.com

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 3d

As to using it for art - oh, you poor, wounded soul. Who told you that you COULDN'T do art? Who told you that the best bit of doing art was where you try to pass it off as your own? Or where you create something "in the style of" (the artists it stole from)?

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 3d

AI that works doesn't need to claim it is unstoppable. It will be used BECAUSE it works. It will be used because it saves time, money, is more accurate, or conjures up novel possibilities. Because it solves difficult to solve problems. None of this applies to writing an email.

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 3d

AI- the sort they are pushing as "inevitable" - (LLMs) is not at all inevitable. Heck, it doesn't work, doesn't replace skills and sucks the joy out of artistic creation.
AI, the sort no-one claims is inevitable, (i.e. NOT LLMs) will revolutionise a lot of industries. IF (& only if) done ethically.

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 3d

"The first public library was opened in Manchester on 6 September 1852 at Campfield."

Have you connected to your local library recently?
( @librariesconnected.bsky.social )

#Libraries175

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 3d

In a world of aggressive LLM AI, can you EVER trust a review site again? These must be the absolute easiest things to fake. AI completely destroys the trust that shoppers have. Online buying - the lifeblood of e-commerce - becomes fraught. Social media platforms unusable. This is progress?

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 3d

LLM's, if they are good at anything, its fooling (some) people. That was what they were trained on, afterall. That's the entry level for a releasable AI app. That's why they are sometimes called "plausibility engines". That's why they back up their hallucinations with faked references.

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 3d

Case in point: AI steals. Then it's used to steal from you:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
This isn't luddites scared of being eclipsed by "better" technology. This is artists pointing out what is being "created" is slop, & the only way to make money out of slop is fool people into thinking it's not.

Scammers are using AI to lure shoppers to fake businesses

Foreign firms use AI-generated images and false back stories to pose as family-run UK businesses.

www.bbc.co.uk

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 3d

That's because science has ethics. AI based on your browsing habits? No fucking ethics at all. That's why Google dropped its "Do no harm" motto.

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 3d

Any politician who tries to sell you the lie that AI needs to steal, is undoubtedly profiting from that lie. Because - again - the useful sort of AI doesn't need to steal. Because the input isn't YOU. It's scientific, or environmental data. Or medical - with names removed and permissions sought.

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 3d

Note, AI IS useful. Just not the sort that needs a data center (LLMs, primarily). If it needs a data center, then the input is (invariably) YOU. Your interactions, your social media posts, or your creative works. That you don't give permission & don't have the choice, reflects the grift involved.

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 3d

AI Data centers are bad for the environment, and fucking terrible for your fuel bills.
But hey ho, the Labour Government is all for them in the UK. So you, and the planet, are stuffed.
Do remind me what they are actually good at, because for the life of me...?

Pitchaya Sudbanthad @pitchaya.bsky.social · 3d

“Without mitigation, the data centers sucking up all the load is going to make things really expensive for the rest of Americans...”

AI Data Centers Are Sending Power Bills Soaring

Wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centers. That’s being passed on to customers.

www.bloomberg.com

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 3d

It would be remiss of me NOT to plug my collection of 42 retro-themed short stories, "A Short History of the Future", as I did in the panel as well!

Get it direct from @northodoxpress.bsky.social, or order (nay, DEMAND!) it from your local friendly bookshop.

www.northodox.co.uk/product-page...

A Short History of the Future - Paperback | Northodox Press

42 Sci-fi stories by an award-winning writer Time travel to multiverses, via aliens, pocket spaceships, teleportation mishaps, and space pirates. Includes the award-winners Ana, Tribbulations, and Re-...

www.northodox.co.uk

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 3d

The @spotlightindie.bsky.social Big Weekend is over, but the videos are still online for you to catch up!
youtube.com/playlist?lis...
Highlights include Predicting the Future - which I'm in - and the Legacy of Dragons! Plus a discussion on writing audio scripts from @emilyinkpen.bsky.social

Big Indie Weekend - YouTube

Three days of epic indie talent! From October 3rd to 5th we're celebrating one year of Spotlight Indie with panels, workshops and giveaways!

youtube.com

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 3d

One of the reason the AI companies are gagging to get the government on their side, is because they want to rip off the arts, rights free. They wouldn't want to do that if there was nothing to steal. As others have pointed out, "culture" without the arts is... well, just flag-shagging, I guess.

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 3d

An attack on the arts is an "easy" target. But a really, really stupid one, made even more stupid by how regularly it happens from both Tories and Labour. The arts is one of the UKs biggest and most successful exports. The arts are an essential part of Britian - sorry, Britain.

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Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 3d

Oh well. THERE'S a surprise. Brexit is terrible for our trade with our biggest and nearest market. WHO could have possibly guessed that?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

EU steel tariff hike threatens 'biggest crisis' for UK industry

The EU is the destination for 78% of steel products made in the UK for overseas markets.

www.bbc.co.uk

Liam Hogan @liamjhogan.bsky.social · 4d

And YES - humanity has NEVER burned as much coal as it did last year. Ditto oil, ditto gas. So... y'know. The battle has hardly even begun.
ourworldindata.org/grapher/foss...

Fossil fuel consumption

Measured in terawatt-hours.

ourworldindata.org