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Reposted by Mr John Robertson

MiMi Aye @meemalee.bsky.social · 12d

Author and filmmaker Justine Bateman on generative AI

"They're trying to convince people they can't do the things they've been doing easily for years - to write emails, to write a presentation. Your daughter wants you to make up a bedtime story about puppies - to write that for you." We will get to the point, she says with a grim laugh, "that you will essentially become just a skin bag of organs and bones, nothing else. You won't know anything and you will be told repeatedly that you can't do it, which is the opposite of what life has to offer. Capitulating all kinds of decisions like where to go on vacation, what to wear today, who to date, what to eat.
People are already doing this. You won't have to process grief, because you'll have uploaded photos and voice messages from your mother who just died, and then she can talk to you via AI video call every day. One of the ways it's going to destroy humans, long before there's a nuclear disaster, is going to be the emotional hollowing-out of people." - author and filmmaker Justine Bateman from a piece by Emine Saner for the Guardian

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Mr John Robertson @robbotron.bsky.social · 10d

That’s a podcast!

But yes, wouldn’t it be good?

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Mr John Robertson @robbotron.bsky.social · 10d

Making fun of extremists is just and good and most importantly, funny.

Their radicalisation is usually some version of feeling mocked or left out.

They’ll gussy it up sometimes, but mostly they weren’t invited to a party, or a pretty girl called them a loser once so now everyone else has to die.

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Abby Normal @rememberingmachine.bsky.social · 10d

Thinking about the @lindsayellis.bsky.social video where she noted how white nationalists co-opted American history X and all these other “strong” critiques but can’t handle “Springtime for Hitler” because of how ridiculous it makes them look

Elizabeth Spiers @espiers.bsky.social · 10d

I’m telling you: ridicule works. These guys are supposed to intimidate the citizenry and it’s very hard to do that when a guy in a frog suit is just staring you down and daring you to do something that makes it look like you’re afraid of a cartoon

dan sinker @dansinker.com · 10d

Portland never stops being Portland.

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dan sinker @dansinker.com · 10d

Portland never stops being Portland.

competentposter @competentposter.bsky.social · 11d

wizard frog is insane

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Mr John Robertson @robbotron.bsky.social · 10d

It *is* specific, and probably needs vitamin c

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Mr John Robertson @robbotron.bsky.social · 10d

“Science fiction in the grand tradition!”

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Mr John Robertson @robbotron.bsky.social · 10d

I have discovered thanks to this message that Vitamin C cream exists and is stinky

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flyingrodent @flyingrodent.bsky.social · 11d

What strikes you as more likely? That the whole country of seventy million people has unaccountably gone insane, or that maybe two thousand people who all know each other and work together, often in the same building, have slowly roasted each others’ brains to lunacy. www.ft.com/content/c7e4...

How polarised is Britain?

Behind media perceptions of a sharpening political divide is a more complicated picture

www.ft.com

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Frames @oxinabox.bsky.social · 11d

as a girl with a PhD in natural language processing and machine learning it's actually offensive to me when you say "we don't know how LLMs work so they might be conscious"

I didn't spend 10 years in mines of academia to be told ignorance is morally equal knowledge.

We know exactly how LLMs work.

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Mr John Robertson @robbotron.bsky.social · 11d

A gamechanger!

Eddie Robson @eddierobson.bsky.social · 11d

I didn't realise you could delete the Discovery feed because they don't call it deleting. You unpin it. But it's the same effect, it's gone and you don't accidentally click on it any more.

Kim Hu @kim-hu.com · 11d

I deleted that one from my feeds list so I’ll never ever accidentally click on it lol. It’s the bad place

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Reposted by Mr John Robertson

Ash Higgins @ashhiggins.bsky.social · 12d

This. Is. Why. I. Paint.

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Mr John Robertson @robbotron.bsky.social · 12d

Fun fact: a “Tilly Norwood” is old-timely sex slang for a made-up fuck that never happened. Derives from sailors paying to fingerbang seals in the Pacific (a “tilly” is where the seal pimp stores coins, “nor wood” suggests no penis can enter the seal.)

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Duncan Jones @manmademoon.bsky.social · 13d

Knew this was coming.

Andrew Couts @couts.bsky.social · 13d

NEW: ICE is planning to hire a team of nearly 30 people to surveil social media 24/7, build dossiers on people, and flag them for arrest and deportation. @dell.bsky.social has the scoop: www.wired.com/story/ice-so...

ICE Wants to Build Out a 24/7 Social Media Surveillance Team

Documents show ICE plans to hire dozens of contractors to scan X, Facebook, TikTok, and other platforms to target people for deportation.

www.wired.com

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bleary @bleary.off-the-records.com · 13d

We’re starting to forget, as a society, how to do parables and allegories. Everyone thinks they’re clever for asking “yes but WHY did the wolf want to blow down the little pig’s house?” but you lose the heart of the story if you give the wolf a backstory.

Anne Billson @annebillson.bsky.social · 13d

Some reviews of THE LONG WALK missing the point & complaining the world beyond the walk isn't sufficiently fleshed out. What more do they need to know? It's like demanding backstories for Boba Fett etc, endless details that dilute the original mysteries & preempt audiences' imaginations.

Anne Billson @annebillson.bsky.social · 13d

Went to see THE LONG WALK, you know, to relax. Which of course did not relax me AT ALL. Though, fun fact, I'd spoilered the ending for myself, but somehow got it wrong so the actual ending took me completely by surprise. Whole thrust of film pretty damn political. Hoffman & Jonsson both great.

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Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 13d

[Scene is ANCIENT GREECE - where SOCRATES and PLATO and others are sitting round, thinking]

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SOCRATES:
Plato..

PLATO:
Yes Socrates?

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SOCRATES:
Can you tell me, are you human?

PLATO:
Why… yes, Socrates

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SOCRATES:
And would you agree, Plato, that a human knows what a chariot is?

PLATO:
Um, yep

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SOCRATES:
So you can tell me, then

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[Socrates produces a papyrus, showing a drawing of the corner of a chariot wheel]

SOCRATES:
*Is that a chariot*?

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PLATO:
Well
that’s more just a bit of wheel

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SOCRATES:
So not a *chariot*.

PLATO:
No.

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SOCRATES:
[Producing another papyrus with the full drawing of the chariot, chopped into boxes]

So if a man were challenged to “tap the boxes containing chariots to prove you’re human” when he was just trying to check his ClubCard points... *where could he tap*?

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PLATO:
Well you can’t tap any of them really

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SOCRATES:
So are we not human?

PLATO:
‘Spose not.

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[Bleak pause]

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PLATO:
I’ll get the hemlock

SOCRATES:
Yeah

[ends]

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Solaris Books @solarisbooks.bsky.social · 14d

Next week, 7pm 9th October, don't miss @aptshadow.bsky.social at Leeds Waterstones for a very special panel event on "Building Brilliant Worlds" alongside @rjbarker.bsky.social and
@davewragg.com in association with @britfantasysoc.bsky.social!

Tickets only £5! www.waterstones.com/events/panel...

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Stew Hotston (he/him) @stewarthotston.com · 15d

I had the worst lunch. Honestly.

Maybe @bbcnewsnight.bsky.social could cover the rise in the far right, in racist attacks and, you know, the effect on millions of British people instead of platforming them every night

I'd settle for @theguardian.com doing even basic coverage of racism in the UK

Today I sat next to racists planning openly planning to murder people in a cafe

How have we come to a place where racists can openly talk about murdering people in public with no consequence?

stewarthotston.com

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Alanna Smith @alannawrites.bsky.social · 15d

The language of non-consent around AI is really telling. "It's too late to be scared." "It's here whether we want it or not." "You'll have to learn to work with it." "You can't fight the inevitable."

All just variations of "you're not allowed to say no." Creepy technology made by creepy people.

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 15d

‘It’s too late to be scared’: readers on the controversial rise of AI ‘actors’

The birth of AI ‘actor’ Tilly Norwood has caused a backlash in Hollywood and has sparked conversation from Guardian readers

www.theguardian.com

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James Ross @jamesrosscomedy.bsky.social · 15d

36th episode of the Quantum Leopard podcast w/ JOHN ROBERTSON @robbotron.bsky.social is now out! We talk about The Dark Room and audience consent. Enjoy!

quantumleopard.podbean.com/e/episode-35...

Episode 35: John Robertson | The Quantum Leopard Podcast

John Robertson is the closest you'll get to watching a catastrophic weather event without risk to your personal safety. Creator of award-winning show The Dark Room and a superb improv comic, John walk...

quantumleopard.podbean.com

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Mr John Robertson @robbotron.bsky.social · 15d

Post a fictional comedian who would definitely accept an invitation to the Riyadh Comedy Festival

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Luke Plunkett @lukeplunkett.com · 16d

people thinking the year itself was special, and not the fact you just happened to be young and had more friends/less responsibility at that specific time, will forever be wild to me

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Mr John Robertson @robbotron.bsky.social · 17d

Face it, if you’re performing for a regime that murders journalists, you may as well do some hacky jokes

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Eleanor Morton @eleanormorton.bsky.social · 18d

You can't joke about anything anymore. Because you signed a multi figure contract with the Saudi government that said they wouldn't pay you if you did.

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Mr John Robertson @robbotron.bsky.social · 19d

I’ve got one of these. No, you don’t all bloody need one.

Dull, dehumanising shit

Shoaib M Khan @shoaibmkhan.bsky.social · 19d

Digital IDs are a terrible, dangerous idea for numerous reasons.

But, even on their own terms, what's the gap they're supposed to fill?

It seems many people don't realise that we already have eVisas. All migrants get this "digital record" of their status and permission anyway.

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